The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-02 00:00:00

tr;ze and observe their religious institutions? All they
s,ked was toleration; all they complained of was perse-
estion. What did the Protestants of Germkny, or the
flugenots of France, ask of their Catholic superiors?
Toleration. What do the persecuted Catholics of Ire-
land ask of their oppressors? Toleration.
"Do not all men in this country enjoy every religious
right which martyrs and saints ever asked? Whence
then the voice of complaint? Who is it that, in the
full enjoyment of every principle which human laws
can secure, wishes to arrest a portion of these principles
from his neighbour? 1).) the petitioners allege that they
cannot conscientiously partcipate in profili of the
mail contracts and post-offices because the mail is
carried on Sunday ? If this be their motive, then it is
worldly gain which stimulates to action, and not virtue
or religion. DJ th©y complain that men, less conscien-
tious in relation to the Sabbath, obtaia advantages over
them by receiving their letters aed attending to their
contents? still their motive id worldly and selfish. But
if their motive be to induce Congress to sanction by law
their religious opinions and observance., then their
efforts ought tote resisted, as in their tendency fatal
both to religious and political freedom. Wby have the
petitioners confined their prayer to the mails ?
Why have they not requested that the Government
be required to suspend all its executive functions on
that day? Why do they not require us to enact that
our ships shall not sail ; that our armies shall not
march; that officers of justice shall not seize the sus-
pected,
or guard the convicted? They.seent to forget
that government is as necessary on Sunday as on any
other day of the week. The spirit of evil does not' rest
on that day. It is the Government, ever active in its
functions, which enables us all—even the petitioners—to
worship in our churches in peace. Our Government
furnishes very few blessings like our mails. They bear
from the centre of our Republic to its distant extremes
the Acts of oar. legislative bodies, the decisions of
the judiciary, and the orderS of the Executive.
Their speed is often essential to the defence of the
country, the suppression of crime, and the dearest
interests of the people. Were they suppressed
one day of the week, their absence must be often sup-
plied by public expresses; and, besides, while the mail
bags might rest, the mail coaches would pursue their
journey with the passengers. The mail bears, from one
extreme of the Union to the other, letters of relatives
and friends, preserving a communion of heart between
those far separated, and increasing the most pure and
refined pleasures of our existence; also the letters of
commercial men convey the state of the markets, prevent
ruinous speculations, and promote general as well as in-
dividual interest; they bear innumerable religious letters,
newspapers, magazines, and ;tracts, which reach almost
every house throughout this wide Republic. Is the convey-
ance of these a violation of the Sabbath ? The advance of the
human race in intelligence, in virtue, and religion itself,
depends in part upon the speed with which a knowledge
of the past is disseminated. Without an interchange
between one country and another, and between different
sections of the same country, every improvement in
moral or political science and the arts of life, would be

confined io the neighbourhood where it originated. The
more rapid and the more frequent this interchange, the
more rapid will be the march of intellect, and the pro-
gress of improvement, The mail is the chief means by
which intellectual light irradiates to the extremes of the
Republic. Stop it one day in seven, and you retard one-
seventh the advancement of our county. So far from
stopping the mail on Sunday, the Committee would re-
commend the use of all reasonable means to give it a
greater expedition and a greater extension. What
would be the elevation of our country, if every new con-
ception could be made to strike every mind in the Union
at the same time? It is not the distance of a province
or state from the seat of Government which endangers its
separation, but it is the difficulty and unfrequency of
intercourse between them. Our mails reach Missouri and
Arkansas, in less time than they reached Kentucky and
Ohio in the infancy of their settlements • and now, when
there are three millions of people extending a thousand
miles west of the Allegany, we hear less of discontent
than when there were a few thousands scattered along
their western base.

"To stop the mails one day in seven would be to
thrust the whole western country, and other distant
parts of this Republic, one day's journey from the seat
of Government. But were it expedient to put an end
to the transmission of letters and newspapers on Sun-
day, because it violates the law of God, have not the
petitioners begun wrong in their efforts? If the arm of
Government be necessary to compel men to respect and
obey the laws of God, do not the State Governments
possess infinitely more power in this respect? Let the
petitioners turn to them, and see if they can induce the
passage of laws to respect the observance of the Sab-
bath within the respective States, for, if it be sinful for
the mail to carry letters on Sunday, it must be equally
sinful for individuals to write, carry, receive, or read
them. It would nears to require that these Acts
should be snado penal to complete the sys-
tem. Travelling on business or recreatior, except
to and from church, all printing, carrying, receiving,
and reading of newspapers,—ell conversations and social
intercourse, except upon religious subjects, must neccs•
sari() he punished to suppress the evil. Would it not
ako follow, as an inevitable consequence, that every
Wan, woman, and child should be compelled to attend
church or meeting-house? And, as only one sect, in
the opinion of some, ca❑ be deemed orthodox, must it
not be determined by law which that sect is; and com-
pel all other sects and persons to hear those teachers and
contribute to their support? if minor punishments
would not restrain the Jew, or the Sabbatariar, or the
Infidel, who believes Saturday to be the Sabbath, or
disbelieves the whole, would not the same system
require that we should resort to imprisonment,
banishment, the rack, and the faggot, to force men to
violate their own conscience, or compel them to listen
to doctrines which they abhor? When the State Go-
v( rnments shall have yielded to these reeasures, it will
be time enough for Congress to declare that the rattling
of the mail coaches shall no longer break the silence of
this despotism. It is the duty of this Government to
afford to all—to Jew or Gentile, Pagan or Christian—
the protection and the advantages of our benignant in-
stitutions on Sunday, as well as on every day of the
week. Although this Government will not convert
itself into an ecclesiastical tribunal, it will practise
upon the maxim laid down by the founder of Christianity
—that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.
If the Almighty has set apart the first day of
the week as a time which man is bound to keep holy, and
devote exclusively to his worship, would it not be more '
congenial to the precepts of Christiaus to appeal exclu-
sively to the grew, Lawgiver of the Universe to aid them
in making men better—in correcting their practices by
purif)ing their hearts? Government will protect them
in their efforts. When they shall have so instructed the
public mind, and awakened the consciences of individuals
as to make them believe that it is a violation of God's
law to carry the mail, open post-offices, or receive letters,
on Sunday, the evil of which they complain will cease of
itself, without any exertion of the strong arm of civil
power. When man undertakes to be God's avenger, he
becomes a demon. Driven by the frenzy of a religious
zial, he loses every gentle feeling. forgets th• most
sAcred precepts of his creed, and becomes ferocious and
unrelenting.

" The petitioners have not requested Congress to sup-
press Sunday mails upon the ground of political expe-
diency. but because they violate the sanctity of the first
day of the week.
_

This being the fact, and the petitioners having in-
dignantly disclaimed even the wish to unite politics and
religion, may not the Committee reasonably cherish the
hope that they will feel reconciled to its decision i❑ the
case; especially as it is also u fact that the counter-
memorials, equally respectable, oppose the interference
of Congress, upon the ground that it would be legis-
Ilting upon a religious subject, and therefore unconstitu-
tional?"

" Resolved,—That the Committee be discharged
from the further consideration of the subject."

" To the Honourable the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives, in Congress assembled. The Subscribers,
inhabitants of the Cuunty of Salem, in the State of
New Jersey, respectfully represent—
" That your meinerialits belong to various religious
denominations of Christians, and some of them are COO•.
scientious in the belief that the seventh day of the.
week, commonly called Saturday, is the true Sabbath;
that they have learned with regret that attempts are
simultaneously making, in different sections of the
country, to get up petitions and memorials to Congress
to pass a law for stopping the United States Mail on
Sunday. While your memorialists acknowledge, with
the most devout reverence, that ' the earth is the Lord's,
and the, fulness thereof.' and do most solemnly disclaim all
idea of ' robbing Jehovah of the worship which is his due,'
as Christians and Republicans they are constrained to
remonstrate against the passage of such a law, which they
believe would be pregnant with serious evils to our
country. We are of opinion that the report of the
Committee of tine United States Senate of the last year
on this subject is conclusive, and that the first Article
of Amendments to the Constitution, which declares that
' Congress shall mak') no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
or of abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,'
has virtually prohibited Congress from legislating on
this subject. In the opinion of your memorialists, errors
of opinion, whether of religion or politics, may be safely
tolerated in our country, and no surveillance is required
to control them other than that of ' roast n, a free press,'
,rod ' the free eJurv, oil' the Gospel.' From the judi•
cious arrangement of the Post•efEco, department, there is
no remota to dread any disturbance of religious societies
in their devout worship on that day; and the passage of
such a law would, in the opinion of your memorialists,
by occasioning numerous expresses and other modes of
conveyance, defeat the ostensible ebjeet of the law itself.
Such a measure would ha the result of a ' zesi not
according to knowledge,' and is not warranted by the
benevolent spirit of our holy religion, which is ' gentle,'
and not coercive which is ' without partiality,
and without hypocrisy'--which inculcates an active
benevolence which discovers to us a Deity who
delights not in ' sacrifices end vain oblations,' but in the
offering of a humble and contrite heart, and whose good-
ness is over all his works. The proposed measure
would tend to c;reuiescribe and restrict the benefits of tt,
free press, which is the palladium of our liberties, and
to check or retard the diffusion of knowledge, which in
the order of Pri.iTidence ia the aarestmef3ns cf epteedieg