ber thought of our people be at once aroused to stem the rising
tide of Governmentalism and the steady encroachment of religious
organizations and despotic foreign thought.

Comparatively few of the leading secular journals[6] have deemed this
outrage sufficiently important to call for editorial comment,
notwithstanding it marks the establishing of a precedent which must
inevitably work great misery to innocent people at the hands of
religious fanatics, unless there is a sufficient agitation to cause
the repeal of many iniquitous laws which are a menace to the rightful
freedom of citizens as long as they remain on the statute books.

[6] Among the few papers which have denounced this judicial
crime are the New York _Commercial Advertiser_ and the St.
Louis _Republic_. The former journal observes: "It seems
that the glorious clause of the Constitution can give no
protection to men who conscientiously believe they should
literally observe the Fourth Commandment.... It seems that
when a State seeks to enforce religious duty all consciences
must bow before it. That is to say, if, for example, the
Catholics of Louisiana were to pass a law that no man should
taste meat on Friday, the act would be no infringement of
religious liberty.

There can be but one opinion upon this decision among all
liberal-minded men. It is odious sophistry, unworthy of the
age in which we live. And under it an American citizen has
been condemned to spend the rest of his days in a dungeon
unless he shall stoop to deny the dictates of his own
conscience and dishonor his own manhood.

The _Republic_ in an editorial of August second says: "Not
being able to leave his crops unworked for two days in the
week, Mr. King ploughed them on Sunday, after having kept
the Sabbath the day before. He was arrested under the Sunday
law, and in order to make it effective against him it was
alleged that his work on his own farm on Sunday created a
public nuisance. On this entirely untenable ground he has
been harassed from court to court. He was a poor man, but he
has been supported by the friends of religious liberty. Mr.
King has been greatly wronged, but his only remedy at law is
under the