ARE AGAINST SUNDAY CLOSING.
Seventh Day Adventists Say It Is Re-
ligion, Not Law.
K. C. Russell of Washington D. C., will deliver a lecture in New Casino hall, 1023 Broadway, tonight. He will speak under the auspices of the Seventh Day Adventists of Kansas City, and his address will be in defense of the Sunday theater. Mr. Russell is chairman of the International Religious Liberty bureau, and has made a careful study on which he is to talk.
D. U. Hale, chairman of the Missouri Religious Liberty bureau, is taking an active interest in opposition to the Sunday closing. In speaking of the matter of the Sunday closing movement last night he said that he believed the theaters should be closed not only Sunday, but every day of the week.
"But," he continued, "because that is my belief it is no sign that my friends and acquaintances must believe the same thing. It is a religious belief which I have no more right to enforce upon my neighbor than I have to force him to go to church when he does not feel so inclined.
"It is loudly proclaimed that the question of the enforced observance of Sunday is a law and not a matter of religious belief, and, being so, must be enforced whether good, bad or indifferent. Daniel of old was thrown into the den of lions because he broke the law of his land by worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience. Even Christ was a victim of the law. It was not claimed that He was a murderer or a thief, but that He ought to die according to the law of the land of His accusers. They influenced the civil authorities, as many are trying to do today, and nailed Christ to the cross simply because he had broken a law.
"The operating principal is the same in Kansas City today with regard to the Sunday law as it was in the days of old, and is a step that will be attended only with evil results if taken."
