The Press and the Sunday-Rest Bill.
By Editor
THOUGHTFUL representatives of the press of the United States have spoken and are speaking with reference to the Blair Sunday-Rest bill, and kindred legislation, in no uncertain manner. The Telegraph, of Dubuque, Iowa, closes a discussion of that question in the following words:— “The Telegraph is in favor of observing Sunday as a day of rest, but it is not willing, in order to secure it, to see a law made to interfere with the conscience or personal liberty of the individual, in any particular. Many citizens in Iowa believe in keeping Saturday as a holy day, while others have no belief on the subject, and to compel such persons to rest on Sunday might not only be a hardship, but it would certainly be ‘despoiling them of their legal rights.’ But the passage of the Blair Sunday-Rest bill would set a dangerous precedent for further enactments of the same kind. If Congress can compel a man to cease from his secular employments on the Sabbath-day, why could it not with equal propriety say he must go to church? This much conceded, it would be but another short stretch of authority for the government to step in and decide upon what church he should attend. This would be uniting Church and State, something against the enactment of which every church and society should send in protests to their Representatives and Senators in Congress.” The Globe, Kansas City, Mo., says:— “The adoption of a policy of Sabbath desecration can be defended from no standpoint whatever, but Sabbath desecration must be properly defined. It will not do to include in the forbidden activities of Sunday the innocent recreations of the laboring masses. That will shut them off from religious influence entirely, for human beings cannot be constantly kept within the shadow of toil and at the same time thrive in morals and grow in intelligence. These are conditions and circumstances that ought to have careful consideration at the hands of legislators in our own State, where the attempt is being made to establish and enforce a policy that is certain to ultimately operate against the observance of good order on the Sabbath, and to embitter a large proportion of our people against the religious forces pressing it. We have law enough on the Sunday question, and more than enough. It will cost heavily in the general morality of the people to insist on making further statutory rules for the regulation of the public conduct on the Sabbath.” The World, Charleston, S. C., refers to our work, and to the Blair bill, as follows:— “We have received a copy of a small paper called the Outlook and Sabbath Quarterly, which condemns on principle the bill alluded to, and discusses it from the standpoint of individual rights and common sense.
“The arguments against the general government’s legislating on such a subject are strongly put, and point out the inconsistency of securing to the people the enjoyment of a day of rest by legally indicating what they shall or shall not do.
“To our way of thinking, the title of the measure is a misnomer, in part. ‘A bill to promote religious worship,’ would have been a little more appropriate to238the contents of the document. No matter what any one may say to the contrary, religious worship is a duty that every citizen should perform, and though duties may be regulated by law, it is certainly beyond the province of legislation to enact laws instructing men how they may secure the enjoyment of a day of rest, inasmuch as enjoyment is in great measure regulated by taste, discretion and breeding, which differ in the cases of different men.
“‘The bill referred to makes Sunday the day of rest. There are now some religions that observe Saturday as such. Are they to be compelled to change their day, and would this accord with the provisions of the Constitution in reference to the free exercise of religious belief?’
“‘We agree with the religious publication referred to in the conclusion that legislation on this subject on the part of the general government is unwise and impracticable.’” These are representative-expressions from different parts of the country, which indicate the drift of opinion on the part of the secular press. We do not need to reassure the readers of the Outlook that our sympathies and efforts are wholly with good order and good morals upon every holiday. We are equally uncompromising in our opposition to “Sabbath legislation,” . . . which, under the pretense of seeking only the “civil Sabbath,” aims at securing the support of the civil law for the religious observance of Sunday. Those who have advocated the Blair bill, and who announce that the agitation is to continue until a similar bill be passed, “protest too much” that they aim only at securing a civil Sabbath. It were far more just to take the position occupied by the National Reform Association, and with the courage of honest conviction, say that there can be no civil Sabbath, and that the law of the commonwealth ought to support Sunday as a religious institution. This is the real desire of those who religiously regard the day, and are clamoring for this new legislation. Let them fairly state the issue and enter the field in defense of such an issue. If there can be ultimate success for such efforts, it will be obtained sooner by an open avowal of the religious purpose, than otherwise. Any legislation less than this, if attainable, would give only a lower type of holidayism, if possible, than that which now prevails. This, rather than helping, would hinder the cause of moral and religious reform. The real issue at stake in the struggle for national Sunday legislation centers around the right of the State to touch the question of Sunday observance in any way. The effort to occupy a middle ground between the basis on which existing Sunday legislation rests, and the non-religious basis which many are now advocating, will be futile. If the law has any right to touch the question, it has full right to require “the religious observance of Sunday.” Otherwise the utmost limit it may attain is the permission to cease from labor on that day, if men choose thus to do. We are in hearty sympathy with the idea that those who desire to observe Sunday religiously, should be protected in such observance; that protection should be granted to them as citizens of the commonwealth, not as religionists. By the same law, those who wish to observe the seventh day, are entitled to the same protection, as citizens, and not as religionists. That they happen to be in the minority does not impair their right to such protection, and all legislation which proceeds upon the idea that the minority can be ignored because it is the minority, is non-republican, unjust, and to be resisted. If the majority doctrine were to be applied, those who do not desire to observe Sunday religiously, being in the great majority, would have full right to ignore the minority, for such indeed they are who desire to observe the day religiously. The injustice which the advocates of stricter legislation would do to those who keep Saturday would fall with double force upon their own heads, if the doctrine they teach were to be strictly applied. All men by virtue of citizenship, and under the doctrine of religious liberty, are entitled to protection in all matters of conscience. But protection in religious matters does not require direct or indirect compulsion on the part of the irreligious, requiring them to conform to any act, as of abstaining from secular labor, because certain ones desire thus to do. If it be answered that disturbing noises interfere with religious regard for the day, it is enough to say that beyond disturbances that interfere with public assemblies the law cannot go. If it can, then the Seventh-day Baptist Church, which is disturbed by the rush of business around it on Saturday, is wronged in the sight of the civil law, and of the divine as well; and the men who care to worship the next day must remain quiet for two days. This is now practically the case with all who observe Saturday. It is therefore clear that the principle of religious liberty requires nothing beyond protection from direct disturbance of public assemblies. All else must be left to the action of individual conscience. Rioting and drunkenness should be prohibited at any time.—Outlook and Sabbath Quarterly.