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."
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.
Meanwhile, some see the evils involved in this movement, and raise the voice of alarm. The Christian Union, Jan., 1871, said:
"The friends of the measure are not likely ever to agree among themselves. The Convention which met in Philadelphia on the 18th inst. to consider this subject, refused to accept a phraseology which simply recognizes the Deity, and insisted upon including in the emendation the name of Jesus Christ as well. A party, in behalf of the Holy Spirit, which is so conspicuously slighted, will be the next in order; and then the way will be open for a proposition to recognize the 'Vicegerent of Christ on earth,' as the true source of power among the nations! If the proposed amendment is anything more than a bit of sentimental cant, it is to have a legal effect. It is to alter the status of the non-Christian citizen before the law. It is to affect the legal oaths and instruments, the matrimonial contracts, the sumptuary laws, &c., &c., of the country. This would be an outrage on natural right."
The Janesville (Wis.) Gazette, at the close of an article on the proposed amendment, speaks thus of the effect of the movement, should it succeed:—
"But independent of the question as to what extent we are a Christian nation, it may well be doubted whether, if the gentlemen who are agitating this question should succeed, they would not do society a very great injury. Such measures are but the initiatory steps which ultimately lead to restrictions of religious freedom, and to commit the government to measures which are as foreign to its powers and purposes as would be its action if it should undertake to determine a disputed question of theology."