Untitled article by A. H. L.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 12, 1867

“SABBATH AT THE POLLS.”

By A. H. L.

To the Editor of the Sabbath Recorder:

THE following, under the above heading, from the New York Observer of Oct. 10, 1867, is worthy of careful notice:

“It is now said that the German Anti-Sabbath population in California went en masse for the Democratic ticket, with the understanding that the new Legislature would repeal the Sunday laws.

“In this city, the Germans are said to have proclaimed that they will ignore politics and vote for no candidate who does not pledge himself to oppose the Sunday laws. This will bring the question directly to an issue before the people. It suggests the duty to all political parties to put up only good men for office, on whom all friends of the Sabbath may unite. It will cost a great struggle to maintain the rights of the community to their day of rest, but the end is worth the struggle. When a German holiday takes the place of the Christian Sabbath in New York, the work of demoralization will go on much more rapidly than even now. But it shall not, until a battle has been fought, compared with which all former moral contests in this country have been child’s play.”

The last sentence of this is significant. It is, too—perhaps unwittingly—deeply prophetic. The moral contests in which the American people have been heretofore trained have been those in which human rights have been most prominent. Such contests are full of grandeur and glory, and worthy the Christlike spirit of the martyr. The present phase of the “Sabbath Reform” contest may not be more grand, or fuller of interest, than others that have gone before it, or are now coupled with it. But there is something behind all this political phase, which will in time over-top it, and sink it into insignificance. True, indeed, it is, that former contests have “been child’s play,” compared with what is before us; for in this we must finally come to deal directly with the question of God’s right to be obeyed by his children, his right to his Sabbath, and the honor, reverence and love which can only come from its observance. The coming reform—now too far advanced to be turned back—will be more than the reform represented by “Excise Laws” and “Sunday Car Bills,” the mere suppression or restriction of the irreligious. It will be a radical reform of the church, an upheaving and overturning of the religious and ecclesiastical strata of the whole American people. The assumption that the Sunday is sacred—as the Sabbath upon which the present movements are postulated—must give way, as the pressure is brought to bear, and the church must learn that whatever God has spoken she may not safely question. That the Puritan theory concerning Sunday is unscriptural, every man knows who has carefully canvassed the subject. The constant efforts of its adherents to find new grounds of support, and new modes of defense, are proof of this. The care with which they avoid direct appeals to the “Word,” is proof of the same. Hence it is, that every new effort to build upon this platform will only hasten its downfall. Sunday laws may, and probably will, for a time, succeed—will grow more and more stringent. But the reaction will hasten, and be the more complete. The intervening ground being passed over, the final contest must be between God’s Sabbath and No Sabbath. The “Anglo-American Sabbath” will be long dead before the final issue comes. The many good and earnest men who are now seeking to defend it, enlightened by the developments of the contest, will leave it, and strike hands with the whole truth—with the “letter” of the law. They will have learned that the “letter” is but the faithful expression of the “spirit.”

Meanwhile the above bugle-note is cheering. It tells of awakening. It is a sort of reveille. The bone and sinew of the party which it calls to action is right in design on this question. But the battle must begin where it is beginning, in order to teach that party the weakness of its present position. Its sturdy strugglings destroy the structure on which it stands. Not till then can it be induced to look for a better. Thus all things are working well. We have cause for encouragement—though it be no “child’s play” that is before us. We are entering the highest development of reform—that in which law is supreme, and freedom perfect through obedience. Gird and wait, watch and strike.—A. H. L. in Sabbath Recorder.

Oct. 13, 1867.