WE did not imagine, when we devoted some space to the subject of the flag salute in our issue of November 25, that we were considering anything more than a local issue. But we were not long in discovering that we had touched a chord which awoke responsive echoes all over the country.
This is very significant. The flag salute is neither local nor accidental. The Boulder incident is but the outcropping of an influence that is at work all through the land. Since noticing that, the news comes that the same salute is being practiced in the Iowa State Normal school, where the young people are trained in the art of teaching, the design being that the graduates as they go out to teach shall introduce the salute in their respective schools. In Pennsylvania the same influence is at work, and experiences similar to those in Boulder have already occurred. Thus the forces are gathering for an attack upon the principles of religious freedom in the public schools; and this will bring the test of loyalty to principle right home to parents everywhere. They will not need to wait till they shall be brought before the courts for breaking Sunday.
But who knew that all this was brewing in our midst? [4] That is the question. Who knew that the enemy was quietly stealing a march upon the friends of freedom? Did you, reader, know it? And now that it is known, how do you feel about it? Will it pay to know what is going on in this great contest of the principles of liberty and of despotism? or is it the better way to wait and be confronted suddenly by the issue when you are not prepared to meet it?
You had not expected the issue to come in this way? Of course not; that is just the point. For you may be sure of this: the issues which you will be called to face in this contest will not come as you expect them to come. You must be prepared for them not as you expect them to come, but as you do not expect them.
WHEN the civil law undertakes to suppress immorality, it finds no logical stopping place short of the Inquisition.