Protestantism and Sunday Legislation in South Africa
By R. C. Porter
ALTHOUGH Africa is the Dark Continent, and the vast majority of her population are native heathen, yet she is abreast of the times in her demand for Sunday laws. Rhodesia is thirteen hundred miles inland from Cape Town, yet she has felt the impulse of the Sunday-law movement, and has recently passed a Sunday law that is much akin to the Constantine Sunday edict of the fourth century. The superintendent of the native mission at Solusi writes that they are located thirty-five miles out from Bulawayo in the midst of native heathen, yet a policeman was recently despatched to their station to order their mission store closed on Sundays in compliance with the new Sunday law. About the same time, there was a vigorous attempt made to pass a drastic Sunday bill through the Orange River Colony Parliament. Commenting on the bill, the editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times of Oct. 31, 1909, made the following common-sense statement:— “The real trouble is that the government is composed of men who were born back in the Middle Ages, and by some strange mischance find themselves ruling a supposedly free colony in what is widely believed to be the twentieth century. . . . To enforce the new law thoroughly it will naturally be necessary to establish the Inquisition; and to provide punishment fitting the crime, it will be essential to purchase a few racks, thumb-screws, and other instruments of medieval torture. In the case of hardened offenders an occasional auto da fé might have a deterrent influence. Of course attendance at the Dutch Church will be made compulsory, and the individual who has the indecency to smile on Sunday will be placed in the stocks. Therefore we say that from the view-point of the distant student of systems of administration, it is deplorable that the Union Parliament should come along and bowl out these legislating survivals from the Middle Ages.” Similar editorials appeared in the Bloemfontein papers, in opposition to the passage of the Sunday bill. The church people were the chief promoters of the measure. Hon. Mr. Lyell, in introducing the bill, assured the House that it was supported by the Dutch Reform Synod and other religious organizations. He frankly admitted that it was an attempt to introduce religious legislation. In opposition to his address the prime minister and the attorney-general made very strong speeches in condemnation of such legislation. The following are extracts from the address of the prime minister, as reported in the Bloemfontein Friend, Nov. 17, 1909:— “The Honorable the prime minister, said he could not see the necessity of further legislation in regard to this matter. Legislation was in existence with regard to the observance of the sabbath, and then there was the Bible to serve for the people’s guidance. . . . A man who would be dissatisfied with the calm and peaceful appearance of the capital on a Sunday, and who would find anything objectionable to disturb him in his devotional exercises, was looking for evil and forgot the truth and beauty of ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ The honorable member for Edenburg had hinted at their origin from the Huguenots, and why these forefathers had come to South Africa. He would also put this question, and his answer was that they were one with the great majority here, in that they were Protestants, which meant that they protested against oppression and wanted freedom of conscience. Let it rest between a man’s conscience and his God how he looked at these things, and let not a third interfere. The Huguenots had not come to South Africa because they differed in certain dogmatical questions of creed, but because they wanted absolute freedom of conscience, and because they would not be under the authority of the Pope. They had surely not done away with the great Pope in order that a number of small popes might be set up afterward over their heirs to interfere between them and their God. There was sufficient piety in the country and in the towns, and they should not forget that the Sabbath was instituted for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Every individual should foster his own opinion on these matters and be true to it. If a man thought that the sabbath would be desecrated by public recreation on Sunday, he must not take part in it, because it would violate his conscientious opinion, but let him not force his opinion upon others. If a man would be shocked and disturbed in the exercise of his devotion by the thought that one of his fellow men played golf while he sat in church, that man’s entire devotion and attention was not in the service, and his thoughts wandered from the right direction in which he could find peace and rest. This bill was only a clumsy attempt to make amendments on the eternal law of God. . . .” “Now who should sit as an arbitrator to judge what might be done and what might not? . . . Let another and higher arbiter than mere man judge in these matters, and leave the responsibility to the individual as a matter between him and his Creator. . . .” “There had been petitions before that House praying for legislation with regard to shop hours, but not a single petition had been handed in from cab drivers to ask relief from their arduous duties on Sundays. It was said that they were Christians, but there were various classes of Christians, some of them were the self-appointed judges over others, and others had freed themselves and resented every interference from without between them and their God. . . . Being a Protestant, he would protest against the bill now before the House.” The bill was defeated on its second reading. The vote stood nineteen to seventeen. In all parts of the world, under the mask of religious reform, Satan is seeking to lead the people to repeat the history of the great apostasy of the Middle Ages. The world needs to-day a revival of the Protest of the Princes at the Diet of Spires. R. C. PORTER.