SPAIN AS OUR EXAMPLE by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 12, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 28.

SPAIN AS OUR EXAMPLE.

By G.

SPAIN is listed as a “Christian nation.” This fact is the cornerstone of the claim that the United States is a Christian nation. In delivering the opinion to this effect, the Supreme Court gave as a basis certain historical facts, first of which is the commission to Christopher Columbus from “Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace of God king and queen of Castile.” This commission expresses the hope that, “by God’s assistance, some of the continents and islands in the ocean will be discovered,” etc.

So the people who are laying so much stress on the evidences adduced by the court that “this is a Christian nation” would do well to remember that even yet Spain can not give up her bull-fights; and if we are to follow in the footsteps of Spanish national Christianity, they should also remember that Spain still insists on having her bull-fights on Sunday. This is official action. The Council of State and the Cortes has decided that the prohibition of bull-fights on Sunday would be contrary to the spirit of the Sunday-rest law, since the torreros and bull-fighters, having no work to do during the week, do not need rest on Sunday; secondly, if bull-fights were to be held on any other day of the week they would have the effect of taking people away from their work, and also because the work of the torreros can not be considered as labor, but rather as an art, on a line with that of the actors of those semi-sacred plays and dramas, the performance of which is expressly permitted by the new law on Sunday. So in Spain Sunday is to continue as the one day of the week devoted to the national sport of bull-fighting. How much further shall we follow Spain’s example in national religion?—Until the Inquisition, which Ferdinand and Isabella fostered, shall have been set up for dissenters from the national faith? G.