Slaves of What? by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · Mar 29, 1900

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 15, No. 13.

“Slaves of What?”

By Editor

In the “Shelden edition” of the Topeka Daily Capital considerable prominence was given to the subject of the desecration of Sunday. In one issue we note the statement made by a railway employee that many employees of railway corporations are slaves. “We are slaves of what?” he inquires, and adds, “Sabbath desecration. It has come to be, violate the fourth commandment or starve.”

Now we ask our friends who believe in Sunday observance as a religious duty, How much faith in God does such a statement reveal? A person must “violate the fourth commandment or starve.” Who is it that keeps people alive? The Christian will at once answer, It is God. Then God, who keeps everybody alive, including railway employees, will let one of the latter continue to live only on condition that he violates the fourth commandment! That is what this man says, and what Mr. Sheldon’s “Christian newspaper” prints as being the truth. Think of it: God will take care of you

and keep you alive while you disobey him; but if you undertake to do what he has commanded he will let you starve to death!

Has this really come to be the orthodox conception of God? It is not the true Christian conception, certainly.

Contrast with this the following statement made by a person who would not violate his conscience touching the fourth commandment for the sake of keeping his position. We take it from the Union Signal, in connection with a report of religious services held in Willard Hall, Chicago:—

“Some time ago a brother came to the leader and stated his purpose to give up a good position because he was required to work occasionally on the Sabbath. The other day he came back with his face beaming. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘God has heard the prayers offered for me in Willard Hall. I have a good position with a Christian publishing house and am getting on splendidly.’ It pays to serve Jesus.”

Why should not every Christian, every individual who feels it a duty to obey the fourth commandment, do as this person did in the matter? And why should Christians expect that any other than favorable results would follow such action, as in this case? And if people who feel bound by the fourth commandment would do this, how long would they remain in “slavery?”

What then is the real trouble in the cases of those who, like this railway employee, feel that they ought not to violate the fourth commandment and yet do so for fear they will starve? He lays the blame upon the church, for its members’ patronage of Sunday trains. “The church of to-day,” he says, “is partly responsible for myself and a million of my brothers laboring on Sunday at the risk of our souls’ salvation.” Certainly he and they are in bondage—it may even be said, in slavery—but to what? “Slaves of what?”—to repeat his own query—slaves of the railway company? Oh no; the company does not compel them to labor against their will. They are as free to keep the Sabbath, or the day they regard as such, as was the individual mentioned at Willard Hall. The trouble is in themselves. They are slaves to something in their own hearts. And before they complain of others as being responsible for their condition, they should eject the tyrant from his throne within them, as is in their power, and theirs alone, to do. If they will do this, it will solve the Sunday-rest and Sunday slavery question, so far at least as they are concerned.