p. 540 | THE SUNDAY LAW

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1881

THE SUNDAY LAW.

A CERTAIN paper in California sounds a loud cry of victory a long way in advance. It declares that it is not the object merely to close saloons on Sunday, but to close every place where labor is performed on that day. We persume that is the object, and it affords a sufficient answer to those who ask why we will not unite with them in enforcing the law against saloons. It is not a law for the suppression of the liquor traffic, but a law for the protection of Sunday, and, as such, we take no interest in its enforcement.

But the advocates of the law must not be too sanguine. They have solid work before them to accomplish what they have undertaken. Is it true that the Supreme Court has decided that the law is constitutional? Is the declaration of one Justice the decision of the Supreme Court? And, if it can be enforced against the saloons and ordinary laborers on that day, can it, under the New Constitution, be enforced against those who “rest on the Sabbath-day according to the commandment,” and labor on the first day, according to the same fourth commandment of the decalogue? We doubt it. Yet such a construction may be put upon it.

We firmly believe that very many of those who are moving to enforce the law are earnestly working to check the liquor traffic. But we must think that others, according to their own expressions, are making Sunday the object, and liquor selling the pretext. We look for the whole movement to take this turn in due time.

In a recent number of the Woodland Daily Democrat we find the following interesting letter:—

“THE SUNDAY LAW AND THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. “EDITOR DEMOCRAT: Will you grant me a little space in your valuable paper (whose columns I know are always open to both sides of a question), to enable me to express my views as a woman, and ask a question about the Sunday law we are reading so much about of late? We are told that as women we may ask, but must not soil our fingers in the dirty pool of politics. But why should we, because we are women, sit calmly by and see the young and old go down in the awful whirlpool of intemperance, without raising our voices in protest? Will the Sunday law stop the scourge? Perhaps my views will conflict with those of a great many on the subject, but it is a free country as yet, we all have a right to our own opinion, and my opinion is that it will not. I think they have commenced to unravel the skein the wrong way. If I am wrong I hope to be set right. There are different kinds of sects that observe Saturday as a day of worship, and a Sunday law is unjust to them, and still another and large class of law abiding citizens who think the sin is just as great to keep saloons open and have drunken men around on any other day of the week as on Sunday. Now the question is, if the Sunday-law people are strong enough to enforce that law, why not make a law that will last all the week, and sweep forever the plague of darkness from our fair land? I hope some of our law-makers will enlighten us. OBSERVER. “San Francisco, Nov. 12, 1881.”

Since the above was written, we have had opportunity to hear from the ministry of the various churches on the subject, and have to confess to having made a mistake in supposing that the object of this move was to check or curtail the liquor traffic. The manner in which it is treated by the churches and ministers must astonish those who have supposed that there was a good degree of liberality in the public sentiment of California. And all who have thought that we have misjudged the spirit of the American churches, if the power were once put into their hands, have now a chance to learn that they are the ones who have been deceived.

From the last number of the Christian at Work we clip the following item:—

“Two hundred and fifty-eight exiled Jews arrived at Castle Garden, in this city, last Sunday. They are said to be fine specimens of manhood. Many of them will settle in Louisiana. As a class, the Jews are industrious and thrifty immigrants.”

These “fine specimens of manhood” fled from Europe to escape religious or rather fanatical persecution. We can warn them that they have come to the wrong land if they expect to enjoy religious freedom. They can have peace here on the same terms on which they can have it in any part of this world,—by sacrificing their religious convictions to please those who happen to be in the majority. It is exceedingly strange that Protestants have learned nothing from the history of the dark ages. But alas! human nature has not changed, and the religion of the present day is not of that kind that it can rely on the power of truth alone.