Washington and Lincoln.—This issue of our paper comes just after the birthdays of two noted Americans who deserve mention, not simply for the high positions which they held in the gift of the people, nor for the way in which they discharged the duties imposed upon them by these positions, but on account of the principles which they held, principles which made them great. The first, whose birthday comes last, that of Washington, on February 22, was one of the greatest characters, and perhaps the greatest, in the founding of the Republic. The other, Abraham Lincoln, was born on February 12. The former has been called “the father of his country,” the latter “the saviour of his country.” Lincoln was certainly a martyr to the principles of liberty. Religious liberty was not so much a question with these men as civil liberty, but they both held to principles that would place them in the rank of the most ardent advocates of freedom of conscience. It was Washington who declared that “every man who conducts himself as a good citizen is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” It was Abraham Lincoln who said in his great “lost speech,” so called, “Those who deny freedom for others, deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God can not long retain it.” We would like to have our Sunday-law friends weigh their aims and measures under the light of these statements. It matters not how few in numbers those may be who are affected by Sunday laws, it matters not what their standing may be in the community in which they reside, they may be the poorest and meanest of American citizens, yet their rights of conscience in the sight of God are equal to the rights of their fellow men, and the majority have no more right to effect legislation which will work hardship to them than has a tyrant on a throne to oppress an entire people. Very earnest reformers, like Judge Wallace of Kansas City, think they are doing God service, but if the part which he is acting is carried out to the fullest, he will find that he has undermined the sacred temple of true liberty, and the structure which he has reared in honor of Sunday law will fall, and crush her devotees in its destruction.