The Sunday Law Agitation in Pennsylvania
By K. C. RUSSELL
THERE is a vigorous warfare in Pennsylvania over a Sunday bill that has been introduced in the Pennsylvania Legislature this winter by the German American Alliance, which is designed to strike a hard blow at the old State Sunday law of 1794. The Sunday law people of the State are all astir over the question, and claim that the bill is introduced for the purpose of paving the way for the opening of the saloons and beer gardens on Sunday. It is reported that they are raising a fund of fifty thousand dollars to defeat this measure. The State is also being systematically worked by the circulation of petitions remonstrating against the bill. The North American of Philadelphia, under date of Dec. 19, 1904, gives a partial report of a spirited address by Judge Ashman of the Orphans’ Court, which was delivered at the celebration of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association. I herewith quote what appeared from him in this paper, which will give the readers something of an idea of the bitterness that characterizes the contest. He said he “was willing to rest the whole question of Sabbath observance upon medical authorities that a periodical day of rest is needed for man. “This is a government of a people in which the majority rule. A vast majority has always been in favor of a Christian observance of the Sabbath. The attempt of the minority to overthrow this will of the people is anarchy in its most subtle form. “The efforts of those men are the efforts of anarchists. Every newspaper that opposes the Sunday law, every socialist orator who speaks from the platform against it, and every voter who secretly assails it, is an anarchist of the deepest dye.” This scathing denunciation can not fail to remind every Seventh-day Adventist of the following words in “Great Controversy,” page 592: “Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth.” Regardless as to whether or not the motives of those who are working for this bill are what is claimed by its opponents, the 1794 Sunday law should be repealed; for it is religious legislation, and consequently both uncivil and unchristian.