The American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 1 (January 7, 1892) | AdventAI

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IN the published report of his campaign, for Sunday observance at the World's Fair, in Iowa, M. A. Gault says: “We must be careful to avoid the Union of Church and State, but equally careful to prevent the State from antagonizing the Church. To open the Fair on Sabbath would necessarily shut out a large number of Sabbath-keeping Christians. It would be violating their civil liberty by putting them on an unequal footing before the law. The Government would thus put a premium on infidelity, and reserve for none but Sabbath breakers the employment in the Fair. It would seriously interfere with liberty, and violate the First Amendment of the National Constitution.” Analyze this.2 paragraphs
The Situation as It Is To-day.A. T. J.14 paragraphs
VETERANS of twenty-five years or more in the Russian service, under the Emperors Nicholas and Alexander II., are entitled, by virtue of their military service, to live anywhere they choose within the confines of the Russian Empire, and this privilege applies to Jewish veterans as well as to others. In order to evade this, and lay the heavy hand of expulsion upon this class of Jews also, the Russian Government has, unmindful of the public services of these old soldiers, deprived them of the right of worship, by closing their synagogues, and, as it is a grave penal offense to even read Jewish prayers in any place other than a regularly licensed synagogue, the denial of the right of worship is complete. Such things as these are evidences of the lengths to which the promoters of national religion will go in striving by its enforcement to make theirs a “Christian Nation.”1 paragraphs
The Way of the Church with the State.5 paragraphs
John Cotton’s Idea of Liberty of Conscience.G. E. FIFIELD20 paragraphs
Quite Significant and Very Appropriate.R. C. PORTER13 paragraphs
Sunday Papers and Campaign Speeches.A. O. Tait15 paragraphs
Should Sabbath Observance be Enforced by Law?A. L. Russell19 paragraphs
What Do They Want?Roswell F. Cottrell8 paragraphs
Apply the Principles.W. H. M.5 paragraphs
Dr. Edward Thompson, the Pacific Coast Secretary of the American Sabbath Union, holds up California as an awful example of a State without a Sunday law. He is reported as saying at the annual convention of the Union just held at Des Moines, Iowa, that “during the nine years since California repealed her Sunday law her population had increased 30 per cent. and her crime 80 per cent. In other words that the repeal of the Sunday law manufactured criminals.”1 paragraphs
In reference to the Christian Statesman, and its editorial management, the Pittsburg Times has the following:—4 paragraphs
Conflicting Opinions.A. F. Ballenger6 paragraphs
A MASS meeting has been called in Chicago for the evening of February 28, under the auspices of the American Secular Union, to protest against closing the World's Fair on Sunday.1 paragraphs
A VERMONT court has decided that the holder of an accident insurance policy who is injured while hunting on Sunday can not recover on his policy, because of having received the injury while violating the Sunday laws of the State.2 paragraphs
THERE is an organization called the “United Christian Commission in the Interest of the Army and Navy.” This organization, which seems in its inception to have been an exceedingly praiseworthy one, met in executive session at Washington, some days ago, to discuss measures to be urged upon Congress in reference to the religious branch of the military and naval service. As an adjunct to this Senator Peffer has introduced a bill to increase the number of chaplains.1 paragraphs
The American Sabbath Union is developing great activity in Michigan; a new paper called the Michigan Sabbath Watchman, has been started in Grand Rapids, and a virulent, as well as active campaign, is in progress. The Religious Liberty Association is issuing large editions of tracts particularly adapted to combating the errors advanced by these mistaken enthusiasts. It is to be hoped that all who can use this literature to advantage will write to the Michigan office of the Association, given at the head of this column, for such as they can distribute to advantage.1 paragraphs
At a notable gathering recently held in this city for the purpose of furthering the interests of the World's Fair, no reference was made to the question of Sunday closing; but in an interview with a reporter for the Mail and Express, in response to the question, “How about opening the Exposition on Sundays?” Thomas W. Palmer, President of the commission, replied, “That depends on the will of the American people. We have received large petitions from various parts of the country asking that the gates be closed on Sunday. We have not received a single petition asking that the gates be opened on the Sabbath.”2 paragraphs
THE compulsion by which Remenyi, the violinist, was converted to Connecticut Christianity for one Sunday has brought out no little comment from the press. The Herald expresses a sound legal view of the matter when it says: “It may be doubted whether any State has a right to interfere with the running of through trains across its borders. The train service from Massachusetts to New York, through Connecticut, is interstate commerce, and the courts have repeatedly held that such commerce is beyond the control of a State. Only Congress has the constitutional right to regulate it.”1 paragraphs
The same course is being taken in Baltimore to evade the enforcement of Sunday laws against liquor selling, which has been used elsewhere,—the organization of “social clubs.” These are liable to become worse sink-holes of corruption than the saloons themselves. The law will never do away with intemperance or lessen its evil, materially, while the attempt is made from the standpoint of a moral or religious reform. If undertaken properly, as a purely civil matter, the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors could be stopped within any given time which the law might see fit to set.1 paragraphs
On the Sunday closing of the World's Fair the Chicago Herald expresses itself thus forcibly: “If a hint be given from headquarters that the Fair will be closed totally on Sundays there will go off a protest to make all its beams ring. There will also be an eager rush for stock in that waiting syndicate to buy up the Sunday trade of the liquor saloons, if they be declared the chief educational places to be had in Chicago during the World's Fair Sundays.”1 paragraphs
NATIONALR. C. Porter; A. F. Ballenger14 paragraphs
CRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE,15 paragraphs
It is worthy of note that among the different insane and devilish things unearthed by the effort to identify the bomb-thrower, whose deadly intentions toward Russell Sage recoiled upon himself, was the asserted existence of a bomb-throwing organization "of a religious character" which, it was declared, "would be in ten years the largest and most influential in the country." That such an element of horror as this may yet become an active factor in the fanatical religious contest now brewing is not impossible.1 paragraphs
MISSIONARIES writing from Japan report the question of the Sunday closing of the World's Fair as a subject of discussion there, and urge that the course which is taken will have great influence in that country. Certainly, it will have great influence everywhere, and those who are pressing the agitation have no understanding how world-wide it will be, nor how eternal in its lasting results. They know not what they do.1 paragraphs
Rev. W. E. Parsons, chairman of the Board of Visitors to the penal and reformatory institutions of Washington, D. C., according to the Washington Post, has expressed himself thus:—3 paragraphs
THE authorities of Plainfield, New Jersey, are giving strict attention to the enforcement of laws against the Sunday selling of liquor. Hotel proprietors have been fined one hundred dollars each, for permitting the Sunday sale of liquor on their premises, and the regular saloons and barrooms have been required to remove their screens and window shades, on Sunday, that they may be open to public inspection. As a temperance movement the closing of the saloons one day in seven is inexpressibly futile. But that is not the intent of Sunday closing, it is not an effort for the civil suppression of the liquor traffic, but is an attempt to enforce a moral reform and compel the liquor sellers to respect Sunday; and the general effort is begun with them because of the opportunity against them which their questionable occupation gives.1 paragraphs
The city of Toronto has had a rigid Sunday law, so that not even the street cars are allowed to run on that day; but of late a discussion has arisen as to the propriety of permitting street-car service on Sunday as in other cities.1 paragraphs
HEALTH FOODS.17 paragraphs
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESSJOHN BUNYAN8 paragraphs
UNDER the title “Congress and the World’s Fair” the Mail and Express says:—4 paragraphs
A LATE number of the Occident says:—2 paragraphs
REV. DR. SAWIN, an orthodox minister of Troy, New York, says: “A man who is in the right and is sure of his ground can always afford to be tolerant of the opinions of others. It is only the man who has a secret misgiving that his faith can not stand the investigations of reason who is bigoted and narrow, and who demands that other men shall think as he does or stop thinking altogether.”1 paragraphs
THE fashion of Sunday funerals, according to the Washington Post, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past in Washington, for the reason that, as the undertaker said to the reporter, “The class of persons we serve no longer bury their dead on the Sabbath;” and also because of the fact that “our best cemeteries, the Catholic being excepted, will not permit a burial on Sunday.”2 paragraphs
SENATOR GALLINGER, of New Hampshire, the successor of Henry W. Blair, has introduced a bill into the Senate, which, it is said, has been commented on with favor quite generally, to the effect that every person in the employ of the Government who is not native-born, or a completely naturalized citizen of this country, shall be immediately dismissed the service. This is class legislation. It is not the first of its kind, neither will it be the last. But it would be well to look long before leaping in each case. An accumulation of class restrictions means, eventually, paternalism and tyranny, civil and religious.1 paragraphs
The Syracuse Times has this:—7 paragraphs
SENATOR PEPPER of Kansas, the Farmers' Alliance Senator, has signalized his entrance into congressional life by offering, among others, a bill to increase the number of chaplains in the army. These bills to give more chaplains to the army, under better pay, are almost unnoticed incidents of each congressional session; but they are a part of the great sum total of effort to saddle religious responsibility upon the Government, which, in the aggregate, has become a noticeable factor in political affairs. To such an extent has this become the fact that the phraseology even of the newspaper correspondents bears unconscious testimony to the hold this question of formal religion is taking on public affairs and public thought.1 paragraphs
At a mass-meeting recently held in Washington, D. C., to devise means for promoting the moral welfare of the army and navy, one speaker, who was a military man, is reported as saying that he considered “the preponderance of foreigners in the service a drawback to Christian work.” If that be so the Christianity which is preached to the American soldier and sailor by the paid chaplains of the United States can not be the Christianity of the Bible. Can it be that this is a whisper of the development of the watchword “America for Americans” into “The American Sunday and American religion for Americans.”? Is the Russian national intolerance becoming epidemic as well as the Russian influenza?1 paragraphs
THOSE who wish bound volumes of THE AMERICAN SENTINEL, for 1891, should send their names at once. Only a limited number will be bound, and orders will be filled as they are received. The prices will be the same as last year, namely, heavy manilla paper, $1.50, half roan, (cloth, with leather back) $2.50.1 paragraphs