Let the Church Control the Church,
At the ministers’ Sunday-law meeting at San Francisco, August 5, the American Sabbath Union spoke a few minutes and then opened the way for questions to be asked, taking particular care first to state that questions should not be asked by visitors, but only by members of the Union. One of the questions was, “Do Roman Catholics take part in local organizations in States?” and the answer was, “We have very delightful relations with the Roman Catholics. On the civil side of the question of the Sabbath law the Catholics co-operate, on the religious side they don’t; because we have its basis on the fourth commandment, and if we should insist upon their co-operation with us on this basis, it would arouse controversy. We can work with them delightfully on civil basis, but we don’t want to try to bring them too far.” Yes, no doubt it is a very delightful thing indeed thus to secure the co-operation of the Roman Catholics. But there are some questions that are involved in this that are of interest to those who are now enjoying this delightfulness, as well as for others who are not so intimately engaged in the work. Sunday as a day of rest is a papal institution. This, all Roman Catholics know, and it never can be proved to be anything else. It is an institution of the church and the only legislation that ever has been in behalf of it has been to help the church. That is the object of the legislation that is now demanded by those who are working for a national Sunday law. It is legislation demanded upon a papal principle in support of a papal institution. And when these men in their delightful association with the Roman Catholics secure the legislation for which they are working, having so far recognized the papal principle, and secured legislation in behalf of one institution of the church, then what is to hinder the Roman Catholic in securing legislation in behalf of other institutions of the church? and completing their observance? Protestants having set the example, why should not the Roman Catholics follow the example clear through to the end? With the political influence that the Roman Catholic Church has, such a prospect is not wholly imaginary. Nor do we say this as prejudicial to the Roman Catholics. We say that, if church ordinances and church institutions are to be established and their observance enforced by the civil power, then it is the right of the Roman Catholics to see that the legislation shall be in their favor. Further, it is not only their right, it is their duty, and it is made their duty upon the principle of self-protection. Under such circumstances it could not be asked upon any principle of justice that the Roman Catholics, any more than anybody else, should submit their religious convictions to the rule of the majority, and therefore it would be their duty as well as their right to secure control of the legislation which has to do with church institutions. But if the Roman Catholics should do that, the Protestant Sunday-law workers would very suddenly discover that their relations to the Roman Catholics were not so very delightful after all. They would say that it was a monstrous tyranny for Protestants to be obliged to submit to the dictates of Roman Catholics in enforcing the observance of church institutions. But that would be no more monstrous a tyranny than for Roman Catholics, or any others, to have to submit to the dictates of Protestants in such things. The truth is that there is no right whatever involved in the theory of Sunday laws. It is false and tyrannical altogether. There is no right whatever in any such legislation by whomsoever it may be demanded. Work on Sunday is no more uncivil than is the same kind of work on any other day, and it never can, upon any principle of justice or right, be made a crime. Let church institutions and church observances be regulated and controlled by church sanctions only. Whatsoever is more than this is evil.