More Evidences by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 21, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 30.

More Evidences.

By Editor

The Congregational Club of San Francisco met in their regular Monday meeting, July 29, in the Y. M. C. A. Hall. Rev. W. H. Scudder read a paper on “A Sabbath-Rest Law.” The following brief report we clip from the San Francisco Examiner of the 30th:—

“‘I hope,’ said Mr. Scudder, ‘that Congress will pass a law similar to the Blair bill, compelling one day’s rest in seven. The laboring classes need at least that amount of rest. I am not in favor of allowing street and railroad cars, theaters, ferry-boats, amusement gardens, or even newspapers, to carry on business on the Sabbath. There are over 2,000,000 people in the United States who work on Sunday. It is only since the great influx from Europe that the Sabbath has been turned into a day of amusement instead of rest. The people of the Continent have no idea of observing the Sabbath. The saloons should be closed by law on the Lord’s day.’”

“Rev. Dr. Holbrook said that Congressional legislation to this end would be contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, but the States individually can regulate the matter.”

“Rev. G. W. Bothwell, of Oakland, said that the way to obtain such a law is for the ministers and their friends to fight for it at the primaries.”

“Rev. J. H. Phillips of Los Angeles spoke of the church work in that section.”

“Rev. Dr. T. C. Easton, of Newark, N. J., said that he had been told that San Francisco was a very wicked city. He was happily disappointed. It is no worse than Newark, and, excepting San Francisco’s Chinatown and a few other nuisances, she would rank among the best.”

Dr. Easton’s testimony is additional evidence to the proofs which we have given in the SENTINEL, that the best Sunday observance is where there is no Sunday law. We have known for a long time that San Francisco is no worse than Eastern cities of its class, and we are satisfied that, as Dr. Easton says, with the exception of Chinatown, San Francisco would rank amongst the best. But as no Sunday law is expected to abolish Chinatown, that can bear no part in the question of Sunday laws. Consequently San Francisco with no Sunday law rules amongst the best cities on Sunday. The truth of the whole matter is that, when brought down to strict honesty, the Sunday-law movement is not to benefit society at all. It is simply to give the church managers control of the civil power, so that they can compel those who do not belong to the church to act as though they did. But that will only repel men, and cause them to respect both Sunday and the church less than they now do.

The California Voice of July 18, has an editorial article entitled, “Opposed to Sunday Laws,” in which it takes the AMERICAN SENTINEL to task for representing, as the Voice puts it, that the leaders of the Sunday-law movement intend “to secure a union of Church and State, to establish a State creed, to persecute heretics,” etc. It illustrates the matter in this way:—

“Should a party of reputable men take tickets to Reno and back to San Francisco and say that is the extent of their intended journey, it would be absurdly unjust and wicked to assert proof positive that they intend to go to New York and then to Rome, Jerusalem, and China, simply because they are heading eastward.”

The illustration is not perfect. To make it perfect we would have to suppose that the road upon which the “party of reputable men” were to take their tickets was a single track road, running trains only one way, making it impossible to return by the same road. It would be necessary to suppose, too, that the trains were all through trains, stopping only at the points to which the “reputable men” asserted that they were not going; and furthermore, that some of the party should assert boldly that they were not only going to Reno, but that they intended going to New York, Rome, Jerusalem, and China. This is substantially the case with the advocates of the Sunday-Rest bill.

National Reformers are all in favor of this Sunday-rest movement, and of the Blair Sunday-Rest bill. They, and the leaders of the American Sabbath Union are making common cause to secure the passage of just such a law. They are embarked on the same train, and it is not unreasonable to say that they are bound for the same destination, because some of them openly avow the fact.