• The Bishop of Peterborough, in some excellent observations on
the observance of Sunday, in the Diocesan Conference on Thursday, is reported to have dropped a remark at which we are amazed,—namely, that if the State is to enforce one Com- mandment, it must enforce all. This was said in relation to the Commandments against idolatry and against breach of the Sabbath, and was meant to deprecate the policy of any State interference in these matters. With that of course we agree, but the remark seems to say that there is no distinction between the duty of the State in relation to one Command- ment and its duty in relation to another, and that if the State does not enforce either the Second or the Fourth Com- mandment, it must not enforce the Sixth or the Eighth. That surely cannot have been the Bishop's meaning. The State does mere harm by trying to enforce, what it cannot enforce, strictly spiritual duties. But it would not be a State at all, if it did not threaten crime and inflict retribu- tion on the criminal.
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