Poor Wicked California
By Editor
Poor Wicked California.—Rev. Wilson Phraner, D.D., of New York City, has been spending some time of late in California. He records his impressions in the Occident of April 19. Among other things he says:— “The wider my observation, and the more I mingle with the good people of this Pacific Coast, the more am I impressed with the spirit of earnestness and fidelity which prevails within the church. With less of Christian sentiment to cheer and encourage from without, the church here is compelled to take a positive position—a position which tends to develop and strengthen Christian character.” Mr. Crafts, of Sunday-law fame, stated, we believe, that the best Sunday keeping was found here. And yet the State has no Sunday law. Does not the condition of the church show that such a law is not needed? and is not a church in a “positive position” better able to do aggressive work for the Master? Apart from Sunday laws, what have the churches in the East to “encourage” them which the churches in California have not? We do not mean by this that Sunday laws are encouraging or Christian in sentiment. They are neither, though fallaciously supposed to be both. The testimony above shows that they are not needed. And Sunday is as well observed in Oakland or San Francisco as it is in Coney Island, or in New York, or in Chicago. There is an absolutely free field for all religions here; and Christ is as near here as any other part of the earth. What more should be asked? What more would be asked of human governments than this by Christ or his apostles?