Untitled article by A. L. Russell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 7, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 1

Should Sabbath Observance be Enforced by Law?

By A. L. Russell

[Conclusion of the negative argument, delivered at the annual contest of the Philomath and Adelphia Literary Societies of Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, June 24, 1891, by A. L. Russell (Philo.), Bulger, Pa.]

SABBATH desecration is the effect of a wayward heart. Christianity says: “The grace of God will cleanse your heart; come to the Fount of love.” Advocates of civil enforcement say: “Make men bow. As hypocrites or worshipers, let them bow or suffer.” History tells that men can not be bound or racked into, nor out of, Christianity. Much less can they be fined or imprisoned into it. The motive power of Christianity is love, and where force begins love ends. The only strength Christianity ever had, or ever can have, is the strength of Jesus Christ, and that is never made manifest politically.

To enforce Sabbath observance where the heart rebels is to offer to God the essence of hypocrisy. The most scathing denunciation that ever fell from the lips of Christ was his condemnation of this contemptible sin. Two great evils must follow such an attempt:—

First, The world will not believe there is such a thing as the power of the Holy Spirit, since the Church fails to use or value it.

Second, Both world and Church will be plunged more deeply into sin; because, for help against an evil, the Church appeals to the very source of that evil.

The world can not purify the world, nor a worldly Church become sanctified by the aid of the world. Therefore, “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;” and go with the Bible instead of the civil mace in your hand—that Bible which says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord

of hosts.” Speed on the work of the Master with half the power expended on the Sabbath-law work, and the world would stand aghast at the revival of the Church.

Therefore, as the use of force is in direct opposition to the method and teaching of Christ, and the fundamental precepts of Christianity, Christianity repudiates the use of force in the observance of its institutions.

The institutions of a religion are part of that religion, and to enforce a religious institution is to enforce part of a religion. But such enforcement involves a prior decision of the courts as to what religion is true and what false; and if law enforce what it deems the true religion, it must, as violation of law, suppress what it deems false religion. It would thus declare itself infallible, and its edicts would be the manifestoes of an inquisition. To enforce the observance of the Sabbath is to place a religious dogma in the statute law, and to discriminate against certain sects by establishing a tenet held by an opposing religion. To force the observance of a religious institution on a man whose conscience rebels, is religious persecution, and no sophistry can evade it.

The profound and learned American jurist, Judge Cooley, says: “The law discriminates against the religion of the seventh-day observer by forcing him to keep a second Sabbath in each week, thus unjustly punishing him for his belief. The argument which he may make who has already observed the seventh day of the week is unanswerable.” Thus the learned judge declares that such enforcement punishes certain citizens for a religious belief. And such punishment is persecution. All history tells that pagan, Jew, and professed Christian have persecuted other religions because they thought them false. Yet, strong in our prejudice, we seem to think that men have changed; that we may enact such laws, and fan the smouldering embers, yet produce no flame.

But we must admit what evidence proves true. Allow me to read but two of many letters received. The first is from Judge U. M. Rose, a member of the State Bar Association of Arkansas, and one of the leading lawyers of the State:—

Dear Sir: Yours received. The law passed in this State in 1885, requiring all persons to keep Sunday as a day of rest, although they might religiously keep some other day of the week, has since been repealed. The act of 1885 was found to work oppressively on persons believing that Saturday is the Christian as well as the Jewish Sabbath; and hence its repeal. It was manifestly unjust to them as well as to the Jews. You ask me to express my opinion as to the propriety of such legislation as that contained in the repealed act. Nothing can exceed my abhorrence of any kind of legislation that has for its object the restraint of any class of men in the exercise of their religious opinions. It is the fundamental basis of our Government that every man shall be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. It was certainly not a little singular that while in our churches the command was regularly read at stated times requiring all men to keep the Sabbath, which amongst the Jews, to whom the command was addressed, was the seventh day of the week, men should be prosecuted and convicted in the courts for doing so. As a civil requirement, my opinion is that any legislation that attempts to control the conscience of men as to the discharge of religious duty, can only be the result of that ignorance and fanaticism which for centuries proved to be the worst curse that ever afflicted humanity.

Very respectfully yours,

U. M. ROSE.

To Whom It May Concern:

We, the undersigned, herewith testify that the recent prosecutions against the observers of the seventh-day Sabbath, in our vicinity, have brought to light a religious intolerance and a spirit of persecution, the existence whereof a great many imagined not to exist any more in our time.

J. F. FAIRCHILD, M. D. E. E. WOODCOCK.

Potash Sulphur Springs, Arkansas.

When religious opinions conflict, compulsory conformity to an institution in which the victim can not believe, it is religious persecution. Therefore, the institution of the Sabbath enforced by civil law is religious tyranny—religious persecution.