Untitled article by W. A. Colcord

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 16, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 41

An Answer to Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts on the Sunday Amusement Question.

By W. A. Colcord

THERE is a class of men lecturing through the country at the present time, who unquestionably take unwarranted positions on the subject of the conduct of the people on Sunday, and what is proper Sunday observance; and they wish to force everybody to conform to their ideas. We use the term force in its most literal sense, that of physical compulsion. That these men have a perfect right to their ideas as to what is proper Sunday observance, and also by tongue and pen to labor to persuade men to endorse and adopt them, no one for a moment denies. But the doctrine of coercion which they advocate is radically wrong, and deserves to be frowned upon by every intelligent citizen and lover of civil and religious liberty. These men are trying to work the people, or one class of people, up to such a pitch of religious zeal that they will demand that their ideas on religion shall be enacted into law, and forced upon all classes,

irrespective of their religious convictions or non-convictions.

Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts is a prominent lecturer among this class of religio-political enthusiasts. He endeavors to prove that all amusements on Sunday should be prohibited by law, and claims that this can be done on a purely civil basis. The way he says it can be done is by asserting that Sunday amusements are not only sins against God, but “crimes against man.” Now we submit that when an amusement on Saturday is acknowledged to be a harmless entertainment to mankind, it will be difficult, on a civil basis, to show that it is crime on Sunday. There is no law in logics or physics within the realms of civility by which this can be shown. Such a thing is impossible. It might as well be argued that the sun’s rays shining on a certain day are detrimental to vegetation. Divest Sunday or any other day of its religious character, and the absurdity of the claim that harmless amusements, on that day, are crimes against men, will at once appear. Did not some regard Sunday religiously, no one would be heard decrying Sunday amusements. This is confirmed by the fact that none but the religious, or those catering to religious influences, are heard asking for laws to suppress them. This being so, Mr. Crafts’s statement that these things are prohibited, or asked to be prohibited, “not because Sunday amusements are regarded by Christians as sinful,” is certainly false. The truth told, this is just the reason the prohibition is asked.

Christians have the same rights in civil matters as other men; but they have no right whatever to force, by civil measures, their religious customs and ideas upon those who differ from them on religious questions. They may observe whatever day they please, and the Government protects them in the exercise of their rights, so long as they are civil. But they have no right, whether in the minority or majority, to institute measures whereby they can force all to conform to their religious ideas and practices. In other words, they have no right to deprive other men of their rights.

Sunday amusements will break up no churches if the church members stay away from them, which it is their undisputed privilege to do. And if any of the members persist in attending them, there certainly is no civil law prohibiting the other members from “churching” them. Neither are there any Russian laws in this country to prevent any church from preaching, praying, writing, talking, singing, and pleading against such things as “sins against God;” but they should remember that sins against God are not within the purview of civil government. If they will read their Bible they will find that God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”

The sphere of the Church is moral suasion; but law in civil matters means compulsion. When men talk law they talk force; but the great commission of Christ to his disciples was not, “Go ye into all the world and force men to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” but to “teach them.” The best way we know for Sunday observers to preserve that day as the Sabbath, is for them to keep it and teach others to keep it. And there is nothing to prevent them from doing this; but for them to try and preserve it by forcing others to keep it who do not believe in keeping it, at least as they do, is both un-American and un-Christian.—W. A. Colcord, in Iowa State Register.