Untitled article by W. A. Colcord

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 16, 1893

Individual Immortality Dependent upon Sunday-Closing.

By W. A. Colcord

The Union Signal of January 5, 1893, delivers itself of the following remarkable utterances, staking all, even the hope of heaven itself, upon the closing of the World's Fair on Sunday, and the preservation of what it terms “our American Sabbath” by law:—

Open Fairs, museums, etc., on Sunday “for the laboring classes” mean inevitably in the end no Sabbath for the laborers or any one else. Unless we are prepared to accept this alternative of no Sabbath at all, we must never consent to an open Fair on Sunday.

To the Christian, the question is of far more serious import, for the annihilation of our day of rest is also the annihilation of our day of worship, and, to many, of almost the sole opportunity for religious development. It is a deadly blow at Christianity, and in Christianity center all the hopes of our Nation's life. . . . Our hope of immortality as a Nation, and our hope of immortality as individuals is the same.—Union Signal, January 5, 1893.

In other words, to sum the whole thing up, these Sunday-law fanatics hold that should they fail in compelling every body to keep Sunday they themselves could not keep it, and would therefore stand no show of obtaining eternal life! What wild, what extravagant, what perverse ideas do they hold? The gospel of the Bible teaches that immortality is dependent upon individual acceptance of Christ, with nothing whatever said about keeping Sunday or the “American Sabbath.” Surely the gospel of the Sunday-law people and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not the same.

W. A. COLCORD.