The Evils of Enforced Sunday-Keeping.
THE Washington (Iowa) Press of May 8 has an editorial article on the Sunday question from which we quote a single paragraph, not because we fully agree with the sentiment, but for the sake of comment. After referring to the order discontinuing the Sunday freight trains on the New York Central Railroad, the Press says:— “The experiment will be an interesting one. Workmen do not usually ‘rest’ on Sunday, even if not at work. If not at work, they are lounging, too many of them dissipating, and by Sunday night they are more used up than if they had been at their routine work, just as national holidays fatigue people more than their accustomed work. As a rule, people are never so well and virtuously engaged as when at work. Work, labor, is one of the saviours of the race. The idle classes are the vicious classes. If men would rest on Sunday, have harmless, cheerful, social relaxation, flop down on the grass or lounge and read, and doze, or visit, Sunday would be a rest-day. But suppose they spend Sunday in saloons, or in dissipation, as thousands of folks do when on their regular round of service, what advantage is Sunday to them? Morally and physically considered, they’d far better be at work on Sunday than acting that way. So far as our observation goes, people do not ‘rest’ on Sunday. Business men are still scheming, and it’s thinking, worrying, that tires. And for those that dissipate there is no rest. Dissipation is the hardest, toughest kind of work. It uses up tissue, not to speak of virtue, faster than anything else. Those who make a holiday of Sunday, go on excursions, go to picnics, beer-gardens, etc., are more fagged out by Sunday night than if they’d been in the shop all day. For tens of thousands Sunday is not a rest-day, but a license day.”
There is of course much truth in this paragraph. There is little benefit to be derived from enforced idleness upon Sunday. We would not, however, deprecate Sabbath-keeping in the least. But in what the Press has said can be clearly seen the evil which will arise from the program which has been mapped out by the National Reformers when they compel all to rest whether they are conscientious in doing so or not. We believe that the original object of the Sabbath was not rest but worship. When God created the heavens and the earth, he blessed and sanctified the seventh day, setting it apart as a memorial of God’s creative work, that his creatures in keeping it might be reminded that he did create all things, and thus their worship would be directed to him. Of course where the Sabbath is observed from such a motive as this, nothing but good can come of it. But to compel those who have no reverence for God, and who do not regard him as the Creator, to abstain from labor one day in seven, is simply to cause them to cast about for some means of killing time. And it is too often the case that this is found in dissipation. One of the evils complained of which is most sought to be remedied by Sunday laws is this dissipation. First, they make laws which compel people to be idle. Then when those who are idle walk after their natural inclinations and make Sunday a day of revelry instead of a day of rest, other laws must be made compelling them to spend the day as those in power think most fitting. And as that which is desired is to secure their attendance at church, the natural conclusion would be that laws will be demanded requiring everybody to attend church. Indeed, some have gone almost to that extent already, because it has been proposed in so many words to hedge up the avenues of pleasure to such an extent that people will go to church rather than do nothing. We would be glad indeed to see everybody attend church. We believe it a good practice, and in some respects even adulterated Christianity is better than none at all, but we are assured that nothing but evil could result from coercing people in matters of religion. But coercion is the natural sequence of regulating Sunday-keeping by law.