Reasons for Sunday Laws.
By Wm. Covert
Mr. Q.—Do you favor religious legislation? Mr. R.—I do not, except upon the subject of the Sabbath. I believe the State should make and enforce Sunday laws. Mr. Q.—Will you be so kind as to tell us why you would single out this particular point of religion and make it a subject of State legislation? Mr. R.—Although Sunday is a religious institution I do not regard a Sunday law as a law upon the subject of religion. The State only enforces it as a civil institution. Mr. Q.—Will you please to tell us by what process of reasoning you can prove that labor on Sunday to be uncivil? Mr. R.—Yes, sir. Common labor on Sunday disturbs the quiet of the day, and it is wrong. Mr. Q.—Will you please to tell us whether Sunday is more quiet than other days in the week as far as nature itself is concerned? Mr. R.—Of course it is not. But you know that Sunday is the day upon which people rest from their work and attend meeting. Mr. Q.—But why do they choose this particular day for rest and worship? Mr. R.—Because they believe the Scriptures require them to do so. Mr. Q.—Do you think it is a religious duty that you owe to God to do this, or is it only a civil duty that you owe to the State? Mr. R.—You have the advantage of me as you have given the subject more thought than I have. But if we had no Sunday law we could not hold religious service on Sunday at all. Mr. Q.—Why could you not hold services even if some persons were at work? Mr. R.—Because the noise that their labor would make would disturb us so we could not peaceably hold our meetings. Mr. Q.—You say the noise would disturb your worship. I would ask you if the worshipers do not sing and the minister talk quite loud? Would you have the State make a law to prohibit this noise? Mr. R.—No, sir, that kind of noise does not disturb us. That is an essential part of the worship. Mr. Q.—Do you have family worship each day? If so would you have the State make a law to have all business stop a certain hour each day so people could have a quiet hour for family worship? Mr. R.—The other days in the week are secular and of course noise on those days does not disturb us in our devotion. Mr. Q.—Does your church hold protracted meetings some times in which you hold religious services every day in the week? Mr. R.—Yes, sir. What of it? Mr. Q.—Do you have everybody in the community cease all business while your protracted meetings continue? Mr. R.—You have the advantage of me. Mr. Q.—Then you see that the noise of common toil is not uncivil on any day of the week except on the day you think should be religiously observed. As you see this then, you can see that your objection to common labor on Sunday arises wholly from your religious convictions, and that all Sunday laws are religious laws and relate wholly to an establishment of religion. Mr. R.—I may have been wrong in presenting the subject from the standpoint that I have. I see that I have been favoring a Sunday law wholly from a religious consideration, and that I was doing this because of the idea that the day is a sacred day. Mr. Q.—I have observed the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord for more than twenty-one years. During all this time I have gone to the house of worship regularly on that day, and yet I have never asked my neighbors to refrain from labor on that day because I went to worship on that day. Mr. Q.—But there were so few of you. Mr. R.—Yes, sir. We are not many, and because we are few, there is all the more people at work making a noise while we are at worship. Yet we keep the day to the Lord, and our worship is not disturbed, for we realize that we are rendering unto God the things which belong to God, and if others do not choose to do so it is none of our business. We have often been puzzled to understand how it is that the conscience of a person can be so badly disturbed because he may happen to see or hear someone working on Sunday, and yet that same person makes no scruple about disturbing his neighbor who keeps another day, although he professes to observe the golden rule and love his neighbor as himself. Mr. R.—I had not thought of the matter from that standpoint. I will give this subject more careful thought. WM. COVERT.