The Free Religious Association and Sunday Laws

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 12, 1907

The Free Religious Association and Sunday Laws

The National Tribune, speaking editorially upon the purpose of the “Free Religious Association,” says:—

For many years the Free Religious Association has been trying to get the State laws prohibiting the performance of common labor on the sabbath before the Supreme Court of the United States for adjudication. The association claims with much vehemence that these laws are fetters upon conscience, and in the nature of the establishment of state religions.

The editor cites the Tennessee persecutions, the decision of the State Supreme Court affirming the decision of the lower court, and the arrest and fining of Alfred Bergefeldt, of Tacoma, Wash., for Sunday labor after observing the true Sabbath, and the decision of the Supreme Court of that State affirming the decision of the lower court. The editor draws the following conclusion:—

The State has full power for any reason that may seem sufficient to prohibit all common labor upon any given day. There need be no question of religion enter into this. Reasons of a sanitary or economic nature, or even those relating to public order, are all that are necessary, and we are confident that the Supreme Court of the United States will so decide.

The confidence of the editor is probably well founded—not necessarily upon the justice of the matter at all; but the Supreme Court, having decided that “this is a Christian nation,” has opened the way for defining the religion of the people. This does not seem to strike the editor of the National Tribune as a serious matter; but rather a thing so necessary that the flimsiest of reasons for the imprisonment of Sabbath-keepers—“reasons of a sanitary or economic nature”—can be lightly set before the public as sufficient justification. In ancient heathen times, when a great building was erected, they must have a human victim under its corner-stone. It is very appropriate, therefore, that in the national establishment of the Sunday institution (of heathen origin) in the United States, it should have victims upon which to set its corner-stone. Its antichristian character is shown in the fact that in every locality where the Sunday institution has been enforced by law, its first, and generally its only victims have been Christian men who have conscientiously observed the Sabbath of the Lord. It has always been characteristic of heathen religions to seek state recognition and legal enforcement. The demands of Sunday advocates in this regard stamp the institution at once with the nature of its origin—antichristian; and the course of the States and of the United States in upholding the institution at the expense of the religious rights of the people is setting before the world an example of medievalism. The sorrowful part of it is that so many of the people “love to have it so.”