of the first acts of the Viceroy of India, was, according to the Christian Weekly, to issue an order forbidding official work of any kind on Sunday.

In France the question is also agitated. The Senate having occasion to consider some proposed changes in the Sunday laws, an eminent senator opened the eyes of his hearers by a clear argument showing that the seventh day, and not the first day, is the Sabbath of the Bible.

In Switzerland and Germany, also, this question is before the people. In the latter country, according to the New York Independent, a meeting was held a few years ago, attended by some five thousand persons, to encourage a more strict observance of Sunday. Many of these were Socialists. Austria also shares in the general movement. A New York paper in January, 1883, published the following item:

"A telegram from Vienna, Austria, says: 'A meeting of three thousand workmen was held to-day, at which a resolution was passed protesting against Sunday work. A resolution was also passed in favor of legal prohibition of newspaper and other work on that day."

The churches can carry their point whenever they can become sufficiently aroused to take general and concerted action in the matter. The late David Swing, at a ministers' meeting in Chicago, held for the purpose of deliberating in regard to a better observance of Sunday, according to a report in the Inter-Ocean, said:

"Group together these churches,- Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, and Catholic,- and they make up a powerful group of generals and soldiers. They can throw great armies into the field. Whoever should hope to lift up suffering humanity without asking the aid of all these heroes of old battle-fields, would simply show how feeble he is in the search of great means to a great end."

Realizing that any attempt to enforce a religious institution would be contrary to American principles and to popular sentiment in this country, the plea is made by this party that the Sunday is to be enforced only as a civil institution. They admit that to enforce the keeping of the day as an act of religion, would be to violate the spirit of the Constitution and strike a blow at religious liberty, but say that the State has a right to enforce it as a "sanitary measure," a "police regulation," a merely "civil enactment;" and that with this seventh-day keepers must comply, or move elsewhere.

Richard W. Thompson, when Secretary of the Navy, said:

"I take it there is no principle better fixed in the American mind than the determination to insist upon the conformity by foreigners to our Sunday legislation. We are a Sabbath-keeping people. [Applause.] Men say that we have no power to interfere with the natural right of individuals; that a man may spend Sunday as he pleases. But society has a right to make laws for its own protection. They are not religious laws. The men engaged in this grand work of securing the enforcement of the Sabbath laws, do not want to force you into any church; for these gentlemen represent all denominations. They want to make you observe the Sabbath day as a day of rest merely,— peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must,-only so far as it is necessary to protect society. Destroy the Sabbath, and you go out of light into darkness. A government without the Sabbath as a civil institution, could not stand long enough to fall. [Applause.]"

And yet with all these professions they find it impossible to conceal the fact that it is, after all, a religious observance which they wish to secure. Thus Mr. Thompson con

tinues:

"Why are we so specially interested in Sabbath laws?- Because there is no other government that depends so much on the morality of its citizens as ours. Here, where we have a republic with its existence depending on the mass of the people,

it is necessary to have a general observance of the Sabbath."

The italics in the foregoing quotation are ours; and we thus emphasize these words because we must insist that the devoting of a day to cessation from labor in obedience to a law of the State is in no sense the "observance of the Sabbath," even though the right day were selected for that purpose. For the very idea of the Sabbath is a religious idea. It is derived from the example and command of God. There is no Sabbath in any spiritual sense, except the day that God made such by resting upon it. And when the day is observed as a religious act, on the authority of God's Word and as his Word directs, the Sabbath is observed, but not otherwise. Neither is compliance with a State law to stop work on a certain day, in any just sense the practise of "morality," unless the State is the source of that grace, and civil laws are moral laws. Yet Mr. Thompson's language betrays the fact that it is "morality" and the "observance of the Sabbath" that it is intended to enforce.

The people of Louisville, Ky., in the call for a massmeeting "for the purpose of securing a better observance of our weekly rest day," endeavored to draw a sharp distinction on this point, as follows:

"With regard to the Sabbath as a religious institution, we propose to do nothing whatever in this meeting. We withdraw from the discussion every religious question. Your attention will be called exclusively to the Sabbath as a civil institution, a day of rest from labor and public amusements, set apart for that purpose by the immemorial usage of the American people and laws of the land."

Such a presentation of the subject will captivate many minds, and lead thousands to act from a standpoint of secular policy as they would not dare to act from that of relig ious toleration.

Even the New York Independent, after its scathing

SEVENTH-DAY OBSERVERS NOT EXEMPTED

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exposure of the inconsistency of the religious amendment movement, as given on p. 245, is carried away with this kind of logic. The case calling out its remarks was this: Certain Jews in New York City made application for an injunction restraining the police from arresting them for pursuing their ordinary business on the first day of the week, on the ground that they were observers of the seventh

Representative Richard Bartholdt, of Missouri day. The injunction was

"I believe in a complete separation of church.and state, and in this belief go so far as to assert that the daily prayers in this House, as well as all Sunday laws, are unconstitutional, because they signify a mixing of church and state."-From speech by Hon. Richard Bartholdt, reported in Congressional Record, Dec. 16, 1912.

temporarily granted by Judge Arnoux; but was soon after dissolved, on the plea that the business

of the applicants would not come under the head of "works of mercy or necessity." The New York penal code makes only this provision for the observers of the seventh day:

"It is a sufficient defense to prosecution for servile labor on the first day of the week, that the defendant uniformly keeps another day of the week as holy time, and does not labor on that day; and that the labor complained of was done in such a manner as not to interrupt or disturb other persons in observing the first day of the week as holy time."

It is now argued that this is no ground for exemption from arrest for Sunday labor; for such labor is a violation of

the letter of the law, and the law does not presume that a man has a defense till he makes one. Therefore, although a man is well known to be a conscientious observer of the seventh day, he may be arrested whenever found working on the first day, and put to all the annoyance and trouble of making a defense. And such a course of action is defended as

right.

To the question, Would not this be a hardship to the Jews and Seventh-day Baptists? the Independent makes answer that this is incidental to their living in a community which makes Sunday the day of rest, and can not be avoided without destroying the day of rest altogether.

Again it says that if the Sunday law

"Is not equally well fitted to the Jews, as it is not, who form but a mere fragment of the people, this is an inconvenience to them which they must bear, and which the law can not remove without imposing a much greater inconvenience upon a far larger number of persons."

Now comes the distinction on the strength of which these sentiments are uttered. Again we quote:

"If it [the Sunday law] enforced any kind of religious observance upon them, this would be unjust; but there is no injustice in requiring them to observe Sunday as a day of rest in a community in which, for good and sufficient general reasons, the day is so observed. If they do not like it, we see no remedy for them except in a withdrawal from such community."

But where would they go if they were to withdraw from "such community," as is here so kindly suggested; for if we mistake not, it is the intention that every community in the country shall be alike in the making and enforcing of Sunday laws. We find the question answered by Rev. E. B. Graham, who while vice-president of the National Reform Association made a speech at York, Nebr., in which he gave free utterance to the sentiments of his party. As quoted in the Christian Statesman of May 21, 1888, Mr. Graham said: