THE Government of the United States as our fathers made it, as they intended, and as they by the Constitution established it, is now a thing of the past. It is gone. Both by the Supreme Court and by Congress the intention of the fathers has been disregarded, the principles of the Government have been subverted, and the Constitution has been over-ridden.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.1

THE action of the Supreme Court has been reviewed, and the words in which the Court did its part have been given in these columns. The action of Congress in which it did its part in this thing has also been referred to and largely discussed in THE SENTINEL. We are asked however to give more fully the actual words and proceedings in which Congress did this thing. With this request we gladly comply, for the evidence is not only important but conclusive, and should be placed before all the people.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.2

ALTHOUGH Congress is forbidden by the Constitution to make any law on the subject of religion, yet this matter was discussed, and the law was enacted, solely from the standpoint of religion. Senator Hawley, who had the principal part in carrying this thing through the Senate, said plainly:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.3

Everybody knows what the foundation is. It is founded in religious belief.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.4

And so entirely was the discussion a religious one that Senator Peffer said of it:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.5

To-day we are engaged in a theological discussion concerning the observance of the first day of the week.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.6

And the chaplain of the United States Senate, in reporting the matter to the New York Independent, July 28, 1892, said of it these words:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.7

While there were differences of opinion as to how the Sabbath should be honored, every man who spoke protested against any purpose to dishonor the fourth commandment. During this debate you might have imagined yourself in a general council or assembly or synod or conference, so pronounced was one senator after another.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.8

SUCH is the impression received by an official onlooker. And that the impression is not at all strained is evident from the speeches that were made, as any one may see who will read the Congressional Record of July 12 and 13, 1892. The three principal advocates of the Sunday closing bill were Senators Colquitt, Hawley and Hiscock. As Senator Colquitt is a National Reformer nothing else was to be expected of him, and he fully sustained this character in his speech, about half of which was made up from extracts from a sermon by Father Hyacinthe, Old Roman Catholic of France. The rest of his speech was National Reform sentiment of his own manufacture. Altogether it was of such a sort that he himself began to see how incongruous it was in that place, and halted with these words:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.9

But I shall continue this no further, Mr. President, for it may to some sound like cant, like preaching, as though we were undertaking to clothe ourselves in overrighteous habiliments and pretend to be better than other man.—Congressional Record, 52nd Cong., p. 6755.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.10

SENATOR HISCOCK both preceded and followed Colquitt; and the sum of all his speech is contained in the words of surrender and servitude to the churches, to which we have before referred, as follows:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.11

If I had charge of this amendment in the interest of the Columbian Exposition I would write the provision for the closure in any form that the religious sentiment of the country demands and not stand here hesitating and quibbling about it. Rather than let the public sentiment against the Exposition being opened on Sunday be re-enforced by the opposition in the other House against any legislation of this kind in the interest of the Exposition, I say to the junior senator from Illinois [Mr. Palmer] he had better yield to this sentiment and not let it go out to the country that there is the slightest doubt that if this money shall be appropriated, the Exposition will be closed on Sunday.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.12

It if were interested in this measure, as I might be interested if it were to be located in my own State, I should make this closure provision satisfactory to those petitioners who have memorialized us against the desecration of the Lord’s day.... I would not have it uncertain whether the Government might engage in business or not upon the Sabbath day. In my judgment, doubt upon this question carries with it more peril to your appropriation than it can encounter from any other cause whatever. I have nothing more to say.—Id., p. 6755.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.13

SENATOR HAWLEY both preceded and followed, both Colquitt and Hiscock. And as his speeches were longer than the others, so also were they more rabidly religious and more cringing and cowardly. Yet for all this he was not able to reach that height of religious enthusiasm and eloquence to which for this particular occasion his longing soul aspired, and so he very pertinently exclaimed:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.14

I wish, Mr. President, that I were the most eloquence clergyman, the most eloquent of those stanch old sturdy divines who have honored American citizenship as well as American Christianity, that I might give something more than this feeble expression of my belief in the serious importance of this vote.—Id., p. 6700.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.15

But as he could not have all his wish, as he could not be one of “those stanch old sturdy divines,” such as John Cotton or John Davenport, or Cotton Mather, he made up this lack by presenting the views of Archbishop Ireland, Archbishop Gross, and Archbishop Riordan, of the Catholic Church, and followed this in order with the views of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church and the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church both North and South.AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.16

BUT although Senator Hawley could not have his wish to be one of “those stanch old sturdy divines,” he could be a demagogue—and that seemingly without any particular effort. By the census of 1890 he estimated 13,000,000 members of churches in the United States. Then by adding to this number “the people who are also attendants, associates, and sympathizers, who go to church and send their wives and children and subscribe for it, and have a profound respect for it whether they believe in it or not,“—by this method of counting he got up “from forty-five to fifty millions of the people of this country who have more or less of religious profession or sympathy.” Then upon this calculation he argues thus:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 297.17

There is no use in endeavoring to escape the responsibility. If the Senate to-day decides that it will not close that Exhibition on Sunday, the Exhibition will be opened on that day, and you will have offended more than 40,000,000 of people—seriously and solemnly offended them. No wise statesman or monarch of modern times, no satrap of Rome would have thought it wise to fly in the face of a profound conviction of the people he governed, no matter if he thought it was a profound error. It is not wise statesmanship to do it.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.1

Now, if gentlemen repudiate this, if they desire to reject it, if they deny that this is in the true sense of the word a religious Nation, I should like to see the disclaimer put in white and black and proposed by the Congress of the United States. Write it. How would you write it? How would you deny that from the foundation of the country, through every fiber of their being this people has been a religious people. Word it, if you dare; advocate it, it you dare. How many who voted for it would ever come back here again? None, I hope.—Id., p. 6759.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.2

So, then, the chief duty of a United States senator, or member of Congress, is to “come back here again.” The height of the ambition of such is to “come back here again.” And now it is the perfection of “wise statesmanship” so to play into the hands of threatening, boycotting, and unprincipled religious partisans, as to be sure that they can “come back here again.” No matter though the thing demanded be subversive of every principle of the Government, we must yield to it, or we can’t “come back here again.” No matter though the thing demanded be positively forbidden by the Constitution it must be granted or else we can’t “come back here again.” No matter, though to yield to the demand we must violate the solemn oath which we took to maintain the Constitution of the United States—that oath is nothing, the Constitution is nothing, the principles of the Government are nothing, in the presence of the awful alternative, conveyed in the threats of religious bigots, that we can’t “come back here again.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.3

Was there ever on earth a more cowardly or more contemptible surrender than this of the Senate of the United States, as proclaimed by its representatives—Senators Frank S. Hiscock, of New York, and Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut?AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.4

And the Church managers know that it is a surrender to them. The chaplain of the Senate in the article before referred to says:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.5

Say not that the former days were better than these, for the Congress of the United States never numbered abler, truer, nobler men than fill the chambers to-day! And never more surely than now would avowed hostility to God, his day and word and house and kingdom, remand a public servant to private life.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.6

This is just what these senators told the churches that they were afraid of. And this is now a public notice that henceforth a religious test will be required as a qualification for office under the United States. H. H. George, who labored for months to secure this legislation, said:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.7

I have learned that we hold the United States Senate in our hands.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.8

They would be very dull indeed not to have learned it, when the Senate openly told them so. Of course they hold it in their hands, and they will use it, too. For did not that other preacher, J. D. Sands, in Pittsburg, declare that as the Senate had listened to the voice of the Church,AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.9

This grand, good fact suggests to the Christian’s mind that if this may be done, so may other equally needful measures. The Church is gaining power continually and its voice will be heard in the future much oftener than in the past.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.10

Thus the evidence is complete and the proof conclusive, that the Government of the United States as it was established and as it was intended to remain is no more. It has been given into the hands of the combined churches, and is there now only a tool to be used by them to enforce upon all the decrees of the Church at her arbitrary will. And thus there stand sin the United States to-day the living image of the Papacy, instead of the glorious Government which our father established and hoped would remain.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.11

The “new order of things” to which this Nation stands pledged by the Great Seal of the United States is reversed; and the old order of things which has always been a curse to the world is restored.AMS September 29, 1892, page 398.12

A. T. J.

“A Fine Scheme, Truly!” The American Sentinel 7, 38, pp. 298, 299.

ATJ

SOME eight years ago an organization known as the “Boys’ Brigade” was formed in Scotland, it subject being “to promote Christ’s kingdom among the boys and train them in habits of reverence, self-respect, and Christian manliness.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 298.1

Three years ago the organization was introduced into this country by way of San Francisco; and not a brigade has been organized at Willimantic, Conn. In a sermon in that city on the 18th inst., Rev. C. A. Dinsmore thus explains the scheme for keeping the boys under church influence and interested in church work:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 298.2

The boys are equipped in the uniform and drilled in the tactics of the United States Army. They have breech loading Springfield rifles and are as well furnished as the State militia. Every Sunday they march into their Bible class to receive religious instruction, and are under strict military discipline. Every boy pledges himself to attend the weekly drill and Bible class. If he is willfully absent two consecutive weeks without reasonable excuse, he is dishonorably discharged from the company. Boys are appointed to the offices for proficiency in drill and in Bible lessons. Each boy furnishes his own uniforn [sic], costing about five dollars. If a boy is unable to do this, the church will provide him one. The guns are owned by the church. Only boys who attend this church or who have no other church connection are admitted. Great care will be taken not to encroach upon other denominations. With these qualifications the company is open to any boy between the ages of twelve and twenty-one.AMS September 29, 1892, page 298.3

To buy the guns and provide for incidental expenses we shall need two hundred and fifty dollars. Next Sunday we shall take a collection for this purpose, and we are confident you will contribute the amount needed. This is not a new experiment and can not fail, if wisely managed, because it is founded on the ineradicable instincts of a boy’s nature.AMS September 29, 1892, page 299.1

Certainly it can not fail in stimulating and developing the natural instincts of the human heart. It is an easy matter to teach boys to love applause and to labor for it; but it is quite another thing to teach them to “be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.” Nevertheless that is the lesson that Christ would have all both old and young to learn; and it is the lesson that the Church should teach. As a means of cultivating pride, the Boys’ Brigade is doubtless a marked success; as a means of grace, it must ever be a dismal failure.AMS September 29, 1892, page 299.2

“‘Is God In It?’” The American Sentinel 7, 38, p. 300.

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UNDER the heading, “Exposition Poetry,” the Christian Cynosure has the following:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.1

The closing stanzas of Prof. John K. Paine’s “Columbian March and Chorus,” to be performed at the dedication of the Exposition buildings at Jackson Park, next month, is as follows:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.2

All hail and welcome nations of the earth!AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.3

Columbia’s greeting comes from every State.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.4

Proclaim to all mankind the world’s new birthAMS September 29, 1892, page 300.5

Of freedom, age on age shall consecrate.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.6

Let war and enmity forever cease,AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.7

Let glorious art and commerce banish wrong.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.8

The universal brotherhood of peaceAMS September 29, 1892, page 300.9

Shall Columbia’s high, inspiring song.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.10

What we would like to know, Is God in it? If not, we prefer the older couplet,—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.11

Praise God from who all blessings flow:AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.12

Praise him, all creature here below.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.13

Really, we would like to know what is meant by “the world’s new birth of freedom,” and what is the use of trying to unite all nations in “the brotherhood of peace” without the aid of Christianity? Will some one, not a pagan, tell us.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.14

It is not our purpose to explain the meaning of the expression, “The world’s new birth.” Mr. Paine could probably do that better than any one else. Neither do we purpose answering any question; but rather to ask one. The Cynosure implies that God is not in the “Columbian March and Chorus;” would he be in it any more if it contained the couplet:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.15

Praise God from who all blessings flow:AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.16

Praise him, all creature here below.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.17

To be more explicit would a formal recognition of God by a godless poet and a godless choir be pleasing to the Creator? Must not all acceptable service be inspired by faith? Is it not still true as it was eighteen hundred years ago that “he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seed him”? Would God be in the familiar words,—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.18

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, if they did not come welling up from hearts full of praise to him, any more than he was in the same words sung by the thoughtless reporters when Congress adjourned?—Certainly not. Then why does the Cynosure insist upon hypocrisy?AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.19

“Some Scraps of New England History” ^{1Condensed from “Two Republics.”} The American Sentinel 7, 38, pp. 300, 301.

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THE SUFFERING OF THE QUAKERS

THE last article closed with the statement that the laws against the Quakers were not allowed to become a dead letter but were enforced in the regular Puritan way. Just what that way was will appear from the following order issued in 1657 by Governor Endicott:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.1

To the marshall general of his deputy: You are to take with you the executioner, and repair to the house of correction, and there see him cut of the right ears of John Copeland, Christopher Holder, and John Rouse, Quakers, in execution of the sentence of the court of assistants for the breach of the law instituted, “Quakers.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.2

In the latter of the same year the following order was issued by the court:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.3

Whereas Daniel Southwick and Provided Southwick, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick, absenting themselves from the public ordinances, have been fined by the courts of Salem and Ipswich, pretending they have no assistance, and resolving not to work, the court, upon perusal of the law, which was made upon account of the dates, in answer to what should be done for the satisfaction of the fines, resolves that the treasurers of the several counties are and shall be fully empowered to sell said persons to any of the English nation, at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.4

With this latter sentence there is connected an important series of events. As stated in this order, these two persons were son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick. Lawrence Southwick and his wife Cassandra, were an aged couple who had been members of the Salem church until about the close of 1656. They had three children, Joseph, who was a man grown, and the two mentioned above, who were but mere youth. The old gentleman and his wife were arrested at the beginning of the year 1657, upon a charge of harboring Quakers. The old gentleman was released, but as a Quaker tract was found upon his wife, she was imprisoned seven weeks and fined forty shillings. If they were not Quakers before, this made them such, and likewise some of their friends. A number of them now withdrew from the Salem church, and worshiped by themselves. All were arrested. Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick and their son Joseph, were taken to Boston to be dealt with. Upon their arrival there, February 3, without even the form of a trial they were whipped and imprisoned eleven days, the weather being extremely cold. In addition to this, they were fined four pounds and thirteen shillings, for six weeks’ absence from church on Sun days, and their cattle were seized and sold to pay this fine.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.5

The following summer two Quakers, William Leddra and William Brend, went to Salem. They with five others, among whom were the Southwicks who before had suffered, were arrested for meeting together. They were all taken to Boston, and put all together in a room in the prison, of which the windows were boarded up close. Food was denied them unless they would work to pay for it. “To work when wrongfully confined, was against the Quaker’s conscience.” They therefore went five days without anything to eat. This, however, was only a part of their sufferings, for on the second day of their imprisonment, they all were severely whipped, and then with raw wounds were thrown back into the close dark room, in the July heat, with nothing to lie upon but the bare boards. On the second day afterwards they were informed that they could go if they would pay the constables and jail fees. They refused to pay anything. The next day the jailer, in order to force them to yield, took Brend, and with irons bound his neck and heels together, and kept him that way for sixteen hours, from five o’clock in the morning till me nine o’clock at night.AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.6

The next day Brend was put to the mill and ordered to work. He could not have worked if he would, as he could scarcely move; but he would not have worked if he could and so he refused. Then in a rage “the gaoler took a pitched rope, about an inch thick, and gave him twenty blows over his back and arms with; all his strength, till the rope untwisted; then he fetched another rope, thicker and stronger, and told Brend that he would cause him to bow to the law of the country, and make him work. Brend thought this in the highest degree unreasonable, since he had committed no evil, and was wholly unable to work, having been kept five days without eating, and whipped also, and now thus unmercifully beaten. Yet in the morning the gaoler relented not, but began to beat again with his pitched rope on the poor man’s bruised body, and foaming at the mouth like a madman, with violence laid four score and seventeen more blows upon him, as other prisoners, who beheld this cruelty with grief and passion reported. And if his strength and his rope had not failed him, he would have laid on more. He thought also to give him the next morning as many blows more .... To what condition these blows must have brought the body of Brend, who had nothing on but a serge cossack over-shirt, may easily be conceived. His back and arms were bruised and bleeding, and the blood hanging, as it were, in bags under his arms, and so into one was his flesh beaten that the sign of a particular blow could not be seen. His body being thus cruelly tortured, he lay down upon the boards so extremely weakened that the natural parts decaying, and his strength failing, his body turned cold; there seemed, as it were, a struggle between life and death; his senses were stopped, and he had for some time neither seeing, feeling, nor hearing; till at length a divine power prevailing, life broke through death, and the breath of the Lord was breathed in his nostrils.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.7

The people now, horrified at the outrage, would bear no more. A cry was raised, they rushed to the jail, and rescued the tortured prisoner. This rather frightened the government. Endicott sent his own family doctor to succor Brend, but the surgeon pronounced the case hopeless—that the flesh would “rot from off his bones,” and he must die. The cry of the people grew louder, and their indignation more fierce. They demanded that the barbarous jailer should be brought to justice. The magistrate posted up on the church door a promise that he should be brought to trial, but here the “Rev.” John Norton stepped forth, declaring: “Brend endeavored to beat our gospel ordinances black and blue; if he then be beaten black and blue, it is but just upon him and I will appear in his behalf that did so.” He rebuked the magistrates for their faintness of heart, and commanded them to take down the notice from the church door. They obeyed, and the cruel jailer was not only justified, but was commanded to whip the Quakers who were yet in prison “twice a week if they refused to work, and the first time to add five stripes to the former ten, and each time to add three to them.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 300.8

The other prisoners now presented a petition to the court praying to be released. Their petition was dated, “From the House of Bondage in Boston, wherein we are made captives by the wills of men, although made free by the Son (John 8:36), in which we quietly rest, this sixteenth of the fifth month, 1658.” They were brought into court for examination. They made so strong a defense that there appeared some prospect of their acquittal; but the preachers rallied in force. The “Rev.” Charles Chauncy, in “the Thursday lecture,” preached as follows:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 301.1

Suppose you should catch six wolves in trap [there were six Salem Quakers], ... and ye cannot prove that they killed either sheep or lambs: and now ye have them, they will neither bark nor bite; yet they have the plain marks of wolves. Now I leave it to your consideration whether ye will let them go alive; yea or nay?AMS September 29, 1892, page 301.2

By their diligence the preachers not only prevented any acquittal, but succeeded in forcing through the law of 1658, inflicting capital punishment upon all the Quakers who remained, or returned after sentence of banishment.AMS September 29, 1892, page 301.3

“Back Page” The American Sentinel 7, 38, p. 304.

ATJ

“ACTIVE and powerful agencies,” says the “Pearl of Days,” “are constantly at work in Great Britain, as well as in America, to break down the Sabbath.” However this may be in England, it is certainly true in this country. And among these agencies none are more active or more powerful than is the so-called American Sabbath Union whose sole mission is to exalt a pagan holiday at the expense of the Sabbath of the Lord.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.1

BUT it is urged that the essence of Sabbath observance is not in the particular day observed, but in observing by rest and worship one seventh part of time in regular succession; and that the particular day is a matter of indifference. This is the theory; the practice is that it is a matter of indifference as to the particular day—provided always that Sunday is observed. But that the particular day is an essential element of Sabbath observance is seen when we come to examine the institution itself, and to understand its significance.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.2

THE Sabbath is a memorial of the finished creation: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This can never be true of any other day; and it must always be true of the seventh day. Says Rev. Mr. Elliott, in his prize essay, “The Abiding Sabbath,” published by the American Tract Society, “While the reason remains, the law remains. The reason of the Sabbath is to be found in the fact of creation; it is God’s one monument set in human history to that great event; and so long as the truth of creation and the knowledge of a Creator have any value to human thought, any authority over the human conscience, or make any appeal to human affections, so long the law and the institution of the Sabbath will abide with lasting instruction and undiminished obligation.”AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.3

IT follows from the statement made by Mr. Elliott, that to change the day necessarily involves a change of reason for observing the day; in short, it is to change the institution; and so we see in the Sabbath and the Sunday, not two phases of the same institution, but two rival institutions. The one commemorating creation, the other, it is claimed, the resurrection; the one sacred to Jehovah, the other, it is claimed, equally sacred to his Son; the one stigmatized as “Jewish,” the other called “Christian;” the one clearly of divine origin, the other set apart confessedly by the Church, and that in an age when corruptions already perverted the gospel of Christ.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.4

TO illustrate this matter, let us suppose that the Irish people were in a majority in this country, and that instead of celebrating the Fourth of July they were to substitute the Seventeenth of March; and suppose further that they were to call it “Independence day,” and celebrate it much as we now do the Fourth of July; and further suppose that their influence was such that they should cause their day to almost entirely take the place of our national holiday; could it ever become the same institution? Could it ever be truthfully said that the American Independence day had been transferred to the Seventeenth of March? and could the laws which now make the Fourth of July a legal holiday ever be made to apply without change to the day which had been introduced in opposition to the Fourth of July? In short, under such conditions would not everybody say that the American Independence day had been supplanted by the Irish Saint Patrick’s day? Certainly they would. And this is exactly the case of the Sabbath of the Lord; it has been supplanted by a rival institution. Not indeed as is claimed by a day set apart by the Son of God, but by a heathen festival brought into the Church with other pagan corruptions, and foisted upon it by a foreign influence hostile to the spirit and intent of the Sabbath institution, and bent on its destruction.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.5

AT a recent Sunday School Association meeting at Meridian, Mich., it became necessary because of lack of time to omit one topic which was to have been discussed. The choice lay between two, “Christ’s Method of Teaching the Example for Sunday-school Teachers,” and “Sunday-schools the Hope of the Nation.” The latter topic was selected as being the more important theme, and a paper was read on it by Rev. G. H. Hudson (Baptist), who took the position that inasmuch as this is a Christian Nation only a Christian is competent to stand at its head; and as Christians are developed largely in the Sunday-school, therefore the Sunday-school is the hope of the Nation. That is, upon the Sunday-school devolves the work of training the future presidents of the United States! Truly the preachers of this country are getting ahead of the bishops of Constantine’s time. The bishops only sought to make politics a branch of religion; the preachers are seeking to make religion and politics identical. It matters little about the example of Christ if only the Sunday-school can train the presidents!AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.6

ABOUT as disingenuous a plea for Sunday laws as we have seen for some time, appeared a week or two since in the Baptist Examiner:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.7

The prohibition for one day in the week of all labor save works of necessity and mercy is on the one hand no infringement of any man’s liberty, nor on the other is it a recognition of the Church by the States.... Nor does the State undertake to say how the day of rest shall be spent.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.8

But what reason has the Examiner for thinking, or rather for saying, that “the prohibition for one day of the week of all labor, save works of necessity and mercy, is on the one hand no infringement of any man’s liberty”? This city is strongly Roman Catholic, and tens of thousands of people in it observe Saint Patrick’s day by refraining from labor and business. Suppose the aldermen were to pass an ordinance requiring all to rest on Saint Patrick’s day, except those who conscientiously and regularly celebrate the battle of the Boyne, what would the Examiner think? and what would it say? Would it not say that the liberty of every Protestant in the city was infringed by the ordinance? It certainly would, and justly so too. But if the civil law may rightly require the observance of Sunday, why may it not do the same thing for other religious festivals? For while the Examiner denies that Sunday laws are a recognition of the Church by the State, the fact remains that Sunday laws exist solely for the reason that Sunday is a religious institution. Were it not so there would be no such thing as a Sunday law.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.9

BUT the sophistry of the Examiner is more apparent when we place side by side two statements which appeared in the same article in its columns, but separated by several paragraphs:—AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.10

The State does not undertake to say how the day of rest shall be spent.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.11

When the Sunday holiday begins to nullify the Sunday rest day, the State should interfere.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.12

This is, the State does not pretend to say how the day shall be spent, but it does say that it shall be spent neither as a working day nor as a holiday. The State leaves every man perfectly free to do just as he pleases on Sunday, provided he neither works nor plays! Wonderful freedom, which out of a possible three excludes two and leave the subject “free” to “choose” the third! But such is the freedom enjoyed under Sunday laws.AMS September 29, 1892, page 304.13

September 22, 1892

October 6, 1892