p. 6 | How They Look at It by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 14, 1882

How They Look at It.

By Editor

THAT the position taken by the Republican party in reference to the Sunday Law brings this question forward as the leading issue of the present campaign, is evident to the most casual observer. That they have taken their position unqualifiedly and undisguisedly at the dictation of the church party, regardless of the rights and privileges of those who hold a different view in the Sabbath question, is equally plain. An article in the Colusa Sun of Aug. 26, 1882, under the heading, "The Issue," clearly sets forth the situation as it will appear to very many :—

For more than twenty years this law has slumbered among our statutes, and its antiquity must be venerated. The observance of Sunday, saith the preacher, "is a matter of conscience," therefore,(?) it is a subject for legislative enactment. We, too, have a profound respect for the Sabbath, but not after the manner of these Scribes and Pharisees. Concerning the "Sabbath" we believe that the Jew and the Adventist should be permitted to rest on Saturday undisturbed, and they themselves disturbing none. Other religionists should be protected in observing Sunday if they so elect. They should not be allowed to disturb anyone else. We believe that it would be well to set apart one day of the week as a day of rest for the nation, and those who wish to rest should have the quiet which is seemly and necessary. We would even be in favor of setting apart Sunday, because the majority already observe that day. This would require no sumptuary law. The question of buying and selling would be no part thereof. If we favored prohibition, we would not conceal prohibition in the quire of a Sunday Law. We would have a law which would say to the rum-seller, "You must not sell—on Monday or on any other day." A law which would say to the civil authorities, "You must not license." This you must not do, not because of Sunday, but because it is morally wrong. Then the observance of the day of rest would not be hampered with the prohibition law; and the enforcement of the prohibition law would not be disguised and complicated by a Sunday Law.

Like the Sacramento Republicans we are in favor of a Sunday Law with modifications; but we would have the honesty, the manhood, and the courage to state these modifications.