BOLDER AND STILL BOLDER.
By Editor
THE "Christian nation" decision of the Supreme Court, and the Sunday legislation of Congress in connection with the World's Fair, have greatly emboldened the advocates of a national law. This, of course, was to be expected. For years we have been sounding the alarm, and telling the people just what was coming, and all the time the masses have been glancing at the Constitution and saying, "Impossible, impossible." Will they ever awake to a sense of the tyranny that menaces the country, blandly approaching in the name of Christianity and reverence for the law of God?—Yes, they will wake up—when it is too late. Some are waking up now; but the masses sleep on, soothed by the seductive drugs of "Sabbath reform," "workingman's rest," "Christian nation," etc. The votaries of this so-called reform, which is simply Church and State in disguise, have become emboldened by past success in frightening Congress into Sunday legislation through unadulterated misrepresentation. They have found the average Congressman's weak spot (fear of being deserted by the church vote) and propose to work upon that line. In fact, they have been counting upon that score for a long time, and the World's Fair legislation demonstrated beyond a doubt that such a game would win. We have before noticed the fact that the editor of the Christian Statesman, National Reform organ, had resigned his position for the purpose of establishing a "bureau" in Washington, D. C., whose object should be to lobby with Congress in the interest of religious reform projects. We now call attention to some characteristic utterances by Rev. H. H. George, secretary of the American Sabbath Union. At the sixth annual convention of the Iowa Sabbath Rest Association, held at Marshalltown, in December last, Mr. George delivered an address on "Sabbath Reform," from a published report of which we take the following:— We are living in stirring times. We must cry aloud, and put our shoulder to the wheel. We propose to stop this Sunday desecration. The Sunday trains are dependent upon the Sunday mail for support. Stop the trains, and that will stop the Sunday newspapers. All denominations of any note are now united in this movement,—Catholic and all,—and we have succeeded in getting the coöperation of all labor unions, temperance associations, and other societies, political and ecclesiastical, to unite in one solid move on the present Congress, to force them to pass a national Sunday law. We are prepared to make Congress understand that this is a Christian nation. We would be a set of fools to give up the battle now after gaining the victory over Congress in the World's Fair movement. We must have a sabbath day as we want it. We have got to get out on the streets and cry, "Yet forty days and we shall have law." Those who will not be persuaded to keep the sabbath [Sunday] can be informed that they will be compelled to do so. It is a greater sin to violate the fourth commandment than any other one of the Decalogue. It is as much greater than the sixth or eighth as the commandment itself is greater. There are only four words in "Thou shalt not kill," while there are ninety-five words in the Sabbath commandment, hence to break the Sabbath is ninety-one times greater. The States have Sunday laws, but this is not enough. We are going to have a national law, and I think I am sure we shall have it before the first session of this Congress is closed. Measures are now effected to besiege Congress with representative men from every organized body in the land, and they will not dare refuse us. The church should use the power of Congress to control the sins of the nation, and if she does not do so, blood will be on her garments. The laboring man's cry for a rest day is powerless alone. They wait for the church to move out, when all will fall in line.