A Champion of Sunday Laws
By L. A. S.
The cause of Sunday enforcement has found a strong champion in the newly elected chief executive of Ohio, Governor J. M. Pattison, as appears in the following quotation from his inaugural address:— What I have said about the obedience to and enforcement of law is especially applicable to the Sunday laws. Individuals have various opinions as to how they ought, or how they wish, to spend the day of rest and worship, and it is their right to hold such opinions; but the state has certain laws on the statute-books which do not interfere with the religious ideas of any one. They were placed there through the wisdom of past generations who foresaw that such laws would make the people happier and better, and would enable the state to advance to higher degrees of Christian civilization. While the disobeying of any law is demoralizing and degrading to a citizen or community, the disobeying of the Sunday laws is doubly so. Hence the so-called Sunday laws should be obeyed and enforced, not only in the country and in the small villages, but in the large towns and cities as well. The village, county, community, city, state, or people that disobeys the divine law of the Sabbath, which makes it a day of rest and worship, fails to realize the teachings and commands of the Almighty. It was this sentiment of Sabbath observance that made our forefathers strong and mighty, and it is found in the warp and woof of every constitution of the original States. If America is to maintain her position as the nation peculiarly favored by God, and the one of all others that is to have a great destiny, we must forever maintain our respect and reverence for this holy day. While the republic endures, let us advocate what the great masses of all the people believe in—our American Sunday and the Christian sabbath. We should not forget that righteousness exalteth a state or nation, and that lawlessness degrades it. Governor Pattison no doubt sincerely believes these statements, but he has evidently not studied the literature of this question. He should bear in mind that Sabbath observance pertains altogether to the law of God, which it is no part of the business of the state to enforce; that the penalty of violating that law, fixed by God himself, is death, and that the gospel is a provision instituted by the Author of that law for the express purpose of holding the penalty of that law in abeyance, while the transgressor is given opportunity to escape it; and that consequently if the state should enforce that law, with its death penalty, it would work directly against the gospel. He should bear in mind that religion, of which Sabbath observance is a part, and civil government lie in wholly separate spheres; that the conscience can not be subject to majority rule, that it is no part of the business of the state to decide the religious controversy over the seventh and the first day of the week, as to which is the Christian Sabbath, and that the enforcement of religious laws has never brought peace and prosperity to the state.