Untitled article by F. W. HOWE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 11, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

A School of Conscience.

By F. W. HOWE

UNDER this heading appears the following editorial in a recent number of the Churchman of this city (New York):—

Certain gentlemen in the vicinity of Paris, Tennessee, believing that Saturday is the day on which men ought to worship, not only claim the right to observe that day religiously, but also claim the right to carry on their usual farm and other business on Sunday, in violation of the State Sunday law. In the exercise of their first claim they have been unmolested, but in the exercise of the second they have been arrested, convicted, fined $25 apiece, and, in default of payment, have been lodged in jail. One of them who has previously served three months in jail for similar offenses, writes to the National Religious Liberty Association of Chicago, complaining that it would take all their small property to meet the demands of persistent fines, and that the judge, in answer to the protest that they were conscientious in this matter, replied: “Let them educate their consciences by the laws of Tennessee.”

At first-blush this judicial fiat seems oppressive. But there would seem to be a distinction to be drawn between a law which violates conscience, and a law which simply limits conscience. Unless these seventh-day religionists take the clause, “Six days shalt thou labor,” as literally as, “The seventh day is the Sabbath,” they can hardly complain that the State Sunday law violates their consciences. A law compelling them to work on Saturday might be open to that objection, but the Sunday law only abridges their liberty to toil and get gain, to five days in the week, which is the price they are called upon to pay for having a peculiar conscience. The Tennessee Sunday law being what it is, the Sunday earnings of seventh-day Tennesseeans would seem to be liable to confiscation in the shape of fines, and the judge gave good advice, when he said, in this particular, “Let them educate their consciences by the laws of Tennessee.”

The Churchman does not usually much concern itself with matters outside of the Episcopal Church, the would-be “Catholic Church of America.” And when it does indulge in any comment upon external affairs, it is wont to do so in a very modest, benevolent way; as the foregoing extract bears witness. Yet, “it would seem” that it were hard for our esteemed Churchman to disguise the self-satisfied, supercilious composure with which he regards the judicial crime against “these seventh-day religionists” who have consciences sufficiently “peculiar” to dare obey God rather than man. It is in vain that this organ of a church which is synonymous with formal, legalized ecclesiasticism, attempts to conceal its satisfaction over the occurrences mentioned, and its complete indorsement of the tyrannical laws which caused them. And it takes this attitude without a blush, “first,” last, or anywhere.

Observe the gracious admission that a law compelling these “gentlemen” to work on Saturday might be open to the objection that it would violate their conscience; still it would be only an “objection”—nothing very serious, to the Churchman. If one of these “seventh-day Tennesseeans” should happen to be in the neighboring State of Georgia, and were “compelled to work on Saturday” in the chain-gang under the penalty of bloody stripes and lifelong scars if he refused

fused, doubtless it would seem to the Churchman an exceedingly proper thing for the humane officers of civil law to interpret that clause, “Six days shalt thou labor,” very literally. And the poor violator of the “venerable day of the sun” would scarcely be given his choice of “one day in seven” for rest.

But “the Tennessee Sunday law being what it is,” “a law which simply limits conscience” in that it “only abridges their liberty to toil and get gain, to five days in the week,” as a matter of course, “the Sunday earnings of seventh-day Tennesseeans would seem to be liable to confiscation in the shape of fines and “good advice.” Shame upon the unworthy subterfuge that these poor farmers who have to toil for their daily bread could earn $25 apiece every Sunday! Shame upon America’s four hundred years of vaunted civilization that compels the victims of religious intolerance to lie in filthy jails until their fines shall be fulfilled at twenty-five cents a day!

It is true that one or two who were able to pay their fines, refused to do so because they would not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. “At first blush” it always seems that a man who puts himself in this position deserves his fate. The law must take its course. So long as it remains on the statute books, good or bad, it must be enforced. No man has the moral right to urge a claim of conscience in defense of an act which violates the equal civil rights of every other man.

Let us apply this logic: There is to-day in this year of grace, 1892, upon the statute books of Maryland, in the city of Washington, D. C., unrepealed by our enlightened nineteenth century Congress, a civil law which requires that any man who shall publicly deny his belief in, or blaspheme, the Holy Trinity, shall be bored through the tongue; and if he repeatedly persists in this course he must suffer death. Is this law enforced now? Bless you, no; because that law, you know, was intolerant, destructive of the rights of conscience, you know, and was derived from the old Church and State establishment of colonial days. My dear friend, we have progressed since then.

Probably, in certain directions. But this description is every whit true of the Tennessee Sunday law. Like the other, it was designed as an instrument of religious persecution under civil auspices, and is enforced in no other way. In the testimony in the cases referred to by the Churchman, not one of the neighbors of these “seventh-day Tennesseeans” could be persuaded to say that his civil rights had been violated because another had quietly plowed his corn, away from the public road, on Sunday. No one had been disturbed, nor was it shown according to the indictment that these “seventh-day religionists” had created “a public nuisance.” Yet there was not found wanting a jury that could be influenced by religious bigotry to convict them, nor a judge who was not ready with his “good advice.”

It is always thus when civil law usurps jurisdiction over religious questions. Civil law never did, never does, do this of its own will; but as Judge Hammond said in the King case (another laurel in the crown of Tennessee), “by a sort of factitious advantage the observers of Sunday have secured control of legislation, and persistently adhere to that advantage.” The motive is purely religious, the judge and jury are its tools. The Churchman is obliged to admit that the Sunday law abridges liberty of action to one man in matters wherein he does not “abridge,” nor “limit,” nor “violate” the liberty of his fellow man. Where is the warrant for this abridgment, either in the Bible, the Constitution of the United States, or in the sublime declaration of Jesus Christ: “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”?

In an adjoining editorial, the Churchman sheds forth this complacent dictum: “The great error in the Puritan theology was the abandonment of the truth of a common corporate fellowship . . . in the brotherhood of Christ and the fatherhood of God.” The reflecting mind can scarce repress the sentiment that there is possibly as much of pious cant coupled with Pharisaic intolerance in modern formalism as in any variety that flourished four hundred years ago. Occasionally it is well to take a look in the direction we are drifting. F. W. HOWE.

Ann Arbor, Mich.