Equal Rights Demanded by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 39.

Equal Rights Demanded.

By Editor

THIS journal is emphatically opposed to the enforcement of religious rights and privileges by law, as such a condition cannot do otherwise than work serious injustice to many honest, conscientious souls. It is well known that the “National Reform Association” seeks such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as shall “place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our Government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.”

One institution which they desire and design to enforce by law, is the first day of the week as the American or Christian Sabbath. This, we claim, would be an abridgment of Christian liberty; for many who conscientiously desire to obey God, knowing that the first day is not the Christian Sabbath, keep another day, which the word of God enjoins. Must they lose one-sixth of their time in homage to an institution which they know has no foundation in either reason or religion?

But if the majority regard the first day as the Sabbath, is it not their privilege to be protected in its observance? Certainly; and no observer of the seventh day proposes to interfere with that. What we claim is that there should be exemption in favor of those who keep the seventh day. Then the matter is all adjusted, and none have ground for complaint.

Recognizing the justice of this principle, many States have exemption clauses in their Sunday statutes. But we have yet to see the first intimation on the part of those who are clamoring for a universal Sunday law, that they would recognize the rights of any such class, or favor any such feature of the law.—Temperance Outlook.