p. 268 | Untitled article by A. F. Ballenger

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 28, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 34

The Civil Sabbath.

By A. F. Ballenger

THE advocates of Sunday legislation are making vigorous efforts to convince the country, that they are working only for a civil rest day in the interests of the laboring man, and are disavowing all attempts at religious legislation. Without questioning their sincerity in making the denial, we will endeavor to show that it is religious legislation, and as dangerous to religious liberty as though it was asked for in the name of religion.

First, the Sabbath is the Lord's day, and God has commanded man to keep it holy. The duty to keep a Sabbath is therefore a duty we owe to God. Said Christ, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” For the Government to demand that we render to it the duty which God demands of us, is to require us to render to Cæsar that which belongs to God.

Second, it is argued that the Sabbath is two-fold, having a religious, and a civil side, the latter being within the jurisdiction of the civil Government. Without stopping to discuss the position in itself, we will apply it to the first and second precepts of the decalogue. It will be

admitted at once that the worship of idols is degrading, and has a tendency to degrade man physically; but who will say that the Government should pass laws defining who the true God is, and demanding his worship on physical or sanitary grounds? Though it were admitted that there is a sanitary as well as a religious phase to the Sabbath, that does not make it a proper subject for legislation. Man needs sleep, but the Government does not retire its subjects at 9:30 P. M., and awaken them at five in the morning. It is necessary for man's physical well-being that he have food, but the Government does not say how much or when he shall take it. At this point in the discussion it is stated that man has a right to rest one-seventh part of time, and that one man's right to rest demands a law compelling all to rest. According to this reasoning, one man's right to marry demands a law compelling all to marry. The position to say the least is absurd.

Let us next notice whether the demands for Sunday legislation are in harmony with the statement that only a civil Sabbath for the benefit of the working man is contemplated. Why, if this be true, do they propose to close the libraries on Sunday? Why close the theaters and other places of amusement? Why stop the running of Sunday excursions, so much patronized by the working man? These measures are manifestly in the interests of the religious idea of the day. The Fourth of July is a civil rest day, in the true sense of the term. All can rest if they choose, but such a day as this is farthest from their ideas of a civil Sabbath, and betrays the motive which actuated these so-called reformers. In one breath they declare for a civil Sabbath, and in the next deplore the sin of Sabbath breaking, and the tendency toward secularizing the day.

Who are behind this movement? is a fair question to ask in determining its character. Not the working man, for there is not a workingman's organization in the country that is active in support of the measure. The fact that there are organizations among them to remove almost every grievance both real and imaginary, except the rest day, is indirect proof, at least, that it is not considered by them as a grievance of importance. Some are opposed to it, fearing the religious aspect which we have mentioned. This is shown from the appearance of Millard F. Hobbs, Master-workman of the Knights of Labor, of the District of Columbia, before the Committee having in charge the Breckinridge Sunday bill, and his speech against it.

The fact that this civil-Sabbath legislation is being urged by the American Sabbath Union and other religious bodies, gives us reason to doubt its civil nature. “Do men gather figs of thistles?” Nor can we expect to reap a civil Sabbath from the sowing of the American Sabbath Union, based on the following article of its constitution:—

ART. 2. Basis.—The basis of the American Sabbath Union is the divine authority and perpetual obligation of the Sabbath, etc.

Granting, for the sake of argument, that it is a civil Sabbath that is desired, the difference is realized with them by a simple change in the name of the measure. The changes which transformed the Blair Sunday bill from a religious measure as introduced in the Fiftieth Congress, to the one now before that body, which they insist on calling a civil measure, were changes made in the title and the terms used in designating the day, the prohibitions and the penalties remaining the same. It would not greatly console a man who was behind the bars for doing honest labor in violation of such a law, to tell him he was not suffering from the operation of a religious law, as the title of the bill had been changed.

Such a law would work hardship in the case of one who observed another day, although it were a civil enactment. To compel a man to rest on another day besides the one he believes God requires him to observe, is to rob him of one-sixth of his God-given time,—time which he needs to employ in providing for himself and family. To say that the law in most cases exempts such persons, does not remove the objection, as the exemption generally admits of such private work only, as will not disturb others, and must to a certain extent operate against the individual.

There is, however, in these exemptions one of the strongest proofs that the measure is religious in character. If laboring on Sunday is made a crime, how can the crime be changed into a virtue, as in the case of an exemption, simply on the ground of religious convictions? Other laws are not placed on this basis. Laws against polygamy do not exempt because of religious convictions. On no other than a religious basis can it be argued that what is considered a crime in one individual is lawful in another.

In one particular there is a striking parallel between this movement and the one which crucified our Saviour. The charges made against him before the Sanhedrim were all of a religious nature; blasphemy, claiming himself to be the Son of God, and speaking against the temple; but when his accusers appeared before Pilate, and found that he would not listen to these charges, they placed their accusations on a civil basis, declaring him to be an enemy of Cæsar in stirring up the people and refusing to pay tribute. These advocates of Sabbath legislation hate the civil Sabbath, that is, a Sabbath devoted to reading Sunday newspapers and pleasure seeking, as badly as the Jews hated Cæsar; but knowing the opposition of the people of the United States to religious legislation, they come to Congress, asking civil support for a day which in their Constitution they declare based wholly on “divine authority.”

We are not opposed to the Sabbath or Sabbath reform; on the contrary we are in favor of both, but they must come by moral suasion, instead of an appeal to civil law which is dangerous to both civil and religious liberty.—A. F. Ballenger, in Home Missionary.