The Real Object of Sunday Laws
In concluding a report of an address by Mr. Crafts on his favorite theme, “The American Sabbath or the Continental Sunday,” the Christian Nation says:—
> “The address was listened to with deep interest. We hope that the agitation of this most important subject may mean the better enforcement of the Sabbath laws now existing in our own city, that we may not see men reeling to and fro in our streets on God’s holy day. In the desecration of the Sabbath, as in all other evil, the liquor traffic is foremost. Prohibit the liquor traffic and you stop a very large proportion of the public desecration of the Sabbath. May the time soon come when the Sabbath shall be protected by law, not merely because it is needful for man to have a rest-day, but because it has been instituted and set apart by God, and because he has said, ‘Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.’” There is something very peculiar about this Sunday-law question. The law, we are told, is wanted to secure a day of rest for workingmen, and as a temperance measure, but somehow or other, try as they will, they cannot conceal the fact that the real object is to honor the day. They don’t want men to be drunken on the day, and Sunday prohibition would prevent the desecration of the day, and they want the law because God has said, “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” But they don’t want religious legislation; oh no! they only want to enforce their version of the fourth commandment by civil law. That is all.