American, will be arrested and suffer punishment if we do the same thing?  If there is a provision made allowing a few to conduct business on the Sabbath, what justice and equality can there be in any such provision, and why should it not be stopped at once?”

And this question, we apprehend, will be very summarily decided, when once the Consitutional Amendment has been secured.

At a Ministerial Association of the M.E. church held in Healdsburg, Cal., April 26-28, 1870, Rev. Mr. Trefren, of Napa, speaking of S.D.A. ministers, said, “I predict for them a short race.  What we want is law in the matter.”  Then, referring to the present movement for a law, he added, “And we will have it, too; and when we get the power into our hands, we will show these men what their end will be.”

From a work recently published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, entitled “The Sabbath,” by Chas. Elliott, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the North West, Chicago, Ill., we take this paragraph:—­

“But it may be asked, Would not the Jew be denied equality of rights by legislation protecting the Christian Sabbath and ignoring the Jewish?  The answer is, We are not a Jewish but a Christian nation; therefore, our legislation must be conformed to the institutions and spirit of Christianity.  This is absolutely necessary from the nature of the case.”

There is no mistaking the import of this language:  No matter if the Jew does not secure equal rights with others.  We are not a Jewish nation, but a Christian; and all must be made to conform to what the majority decide to be Christian institutions.  This affects all who observe the seventh day as much as the Jews.  And we apprehend it will not be a difficult matter to lead the masses, whose prejudices incline them in this direction, to believe that it is “absolutely necessary” that all legislation must take such a form, and cause them to act accordingly.

Several years since, Dr. Durbin of the Christian Advocate and Journal; gave his views on this subject as follows:—­

“I infer, therefore, that the civil magistrate may not be called upon to enforce the observance of the Sabbath [Sunday] as required in the spiritual kingdom of Christ; but when Christianity becomes the moral and spiritual life of the State, the State is bound through her magistrates to prevent the open violation of the holy Sabbath, as a measure of self-preservation.  She cannot, without injuring her own vitality and incurring the divine displeasure, be recreant to her duty in this matter.”

At a meeting held at Saratoga Springs, Aug. 12, 1860, ex-president Fillmore said that “while he deemed it needful to legislate cautiously in all matters connected with public morals, and to avoid coercive measures affecting religion, the right of every citizen to a day of rest and worship could not be questioned, and laws securing that right should be enforced.”