THE saying that “the majority should rule” is true only of those matters which come properly within the sphere of civil government. But religious questions are outside that sphere, not by constitutional guarantee, merely, but by the law of our being which makes us individually responsible to the Creator.
IT is now charged that the Mormons have raised a fund of $1,000,000, with which they propose to buy Statehood for Utah. Well, why not? The other National Reformers less than a year ago induced Congress to engage in wholesale bribery of the Columbian Exposition in the interests of Sunday sacredness; if now the Mormons bribe Congress, who can condemn them? Not the Sunday boomers, surely.
THE closing of the World’s Fair is at last an accomplished fact; but from a moral standpoint it is a barren victory to the churches that worked so hard for it. It is true that they now try to make it appear that the failure of Sunday-closing is an evidence of the great regard that the masses have for Sunday; but it is nothing of the kind. By threats of political boycott and by tricks unworthy of any but ward politicians, the Sunday managers secured the closing of such a large part of the Fair that few cared to go on Sunday; and thus by their own act they made impossible a free expression of the sentiments of the people regarding the day. Had the Fair been opened on Sundays just as on other days, and had no special influence been brought to bear on exhibitors to induce them to cover their exhibits on that day, and then the people had refused to attend in paying numbers, it would indeed have been evidence of great popular regard for Sunday; but under the conditions created for the occasion it proves nothing, except that people do not propose to pay full price for less than half a show.
THE Moon, a newspaper printed in Battle Creek, Mich., has in its issue of July 19, this item of news:—
The Second Baptist Church of Battle Creek will hold a jubilee meeting on the fair grounds in Marshall next Sunday, for the benefit of the new church. The meetings will begin at 10 o’clock A.M. The best musical talent will be present. There will be plantation melodies and songs and instrumental music. The sermon on “A Damned Hot Day” will be preached at 2:30 o’clock P.M. Admission ten cents.
The Moon makes no comment, and it seems that none is needed. Such things make it very apparent that regard for Sunday as a sacred day is not in all the thoughts of the Sunday church managers; they know that it is no better than any other day; what they want is a monopoly of the day for their own purposes. If the World’s Fair was filling their coffers, they would to a man be clamoring for Sunday opening, and instead of preaching about a single profanely hot day, they would be denouncing against all who opposed them the terrors of an uncomfortably warm “orthodox” eternity.
THE lie that the Seventh-day Adventists are parties to the Clingman suit to compel the opening of the World’s Fair on Sunday has been again revived in Chicago. Seventh-day Adventists defend themselves in the courts when haled before them by others, but they never appeal to civil rulers to compel a course of action in accordance with their ideas. The managers of the Fair have decided to close it on Sunday for reasons which are satisfactory to them, and the Adventists do not regard it as any of their business. They would no more try to compel the opening of the Fair on Sunday by law than they would invoke the same power to close it on the Sabbath.
BEFORE Christianity can have practically as the National Reformers demand that it shall have, “an undeniable legal basis” in this country, it must be defined; that is, it must be decided what constitutes Christianity; and that definition will be the national creed just as the Nicene creed was the creed of Rome.