Sunday Laws and Conscience
By Editor
Do our lawmakers and jurists appreciate the position into which they are driving themselves and the country by upholding Sunday laws, the fruit of the Dark Ages? Here is a word from a good source: "If minor punishments would not restrain the Jew, or the Sabbatarian, or the infidel, who believes Saturday to be the Sabbath, or disbelieves the whole, would not the same system require that we should resort to imprisonment, banishment, the rack, and the fagot, to force men to violate their own consciences, or compel them to listen to doctrines which they abhor?"—Report of House of Representatives, 1830. And we say this, not for the benefit of the persecuted, but the persecutor. He who seeks to compel men under fine and penalty to violate conscience is destroying himself; and the government which does it is doomed to destruction. "The Missionary Magazine" for July touches upon various fields—the Chinese, Japanese, Greeks, Fijians, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico, etc.; copiously illustrated. Published monthly at 150 Nassau Street, New York. Price, 25 cents a year.