Official Assumption by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jun 13, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 23.

Official Assumption.

By Editor

According to the Philadelphia Recorder, "the city marshall of Portland Me., has decided that any one may keep his store open on Sunday if he keeps any other day in the week as sabbath. Citizens may pick out their own sabbath and observe it in their own way." Who gave a city marshall, or any other human official, the right to grant or to withhold religious privileges? According to the assumption of this particular marshall, a municipal officer may set up a religious condition upon which certain citizens may do what the Constitution already permits without condition. If such an officer can regulate constitutional privileges on religious conditions, he may deny them as well as to permit their exercise. But any kind of official assumption is possible where religious legislation is in vogue. Where any kind of enforced religious observance begins, religious liberty and fundamental republican principle end; and where religious liberty is limited by arbitrary conditions, there civil liberty becomes an official toy.