The American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 16 (April 21, 1892) | AdventAI

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WHETHER men were actually forbidden by the ‘Blue Laws’ to kiss their wives on Sunday or not, does not affect the principle. Possibly they never had even in New Haven any regulation so silly as that, but they certainly had many just as unwarranted. They did banish Quakers under pain of death; they did forbid running or walking on Sunday except reverently to and from meeting; they did forbid the use of the Book of Common Prayer; they did prohibit hair cutting and shaving on Sunday; they did make church membership prerequisite to residence in the Colony; they did forbid the giving of food or lodging to a Quaker or other heretic; and these things were even more wicked, though as before intimated, less silly, than any of the fabled “Blue Laws” of which we have ever heard.1 paragraphs
THE Christian Inquirer, a local Baptist paper, published in this city, says: “The time has come when it must be affirmed that no public moneys can be used for sectarian purposes.” But why does the Inquirer use the term, “sectarian,” rather than the word, “religious”? Would it be willing to see public money used in the promulgation of what is popularly known as, “unsectarian religious instruction”?—It certainly looks that way. But does it not know that from the standpoint of Roman Catholics and Jews, this so-called “unsectarian” religious instruction is most intensely sectarian? It is all well enough to denounce the efforts of Romanists to secure a share of the public funds to pay for teaching Romanism, but they <page-break/> are no more to blame for it than are Protestants for doing the same thing in the interests of Protestantism, and that is just what this “unsectarian” religious instruction is. The only consistent and tenable position is, that no public funds shall be used either directly or indirectly for giving any kind of religious instruction.1 paragraphs
THE Washington correspondent of the Examiner (Baptist), takes occasion, in noticing the late hearing on the Sunday closing of the World's Fair, to say, “On a former occasion, when the Sunday observance law was before our Commissioners and urged by many of our local pastors, the strongest kind of a protest against such legislation was made by men styling themselves Baptists.”1 paragraphs
And why should not Baptists protest against all such legislation? Why should a people who have for centuries resisted even to the death every encroachment of the civil power upon the domain of conscience, now that they have become powerful and popular, depart from their ancient principles and yield their consciences into the hands of the Government? Why should they now acknowledge that which for centuries they have denied, namely, that the civil power has a right to require of them any measure of religious observance whatever?1 paragraphs
In their early history Baptists were persecuted on precisely the same grounds that seventh-day observers are now punished for refusing obedience to Sunday laws. Pedobaptist practices were entrenched in the civil laws, and it was not only heresy to practice otherwise but it was held to be destructive of social order as well, and so, not to be tolerated. The Baptists of those days were “anarchists” and “rebels” just as are those who now refuse to bow to the Sunday laws, which some Baptists advocate, and even help to make.1 paragraphs
AT the late Pittsburg Sunday Convention a good deal of capital was attempted to be made out of a statement that the so-called “Blue Laws” of Connecticut never had any existence except in the imagination of a “renegade preacher,” who, being forced to leave the Colony, returned to England, and there wrote a caricature of the colonial laws, styling them “Blue Laws.” There is probably some truth in this statement; yet it does not alter the case materially.1 paragraphs
THE significant phrase, “Blue Laws,” like “siren song,” and other expressions derived from mythology, stands, not for an historical fact, but for an idea. And so far as the moral is concerned, it would make no difference if Connecticut, as well as the laws said to have governed it, were mythical. The term, “Blue Laws,” stands for ultra paternalism in government, for unwarranted interference with personal liberty, and for laws having a Church and State cast of countenance; and hateful as the expression may be to the whole Sunday-law fraternity, they can not break its force by explaining that the story of the Blue Laws was overdrawn.2 paragraphs
THE term, “Blue Laws,” is very properly applied to statutes which interfere with the rights of conscience, and with legitimate personal liberty, whether in matters of conscience or not. All countries formerly had many such laws, and the American Colonies were no exception. The Colony of New Haven adopted the Scriptures as their code of law and government, and this was the basis of the “Blue Laws.” When we come to consider the numerous regulations and restrictions which grew up among the Jews under a similar system, it is not strange that New Haven soon had interpretations and decisions regulating the most commonplace affairs of every day life.2 paragraphs
THE National Reformers may well wish to divert attention from their principles to a discussion of unimportant facts; but as shown in the preceding notes, in this case the facts do not affect the principle. The idea of extreme paternalism is expressed in the term, “Blue Laws;” and it is likewise inseparable from National Reform and Sunday-law theories. The Sunday-law forces may pooh-pooh “Blue Laws,” but they can not escape from the fact that they are wedded to the principles so aptly caricatured by the “Blue Laws of Connecticut.”1 paragraphs
To Prevent Involuntary Servitude.W. H. M.6 paragraphs
What Is Proper Sabbath Observance?W. A. COLCORD9 paragraphs
Getting Very Strict in Atlanta.A. O. Tait4 paragraphs
Congressional Hearings.W. H. M.20 paragraphs
Another Congressional Hearing.W. H. M.7 paragraphs
Wherein Is the Difference?4 paragraphs
They Are “Instructed” to Close the Fair.W. E. Cornell7 paragraphs
The Christian Religion Not a Part of the Common Law of the Land.Kaintuckee21 paragraphs
How Many Things Can Be the Chief Cause of the Evils of Our Day?A. O. Tait6 paragraphs
Which the Dying Cause?W. A. Colcord7 paragraphs
A Greater (?) than Joshua.5 paragraphs
They Mistake It for Christianity.W. H. M.5 paragraphs
Which Side?4 paragraphs
SUNDAY reformers are accustomed to say, that the keeping of any day in seven meets the demands of the divine law. Those who observe the seventh day meet all God's demands according to this logic. But these same Sunday reformers add that “the civil law can not recognize two days,” and hence it must compel the minority to refrain from work on Sunday, and it can not protect them in observing the Sabbath. Such a position is inconsistent and un-Christlike. It measures the duty of the State by the choice of the majority.—Sabbath Outlook.1 paragraphs
SAM SMALL has been expressing himself, in Chicago, on the Sunday-closing of the World's Fair. He threatens it with bankruptcy if it opens on Sunday. He also said: “In 1888 the Republican Party, in its first convention in Chicago, placed in the first paragraph of its platform a recognition of Almighty God, by thanking him for what he had done for the country in general, and for the Republican Party in particular, and the 5,000,000 of people who voted that ticket voted for that clause as well as the rest. Submit the question whether or no this is a Christian people to a general vote and it will carry by an immense and overwhelming majority. At the Paris Exposition America, England, and Canada had their exhibits closed on Sunday, and had marines stationed to enforce the national respect to God's law.”2 paragraphs
An additional $50,000 has been appropriated for the American Museum of Natural History on condition that it be open to the public Sunday afternoons and two evenings each week. The Mail and Express thus bewails this action:—2 paragraphs
NATIONAL13 paragraphs
THE Christian Statesman has discovered that Wyoming has a Sunday law. This leaves only Idaho and California without such statutes.1 paragraphs
The Des Moines, Iowa, Conference of the Evangelical Church, at its session just closed, passed a strong resolution against opening the World's Fair on Sunday.1 paragraphs
The Mail and Express remarks that “all the States will undoubtedly sooner or later direct that their exhibits at the World's Fair be closed on Sunday in obedience to the Christian and law-abiding sentiment of the country.1 paragraphs
BAKERS' Union No. 90 has reported to the New York Federation of Labor that the bakers in one of Dennett’s coffee and cake saloons were compelled to attend prayers or pay fifty cents fine for each omission. Such things as this are but a natural outgrowth of the fast growing determination to enforce religious observance.1 paragraphs
THE Idaho World says: “The preachers of Idaho have formed a combination and will circulate their petitions asking that the World’s Fair be closed on Sundays.” The World adds: “No true American citizen who has any conception of what kind of a link for a proposed long and strong chain he will be helping to forge by signing it, will put his name to such an un-American and unpatriotic request.”1 paragraphs
THE pertinacity with which the advocates of enforced Sunday closing of the Exposition mean to continue their efforts is shown by this from the Christian Statesman: “It would not be too late even if Congress or the Commission should decide adversely, for the decision might be reversed. It would not be too late even if the Fair had begun with Sunday opening, for a sufficient protest would close the gates.”2 paragraphs
LONG ISLAND CITY has opened its baseball season with a police raid on the players who had gathered to the number of several hundred, Sunday April 11, in the vacant lots between Astoria and Hunter’s Point. Sunday baseball is to receive special attention from the authorities of Long Island City this summer. It will soon be found throughout the whole country that zealous police attention to Sunday desecration is an easy way to gain approbation and conceal the lack of enforcement of legitimate law.1 paragraphs
THE Directors of the World's Fair have been memorialized on the Sunday-closing question by the International Federation for the Observance of Sunday. The document begins:—4 paragraphs
The Christian Statesman thus welcomes an assistant in the advocacy of religion. “Do our subscribers think it square dealing for the former editor of the Christian Statesman, after signing a promise not to issue a rival paper, to bring one out, of almost the same name, in the same place, through his son? One of our mailing lists, a most valuable part of our property, was not turned over to us, being “among the missing” when the transfer was made. If our subscribers are generally getting samples of the above or any other paper we ought to be so informed. The new paper is not authorized by the National Reform Association.”2 paragraphs
At the Methodist Conference recently held at Chillicothe the following was passed regarding the World's Fair:—3 paragraphs
As a sequel to the hearings before the World’s Fair committees, in the House and Senate, on the Sunday-closing of the Chicago Exposition, some account of which is given in another column, there appeared among the church notices of the Washington Evening Star an advertisement of the presence of Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago, in the city, and that he would preach in two different churches on the following Sunday. The notice continued, “Dr. Johnson visits Washington by the request of the American Sabbath Union, to urge the importance of united effort for the sanctity of the Sabbath, especially in view of its threatened desecration at the Columbian Exposition.”1 paragraphs
THE story will be remembered of the careful father who flogged his son severely for profanity, but the son afterwards proved that he had actually said nothing at all, whereupon the father assured him that it didn’t make any difference for he thought damn anyway and he ought to be whipped for that. This has found its parallel in the decision of a Washington Judge, as reported in the Post, Washington, D. C:—3 paragraphs
A CORRESPONDENT in Vermont sends us the following:—5 paragraphs
WHEN the Italian troops took possession of Rome the percentage of illiteracy in the papal city was ninety per cent. Now it is forty-five.1 paragraphs
DR. McGLYNN said that he would propose an amendment to the amendment making it provide that no State shall “use its property or credit, or any money raised by taxation, or authorize either to be used for the purpose of founding, maintaining, or aiding, by appropriation, payment for services, expenses or otherwise, any institution or undertaking not wholly under governmental control.”1 paragraphs
UPON this matter of “unsectarian religious instruction,” the Catholic Review of the 10th inst., says:—3 paragraphs
THE Anti-Poverty Society of this city, about which so much was said and written three or four years ago, still holds its meetings on Sunday evenings at Cooper Union.1 paragraphs
A FEE of ten cents is charged for admittance to the Anti-Poverty meetings, and to secure a really good seat requires an additional fifteen cents. In this the Anti-Poverty Society is not singular; the entirely unique feature of these meetings is, that, notwithstanding the charge made at the door, a collection is regularly taken up in connection with the opening exercises.1 paragraphs
Dr. Edward McGlynn, the excommunicated priest, stands at the head of the Anti-Poverty Society, and at the regular meeting Sunday evening, April 10, seeming to see the incongruity of taking a collection after charging for admittance, he remarked that the collection was the “one feature of the meetings which entitles them to the character of semi-religious gatherings, and justifies the holding of them on the holy day.”1 paragraphs
IN the recent Pittsburg Sunday Convention, Mr. Crafts dramatized quite effectively, and greatly to the disadvantage of the butt of his ridicule, the boast that “the Sunday paper has come to stay.” The incident suggested to the writer, who was present, another drama, in two scenes, thus:—6 paragraphs
It is stated that Rev. G. W. Todd, of Topeka, Kansas, has taken the initiatory steps for the organization of what he calls a People's church. It is said to be Mr. Todd's idea to organize, in the large towns, People's churches, at which laboring men can assemble and discuss what he terms, “moral and political questions.”1 paragraphs
This wording would accomplish all, and more, the Doctor thought, than was claimed for the amendment as it has been proposed by the Association for the Protection of American Institutions. As it now reads, the speaker suggested, it has the appearance of hostility to all religion, while at the same time it leaves a loophole for so-called “unsectarian religious instruction,” under Government patronage and support; and in the latter suggestion Mr. McGlynn was clearly right. It is certainly not the design of the promoters of this proposed amendment to make any wider separation between Church and State than now exists. On the contrary, their amendment is aimed at Roman Catholics, and is designed to exclude from the public crib all the institutions of that church, without in the least interfering with the giving of “unsectarian religious instruction” at Government expense.1 paragraphs
DR. MCGLYNN'S subject on the occasion of the meeting referred to, was the proposed Sixteenth Amendment to the national Constitution, which provides that no State shall—3 paragraphs