National Reform and Christian Endeavor
By W. A. Colcord
While the National Reform Association has never been numerically great, it has disseminated its erroneous views into nearly every religious denomination and institution of learning in the land. Industriously it has carried on its work, until its principles have permeated all the great religious and many of the social and political organizations of the United States. In one form or another, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the United Society of Christian Endeavor, the Epworth League, the Prohibition Party, and many of the labor unions have committed themselves to its views,—views which, when fully carried out, mean the overthrow of the principles upon which the government of the United States was founded, and the setting up and compulsory worship of the image of the papal beast, especially in the matter of Sunday observance. We were forcibly impressed with this fact two years ago, when, according to the published program of the seventh annual session of the Nebraska Epworth Assembly, held at the Epworth Lake Park, Lincoln, Neb., Aug. 5-13, 1903, Mr. W. F. Crafts was put down for no less than fourteen National Reform talks and addresses. On the bottom of the first page of the program was also printed in bold letters: “No Sunday excursions, and no tickets sold on Sunday.” We were again reminded of the same thing while attending the twenty-second International Christian Endeavor Convention, held at Baltimore, Md., July 5-10, 1905. On Sunday evening, July 9, two National Reform addresses were given before the convention, one by Rev. R. C. Wylie, of Pittsburg, Pa., the other by Rev. Samuel McNaugher, of Cambridge, Mass. As an introduction to these addresses, Mr. Von Ogden Vogt, general secretary of the Christian Endeavor, stated that “there is a sense in which men can be legislated into righteousness,” and that the men who were to make the following addresses would lead out in a line of thought worthy of careful consideration. Dr. Wylie spoke on “The Constitutional Basis of the American Sabbath,” and among other things, said:— Forty-three of the forty-five States have sabbath laws. The persons who set themselves against our sabbath laws set themselves against one of the most characteristic institutions of our country. The sabbath laws invade no one’s rights. Every man can use the day as he sees fit, provided he does not infringe upon the rights of others. Our courts have decided that all people have a right to rest one day in seven. The sabbath is a civil institution, and has been sustained as such by the courts of the land. The Lord’s supper can never become a civil institution; but the Christian sabbath must be a civil institution. We need sabbath laws because of the sharp competition in trade. In a Tennessee case, the federal court sustained the Sunday law on the ground that Christianity is a part of the law of the land. It is just as much a part of our way of doing things as is the English language, or the wearing of the apparel appropriate to our sexes. Sabbath laws do protect public morals; they do protect public safety; they do protect the health of the people. Sabbath laws are founded on divine law. These sabbath laws are in harmony with the law of God. Those who are antagonistic to our sabbath laws are antagonistic to our civilization, because sabbath laws have helped to make our civilization. If we wish to maintain our Christian civilization, we must maintain our sabbath laws. Mr. McNaugher spoke on “Individual Consecration of the Sabbath.” He said:— I think we ought to have in our national constitution a recognition of the sabbath. We ought to have a national law recognizing the custom of the sabbath. I appeal to you, young people of the Christian Endeavor, to be true to the sabbath yourselves. When we banish the sabbath, we banish Christianity with it. If we make a holiday out of it instead of a holy day, it will be given up to pleasure, sin, and licentiousness. We need the sabbath day, and we need it as a holy day. Mr. Shaw, the treasurer of the Christian Endeavor, has stood for a Sunday law in Massachusetts. It reveals a deplorable ignorance of the principles both of the gospel and of good government when such things are permitted to be taught, and are accepted without challenge in an international convention of a professedly Protestant organization whose membership numbers four million. Because forty-three of the States have Sunday laws, this does not justify the existence of such laws. Most of the States also have liquor-licensing laws. On the same ground, therefore, the liquor dealer might justify liquor laws. Those who oppose Sunday laws do not necessarily oppose the Sabbath institution, any more than those who would oppose a law requiring baptism would need to be opposed to baptism. It is shallow reasoning that fails to discriminate between a religious institution and a civil law requiring its observance. Moreover, those who oppose both the Sunday and Sunday laws are not opposing the Sabbath, for Sunday is not the Sabbath. The seventh day, not the first, is the Sabbath. Sabbath laws invade the rights of all upon whom they are enforced. They do not allow every man to use the day as he sees fit, even when he infringes no one’s rights. They will stop a man working quietly in his own field on Sunday. If the law required the observance of the seventh day instead of the first, Sunday observers would doubtless consider that it invaded some one’s rights. Most assuredly all men have a right to rest one day in seven, but neither courts nor kings have a right to compel men to rest thus, much less to say that this “one day” shall be Sunday. Why the “Christian sabbath” must be a civil institution, and Christ’s supper can not be, is not clear. The courts decided once that human slavery was right; but justice and truth, after a bloody struggle, reversed the decision. We need honesty, integrity, and square dealing, rather than sabbath laws, to regulate competition in trade. If laws requiring the observance of Sunday are justifiable on the ground that Christianity is a part of the law of the land, what need is there for calling Sunday the “civil” sabbath? Is not Christianity religious? And if the Christian sabbath can properly be enforced upon this ground, why may not also Christian baptism and the Lord’s supper? Are they not a part of “Christianity”? The Sabbath properly kept is a promoter of morals, safety, and health, both public and private; but laws enforcing idleness merely, on any day, are destructive of all these things. Sunday laws are not founded on divine law, and are in direct contravention of this law. The divine law commands no one to keep Sunday, and sanctions no one’s compelling another to act religiously, or prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning him if he fails to do so. A conscientious observance of a day as the Sabbath is conducive to civilization, but the compulsory observance of a day is a mark and relic of heathenism, and tends to destroy civilization, as do all unjust and oppressive laws. Christianity started out and flourished for three centuries without any Sunday laws. It is useless, therefore, to argue that such laws are essential to the maintaining of “Christian civilization.” They are essential to maintaining the Sunday institution, as it has only human tradition and human laws to stand upon; but Christian civilization would fare far better without them. It is a weak religious institution that has7to hide behind civil law in order to maintain an existence. This fact of itself demonstrates that it is not Christian. Christian institutions live without civil laws, and in spite of them. In the afternoon and evening of the day some of our Baltimore brethren and sisters distributed twelve or fifteen thousand pages of literature among those attending the convention, mostly the leaflets “An Appeal to the Clergy,” “Sunday Laws,” and “The Civil Sabbath.” These, we trust, helped to dispel some of this false teaching to which the Endeavorers had listened.