THE Pleasant Hill (Mo.) Gazette, September 6, tells how the citizens of that place were recently “grossly insulted” by certain published utterances regarding a movement which had been started there for a stricter observance of Sunday. The Pleasant Hill Local was the offending party. That paper characterized the movement as narrow-minded, puritanical, and hypocritical, making, however, no mention of any person or church.
Whereupon the Gazette, as the champion of religion and morality, replied, “The question of Sunday closing here has received a fresh impetus from a scandalous article that appeared in the columns of the moss-covered raglet across the way,” etc.; and the congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on the following Sunday, passed this resolution:—
Inasmuch as every Christian and law-abiding citizen of our town has been grossly insulted by Mr. Race, who so flagrantly outraged all decency by his article in the last issue of his paper, and believing our laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good, therefore,
Resolved, That we denounce said article as iniquitous and anarchistical.
We mention the incident as furnishing a sample of the temper and spirit of those zealous for Sunday laws. It is plainly not the spirit and temper of the meek Man of Nazareth.
The mere denouncing of the Sunday-law movement is regarded by Sunday observers as grossly insulting, flagrantly outrageous, and anarchistical. What, then, would be their feelings if this offending editor possessed the power, and used it, to put them in prison and in the chain-gang for refusing obedience to a law compelling them to rest on the seventh day of the week?