SUNDAY ENFORCEMENT NOTES AND COMMENT.
RESOLUTIONS condemning the postal authorities for keeping the post-offices open during certain hours on Sunday, were adopted by the ministerial association of Lewistown, Pa., on June 4. The business men of Lewistown have labored for two years to have this condition brought about, and now they are opposed by the ministers. THE deputy prosecutor of Dana, Ind., recently told a complainant that if he wanted violators of the Sunday law prosecuted, all he had to do was to make affidavit of information, or go before the grand jury. SUNDAY excursions and baccalaureate sermons are irreconcilable, according to Rev. Douglas Sutton, of St. Andrew’s Rectory, Livingston, Mont. It seems that a Sunday excursion was included in the celebration of the graduation of the senior class of the high school at that place recently. This caused the Rev. Sutton, who was doubtless the minister who had been asked to preach the baccalaureate sermon, to enter a protest in the Livingston Enterprise, in which he presented this interrogation: "Is it not a farce to ask any minister of the Gospel to preach a sermon to young people on the occasion of their graduation, setting forth, as he must do, for their serious consideration the very highest ideals of the Christian life and the obligations they are under to observe God’s law, when on the previous Sunday they have been encouraged to break that divine law and desecrate the Lord’s day?" He declared that he could not "but regret the influence that sanctioned and approved such a breach of God’s commandment when our young people were about to celebrate one of the most important events of their lives." Rev. Sutton overestimates entirely the value and importance of Sunday observance morally and religiously. Failure to observe Sunday is no breach of moral or religious duty. It is not a breach of divine law theologically, say nothing of morally and ethically. CLERGYMEN of Atlanta, Ga., are carrying out their plan announced early in the spring to prevent the Sunday operation of the Ponce de Leon amusement park, a summer resort of that city. At the instance of the ministers of Atlanta the amusement features of Ponce de Leon have been closed for half the day on Sunday. By a ruling of the Supreme Court of Ohio the omission of the word "necessity" from all Sunday ordinances renders them void. In the Sunday ordinance of Ashland, which was passed in 1898 and is based on the state law which is older than the state, that word is omitted. Mayor Winbigler has ordered the closing of cigar stores, ice-cream parlors, cigar departments in drug stores, fruit stands, meat markets, clothing and shoe stores on Sunday." The mayor’s order was issued upon the request of a committee representing the citizens’ league, which demanded that he enforce the old and obsolete law in regard to Sunday closing, and the members of which pledged themselves to swear out affidavits in cases of violation. There was considerable indignation on the part of dealers and their patrons at the order. INDIAN TERRITORY seems to be suffering from a pretty general epidemic of Sunday enforcement of late. The latest is a stringent ordinance passed by the city council of Claremore. The police of Warsaw, Russian Poland, have begun a campaign against Jewish Socialists. Two hundred and fifty of these were arrested on August 10, and the Russian report has it that they were armed with revolvers and daggers. Bombs continue to be thrown at frequent intervals. Gangs of revolutionists, armed with revolvers and bombs, have attacked the treasurers of three different cities, resulting in hard fighting with the police, numbers of whom have been killed or wounded. The north-pole expedition, financed by the late William Zeigler, of New York, and under the direction of Anthony Fiala, was rescued by the arctic steamship Terranova, sent out for the relief of the expedition. The Zeigler-Fiala expedition did not succeed in reaching the north pole, and they lost their ship the first year, it having been crushed in the ice. This expedition departed in July, 1903, and the highest latitude reached was 82 degrees and 13 minutes. The terrible scourge of yellow fever continues to spread in the city of New Orleans, tho the health authorities seem to have been quite successful in confining it to the vicinity of that city. Up to August 10 there had been a total of 747 cases, with a total of 124 deaths. A prominent Catholic, Monsignor Chappelle, succumbed to the disease on August 8. The Chinese boycott of American goods and American business continues to grow and to become more of a menace to American commerce in the Orient. Chinese merchants in ports of other countries are taking up the boycott, and canceling their orders for American goods. It is said that the boycott has now gone beyond even the control of the government. Twenty-four religious denominations, representing, it is said, 18,000,000 communicants, have each appointed from five to fifty delegates to meet at an inter-church convention at New York City on November 15. The object of this conference will be to discuss church federation, in the hope of effecting a federation of the Protestant churches of America. China is perfecting arrangements for the establishment of a first-class army and navy. China’s fleet will be thoroughly reorganized, and plans have been laid for raising the necessary funds. A ministry of marine will be formed and naval schools organized under the direction of Japanese instructors. A squadron of the French navy is now visiting English waters, returning the recent visit of the British squadron to French waters. The French squadron and a British squadron have been reviewed by King Edward, and every mark of hospitality is being shown the visitors. A large department store of Albany, N. Y., collapsed on August 8, burying a large number of the employees and a few customers in the ruins. The dead bodies already taken from the debris number 13, and others are known to be still in the ruins. Sweeping reductions have been made by the government in the rates charged for transportation across the Isthmus of Panama, in order to bring about an exchange of products between western South America and eastern North America. The Japanese Government has despatched one naval squadron to Kamchatka and another to Okhotsk. They are now engaged in carrying out their instructions, which probably means that they are invading Russian territory. It is reported that John D. Rockefeller has decided to give to the University of Chicago $50,000,000, with the intention of making that the greatest university in the world. The total number of men who lost their lives in the explosion on the gunboat Bennington, at San Diego, Cal., on July 21, is 66, the last victim having died on August 8. A great conflagration swept the waterfront of Hoboken, N. J., on August 7, destroying shipping and wharfage property to the amount of a million and a half dollars.