A FREAK bill has been introduced into Congress, designed to settle a number of vexed questions, among them being the proper reckoning of the days of the week. The bill in question would make the year consist of thirteen months of four weeks, or twenty-eight days, with an extra day each year to be called Sol, for the sun, and to be a legal holiday and not to be reckoned as belonging either to the month or the week. An additional extra day once in four years would be taken care of in a similar manner. Presumably, in the minds of its friends, such a law would settle the question as to the proper day of the Sabbath, for if Monday were made the first day of the week by act of Congress, Sunday would beyond question be the seventh day by the same authority. This of itself might be regarded by some as of sufficient importance to justify the proposed change. Then it would greatly simplify the matter of keeping track of the days of the month; Monday would always be the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd; Sunday always the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. The scheme is simplicity itself. The only wonder is that no one ever thought of it before. THE matter of a Sunday law for the District of Columbia is being pressed with an insistence that will not down. Just at present there is no special drive on for the attainment of this end, but the effort has not been abandoned, and awaits only a favorable opportunity to spring into action. In his annual address on the occasion of the twenty-third convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the diocese of Washington, on May 15, Bishop Alfred Harding said: "One of the serious signs of the times. is the growing disregard for the Lord's day in Washington." Bishop Harding said the opening of the theaters Sunday nights since midwinter, coupled with the all-day-everyday motion picture theaters, and the inCrease of work on buildings, railroads, etc., are among the evidences of the necessity of a Sunday law for the District of Columbia. "We do not want a Puritan Sunday," he continued, "but it is evident that for the sake of labor and for the quiet and order that should mark a day whose chief sanction is religious, there should be some reasonable restrictions." Here is a skilful blending of the civil and the religious idea: "for the sake of labor, and for the quiet and order that should mark a day whose chief sanction is religious." The bishop is modest: he gives "labor" the first, but not the chief place; the chief reason for demanding Sunday legislation is the religious character of the day, and this Bishop Harding frankly confesses. "Resolved, Second, that we as a nation should show the sincerity of our faith in God by keeping the Sabbath day as provided in our laws. We have greatly sinned in this respect, even this whole nation. It is time for sincere repentance and earnest prayer. But faith without works is dead. We should begin in good earnest to obey God. There are Federal laws and laws on the statute books of all the States of this nation, whose design is to protect the Sabbath as a sacred day by prohibiting secular employment and amusements on the Lord's day. The secular press often sneers at these laws as "old blue laws," but the secular press has not been without sin in this matter of breaking our Sabbath laws. The secular press of the country is a powerful agency for good, but it -should not be allowed to sin against God and destroy the most sacred institutions of this Republic. "We urgently call upon President Woodrow Wilson, and upon our Federal Congress, to make such proclamations and enact such appropriate legislation as is necessary to secure the uniform observance of the Christian Sabbath throughout the United States of America. We believe this will help toward a speedy victory on the field of battle and a righteous settlement at the close of the war. "Resolved, Third, that copies of these resolutions be sent to President Wilson, to our Representatives in Congress, to be read before the Senate and House of Representatives, to Governor Townsend, of the State of Delaware, and to the public press. "GEORGE A. Cook, "Minister of Methodist Episcopal Church.” There are several things that these petitioners seem to have overlooked, among which is the fact that Congress is by the national Constitution forbidden to pass any law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This may seem to some unimportant, but so far Congress has felt bound by it. Just how Mr. Wilson feels about the matter we are not informed, but presum ably he proposes to proper for the Sabbath, but of the right of the civil authorities to regulate Sabbath observance. The Saviour's statement that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," does not mean, and was never intended OUR COVER DESIGN EVERY true American, whether born in the land or a citizen by adoption, feels his heart swell with pride at the thought of Liberty Hall, Liberty Bell, and the starry emblem of the liberty bequeathed to us by the fathers of the Republic, and which our brave soldiers and sailors are today giving their lives to preserve to a liberty-loving people. The old hall, the cracked bell, and the star-spangled flag are all familiar figures. We have known them from our childhood, but they have lost none of their meaning; and as the battle lines sway backward and forward in France, as we realize that the outcome will mean either the triumph of free government or of autocracy, we must every one feel an intense anxiety to see liberty prevail over despotism, and right over wrong. May the time never come when we shall cease to cherish in our hearts and exemplify in our lives the love of liberty; may we never look with indifference upon its honored emblems, or be forgetful of the debt of gratitude we owe, under God, to the men who a century and a half ago made, or to those who are now making, the supreme sacrifice to vouchsafe to us this inestimable blessing. B. to mean, that every man has a right to do just as he pleases upon that day, regardless of the divine law; but only that other men have no right to interpret the Sabbath law, and enforce their interpretation upon their fellow men. Baseball and Sabbath keeping are not compatible, but it does not follow that the civil authorities have any right to forbid that sport to those who choose to engage in it upon Sunday. Granted that Sunday is the Sabbath and that it is the duty of the civil authorities to safeguard the Sabbath and enforce its observance. Sunday baseball would have no standing at all. But taking the position that under our national Constitution the civil authorities have no nizance of religious questions, or to de- 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower of fleeting life its luster and perfume: and we are weeds without it.- Cowper If You Were Going to Erect a Building Costing $1,000,000 you would employ the best architect available, and let the contract to the man with the reputa- Life & Health For more than half a century the publishers have made a study of simple living and rational WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE TODAY? SINGLE COPY, 10 cts.; ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $1.00 LIFE & HEALTH, Takoma Park, WASHINGTON, D. C. |