The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-15
THE AMERICAN SABBATH

THE AMERICAN SABBATH
 What is an "American Sabbath" We hear the phrase constantly. It is thundered at us by those who seek to make the stream of life flow through the channels of narrow sectarianism; thundered at us until we have come to believe that there is such a thing, and that it is a day of darkness, oppression and gloom. We are asked to stand for the American Sabbath" as opposed to that of Europe or Asia or Africa, and we are made to feel that it is almost matter of patriot ism, and that we are disloyal to our country if we do not agree
 Now this American Sabbath" to which we are asked to be loyal is a thing of repres- sion and restraint. It is bulwarked by laws and defended by the local police department. It is the battle flag of contemptible political ambition, which seeks to get and hold office by appealing to the religious prejudice of the people. It proposes to limit our pleasure on Sunday to the very admirable spheres of church and home. The trouble is that un- counted millions of Americans have neither one. In view of all this I am led to ask By what right does a minority frame scheme of Sunday observance, and call it the 'oaDDatn Tor AmeflcdnS.
 What is an American Sabbath anyway? Is it the Sabbath of the stern and narrow Purj- tan of New England or of the Roman Cath ollie who settled Maryland and Florida, Loui- siana and Mobile? Is it the Sabbath of the Pennsylvania Quaker, or of the Cavalier who settled Virginia and the Carolinas? There were many people of many creeds engaged in building the institutions under which we live and it is utterly unfair-and untrue to take the peculiar Sabbath of a small minority of them and call it American" and seek to press it down upon the unwilling children of all the rest.
 When the reformers speak in bitter de- nunciation of 'the European Sabbath," we are forced to admit that one may select | certain portions of Europe wherein religion | and morals-are not all that would have them be. But having made that selec- 1 ton, you will find this to be true-and ! challenge denial-that those are the very | places where bigotry was most rampant in a bygone age; the very places where with rack and scourge and stake, mems religious convictions were forced into outward con formity to a common mold. It is no wonder | IIldL IellBIOH uleu lueIe. lHbOieTdHCe anu bigotry killed it,, as they will always kill it wherever they have full sway
 It is no accident that America-whose religious liberty has been greatest-is the most religious country in the world today. She is religious in proportion as religion has been untrammeled and free-and be- cause more than in any other land religion and politics have been separate through the careful provision-and provision of our fathers And this is also true; in proportion as that freedom is restricted by law, religion will die. If you want the European Sun day" all you need do is to use the method which made Europe what it is today; namely | the civil control of the human conscience. If this is what we are coming to, I can stand it, but I deny the right of any man to call a government-regulated Sunday by the sacred name of America. If you and I do not agree about Sunday observance, you may I have the power, but you have not the right to force your opinion on me. If you do, suggest that the "Prussian Sabbath would be nearer the truth
 MIDDLETON S. FAREWELL.