A Sound Argument for Religious Liberty
By L. A. S.
— In a recent issue of the United Presbyterian, the Rev. William Robertson presents an argument on “Man’s Right to Labor,” which might be read with profit by the class of latter-day reformers who talk as if the right to rest were superior to all other rights, and that in order that one person may enjoy this right, another person may properly be forced to surrender the right to labor. Mr. Robertson presents six reasons growing out of duty and necessity and of man’s relation to God and to his fellow man, in proof of the inviolable character of the right to labor. He has in mind the denial of this right by the labor unions, but his argument is no less applicable to the question of the justice of general compulsory rest on Sunday. “The labor question,” says Mr. Robertson, “is the question of man’s God-given and inalienable right to work, or to an opportunity to work on just and reasonable conditions. That right,” he continues, “is included or implied, it is believed,”— 1. In the right to live. A right to live without a right to an opportunity to labor for the necessities of life would be a cruel mockery which it would be blasphemy to ascribe to our infinitely just and benevolent Creator. 2. In the right of all men to the earth as a means of subsistence and well-being. This right is conferred in the very first chapter of Genesis, twenty-ninth verse: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat,” or for food, as in the revised version. Thus our benevolent Creator has given the earth to the whole human race as a means of subsistence and well-being. A similar right is conferred upon every beast of the field. Gen. 1:30. See also Gen. 9:2, 3; Ps. 104:14; 115:16. 3. In man’s duty and necessity to labor. Ex. 20:9; Gen. 1:28; 2:15; 3:19; 2 Thess. 3:10. As no man can labor without the means or opportunity, it is evident that either God has granted all men a right to the necessary means of labor, or he has commanded them to do what is absolutely impossible. No such command could ever proceed from an infinitely righteous and benevolent God. 4. In the Sabbath law. That law requires men to rest from their labor on the Sabbath day, which plainly implies a right to an opportunity to work on the other days of the week; as no man can rest from his labor on the Sabbath day if he has no labor to rest from on any day. Thus the fourth commandment, with its divine law of secular labor and sacred rest, carries in its benign bosom man’s God-given right to an opportunity to labor on the other six days of the week. 5. In the moral law as summarized by our Lord. In that divine summary the whole law is summed up in love to God and love to man. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves, is therefore the sum of all moral obligation. But no man can love his neighbor as himself so long as he denies his neighbor a right to an opportunity to earn his living. Neither can he love God as he ought, “for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” Thus love to either God or our neighbor is rendered impossible by the denial of our neighbor’s right to labor. Such a denial of human rights is as far from conformity to the holy and righteous law of God as the east is from the west. 6. Man’s right to labor is inferred, also, from the justice and benevolence of our Creator. “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” But what could be more cruel and unjust than to command and necessitate men to labor, and yet deny them a right to the only means by which labor can be performed? No such an unrighteous command was ever given on earth, even to the most abject slaves. Even Pharaoh, that embodiment of cruelty and oppression, never issued such a command. His command to the Israelites to make bricks without straw only added to their labor by requiring them to gather the straw for themselves, instead of having it brought to their hand. But what would have been thought of Pharaoh if he had commanded his slaves to make bricks without any material whatever! That would have been exactly the same thing as a command to labor without the necessary means. In other words, it would have been a command to men to do what is impossible as the condition of their life and welfare, as no man can labor without the necessary means. No such command could ever be given by our infinitely just and benevolent God and Father, hence the right of all men to labor is as evident and certain as that God is just and benevolent. Of the enjoyment of that right men may be deprived for a time, but of the right itself no power on earth can deprive them. The denial of man’s right to labor is therefore virtually a charge of cruelty and injustice on the part of God our Saviour, who is the very fountain and source of justice and benevolence. We commend this argument written by a Presbyterian and published in a Presbyterian journal, to Presbyterians and all others who would, in the name of Him who bestowed human rights, interfere with the God-given right to labor on six days of the week, making not only this right, but the sacred right of conscience in the matter of observing a weekly rest day, dependent for their exercise upon the will of the religious majority. The human conscience is not subject to majority rule.