p. 5 | OPPOSE SUNDAY LAW by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1908

OPPOSE SUNDAY LAW

By C. M. S.

Adventists Disfavor Forced Observance of the Day

Pamphlet Issued by Seventh-day Believers Sets Forth Protests Against Proposed Legislation by Congress for Sunday Restrictions in District. Means Union of Church and State.

The Seventh-day Adventists object to the attempt on the part of the churches of Washington and other organizations to have laws passed by Congress to create a “better observance of Sunday.”

In a pamphlet issued by the Seventh-day Adventists it is stated that while there is no objection on the part of the organization to prohibition, and, in fact, it favors such a movement, there is a most decided opposition felt to any measure which shall restrict the free enjoyment of personal liberty on Sunday or any other day.

The pamphlet calls upon the Constitution and upon other sources of information for backing in the protests it sets forth. It declares that the enactment of such laws will mean a union of church and state, and further says that all Protestants ought to be opposed to such a measure for this reason, if for no other.

“One of the methods,” says the report, “by which it is proposed to accomplish this result (a better observance of Sunday), is by inducing Congress to pass a Sunday law for the District of Columbia. We grant the right of any body of men to seek by all proper means to influence public opinion in favor of their religious views, but when they attempt to use the law-making power to compel others to act in harmony with their religious views, we enter an emphatic protest.

“We recognize civil government as of divine origin, but believe in the total

separation of church and state, as enunciated by the author of Christianity in whose words: ‘Render therefore to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and those to God the things that are God’s.’”

Twenty-four counts, or “protests,” are used to display the reasons why the Seventh-day Adventists do not believe that such a “better observance of Sunday” may be sought through the law.

Reason No. 1 states: “Such legislation is religious legislation, and the passing of such laws is a long step toward the union of church and state.” In protest No. 2 Madison is quoted as saying that “there is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be the most flagrant usurpation.”

Majority Has No Power Here

Reason No. 3 states that Protestantism was the outgrowth of the feeling that “in matters of conscience the majority has no power.” No. 4 says that such laws would mean enforced idleness, and consequently intemperance, and all other sorts of crimes and vices.

No. 5 says that such laws would really mean “a compulsory observance of the day;” No. 6, that such laws, while professing to be in the interest of all laboring men, really enslave such men. It goes on: “The assumption of the right to forbid honest labor on one day involves the right to forbid it on any or all days.”

The seventh reason says that such laws attempt to enforce religion under the plea for physical rest. Neander is next called upon, in reason 8, to show that Sunday laws, instead of preserving the Roman Empire, contributed largely to its downfall.

Other reasons protest against such laws, because they are interfering even with those who wish to regard Sunday as the Lord’s day; because they are “un-American;” because duty can be directed only by “reason and conviction;” because “no man’s right is abridged by the institutions of civil society;” because every man, under the Christian religion, has “the right to believe the gospel or not to believe it.”

Again, the pamphlet says that it protests because they (such Sunday laws) commit the law-making bodies to “the settlement of a religious controversy;” because Ringgold said that a church that “connives in the smallest degree at the state’s intrusion upon her domain has abandoned in toto her claim to be a Christian church.”

All Protestants Should Protest

“Every true Protestant,” says the pamphlet, “ought to protest, because Sunday laws will necessarily bring matters of religious faith before the courts for adjudication.” President Madison is quoted again in the next protest, in the words, “To God, therefore, not to man, must an account be rendered.”

“Moderation and harmony,” it is declared in the next protest, will be destroyed by Sunday laws. The church and state should be kept separate, says the next protest. The next protest says that Sunday laws “degrade the whole idea of Sabbath observance to a mere outward ceremony.”

The next protest says that Sunday laws have, as their primary purpose, the protection of “a religious institution.” Finally, the protest says that, in behalf of all men, it speaks against such laws, whose adoption will mean “the melancholy spectacle of the abandonment of those principles which have distinguished this country above the other nations of the earth.”

The pamphlet closes by saying that the demand that Congress pass a District Sunday law is not a mere local affair, but is of national significance. The idea, it states, is to get Congress committed to Sunday legislation. It quotes the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Action Would Affect World

“And such,” says the pamphlet, “is her influence, should America, the land of religious liberty, enter upon a course of forcing the conscience, every other country on the globe would be led to follow her example. In the interests of peace, prosperity, pure religion, and good government, therefore, we appeal to every lover of liberty to oppose this movement.”

The report is signed by K. C. Russell, chairman, and W. A. Colcord, secretary, “The Religious Liberty Bureau of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.”

In the Washington Post, of the same date appeared the following:—

AGAINST SUNDAY LAWS

Adventist Prohibitionists Want No Aid from Congress

The Religious Liberty Bureau of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has issued a tract favoring prohibition in the District and protesting against the passage of Sunday laws by Congress.

In advocating prohibition the Adventists say intemperance is one of the greatest foes to national life and prosperity, and undermines the foundations of civil society. They say that history fails to show where an individual or a nation has been injured by the restriction in the traffic of intoxicating liquors, while hundreds of volumes would be insufficient to record the damage done through intemperance.

The Adventists protest against the proposed Sunday laws, because they say such legislation is religious legislation, and is but a step toward the union of state and church. They say that such laws are oppressive and are not in the interests of peace, prosperity, good government, and pure religion.

A Symposium Service

Sunday, January 12, was the day appointed for all the clergymen in the District to preach on the subject of the better observance of Sunday and the necessity for national Sunday laws, and except on the part of the Baptist clergymen there was a unanimity of sentiment in favor of demanding the enforcement of the institution by the power of civil law. In some of the churches there were bitter denunciations of Seventh-day Adventists for their opposition to religious legislation. One clergyman, while holding aloft our protest against religious legislation, declared that “Seventh-day Adventism, that spawn of the devil, has built its nest at Takoma Park, and is doing there its work of perdition.”

On the following day the newspapers contained summaries of, or references to, one or more of the sermons preached on the topic of the campaign; and alongside of these appeared references to the counter campaign or extracts from the document our people had prepared, protesting against the enactment of civil laws to enforce the practises of the church. It was stated by one of the speakers that while there was little upon which they could all unite, they could join their forces upon this matter. The pastor of St. Paul’s Catholic church, speaking of this combination for Sunday enforcement, said:—

They [the Protestant churches of Washington] are banded together to accomplish this grand object, and prevent as far as possible its [Sunday’s] profanation. Differing from them in many things, in this we can all agree, and must make common cause against the common foe. When Sunday is destroyed, our heritage of Christianity is practically gone.

With both sides bidding for union and working in this “common cause,” we have not far to look for the uniting of Protestantism and Catholicism under the one directing head, the chief of the Vatican at Rome. That such leadership is the sure culmination is evidenced by the fact that the thing upon which they are uniting is the foster-child of the papacy.

In these sermons strong appeals were made for the enactment and enforcement of Sunday laws, and that the national government set the example in this matter, that its influence might be felt throughout the States and Territories. Said Dr. Radcliffe:—

The nation is made and saved by its sabbaths. The District of Columbia, by its honorable designation as the seat of government, has special influence and responsibility. The national government is much to blame. At the end of every Congress it turns back the hands of the clock, but it can not turn back the hand of God’s judgment. This great government is caught in the act of stealing the sabbaths of its dependents. The District has no Sunday law. We should strike for efficient legislation. The working man needs it, humanity needs it, the republic must have it.

It can readily be seen how such utterances as the above are paving the way for the people to put upon those who keep God’s law the blame for the disasters and calamities that will fall upon the world in the closing hours of the controversy.

The question of Sunday laws and the fact of the human origin of the Sunday institution were never before brought so emphatically or so generally before the people of the District of Columbia. The people are stirred, and congressmen are being importuned for legislation in behalf of Sunday enforcement. On January 13 Representative Lamar, of Missouri, introduced a bill “for the observance of Sunday in the District.”

The Washington Herald in its report says:—

He said that he was impelled to take such action as the result of the pamphlet issued by Seventh-day Adventists, in which they said any such law was an attempt on the part of the state to adjudicate religious matters.

“I did not know at that time,” said Mr. Lamar, “that there is no law in the District governing the closing of stores, and other Sunday observances, and at once began to investigate. I could find no law on that subject, so I asked Major Sylvester about it. The major said there was none. At once I prepared and introduced a bill, and I hope it will become a law. Every State in the Union has laws governing this subject, and the national capital certainly should have.”

The bill introduced by Mr. Lamar is patterned after that of the State of Missouri, under which Governor Folk shut up the city of St. Louis, nailing thereto a “lid” that has stayed in place.

Two days later Senator Johnson of Alabama introduced a Sunday-closing bill, designed particularly to close grocery stores and meat markets in the District, and providing severe penalties for failure to obey its provisions.

If any evidence were lacking to prove that we are swiftly entering upon the final struggle in the great conflict, it is furnished by the feverish anxiety of the federated forces of this world to unite church and state in this country, and enforce upon all the distinctive mark of obedience to the papal power. Through all the persecutions that have come to our people under State Sunday laws, we have looked to the national government (free from the fault of oppressive religious legislation), and to the Constitution with its provision against church establishment, as strong and influential factors in restraining the spirit of religious tyranny and persecution in this country. Against that bulwark of defense all the guns of the present Sunday-law campaign are leveled and are doing their deadly work.

It was a union between a ritualistic church and a religio-political state that nailed our Saviour to the cross. “We have a law,” said the church, “and by that law he ought to die.” The state yielded to the clamor and did the work. And he will be crucified afresh in this age in the person of his followers wherever the decrees and practises of the church are backed by the pains and penalties of civil law. Into that anomalous condition—a union of church and the state—is this “land of liberty” surely drifting to-day. Indications never pointed so strongly as now to the early fulfilment of the thirteenth chapter of Revelation, and in view of that fact, duty never was calling so loudly to this people to spread swiftly and thoroughly God’s last message of warning to this generation.

C. M. S.