Please Explain | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 5, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 19.

Please Explain.

From figures based on the census of 1880, the American Sabbath Union, so called, estimates that there are in the United States, out of a total of 17,392,000 workers, 3,145,572 persons deprived of their Sunday rest, of whom 1,555,404 are “regularly engaged in needless work for gain on Sunday.” This may all be true; and it may also be true that many of these men would lose their situations if they should refuse to do Sunday work, but does it follow that laws should be enacted which would enable them to keep the day just as well as not? Said the Saviour, “If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me;” and if a man’s convictions are not strong enough to move him to do that which he believes to be a sacred duty, even if it does entail pecuniary loss, it is scarcely worth while to strengthen them by legislative enactment. The man who will not serve God unless it is convenient to do so, does not serve him acceptably at all.

But there is another feature of this question which is worth considering. The advocates of a law which guarantees to these Sunday workers a day of rest, whether they desire it or not, demand that all shall rest upon Sunday. They know that a small minority of their fellow-citizens conscientiously keep the seventh day at not a little sacrifice, and that they ask no law to enable them to do it without such sacrifice, yet Sunday-law advocates propose to secure a law which will compel them to keep another day also, thus depriving them of one-sixth of their means of support for conscience’ sake. Will someone please explain why the State should make it so easy for some of its citizens to outwardly observe the forms of their religion, and at the same time so difficult for others?—Signs of the Times.