Petition by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 10, 1882

Petition.

By Editor

A COPY of a petition has come to our hands, which is sent out with the signature of the “P. G. W. C. T.” of California, and which concerns the Sunday Law. It professes to be in the interest of temperance; but, while we are known to be amongst the most radical of temperance people, this petition was not sent to us by those who originated it, or those who are circulating it so extensively. It was sent to us by a personal friend. It reads as follows:—

"To the Honorable the Governor and Legislature of California:— We, the undersigned, citizens of the State of California, respectfully petition,— First.—For the non-repeal of the Sunday Law and the law forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquors to minors and common drunkards. Second.—For the enactment of a law whereby the qualified voters of every voting precinct, town, city, and county, by a majority vote, may determine whether the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be prohibited within their respective limits. Third.—For the submission to the people of an amendment to the Constitution forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in California."

We have heard the story of a lawyer who proceeded to account for the absence of his witness in the following manner: "May it please the Court, I have four reasons to offer for his absence. First, he is dead. Secondly—." Here the Court interposed and excused him from offering the others. With the thought of this in our mind we are led to inquire: If they want an effective temperance law, why not take the third point in this petition and work to that? If carried out it will prove the death of the liquor traffic, and what more can the temperance people ask? We will sign such a petition, and work to the utmost of our ability for its success. We could not work up much enthusiasm on the second point; not because we object to it in principle, but because it would never effect the object we desire. We have been outspoken in favor of prohibition for thirty-five years. We publicly took that ground while it was yet very unpopular with temperance people. We occupy that ground still, and can give a reason for so doing. The Sunday Law is worth but little as a temperance law, because it does not limit the supply, and may be so easily evaded. Those who wish to do so, can procure all they desire for that day on any other day, and to this they would resort if the law were actually enforced.

But there is an explanation which goes with the petition, which we must examine. Among the reasons offered why this petition should be granted is the following:— "The Sunday REST is a decree of Nature and of Nature's God."

This we deny in both its parts. If they will prove to us that it is truth, we shall show ourselves among the most zealous of their co-workers. So far as Nature's decree is concerned it respects only our physical systems, and the wants of our physical frames are served by a Tuesday rest, or a Wednesday rest, or any-other-day rest, just as well as by a Sunday rest. Our bodies need rest—sufficient rest. But nature does not indicate on what day it shall be taken. For thirty years we have taken regularly a Saturday rest, and we ask our friends to show wherein this is not as well for our physical system as a "Sunday rest." The "P. G. W. C. T." of California possesses a mind greatly lacking in the power of discrimination if he really believes the statement which he has here made, that Nature has decreed the "Sunday rest" for man. It is about as highly absurd as anything to which the mind of man can reach.

The decrees of Nature's God stand upon a different basis. We can learn the decrees or laws of Nature only by observation and experience; they are not written. To the contrary, the decrees of God, so far as they relate to our action, are all written. Unlike the laws of Nature, they bear directly on our moral and spiritual natures. The decrees or commandments of God are so broad as to reach "every work" and "every secret thing;" Eccl. 12:13, 14. His word or law "is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" Heb. 4:12. By his holy Scriptures the man of God is "thoroughly furnished unto all good works;" 2 Tim. 3:15-17. In many scriptures we are forbidden to add anything to, or take anything from, his word. "The law and the testimony," Isa. 8:20, are the sole rule and guide of our lives.

But in the holy Scriptures, which furnish us to all good works, and which give us the rule by which we shall be judged, God has never given any decree, law, precept, or counsel, for the keeping of a "Sunday rest." If it exists, why do not our friends produce it? Why do they evade the issue by covering the Sunday question under that of temperance, instead of letting it stand on its own merits? If it is a decree of God, why do its friends dodge behind the plea of "a police regulation," instead of bringing forward that decree and enforcing it by such an indisputable authority? Why not appeal to the consciences of all who love God's law, instead of appealing to the lower motive of patriotism for obedience to an "American" institution?

As God did not ordain a "Sunday rest," so he did not decree an indefinite rest, to be taken whensoever man may choose. Yet this is the position now taken by learned "Doctors of Divinity," and then, as if to show conclusively that their "divinity" is in pressing need of "doctors," they proceed to argue that this indefinite day must necessarily fall on Sunday, the first day of the week! Dr. Benson's book is a specimen of this kind of logic.

We think we fully appreciate the intention of the Good Templars in their work. They intend to serve the cause of temperance. We honor them in this. But we have read in the Scriptures that "if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully." As God will not be worshiped by a false zeal, a zeal "not according to knowledge," but requires to be worshiped in spirit and in truth (and his word is truth), we must not only do that thing which is right in itself, but we must do it in a right manner. We invite the Good Templars to take more broad and just views of this matter. There are important principles involved which they are entirely overlooking. A true temperance platform will not trespass upon any one's religious rights—religious rights which are based on the plain reading of the word of God. But the indiscriminate enforcement of Sunday does this. And all know—none can be blind to the fact—that the present law of California no more forbids the sale of whisky on Sunday than it does the carrying on of the best and most useful business which any man can follow. It is in no way worthy to be called a temperance law. It is a "Sunday Law," and that only. As such we shall oppose it; not by force or resistance, but by meeting it with the law of God, which says: "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work."