SUNDAY "DESECRATION" AND CALAMITY.
By Editor
A RECENT Sunday convention in Pennsylvania has the following to say:— In forty-two States of the Union we have good and wholesome laws pertaining to the sabbath [Sunday], under which said States have prospered in times past by the blessings of Almighty God. A writer in the same paper from which the above is quoted (Christian Statesman, June 16), after speaking of the present troubles in our nation from destructive fires, from wasting storms, from financial failures, from the stagnation of trade, the stoppage of industrial pursuits, and the consequent demoralization or frenzy of the great army of the unemployed, calamities are thickening upon us because this is a nation that obeyeth not the Lord, nor receiveth correction. God has not been honored. His moral law has not been supreme in the land. His sabbath [Sunday] has not been sanctified. Certainly the second item quoted above is true; but if these calamities have come upon us as a nation because we have disregarded Sunday, if these troubles are all judgments because of so-called Sunday "desecration," would they not naturally fall heaviest and be felt the most keenly in those States which have no Sunday law? Would this not be the logical conclusion?—It certainly would. But how has it been? Pennsylvania has one of the strongest of Sunday laws, which she has persistently refused to repeal or modify. But no State has suffered more from internal disorder in the way of strikes and bloodshed than has the "Old Keystone State." Illinois and Colorado and other States have also suffered greatly from labor and financial troubles, and the last named from floods. Washington and Oregon have also been heavy sufferers from floods and in a financial way. And all these States have Sunday laws. Two States have no Sunday laws—California and Idaho—the former has been under the perpetual anathema of the Sunday-law popes,530and a grief of mind to those who have not the disposition to anathematize. She has in her State government persistently refused to enact or reënact a Sunday law, and the Sunday ministers still confess to a shame which ought to be the glory of every true citizen. But in spite of California's position in this respect, in spite of unfavorable land conditions, in spite of serious difficulties and hardships in transportation facilities of which her Northern sisters know nothing, California has had no labor troubles of any account, no serious floods, fires, or disasters, and she withstood the financial crash better than any State in the Union. And we believe that Idaho weathered the blast staunchly. "But," says an objector, "California and Idaho are wicked;" yes, the States all are. "Sabbath breakers?"—Every State in the Union; the great majority of the people in every one of them are trampling the Sabbath of Jehovah underfoot. But that is a matter with which the government of the States has nothing to do; it is a matter between the soul and God. What we wish to point out is this: That while all are desecrating God's Sabbath, California and Idaho have refused to assume God's prerogative to enforce his commands, or what men call his commands. They have refused to set up a counterfeit and declare it sacred. They have, wicked as they are, believed that God could manage his own business, and that men could be just as moral and religious apart from human law. And if it be true that the calamities in the land are God's judgments for its wickedness, it behooves California to keep straight on, and have nothing whatever to do with Sunday or sabbath laws in any way, shape, or manner. This does not mean that she has license to do more wickedly in other directions. God grants no indulgences to sin.