p. 210 | Sunday Laws Discussed by Wm. J. Fowler

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 27.

Sunday Laws Discussed.

By Wm. J. Fowler

THE following paragraphs are from an article on Sunday laws by Wm. J. Fowler, published in the Rochester (N. Y.) Post-Express:—

“Every year during the prevalence of hot weather the Sunday question acquires unusual prominence. It is rather curious that the fiercest of the fight is going on while the clergy are off on their summer vacations. . . . It isn’t a good state of things to have a very few men and women impressed with their personal responsibility for the good order of the entire community. Such responsibility needs to be more divided. . . . Whenever zealots in the name of religion attempt to manage the affairs of other people than themselves, they inevitably run against a multitude of snags. I do not deny that it is in this way that an enormous amount of earnest Christian zeal has been worse than wasted. My entire sympathy with the excellent motives of such people does not blind me to their woeful mistake. The unchristian asceticism of the Puritan forefathers of this country is an excellent illustration of my meaning. The American people have outgrown whatever was wholly superstitious in Puritanism, and for the sake of true religion I am heartily glad of it.

Christ subjected himself to great obloquy on account of his teaching. Pretty much all the religious men of his day hated him. The more “religious” they were, or rather the more Pharisaical, the more they opposed him. It was at last in an excess of religious zeal that they crucified him. It may be taken as another parallel to their utterly hypocritical conduct, that they tried to avoid the odium of killing Christ for religion’s sake, and claimed that they did it to uphold the Roman authority, which they pretended that Christ had threatened.

“Jesus protested against this on his trial. It was, I think, the only time on that occasion that he did protest. He was entirely resigned to be crucified, provided it was done without false pretenses. His manly nature could not abide a sham. So he made even Pilate see the point with the terse argument: “If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.” The Roman magistrate turned to the scribes and Pharisees, saying, substantially, “See ye to this. It is not my doings and I wash my hands of it.” After that, Christ went to death without a murmur.

“It is reasonably certain that if Christ were living now he would rebuke most strongly any attempt to enforce religious observance of the Sabbath, or anything else, under a pretense of preserving civil order.

“The functions of civil government are far better understood in this country than in any other, and they are very limited. They consist almost entirely in preventing people from interfering with the rights of others. This is only another way of saying that every man is entitled to the largest personal rights so long as he does not injure others. It is no discredit to the Puritans that they did not understand this as men generally do to-day. Nor is it any derogation to the honor justly due to the Puritans to say that they had mastered only the alphabet of personal rights. They believed most heartily, and it was a great point gained for that time, in their own freedom to worship God unmolested according to the dictates of their own consciences.

“That other people had just as much right in this matter as themselves, did not occur to them. It was a little later evolution of this fundamental truth, that was revealed more particularly to the Quakers and Baptists whom the Puritans persecuted. I have always been rather glad that the doctrine of religious liberty was not at first fully revealed to the Puritan forefathers of Massachusetts. They were always a proud, high-spirited set of men, and if they had had so much truth given to their charge they would have been prouder and more unbearable than ever.

“But it is discreditable to men living now to try to mould religion and social order on the models set by the Puritans two hundred years ago. They were not the best models even for their day. Roger Williams and the Rhode Island colony set much better. . . . It seems to me that the way in which people pass their Sundays is nobody’s business except their own, so long as their conduct interferes with nobody else. Whenever it does, the police magistrate can and generally does take cognizance of it.

“A considerable part of our Sunday laws are relics of Puritan legislation which the public has long outgrown. They cannot be enforced, and their non-enforcement while on the statute book has a demoralizing tendency, as it familiarizes the public mind with successful defiance of the law.”