THE Catholic Review, of this city, is a champion of rigid Sunday observances. Speaking of those who favor a “liberal” Sunday, it says:—
It is full time, however, that these imported “Liberals,” whether actuated by the interests of the brewers and saloon-keepers, or by the wish to undermine the Christian character of our institutions, should try to understand the fundamental fact that this is a Christian land. The next fact growing out of this is that Sunday as the Lord’s day, and not a secular holiday, is fundamental to our laws, forms an inherent part of the unwritten constitution, and therefore cannot be “liberalized,” by any mere statute of the legislature.
If this be a Christian land, then it must be, in the opinion of the Catholic Review, a Catholic Christian land, since the papal church does not recognize Protestantism as being of a Christian character. This is a claim which the Catholic Church has already advanced, and which it will not be slow to establish, by every device in its power. There is in this “Christian nation” doctrine a pent-up flood of religious animosity and strife; for let the idea once become settled in all minds that this is a “Christian land,” in a governmental sense, and it will become at once imperative to determine who are the Christians. And while each separate denomination can settle the question satisfactorily among themselves, there will be unending difficulty in settling it satisfactorily for all. Old controversies will be revived and new ones will be added; and those who finally establish themselves as the “Christians” to whom this land belongs, will have to do so by intrigue and force rather than by the testimony of Christian lives.