A Sunday Rest Congress at St. Louis
By L. A. S.
In October next there is to be held at St. Louis, in one of the Exposition buildings, a Sunday Rest Congress, which is announced as one that will be far-reaching in its scope, and of “great importance in aiding to conserve the weekly rest day in this and other lands.” The call for this congress has been signed by eleven “Sabbath observance” societies in the United States and Canada, and by representatives of a large number of foreign countries. The secretary of the congress, Dr. Edward Thomson, has issued a circular which states the following with reference to the general scope of the congress:— (1) We hold the Sabbath, or weekly rest day, to have been founded by the Creator in the beginning, embodied in a commandment of the decalogue, recognized and confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and finally to have appeared in the Lord’s day of the Christian church. We aim to promote among Christians the sense of its divine purpose, and to secure its conscientious observance, hoping thereby to overcome the influences which now threaten to destroy this blessed rest day. (2) While the state can not and should not enforce or interfere with the religious observance of Sunday, yet the weekly rest day exists also as a civil institution, maintained by law and custom, and vitally related to the well-being of individuals and of society, and to the stability of free institutions. We aim to promote among all classes such a true understanding of its value to themselves, to their families, and to the state, as will lead them to resist whatever tends to deprive them of it, and to sustain the just laws which protect their right to it. For this congress we invite the sympathy and the co-operation, and when practicable, the attendance of all who are desirous of promoting it on either or on both of the grounds named above. Associations of trade, manufacturers, commerce, working men’s unions, as well as churches and religious societies, are cordially invited to send delegates. At a later date, the program will be issued, and other details will be given. It is intended to embrace all the aspects of the question, sanitary, social, industrial, political, and religious, with reports of the progress made in recent years, and of the new issues which present themselves. The sabbath which this congress aims to preserve is not the Bible institution, but the sabbath which has become fixed in human custom and laws. That is, it is not proposed to consider Bible testimony with reference to the Sabbath, or to notice the fact that there is a religious controversy regarding the claims of the first day and the seventh day of the week. That the Sabbath is Sunday is assumed to start with; and this assumption at once sets aside what the Bible has to say on the subject; for if the Bible were admitted as evidence, the controversy over the claims of the seventh day would at once be raised. The seventh-day Sabbath, and the fact that there is any question as to the validity of the claims of the first-day institution, are to be wholly ignored. The aim is to preserve the institution that now has the sanction of popular custom, resting the whole upon the assumption that this institution has a foundation of divine authority. It is to be noted that the congress aims to secure the “conscientious” observance of Sunday, but nothing is said about any authority on the subject by which an appeal to conscience can be made. The only authority of this kind is the Word of God, but that will not answer in the present case, for it is a fact that on just this authority a successful appeal to conscience is being made all over the world for the discontinuance of Sunday observance, and the recognition of the seventh-day Sabbath in its stead. It is recognized by the promoters of this congress that “the state can not and should not enforce or interfere with the religious observance of Sunday.” Yet the great object of the congress is to secure legislation compelling everybody to observe Sunday by making it a day of rest. And the rest which is to be enforced by law is not cessation from religious work, but from secular work. The law will shut up places of business on Sunday, but not churches. It will interfere with tradesman and mechanic, but not with the preacher. And this is done under the claim that Sunday is to be enforced merely as a civil institution. Such a claim is not only false, but hypocritical. There is and there can be no such thing as a civil sabbath. The Sabbath was instituted as a means by which mankind was to recognize God. God’s law says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” By keeping the Sabbath men acknowledge God as owner of the seventh day of their time. That day belongs to him, and they are to spend its hours in such a manner as will constitute an acknowledgment of God’s ownership of it. Thus the Sabbath day calls for religious exercises and devotions. By Sabbath-keeping also men recognize the God who created the heavens and the earth, and thus signify that they are worshipers of the true God. Eze. 20: 12, 20. Thus the purpose of the Sabbath is the recognition of God, and this purpose is religious purely. The Sabbath is for rest, physical and mental, but this fact does not afford a foundation for a civil sabbath. Sabbath rest does not mean simply cessation from work. It does not mean idleness. Idleness is not rest. The law can enforce idleness; it can not give rest. Sabbath rest comes from a change of occupation, not a cessation of all occupation. The latter is needed only in case of sickness, and even then the mind will naturally seek employment. As nature abhors a vacuum, so does healthy human nature abhor idleness. This is why it is that “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” People, old and young, must be doing something. To have nothing whatever to do is more tiring than the hardest work. Even to lie awake in bed at night is exceedingly tiring, and trying on the nerves, as any one troubled with insomnia knows,—much more so than it would be to rise and go about some kind of work. The Sunday law can make people stop work. It does this, and its purpose is also to make them stop their play. When Sunday legislation is put into shape to suit the clergy (who are always foremost in the movement to secure a “civil” sabbath), it will prohibit all secular work and all secular recreation—ball playing, golf, or similar games, hunting, fishing, etc.—on Sunday. It will6say to the individual, You shall neither produce nor work nor play; you shall do nothing except it be to attend church. (The multitudes to-day, however,—the men especially,—are not churchgoers.) And this is done to give the people rest! It is perfectly safe to say that under such regulations Sunday would become the most tiresome and trying day of the week. Under a pretense of providing rest, laws would be enacted which would make loafers, and furnish idle hands for Satan to provide with employment. Sabbath rest comes in religious activity of mind or of mind and body. But Sunday legislation does not and can not provide this, in any degree. For these and other reasons that might be given, we can not favor the Sunday Rest Congress to be held at the World’s Fair city in October. The promoters of the enterprise have a zeal, and it may be the best of motives; but they lack knowledge, and no good, but only harm, can be the result. L. A. S.