that noe person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparell, either woollen, silke, or lynnen, with any lace on it, silver, golde, silke, or threed, under the penalty of forfecture of such cloathes, etc.

"Also, that noe person, either man or woman, shall make or buy any slashed cloathes, other than one slashe in each sleeve and another in the backe; also, all cuttworks, imbroidered or needleworke capps, bands, and rayles, are forbidden hereafter to be made and worne, under the aforesaid penalty; also, all gold or silver girdles, hattbands, belts, ruffs, beaver hatts, are prohibited to be bought and worne hereafter, under the aforesaid penalty, etc. . . .

"Provided, and it is the meaning of this

Court, that men and women shall have liberty to weare out such apparell as they are nowe provided of (except the immoderate greate sleeves, slashed apparell, immoderate greate rayles, longe wings, etc.). This order to take place a fortnight after the publishing thereof."

"Against Cakes and Buns

"It is ordered, also, that no person shall sell any cakes or buns, either in the markets or victualing houses, or elsewhere, upon paine of 10s. fine; provided that this order shall not extend to such cakes as shal bee made for any

buriall, or marriage, or such like spetiall casion."

The Blue Law Quibble

If the present Sunday law advoca say the above Sunday laws and religi enactments are not "blue,” and “ne were blue," then we should like to kn how far, in their estimation, religi fanatics would have to go in the ena ment of drastic religious laws bef they would be willing to acknowleć that they were blue. These religious formers who believe in reforming eve body by means of human law, thi everything along this line is fine, so lo as their pet theories are enforced by 1 power of the civil magistrate; but if tables were ever turned, and their op nents begin to apply similar measu to them, contrary to their views, imme ately the world would look as “blue indigo." This question of blue laws largely a question of whose ox is bei gored.

C. S. L

T

HE Los Angeles Examiner of Dec. 23, 1920, contained an article entitled, "Blues Over the 'Blue Laws.'" The writer of the article favors the Sunday-closing measure of the Sabbath alliance presented to the national Congress, and seems to think the country would be better off if it had a Sunday law. He says that "what we need is rest and quiet and meditation on the higher things of time and eternity."

The question at once arises, Can these be secured by a law whose essence would be to punish people for pursuing common vocations on Sunday? Would the thought of his neighbor languishing in jail for the offense of hoeing in his garden, tend to stimulate this learned divine to meditation on "higher things," or would he be consumed with anxiety for fear the culprit would break out and commit the same dastardly deed again?

It must be a queer type of mind ti will enjoy peace in contemplation of fact that a quiet, inoffensive citizen languishing in jail for such an innoc act. This is really the spirit of Ham of the Bible record, whose peace of mi and enjoyment of the banquet could secured only by hanging Mordecai bef going to the feast.

Further, the writer of the article ferred to says: "What we need, the fore, above everything else today, is return to the old-fashioned Lord's da in which the plow rested in the furr and the sweet Sabbath bells sound across the silent fields and the resti cities, calling the people from the fev ish activities of the week and turni their thoughts to those divine and hea enly ideals which constitute at last t true life of man!"

Against this also we have no wo

ut again assert that such a condition annot be secured by legislation. Let his gentleman and all his brethren in nd out of the ministry both teach Sab

W

E are glad to report that a very considerable number of the leading clergymen in this counry are with us in this fight against the Sunday blue laws. A large number ave expressed their opposition in vigor us terms in the press and from the pulit. These true and loyal ambassadors f the Lord Jesus Christ believe that the ospel should be carried to the world y gospel methods, and that to employ he arbitrary power of the civil law and he civil magistrate is an utter perverion of the principles of true Chrisianity. We are glad to insert a few of he protests from these clergymen as hey appeared in the public press.

r. William F. Manning Against Blue Laws According to the Philadelphia Public Ledger of Nov. 29, 1920, the Rev. Wm. . Manning, pastor of Trinity Church, New York City, recently elected bishop f the Protestant Episcopal Church for he diocese of New York, flatly opposed any church-civic movement to enforce trict observance of Sunday." Dr. Maning said these Sunday blue law camaigns "sprang from a puritanical and isguided conception." He further ays:

"This proposed campaign for stricter laws one of those well-meant but misguided efforts hich do harm instead of good to the cause hich they are intended to serve. It is imacticable, wrong in principle, and based on narrow and imperfect conception of the hristian religion. Such a method of securg the observance of Sunday would do far ore to drive religion out of the hearts of the eople than to draw them toward it. . . . he Christian religion does not stand for petty straints and restrictions, but for gladness and

freedom and all that adds to the goodness of life. It is this which we need to help our young people and to bring them near to God, and not any revival of the Puritan Sunday."

Leading Baptist Minister Against Sunday Laws

The Rev. Arthur C. Baldwin, pastor of the Chestnut Street Baptist Church of Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Public Ledger of Nov. 29, 1920, was listed as opposed to the literal enforcement of the Sunday law, "and not in sympathy with the methods of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association." Dr.

Baldwin said:

"Religious observances should not be enforced by laws. If we Christians can do this, we should not deny that the Jews may do it with Saturday, or Mohammedans, if there were enough of them, with Friday. But that would 800n be persecution for somebody. There should rather be a separation of church and state. . . . Let each use the day according to his conscience and with liberty so long as he does not interfere with another's rights.

. . Give us а movement within the churches to put more into the day, more faith, love, and devotion. We shall not redeem it by making it a vacuum. Not laws, but Christian conscience is the remedy. Only as the day means more to us will it mean more to the world."

Noted Surgeon and Religious Worker

Opposed to Sunday Laws

Dr. William Williams Keen, of Philadelphia, president of the International Congress of Surgeons, and a religious worker, according to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of January 18, "is a strong disbeliever in the blue laws." Dr. Keen said:

"I have repeatedly told Dr. Mutchler [secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance of Pennsylvania] that I cannot join him in the Sabba

tarian propaganda. I am a Baptist, but not a Seventh Day Baptist, but I also believe that the Seventh Day Baptists, who regard Saturday as the day for worship and Sunday as a day for work, ought not to be disturbed. I believe with all my heart in religious liberty, and I know of instances where farmers in the fields, who are Seventh Day Baptists, were arrested and thrown into jail. I consider such acts an outrage against religious liberty."

Sunday Laws Encourage Idleness and Vice Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, of Philadelphia, who has traveled extensively in Europe, says in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of February 8:

"The piety that is enforced is of little value to God and man. People of the present day cannot be legislated into holiness. Insistence upon a Puritanic Sabbath will hasten its doom. I have failed to find that the morals of the people generally were any better, happier, healthier, where the Sabbath was kept in a rigid, Puritanic manner, than where it was observed in a broad and liberal spirit. I have observed more drunkenness on the streets of London on a Sabbath day than I observed on the streets of a dozen Continental capitals on a Sabbath day."

Idleness was the basic curse of Sodom, and the vices followed in its wake. The Sunday blue laws stand for nothing but enforced idleness. For the godless and irreverent, enforced idleness means an opportunity to sow the seed of vice, which will produce a harvest of immorality. The police court statistics show that five times more criminals are brought into its courts on Monday morning than on any other day of the week, because of enforced idleness on Sunday. It were much better that the godless be occupied with an honorable occupation or innocent recreation on Sunday than that he be forced to be idle. And the man that is godly needs no law to compel him to observe a Sabbath day. Then why legislate upon this subject at all?

The "Evening Chronicle," of Vallejo,
California

Evangelist Francis D. Nichol, of Vallejo, Calif., writing on the Sunday blue laws at the request of the Chronicle, February 5, says:

"History gives the lie to the claim that legislation can reform men. The age that witnessed

the compiling of the justly famous Theodosiss and Justinian codes, witnessed also the com plete moral breakdown of civilization.

"The ancient nation of Israel is an illustr tion of legalistic, or, as reformers say, 'eivi righteousness,' in full flower. Especially were their laws for Sabbath observance specific and drastic. They went far beyond the fondes and most advanced hopes set by modern Sabbath reform law drafters. The distance a man was allowed to walk and the manner in which b should carry his handkerchief on the Sabbath were clearly set down. In comparison, ca blue laws would look like the product of a freethinker and confirmed liberal.

"Are Israelites Moral Criterion? "Now, according to the reasoning of moder reformers, that stricter Sunday laws woul make the people more holy, - we should expect to find the ancient Israelite the very parage of virtue, the personification of spiritual per fection. But even a tyro in history knows that that was not so. And the smallest Sunday school child can relate some scathing rebuke administered to those self-righteous legislators, so often are they to be found in the New Testa ment records. Christ spent a great deal of His time in an effort to free the poor classes from the unbearable Sabbath legislation of the ru ing class, the scribes and Pharisees. . we understand the genius of Christian literty and freedom of conscience, every mas must decide between himself and the Supreme Ruler what is lawful' to be done on that or any other day, in matters religious.

"Inside of Cup' Filthy

A

"There is a modern dramatic productio entitled, The Inside of the Cup,' which titl is taken directly from a statement of the Christ to the legalistic reformers of that time. The striking figures of cup and sepulcher are used Legal holiness cleansed the outside of the cup, but left the inside filthy; it whitewasher the outside of the tomb, but left the insid full of dead men's bones

"Mere Exterior Effect

"All the proposed Sunday legislation of t day is but an endeavor to whitewash the s face. It never can do more. However, wh the religious leaders of the people are engrosSSÄ in intensive lobbying, they have little or time for real constructive work. . . . Ar unquestionably they deserve the same accuss tion as the Liberator of men hurled at t Pharisees, they strain at a gnat, and swa low a camel.'"

Sunday Blue Laws Did Not Purify the Puritans

According to the Boston Globe and the Baltimore News of January 26, the Ret

J. I. J. Corrigan, professor of social ethics at Boston College, in a speech which he delivered to eleven hundred teachers and professional men of Greater Boston, said:

"If we may judge from the results of 'blue laws' in the early days, as witnessed to by no less an authority than Governor Bradford himself, nothing of good may be expected if such laws are written again upon the statute books.

"Governor Bradford, writing in the year 1642, paints this gloomy picture of Pilgrim conditions after thirty years of Sabbatarial Sundays:

"Marvelous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickedness did grow and break forth here, in a land where the same was so much witnessed against, and so narrowly looked into and severely punished when it was known. And yet all this could not suppress the breaking out of sundry notorious sins (as this year, 1642, besides others, gives us too many sad precedents and instances), especially drunkenness and uncleanness.'

"One of the most sacred prerogatives of our American civic life is the right of freedom to worship God according to one's conscience. Extremists would abridge this right, and make it of law to worship God according to their conscience, not according to one's own. Fanatical minorities are always dangerous, but never more so than when they fancy that they are doing the will of the Lord.

"It is a fact of human history and experience, explain it how you please, that extremes provoke extremes. The rule is inevitable. When restraints become intolerable, reaction, like the swing of a pendulum, sets in. The real danger from repressive legislation, apart from its in

justice, is the fact that it gives rise to contempt for all law.

"Sabbatarian Sunday regulations would certainly provoke violent disobedience and cynical disregard for the law. It would be fanatical idiocy to enact them.

"If the ministry of our Sabbatarian clergy has broken down, a little soul-searching will probably reveal that the true cause of the defection among their flocks is that the preaching of religion and the charity of Christ have been supplanted in their pulpits by social uplift and civic harangues."

An Attorney in the North Orwell" News " The North Orwell (Vt.) News contained an interesting article from an attorney, E. Fenwick Johnstone, LL. M., against the Sunday blue laws, as follows:

"In these days, when professional reformers are seeking to supersede God's method of persuasion by compulsion through statutory law, it is well to remind the people that the Almighty God has given to every one the right to decide for himself whether he shall worship or refuse to worship; but the blue Sunday bigots seem to think that a law compelling every one to observe Sunday according to their ideas would solve the world's problems and bring in the millennium. Sunday is not the Sabbath of the Lord, but a counterfeit; but any attempt to compel people to keep any day-Sunday or Saturday is entirely outside of man's jurisdiction.

"All Sunday laws ab initio have had worship' for their object. The present agitation for Sunday laws is to compel conscience, any claim to the contrary notwithstanding.

"The proposed Sunday law is an attempt to forge de nova the shackles for the soul."

A

CONTEMPORARY quotes the Epworth Herald (Methodist) as saying that "making and enorcing Sunday laws for the sake of the yeekly rest and the privilege of worhip, which every citizen has a right to emand, is one thing. Making and enorcing Sunday laws for the sake of ompelling people to attend church, is nother thing altogether."

But why? The principle is the ame whether I choose my neighbor's

Sabbath for him and force him to keep it, or choose his church for him and force him to attend it. Where is the difference in the principle? Both Sunday keeping and church going are exligious acts. All Protestants except Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists claim Sunday as the Sabbath. It is observed as a religious day, and is inseparably connected with religion. True, the day has no Bible foundation as a day of rest and wor

ship, but its observance is enforced because it is a religious institution.

Since Sunday is inseparably connected with religion, and is observed as a religious day, any law to compel its observance is, necessarily, a religious law. No man, and no association of men, has a right to choose another man's day of rest, nor to prescribe how he shall keep it. That is contrary to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who declared, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not." It is contrary to the instruction of the apostle Paul, who said, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." It is diametrically opposed to the words of John, in the Revelation, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Notice, the apostle does not say, "Whosoever will, let him pass a law forcing his neighbor to take the water of life."

Jesus never said to any man, "Follow Me, or I will bid Cæsar send you to jail." But He did say, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Christ not only never commanded Sunday to be kept as the Sabbath, but He never even implied that it ought to be kept. Further, He never told His followers to compel others to keep it, but on the other hand, very expressly forbade them to use the sword. Christ's church does not need Cæsar's aid in giving the gospel. The true church of Christ does not seek it. Her spouse is Christ the Lord, and she seeks no mésalliance with the state.

The Voice of the Press
(Continued from page 44)

the other six, on which each man minds his own business, allowing others to do the same, all refraining from breaking the law. One goes to church, and no one should interfere with him. Another goes fishing or golfing; no one should interfere with him."

The Jewish Advocate, said to be the largest Jewish publication in New Eng land and to have 250,000 readers, no long ago published an editorial which was quoted in the Boston Sunday Ad vertiser of Dec. 12, 1920, as follows:

"The blue laws are met not only with Con stitutional objections, but they conflict wit history as well.

"Sunday is not the divinely instituted da of rest. Sunday observance cannot be con nected with the Sabbath of the decalogue The Sabbath was and is the seventh day o the week. The change from Saturday to Sun day was effected long after the establishmen of the Christian church, partly to differ from Jewish religion and partly to please th Greco-Roman converts, who were in the habi of celebrating their Sabbath on the first da of the week, Apollo's day, the day sacred t the sun."

The "Outlook "

Liquor Will Be Brought Back by Blue Laws

The editor of the Outlook (Dec. 8 1920) makes the following statement which is right to the point:

"The reformers who are agitating for revival of Sunday laws should have the heart support of those who opposed the Eighteent Amendment, for we know of no better way t make the Eighteenth Amendment ridiculou than to extend national prohibition to mat ters with which the national Government can not rightfully concern itself. If the reform ers desire to arouse a sentiment which wil result in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amend ment, let them apply the principle of the Amendment to the observance of Sunday."

"Harvey's Weekly "

Under the title, "Fanatical Idiocy, the trenchant pen of Col. George Har vey, editor of Harvey's Weekly, in it issue of Dec. 11, 1920, expresses his op position to the proposed Sunday laws

"It should, indeed, be obvious to al thoughtful clergymen, and laymen, too, tha such ecclesiastical tyranny would be one of the worst possible things for the churches, at any rate for all that did not actively oppose and condemn it. It would be the most monumenta confession of impotence and failure, if not of hypocrisy, in all the history of the Christia: religion. It would be a confession that what preachers dwell upon as the beauty of holi