SUNDAY LAW IN NEW YORK by A. H. L.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 4, 1867

SUNDAY LAW IN NEW YORK.

By A. H. L.

I ATTENDED the Anglo-German Sabbath meeting, which was held in Mr. Henry Ward Beecher’s “Plymouth Church,” Brooklyn, in behalf of the Sunday clause of the Metropolitan Excise Law. The meeting was well attended, by Germans mainly. The following was the order of the meeting:

Prayer by the Rev. John Bank.

Singing by the Congregation.

Opening remarks by Dr. Schaff, in German.

German address by the Rev. Edmund de Schweinitz of Bethlehem, Pa.

German address by Mr. R. W. Raymond.

English address by the Rev. Henry W. Beecher.

The singing was in German. The general tone of the meeting was candid and earnest. The speakers aimed to show that the “Sunday clause of the Metropolitan Excise Law” is not only constitutional, but is also calculated to directly lessen crime, and increase good order and morality; that it is no more an infringement on personal liberty to stop the sale of intoxicating drinks on Sunday, than it is to stop other sales and the transaction of other business. Only the “civil” phase of the question was discussed. All proceeded upon the assumption that Sunday is the Sabbath, and as such is to be protected.

In the evening, I attended the Anniversary of the New York Sabbath Committee, held at the Dutch Reformed Church, corner of Fifth-avenue and Twenty-ninth-st. The meeting was largely attended, by an intelligent audience. The President of the Committee, Norman White, Esq., presided. The meeting was addressed by the President, followed by Rev. Dr. Schaff, Rev. Dr. Ganse, Rev. Dr. Hastings, of N. Y.; also, by Rev. Dr. Patterson, of Chicago, Ill.

The remarks were earnest, spirited, pointed. I was much interested in those of Dr. Hastings, upon the general history of the Sabbath. They evinced an exactness and a familiarity with the question quite unusual. They also brought out the important truth, that the no-Sabbathism of the early Church was a prominent cause of its decline and degeneracy, and that the same fruits now sadly cover all church-ridden Europe. Dr. Patterson gave a sad picture of the drunkenness and debauchery on Sunday in Chicago, and made some sharp hits on stockholders who sit piously in church, while their employees work upon

railroads, the profits of which labor the stockholders pocket.

The doings of the Committee since its organization are briefly stated in the following, which, in the form of a four-page tract, entitled “Sabbath Leaflets,” was distributed throughout the church:

I. LABORS AND RESULTS.

Information gathered in regard to the Sunday Laws of New York, and the alarming extent of Sabbath Desecration.

Assembling of about one hundred Clergymen of all denominations, and their cordial co-operation in the work of the Committee, January, 1858.

Constant and frequent intercourse with the Metropolitan Police Department, securing their co-operation in the execution of the Sunday laws.

Memorial to the Mayor and Police Commissioners against the crying of Newspapers on Sunday, and effectual suppression of this intolerable nuisance, 1858.

Suppression of the Sunday pageant of the Fire Department at the Broderick funeral.

Effectual remonstrance against Sunday desecration in the Central Park.

Abolition of Sunday Theatres by the Sunday Theatre Act of 1860.

Protection of the Sabbath interest in the Army and Navy during the war, culminating in the issue of President Lincoln’s famous Sabbath Order to the army and navy, 1862.

Purchase of a rare Sabbath Library of 146 volumes.

Suppression of Sunday Parades in honor of volunteers returning from the seat of war, June, 1863.

National Sabbath Convention at Saratoga, August, 1863.

Over one hundred Sermons on the better observance of Sunday, preached by the Secretary in nearly all the German and many of the English churches of New York and surrounding cities, 1854–1866.

Seven German Mass Meetings, held from 1859 to 1867 for the better observance of the Sabbath in New York, Williamsburg, and Brooklyn, committing a large number of our German citizens to the American custom of Sabbath observance.

Suppression of the Sunday liquor and beer traffic by the Metropolitan Excise Law of 1866.

Assistance and encouragement given to Sabbath societies and movements in other States, and in Europe, by a liberal distribution of Sabbath documents, by correspondence and personal efforts.

In connection with these movements of the Committee, two very important Legal Decisions were rendered by the Supreme Court in 1861, and by the Court of Appeals in 1866, fully sustaining the Constitutionality of our Sunday laws, and of the new Metropolitan Excise Act.

II. PUBLICATIONS.

1. Thirty-three original Sabbath Documents, touching on the more important practical aspects of the Sabbath question.

2. A volume of Sermons on the History, Authority, Duties, Benefits, and civil relations of the Christian Sabbath, preached at the request of the Committee, and published by the Carters, 1863, which has had a large sale.

3. Gilfillan’s work on the Sabbath, 1863, of which over ten thousand copies have been distributed gratuitously among the clergy of the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, Congregational, and other denominations, mainly by special donations.

4. In connection with these publications should also be mentioned several Sabbath Leaflets and statistical tables, from two to four pages each, and a very large number of articles prepared from time to time for the secular and religious papers of the city in defense of the interests of the civil and sacred Sabbath, many of which had great effect on public opinion at critical junctures of the Sabbath question.

The New York Sabbath Committee is a strong one, and well supported. It means work. By the remarks of last evening, it looks beyond the suppression of the Sunday liquor-traffic for its ultimate work. The “Puritan Sabbath” must be protected and sustained, was the oft-repeated sentiment. These things are the guarantee of future agitation. This will bring men steadily back, and up, to the higher, scriptural idea of the Sabbath. When a certain point is reached, men will begin to inquire after the divine, as well as the civil law, for Sunday observance. Now, men take it for granted that Sunday is the Sabbath. This cannot long continue. The Bible will be searched. History will be unlocked. Then men will see that Sunday-keeping has never been more than a church custom; and that Puritanism, while it adopted the spirit, still made a false and fatal application of the letter and essence of the Sabbath Law. All this will greatly aid our work. It will drive leaders and people to look at the points we now plead for. The present movement is the deciding one as regards the “Puritan Sabbath.” If its failing fortunes are not now retrieved, they never can be. It is as the up-starting of a patient, awakened by the consciousness that his own life-pulse is failing. Will it regain the place and power which it has lost? No. If there be any certainty in the fruitage of principles or the logic of events, it will not. Born of the best blood of the old-world Reformation, and developed under the most favorable circumstances in the new, everything has been in its favor. Nevertheless, it has begun steadily to decline. In times past, its validity has been little questioned. This, and the vigor of its youth, have covered its unscripturalness and weakness. But as years advance, and agitation and thought try it, this weakness, like a hidden scrofula, is developed. True, it was greatly in advance of the no-Sabbathism which preceded it. Still, it was only a partial reform. As such, it has done its work. A new line of defence must be taken—God’s line, in letter as well as in spirit. This we are pleading for. To this the eternal arm will drive the Church. The reformatory spirit which guides good men in the Sunday-law movement, cannot, logically, stop short of this.

We rejoice in what the New York Sabbath Committee and its coadjutors are doing. We commend their earnestness, and do not question their honesty. But we believe they see only half the results which await them and the American Church. God grant that, when the ultimate choice between “no-Sabbath,” and—not the “Puritan,” but—God’s Sabbath shall come, they may be as ready to accept the whole truth, as they now are to press the influences which will largely aid in bringing them to it.—A. H. L., in Sabbath Recorder.

NOTE. We doubt not that, in the language of the foregoing, the “present movement is the deciding one as regards the ‘Puritan Sabbath;’” and when Scripture fails it, and History fails it, as both assuredly will, for it finds no support in either, the inevitable resort will be to the strong arm of the law.—Ed.