Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 2, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 22

A DISPATCH in the Chicago Tribune of the 13th ult., is headed, “Can Saturday be Sunday?” The thing is of course quite impossible, but not so with that which gave rise to the question. The facts are briefly stated as follows in the dispatch:—

VALPARAISO, Ind., May 12.—The status of the Jewish Sabbath under the law of Indiana is to be determined in the courts. Charles Pitzele, a business man of Whiting, Lake County, refused to affix his signature to an assessment blank Saturday, the recognized Sabbath in Hebrew church circles, and will carry the matter into litigation to establish the legality of the Jewish holy day.

It is probable that all that Mr. Pitzele wishes to establish is his right to keep the seventh day unmolested by assessors and their civil officers. In this he is clearly right. Every man ought to be left perfectly free to keep any day or no day just as he elects. This he is not free to do if on one hand he is required by the law to perform certain acts on his sacred day, that he can not conscientiously do; nor on the other hand, if he is compelled to keep a day whether he wishes to or not. No day ought to have any legal standing above another, but the rights of every individual ought to be sacred, and no man ought to be required to do on any day that he holds sacred to devotion, any act or business that can be performed on some other day.