Fines Remitted if They Will Go to Church
By Editor
The Chicago Examiner of August 11 is authority for the statement that four pedlers were arrested in that city for "breaking the sabbath," but they were discharged by the municipal judge in the Chicago Avenue court on their promise to go to church thereafter on Sunday and cease crying their wares in the city on that day. On the presumption that the report is reasonably accurate, we may see in this incident the spirit that is back of all Sunday legislation. Sunday laws, no matter what guise they are under, are religious legislation, pure and simple. Sunday is a religious day, and the rival of the Sabbath of the Bible, which was commanded by the great Father in heaven Himself. And when Sunday laws become general, and are generally enforced, as we know they will be before the controversy in this world is ended, we will see more of this thing of remitting fines and penalties on the condition that people will promise to go to church on Sunday. One of the greatest curses under which this earth has ever suffered is that of religious tyrannies and intolerance; and why is it that men will continue to repeat history by making experiments, over and over again, that have always manifested themselves in the past through persecutions and inquisitorial tortures?