What Will You Do about It?
By Editor
WE clip the following from an Oakland paper:— "COMMON SENSE.—The San Francisco Occident, the organ of the Presbyterians of the Pacific Coast, points out to the people that the civil law cannot make Sunday holy. It says, and says truly, that the Sunday Law is one thing, Sabbath observance quite another. The State may give us a Sunday; but if Christian people do not make that Sunday a Sabbath, the day of rest will become a positive injury—a day of more riot, more revelry, and more opportunities for crime than any day in the week. When a great party proposes to make the Christian Sabbath a day of "rest and recreation," it means to grant a license to those who desecrate it. Such is not the Sunday Law that Christian people can sanction. It is asking them to approve what the wicked and profane desire—what is diametrically opposed to a decent respect for, and just observance of, the Sabbath of the church." There is in the above some common sense, and some that appears to be extra common. Note its expressions:— "The civil law cannot make Sunday holy." So we say; no power but that of God can make a day holy. God made the seventh day holy; and men are vainly trying by civil law to make Sunday holy. Civil law can make Sunday a legal holiday, but no more. "The Sunday Law is one thing, Sabbath observance quite another." Right again. But the churches are demanding that the Sunday Law shall also make Sabbath observance. It cannot do it. "The State may give us a Sunday; but if Christian people do not make that Sunday a Sabbath, the day of rest will become a positive injury—a day of more riot, more revelry, and more opportunities for crime than any day in the week." Rather mixed. The State may give a Sunday rest, it is true. But Christian people must make it a Sabbath; which is true so far as such a thing is possible. But the error of the Christian people is that they now demand that the State shall make it a Sabbath, and enforce it as a holy day, which is beyond the power of the State, as it before said. There is danger that it will become a day of unusual evil; yes, it always has been. And you can only remedy this by making it a matter of conscience, and not of civil law. But, unfortunately, the ministry is now instructing the people that no man has any right to set up his conscience against civil law. For an instance, see the sermon of "Rev. A. J. Nelson," lately published in the San Francisco Post. An appeal to conscience can only be made on such authority as conscience can recognize. When the law of God is ignored, then the conscience is left without just restraint. The grand difficulty in this Sunday muddle is that Sunday has no higher authority for its enforcement than the civil law. "When a great party proposes to make the Sabbath a day of rest and recreation, it means to grant a license to those who desecrate it." Doubtful. We think the party intended to grant the demand of the church just as far as it is possible for civil power to go. They recognized the truth stated by the Occident, that "civil law cannot make Sunday holy." Why complain of the Republican party for not doing that which you say it cannot do? "Such is not the Sunday Law that Christian people can sanction." No; they demand a holy day where there is none, and where they acknowledge there is no power to make one. They will find no relief until they return to the Bible, which they have left, and cease to exalt civil law above a conscience which is enlightened by the word of God. "It is asking them to approve what the wicked and profane desire." Not so. The churches are entirely to blame for their present dilemma. They have rejected the law of God and the Sabbath which it enjoins, and now complain of the State because it has not the power to remedy their errors. "What is diametrically opposed to a decent respect for, and just observance of, the Sabbath of the church." What would you call a "just observance of the Sabbath of the church," on the part of an infidel? Please explain. Can an atheist render that "just observance of the Sabbath of the church?" Would it not be well for the church to observe its own Sabbath, and make greater efforts to convert infidels to the whole truth of the Bible, and cease to ask the State to do what civil law never can accomplish? The State makes Sunday a legal holiday, thus giving the churches an opportunity to throw their influence over the people on their chosen day of worship. What more can they ask? Do they want the State to compel the people to go to their churches on Sunday? If not, what shall the civil law do more to help them? Alas for their fall! Rev. 14:8. They have turned so far from the truth of God that their power is gone, and they are now beseeching the State to compel the people to act as Christians, if they will not be Christians. And that they call making this a Christian nation! Such was the course of "the church" ten centuries ago. We are fast drifting, in this country, toward the same state of things.