p. 232 | The American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 29. (8/14/1889)

Green Cards and Saloon Business

THE Times of this city says that “the Paterson Board of Health has decided that where the placing of a green card on a house to indicate the presence of diphtheria on the premises, might diminish the business of a saloon-keeper, the card may be placed on the back door, where the general public will not see it.” We do not know how it is in New Jersey towns, but if the object be to place the green card where its presence will the least interfere with business, it would be necessary as a general rule to change the card to the front door one day in the week, namely, on Sunday, in those towns where Sunday-closing is in vogue; because then the back door of the saloon is the avenue of business.

Keeping Church and State Separate

The Overton (Neb.) Clipper has the following in reference to some lady who is securing signatures to the remonstrance against the Blair bill and kindred measures:—

“What lunatic asylum has broken loose? Last Sunday an old woman was in town with a petition to Congress to not make a Church and State government of the United States.”

To this the Phelps County Herald replies as follows:—

“Evidently the above paper favors a Church and State government. If so, it does not realize its position. Better study history a little, and see what have been the terrible results of a union of Church and State in the past. All honor to the ‘old woman’ who is contributing her mite toward keeping Church and State forever separate.”

The Herald is one of our exchanges, and is posted on National Reform doctrines and methods.

Christian Religion in Public Schools

WE are opposed to the teaching of the Christian religion in the public schools, not because Christianity is not the true religion, but because the State cannot of right have anything whatever to do with any religion. Religion is defined by Webster to be “Recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience; right feeling toward God, as rightly apprehended; piety.” And in the very nature of the case only individuals can love God and have right feelings toward him.

Again. If we recognize the State as having the right to decide for us as to what is the Christian religion, as it must do if it is to be taught in the public schools, we virtually agree to stand by its decision, and for a Christian to agree to stand by the decision of any human authority upon matters of religion, is in effect to agree to apostatize from the faith whenever that authority may demand it. But whenever the State assumes to decide such questions it goes outside of its legitimate sphere, and puts itself in the place of God.

Sunday Laws Made Odious by Enforcement

THE Christian Nation of July 17 says:— “The enemies of the Sabbath and friends of the liquor traffic, are doing their utmost to make the Cincinnati Sabbath observance law odious, so as to secure its repeal. The mayor of the city has issued an order closing up all places of business and stopping all vocations that are not strictly necessary. This is an old scheme of the liquor men—a retaliatory measure—which often causes the whole law to go by default.”

Well, the very object of the law is said to be to stop all vocations and business that are not strictly necessary. The petition for a National Sunday law in this respect only excepts work of “real necessity.” Then, if the law is good, how is it possible to make it odious by enforcing it? Let the reader imagine, if he can, how strictly laws against murder, manslaughter, assault and battery, and theft, would have to be enforced to be made odious. Such a thing is impossible. Such laws cannot be made odious by enforcing them. Their very virtue lies in the strictest enforcement possible. Any law that can be made odious by enforcement is a bad law, and Sunday laws everywhere are made odious always by a uniform enforcement; consequently all Sunday laws are bad laws and ought to be repealed.

Conflicting Sunday Law Petitions

THERE is an item of business that we should like for the field secretary of the American Sabbath Union to explain. In Portland, Oregon, in the First Congregational Church, July 22, there was placed in the slips of the pews, the following petition to be signed:— “To the United States Senate: “The undersigned, adult residents of the United States, twenty-one years of age and more, hereby earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding in the Nation’s mail and military service and in inter-State commerce, and in the District of Columbia and the Territories, all Sunday traffic and work, except works of religion and works of real necessity and mercy.”

We picked up in that church one of these blank petitions which we now have. Mr Crafts went from Portland to Puget Sound, and at Tacoma he circulated the following petition:— “The undersigned organizations, and adult residents (21 years of age or more) of the United States, hereby earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding, in the Nation’s mail and military service and inter-State commerce, and in the District of Columbia and the Territories, all Sunday traffic and work, except the works of religion and works of real necessity and mercy, and such private work by those who religiously and regularly observe another day of the week by abstaining from labor and business, as will neither interfere with the general rest nor with public worship.”

Now why is this thus? Why do they circulate these two kinds of petitions? Why do they in one petition propose to exempt those who religiously and regularly observe another day of the week, and in the other petition make no sign of any such exemption? Not that we are in favor of such exemption, for we favor no exemption from the workings of Sunday laws unless it be uniform, and exempt everybody who does not want to obey the law. We only ask for information, why do they circulate these two kinds of petitions? And the columns of the SENTINEL are open for the field secretary, or any other one in authority, to answer.

Missing Young Man

We are requested to state that on or about the 7th of March last, George D. McKinstry, a young man eighteen years of age, left Healdsburg, this State, to return to his home at Binghampton, Cal., and has not been heard of since. No cause can be assigned for his sudden disappearance and prolonged absence. Any information as to the young man's whereabouts, either now or at any time since his disappearance, will be thankfully received by his father, H. H. McKinstry, Binghampton, Cal.