And the Christian Statesman of Dec. 15, 1871, speaking of the general disregard of the Sabbath [Sunday] in the arrangements for welcoming the Grand Duke Alexis, says:—­

     “How long will it be before the Christian masses of this country
     can be roused to enact a law compelling their public servants to
     respect the Sabbath?”

A very marked and rapid change is taking place in public opinion relative to the proposed religious amendment of the Constitution.  We have learned of instances of men who were at first openly hostile to the movement, now giving their influence for its advancement, and clamoring loudly for a Sunday law.  And some who at first regarded it with indifference, are now becoming its warm partisans.  As a sample of this change of feeling, the following paragraph from the Christian Press of Jan, 1872, may be presented.  The Christian Press is the organ of the Western Book and Tract Society, Cincinnati, Ohio, and its editor, speaking of the National Association above referred to, says:—­

“When this Association was formed, while we were prepared to bid it God speed, we did not then feel that there was any pressing need for the object sought; and as our mission was specially directed to the Christianizing, enlightening and elevating, the masses of the people, we have said little in our columns on the subject, being assured that if the people are right, it is easy to set the government right.  The late combined efforts, however, of various classes of our citizens to exclude the Bible from our schools, repeal our Sabbath laws, and divorce our government entirely from religion, and thus make it an atheistic government—­for every government must be for God or against him, and must be administered in the interests of religion and good morals, or in the interests of irreligion and immorality—­have changed our mind, and we are now prepared to urge the necessity for an explicit acknowledgment in the National Constitution of the authority of God and the supremacy of his law, as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”

With the anti-Sunday movements of the present day, considering their associations, and the manner and object in and for which they are carried forward, we have no sympathy.  They aim at utter no-Sabbathism, freedom from all moral restraint, and all the evils of unbridled intemperance—­ends which we abhor with all the strength of a moral nature quickened by the most intense religious convictions.  And while the indignation of the batter portion of the community will be aroused at the want of religious principle and the immorality attending the popular anti-Sunday movement, a little lack of discrimination, by no means uncommon, will on account of our opposition to the day, though we oppose it on entirely different ground, easily associate us with the class above-mentioned, and subject us to the same odium.