Year: 1876

L
The Religious Element Controlling In Public
Affairs.


The outcry made by few OF the
newspaper because the Centennial Ex-
hibition is to be closed on Sunday,
brings beautifully to view two points
of interest and value.


These are the moral sentiment of
the American people, and the import
ance of concentrating it in appropriate
action when great good is to be done,
or a great evil averted.


This is religious people: we hold
also that it is Christian people, but
that is not the point we are just now
driving at. Enough for the argument
that we are eligious in this sense, that
we, as a nation, believe that God is,
and therefore is an object of worship
and reverence. The number of citi-
zens who reject the idea of Divine su-
perintendence, and live without the
fear of God in their eyes, is SO small,
as to be properly left out of the ac-
count. De mtnimis ler non curat.
The law takes no notice of infinitesi
mails. There are in all large cities a
few atheists, and of these not all de-
spise the value of religion, even if they
think it to be superstition. But in the
city and the country at large, among
native and immigrated citizens alike,
and among all ranks and conditions of
society, the religious sentiment is near
ly universal. As great cities are great
sores, we find in them the deposit OF
the worst element always, but even
in them there is better and mightier
power that restrains and saves. And
the moment we step out of the largest
cities into the smaller, and into the
rural towns and villages, we find the
moral power all on one side, and that
the right side. In a city of 20, 900 in
habitants, one quarter of the people
will be adult members of churches,
showing that the entire community is
identified with the religious institu
tions of the place. In such places it is
not respectable to be an anti religious
man. Every good citizen, almost with
out exception, Is a pew holder in a
church, and regular contributor to
the support of the gospel. Divided as
the people may be into denominations,
and jealous of each others rights as
churchmen, they are one and indivisi-
BILE when great moral questions sum-
mon the country to united action.
Even the children of the people, espe-
cially of those who are self-expluded
from church associations, are under
such religious instruction In school, as
gives them a moral sentiment with
which they grow into citizenship.
Thus it comes to pass that the relig-
ious idea is more widely diffused, and
has taken a deeper hold, in this coun-
try, than in any other on the globe!
Even in the mother country, 1--WE love
to call it SO in this year particularly
there is more organized intidelity and
anti church sentiment than we have
among us. The popular idea on this
side of the water is religious; and this
is true notwithstanding the vast
amount of crime, and vice that is not
called crime, because human law does
not punish it.


Hence the decent respect which is
paid to the religions idea, by the news
papers that are in the hands of men of
the world. We have no respectable
organs of public sentiment that op-
pose religion, because there is no pub
lie sentiment of that sort to present.


Hence the Sabbath laws in all the
States of the Union, new States as well
as old. They are not founded on con-
siderations of public policy SO much as
on the moral sentiment of the people.
They reflect and express the ingrained
conviction of the American mind that
the worship of God is a human duty.
The few, of peculiar religion or none,
the few who regard all days alike, and
reject with contempt all divine pre-
cepts, are not taken into the account
when the interests and opinions of the
overwhelming majority of the people
are considered. There is no Sabbath
law In any State that eompels a man
to keep the day holy; but every Sab
bath law does restrain him from SO
using it as to interfere with the rights
of the vast majority who wish to have
the day In peace. This is good Amer
lean doctrine, as we'll as religious and
Christian.


So We come to the public Exhibition
question. Thousands of Christian peo-
pie would be compelled by q law re-
quiring exhibitions to be kept open on
Sunday, either to violate their own
convictions of duty or to resign their
places All the men and women EN-.
ployed have as good a right to the
Sabbath as others, and law to require
them to labor seven days In a week,


while it forbids all other people to Ia


bor on that day, is unjust, partial and


despotic. II all conscientious men re.
sign because they cannot labor on the
Sabbath, it comes to pass that the


work. with its varied responsibilities,


IL left In the hands OF men who admit
that they have not the fear of God be-
fore their eyes. And In the case of
National Exhibition, such a. is now
open In Philadelphia, We may safely
say that to make it the scene of legal


lied violation of the Sabbath. would