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The "

Capital Journal" of Oregon Has
No Need of Blue Laws

The Capital Journal of Salem, Oreg., in an editorial of Nov. 30, 1920, says:

"An attempt to retain the blue laws was overwhelmingly defeated by popular vote at the 1916 election, and the necessity of their re-enaction is not apparent. . . . It is not the lack of blue laws that makes empty churches; it is the lack of a vital appeal in the church itself. Some denominations that never concern themselves with politics or blue or other sumptuary laws, never complain of lack of attendance. Those churches which observe Saturday as the Sabbath, in spite of all the inconvenience incurred thereby, have uniformly large congregations. Blue laws will not increase church attendance. The remedy for empty pews lies within the church and not without, and is a matter for the church to rectify, and not the state."

The Akron "Evening Times" Diagnoses the Case

In an editorial of the Akron (Ohio) Evening Times of February 14, the editor diagnoses the Sunday blue law case very accurately, in our judgment, when he says:

"The blue Sunday' movement, instead of advertising the power and influence of the church, is only a confession of weakness and futility.

"Why should it be necessary, if the churches have been at all potent in their labors, to invoke the police power of the state in order to enforce popular compliance with a rule that is essentially religious? What can be said for the effectiveness of the church's teachings when the statute law must be called in to 'vitalize' the law of the church and Scripture? What is the power of attraction in modern church services that people must be denied every competitive avocation, even the reading of the morning's newspaper, in the hope of forcing them toward a house of worship'? Where is the influence of the church in the home, that the state must be called in to eliminate Sunday amusements, to save from contamination the children of Christian parents unable or disinclined to direct the conduct of their own offspring? What sort of religion is it, in brief, that would prescribe conformity by statute as a substitute for spontaneous devotion?

"If the non-Christian and the unchurched were the only violators of Sabbath sanctity as construed by the blue crusaders, their case might reflect less weakness on the part of the

But everybody knows that only a tring perentage of muren alerts praete any men ngons Sunday soservance as it is now proposed to enjou by law. Atmusfing this fact, the ride presents the rienone aspect of the enirnes' wang ramitory aut to weep their own comnmirants faithful

the greed" One is almost formed to enaende, in the fare of men an anomaly, that ether the aurei nas Joer ime hold on its memhemanip or the traite tine ecareptica of the Barbara a naptable to aermal Christian minds of toray.

It is a homely did saying, hot tre, that a Christian is a peraca who will do right even when there's nobody locking."

It might be said with equal truth that the man with the proper spirit of reverence for the Sabbathwhether or not it agrees with yours or ours — doesn't need a set of time laws to make him show it And if he doesn't possess that spint, the whole United States Army can't inculcate it in him with tollets or bayonet.

• If the Christian churches of America are truly worried about the laxity of our Sabbaths, -as we think they have no small reason to he let them appeal through the force of sane example and the powerful persuasion of a living grapel, rather than resort to the coercion of man-made regulations. Respect for the Sabhath enformed by court convictions will never compare with reverence for the Sabbath inspored by moral conviction. Our meager memory of Seripture is that the Master once said,

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And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men anto Me! We are unable to recall that He ever petitioned Cesar for a law to drive them.” The Washington Times" on Excessive

Reformism

An editorial in the Washington Times of February 7, shows how "reformers discredit their own reforms by their unAmerican methods and ideals. The editor of the Washington Times is not afraid of calling a spade a spade, and lays the ax to the root of the “reform” tree. He says:

"Most reformers seem to have good charaeter and good purposes, but notably lack the balance of good judgment and common sense.

"As a result, these reformers, after they have accomplished some admittedly needed reforms, generally go to such lengths in the prosecution of their extreme ideas as to discredit not only themselves, but their whole program of reform.

"Reform becomes a business with certain persons.

"And it is a business of busybodies; of meddling, interfering eranks, with queer crotchets

and conceptions— cranks with such a disproportionate sea of the importance of their alleged refirms that they would establish their peruar fas and affectations even at the saerice of the base ngis and liberties of the putise and the free democratic institutions of

the nation.

- Such refirmers are a Estinet menace to the peace and happiness, to the prosperity and Sherry, of the Begation.

- Their organised effectiveness and their pernicious and persistent activity give them an infuence out of all proportion to their numbers, their power, or their worth.

- Their narrow, shallow, irritating interference with the simplest enjoyments and plainest rights of the pable is making the very names of reform and reformer detested, and is sure to bring about a reaction which will result in causing even proper regulative measures to be thrown overboard along with these objec tionable Jonahs of reform that are endangering the safety of the whole reform ship through a storm of popular indignation and repudiation...

- Under the autocratie plan proposed by these reformers for their own benefit, and possibly for their own employment, a small body of prejudiced, bigoted, narrow-minded, shortsighted realots can sit in a back room and exereise despotic powers without regard or consideration for the wish or the welfare of the people...

The whole structure of our American liberties is likely to be eaten away and undermined by them, and great moral forces, like the press, that are eager to support all legitimate reform movements, are compelled to array themselves against the pestiferous activities of these reform plagues in order to protect their own rights and liberties and the rights and liberties of the people."

Washington (D. C.) "Times "

What Will America Stand For? The editor of the Washington Times, January 1, pays his compliments to Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts, the head of the International Reform Bureau, who styles himself" Christian lobbyist "in "charge of the morals of this country." The editor says:

"If any man thinks he has charge of the morals of the country, without having been elected to that job by the people, a revival of the ducking stool of carlier reform bureaus ' might do something to enlighten him. . Dr. Crafts says, ' What the United States stands for is an American Sabbath.' Precisely, and what is an American Sabbath? It is a day like (Continued on page 62)

The "Professional Reformer,"

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country," is very 66 Moral Uplifter"

names to be used as "directors" of the International Reform Bureau. They replied that they knew nothing whatever about their being "directors" of the International Reform Bureau until they saw their names heralded as such in the newspapers, and that they were as much opposed to compulsory Sunday observance as ever, and had not changed their position on that question. One of the Senators said he had been "humiliated" by these "reform societies" several times before by their use of his name without his authorization, and that he intended to put a stop to it, if possible.

The Need of
Reforming Reformers

anxious "to Puritanize the impuritans of America," and to reform all the "godless" by civil law. If we are not badly mistaken, this national and "professional reformer" needs to "purify" some of his own methods of procedure.

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By the Editor

It was not so very long ago that we received International Reform literature from Dr. Crafts, exclusively devoted to the propagation of his own pet reforms, under the mailing "frank" of a member of Congress. This privilege was misappropriated by him. The government had to take action against the wrong use of the "frank by Dr. Crafts. On the occasion of the last International Reform Bureau Convention held in Washington, D. C., Dr. Crafts printed a long list of Congressmen as "directors" of the International Reform Bureau. When we saw this list in the newspapers and understood that all these men stood for the drastic Sunday blue laws as advocated by the International Reform Bureau, we wondered by what means some of them were ever induced to consent to have their names printed on the official program as "directors 99 of the International Reform Bureau. Personally, I knew some of these Congressmen to be hostile to every form of Sunday legislation. Consequently I wrote to them, asking how and by what means they had been induced to permit their

Another Senator who was named as a "director" and as favoring the Sunday blue laws, openly averred in the press that he was diametrically opposed to any such legislation.

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Still another Congressman who was listed as a director of the International Reform Bureau and as favoring stringent Sunday laws for the District of Columbia, spoke before the Kiwanis Club of Washington at its weekly luncheon, a few days after Dr. Crafts listed him as a strong advocate of Sunday laws, and emphatically denied that he favored "Sunday blue law legislation for the District." He said to the members of the Kiwanis Club: "Any one who says I am in favor of laws to take the sun out of Sunday' is an unmitigated fool and an unfumigated liar."

From this it is plainly evident that International Reformism needs to reform its own methods. The International Reform Bureau is conveying the impression

to the public that its organization is one of great strength and officially composed of the leading and influential men of the nation, when as a matter of fact the International Reform Bureau represents a very small group outside of Dr. Crafts, and according to its official report "the International Reform Bureau comprises only a little more than a dozen actual workers" and "some 15,000 members." The writer has been present several times when these so-called "Christian reformers" have made up their official roster of "big" names comprising their long list of vice-presidents and directors. These "big" names, without the knowledge of the men who bear them, were selected to give official prestige and influence to the reform movement, and sometimes such names are retained on the official roster after strong protests are presented by those whose names are thus selected and used without their consent.

It may be that Dr. Crafts honestly concluded that all these Congressmen and prominent men who stood for national prohibition would also favor a national Sunday law for the same reason that they favored prohibition, and therefore felt justified in using their names, without their consent, as favoring compulsory religion. But right here is where the International Reform Bureau, the Lord's Day Alliance, and other religious societies favoring Sunday blue laws, are deceiving themselves. Some of the strongest prohibitionists in this country are diametrically opposed to all kinds of Sunday legislation, because they regard Sunday observance as a purely religious matter, with which the state by right can have nothing to do. Prohibition is purely a civil question relating to man's proper relation to society and the physical welfare of its members. But Sabbath observance is a duty due to God, not to the state, and pertains to the spiritual welfare of the soul;

and soul rest cannot be enforced by civil law. A religious duty can be regulated and enforced only by the individual conscience for the spiritual welfare of the man who chooses to serve God.

Perhaps these Sunday blue law advocates think that while styling themselves "professional reformers," they do not need to be careful about their own. methods of procedure, because professionalism has its own standards. A man may be a "professional" Christian and not be a real Christian. A man may do his preaching professionally, just as a lawyer or a physician does his work professionally. But a preacher who preaches professionally only, cannot reach the hearts of the people. The preacher must love his people if he would win them.

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THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY

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has become to the people "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." A "professional reformer" may play his religious fiddle while Rome and the Christian martyrs are burning at his instigation, but his memory will always be held in public contempt, as is that of Nero.

The Christian must love his way into the hearts of the people and make his religion attractive and lovable, if he would have others fall in love with it. He must preach the love that radiates from the cross of Christ if he would win sinners. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth," said Christ, "will draw all men unto Me." "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." The Father draws men to Christ, not by the power of men, not by the might of the state through civil law,

but "by My Spirit, saith the Lord. of hosts." This sinning world longs for more of the comfort, love, sympathy, and gentleness of the meek and lowly Nazarene, who loved the sinner with an unchanging love. Divine love, not human law, is the power that transforms the human heart. There is no moral power in physical force. Men are not made Christians by civil statute, nor even by divine law.

The church that seeks an alliance with the state corrupts her own purity. Christ never sought to reform the governments of earth by making an alliance with the state. Everything that Christ did was free from guile and as clear as the sunlight. In following the example of Christ, we shall never be led to deceive the people nor to persecute our fellow men because they happen to dissent from our religious opinions. We shall always commit the unbelievers and wanderers to the mercies of God, but never to the stake, the rack, or the guillotine of the civil executioner. All religious questions will have to be settled before the judgment bar of God "in the last day," not at Cæsar's judgment seat now.

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