Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 4, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 30

The “Civil Sabbath” vs. Religion.

It is easy to see that the law which exalts the “civil Sabbath,” works evil to religion, by placing the human authority in place of the divine. This is especially true of Sunday, since comparatively few, even among Christians, make the divine law the basis of its observance. This state of things destroys conscience, and hence religious regard for Sunday.

When men are at leisure at the same time on any grounds except religious obligation, the temptation to holidayism is much stronger than the invitation to Sabbathism. Irreligious men will drift to holidayism and dissipation if compelled to be idle.

The demands of business and the allurements of pleasure do not keep the masses from church so much as does lack of sympathy for the church services and for religious worship. If true Sabbathism is ever attained in connection with Sunday or any other day, there must be two radical departures from present methods.

1. Cease to depend on civil law, and turn the whole current of discussion into the religious channels where it belongs.

2. Separate all legislation against liquor selling from the Sunday laws against other forms of business, and so take from the Sunday saloon its most effective weapon. As it now is, the union of the anti-Sunday saloon laws, and the laws against ordinary labor, in the same general category furnishes the saloon with a sword ready sharpened, which they wield with deadly effect. The effort to close the saloons on Sunday only, is a mighty barrier against the full prohibition of the traffic on other days. Legislation against the saloon is always in order. It ought not to cease until that curse is put away, but when the main efforts of the temperance people are against Sunday selling,

Sunday closing becomes a sort of bribe to conscience and custom, against interference on other days. It is strange that temperance reformers can not see this fact.

The sooner the friends of Sunday take it out of “politics” the better will be the results for religion and for Sabbathism. This double-headed idea of the “civil, and the religious Sabbath,” is just now popular and furnishes a seeming relief from the charge of attempting the union of Church and State, or of Christianity and the State, under which the friends of Sunday legislation wince. But the combination is contradictory and meaningless unless the full theocratic ground be assumed. Sabbath and Sabbathism arise from religion alone, all else is mere civil rest-day, is practical holidayism. History has settled this question and the verdict will be repeated as often as men choose to try the experiment.—The Sabbath Outlook.