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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 5, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 21

SHALL WE HAVE A SABBATH?

The New York Sabbath Committee have issued a circular to the people of New York with the above title, for the purpose of counteracting the influences which have been, and will be, brought to bear, to effect the repeal of the clause of the Excise Law prohibiting the traffic in liquor on Sunday. There have recently been meetings of Germans in this and other cities, in which strong resolutions have been passed against Sunday laws, and in which the members have pledged themselves to cast aside political considerations, and to vote only for candidates who are opposed to Sunday and Temperance legislation. Last summer the German Central Republican Committee of New York sent a petition to the Constitutional Convention of the State, urging “that Sabbatarian and Temperance legislation be forever banished from the statute-book,” and declaring “that they will never vote for a revised constitution which sanctions such laws.”

The New York Democrat, the leading German Republican daily paper of the State, winds up a series of anti-Sunday articles with the demand: “Equality of rights for all! No caste of priests! Either abolish the observance of Sunday altogether or close the churches on Sunday.” The cry is raised that the law interferes with civil and religious liberty, and that it is hard, beyond precedent, in its requirements; neither of which is true. Liberty is license when it interferes with the rights of others; and the Sunday law but protects those who believe in the sacredness of the day.

In 1855, a city ordinance was passed, and approved by Fernando Wood, mayor, as stringent as that now in force, which, though practically null, was virtually in operation till the present law superseded it. Judge Allen, of the Supreme Court, in 1861, declared the Christian Sabbath to be a civil institution, concerning which legislation is perfectly legitimate; and Judge Wright, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court of Appeals, in December, 1866, pronounces the present Excise law “more liberal than that which it supersedes, or any general law since the organization of the Government, as a part of its police system, regulating, restraining, and prohibiting the traffic in intoxicating drinks.”

It is feared that, to gain the votes of so large a body as the Germans, political partisans of either party may consent to their demands, and give the desired pledges. Let all friends of order and religion learn wisdom from their foes, and, throwing down all barriers of party, resolve to vote only for such men, in city and State, as are pledged to uphold the Sunday law.

We have heretofore argued the beneficial effects of the law upon all classes. We presume THE METHODIST has few readers who do not desire Sunday to be held sacred. What is needed is the sense of individual responsibility, and of importance of individual action. We are a Christian, as truly as we are a republican, nation, and we can as little endure the introduction of aggressive infidelity as of aggressive absolutism.—Methodist.