_Question_. Why should Sunday be observed otherwise than as a day
of recreation?

_Answer_. Sunday is a day of recreation, or should be; a day for
the laboring man to rest, a day to visit museums and libraries, a
day to look at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife
and children, a day for poetry and art, a day on which to read old
letters and to meet friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of
life, a day for those who live in tenements to feel the soft grass
beneath their feet. In short, Sunday should be a day of joy. The
church endeavors to fill it with gloom and sadness, with stupid
sermons and dyspeptic theology.

Nothing could be more cowardly than the effort to compel the
observance of the Sabbath by law. We of America have outgrown the
childishness of the last century; we laugh at the superstitions of
our fathers. We have made up our minds to be as happy as we can
be, knowing that the way to be happy is to make others so, that
the time to be happy is now, whether that now is Sunday or any
other day in the week.

_Question_. Under a Federal Constitution guaranteeing civil and
religious liberty, are the so-called "Blue Laws" constitutional?

_Answer_. No, they are not. But the probability is that the
Supreme Courts of most of the States would decide the other way.
And yet all these laws are clearly contrary to the spirit of the
Federal Constitution and the constitutions of most of the States.

I hope to live until all these foolish laws are repealed and until
we are in the highest and noblest sense a free people. And by free
I mean each having the right to do anything that does not interfere
with the rights or with the happiness of another. I want to see
the time when we live for this world and when all shall endeavor
to increase, by education, by reason, and by persuasion, the sum
of human happiness.

--_New York Times_, July 21, 1893.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.

_Question_. The Parliament of Religions was called with a view to
discussing the great religions of the world on the broad platform
of tolerance. Supposing this to have been accomplished, what effect
is it likely to have on the future of creeds?

_Answer_. It was a good thing to get the representatives of all
creeds to meet and tell their beliefs. The tendency, I think, is
to do away with prejudice, with provincialism, with egotism. We
know that the difference between the great religions, so far as
belief is