The Right to Rest by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 44.

The Right to Rest.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

The Rev. Dr. W. W. Evarts, of Chicago, is an active worker for a national Sunday law, and, like all his companions in the work, he uses arguments which, on account of their weakness, he would be ashamed to use in any other cause. The Golden Censer published a portion of one of his speeches some time ago, from which we extract the following:—

“It is not proposed to make people pious, to compel them to pray, but to protect those who wish to worship and pursue higher education. It is not declared, You shall be a Catholic, or a Protestant, or a Mohammedan, or a Jew, or anything of the sort. The church wants to give the people a day that is necessary for all men alike. Every man knows the necessity for it if he knows himself at all. One day in seven, it is that right the Sabbath law protects, and that is all. The church simply gives the right, guards the right, for all men.”

Notice first the expression, “The church wants to give the people a day.” The same idea is even more strongly expressed in the paragraph preceding the one just quoted, in which we find the statement, “The church, by enforcing the Sabbath, is taking better care of humanity than liberty leagues or infidel reformers.” So, notwithstanding their pleading for a civil Sunday, we have an admission by one of the leaders in

the movement, that it is purely a church affair, and that although when the law is passed the State will be the nominal enforcer of it, the church will be the real power behind it. In other words, the State will be the cat’s paw for the church; yet we doubt not that if Dr. Evarts were asked directly if the Sunday movement is religious in its nature, he would say no. It is strange how this Sunday-law craze leads people virtually to deny any connection between the church and religion.

But the point which we wish particularly to notice is the idea that the Sunday law is designed simply to protect the people’s right to rest and to worship. We can scarcely imagine how such an argument as this should deceive anybody, for anyone can see that the object is entirely different. Granting that it is everybody’s right to rest on Sunday, suppose there are some who do not wish to avail themselves of that right, what will the State do in that case under a rigid Sunday law?—It will say, You must do so. In other words, it will declare that nobody has a right to choose his own day for rest and worship, and so instead of preserving rights, it will deprive people of their rights. As a matter of fact, everybody has a right to be protected in resting on Sunday, provided he wishes to do so. If a movement were set on foot to deprive people of their right to rest on Sunday it would find no more vigorous opposer than the AMERICAN SENTINEL; but who ever heard of any such a movement being started? Who ever heard of such a thing as an attempt to secure a law forbidding people to rest on Sunday?—No one. The fact is that under our present Constitution everybody has that right, and everybody who wishes to avail himself of it is protected in it.

There is no necessity for a Sunday law in order to protect people in their right to worship on Sunday. This plea for a Sunday law, on the ground that it is necessary to protect people in their right to Sunday rest, is equivalent to saying that those who wish to rest cannot do so unless everybody else does.

Suppose I get tired and want to take a holiday, making a trip into the country. Everybody will say that I have a right to do so if I can afford it; but I demur. I raise a great ado and say that the State has to protect me in that right. Our Sunday-law friends would tell me that the State does protect me in that right; that if anyone should attempt forcibly to restrain me from pursuing my journey, the State would punish him; but I say, No, I am not protected in my right to take a holiday trip to the country, unless the State shall compel everybody else to go with me. While I am going to the country there are scores of people who would go about their business as usual, and I ask that they be compelled to take a holiday too, in order that I may be protected in my right to recreation! Anyone can see the nonsense of this, and yet this very argument is used in behalf of Sunday laws. The idea that one person cannot rest because someone else happens to be working, was never heard of until necessity compelled the movers for a national Sunday law to invent it. It is not the language of reason, but of bigotry; it is the language of those who wish to compel everybody to do as they do.

That a law compelling all to rest is not necessary in order to protect all in their right to rest is shown by the fact that people keep the seventh day, concerning which no civil law has ever been made, and they feel that they have a right to do this. We know of several instances where a very few observers of the seventh day live alone in the midst of a very large city, surrounded by thousands who pay no regard whatever to that day; and yet this few feel that they have a right to observe the seventh day if they wish to, and they do so, and find no difficulty whatever. They do not ask for a law compelling other people to rest on that day in order that they may be protected in their right. Yet they surely have the same right to be protected in their observance of the seventh day as others have in their observance of the first. If not, we would like to know why not. Those who admit that they have a right to be protected in their seventh-day rest thereby relinquish all claims for a national Sunday law; and those who will not admit that they have the right, thereby admit that they desire class legislation which will favor some but which will work injustice to others who are equally deserving. We would like to have our friends think seriously of this matter and state whether they believe that the only persons in this country who have any rights are those who observe Sunday. E. J. W.