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The California Dilemma

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1882

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 59, No. 12.

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The California Dilemma.

This term is the mildest that can be applied to the position of the Sunday advocates in California, in their relation to the Pacific Press. The society which is trying to enforce the Sunday law is called the “Home Protection Society.” The organization of the liquor dealers formed to oppose the law, is called “The League of Freedom.” The Home Protection Society disclaim any connection with the arrest of W. C. White for keeping the office of the Signs open on Sunday. The League of Freedom also disclaim it. It seems to be an act which they are both unwilling to own; and their course shows that they feel themselves in something of a dilemma.
A lengthy report of a meeting of the Home Protection Society in the Oakland (Cal.) daily Times of Feb. 24, refers to certain resolutions offered in the meeting, one of which, in its preamble, stated that “the design of the Sunday law is not to disturb any who conscientiously observe Saturday as the holy Sabbath, unless they willfully disturb the peace and quiet of Christian people on the Lord’s day.”
That the one who offered this spoke not by authority, but only as an individual, is evident from the utterances of religious papers, and other religious teachers who state explicitly that “Seventh-day Adventists can have no reasonable cause of complaint if the law is enforced upon them.”
A resolution was adopted, “That the Society disclaim any connection with the arrest of Mr. White.” Yet the remarks made seemed to indicate that some of the members, at least, wished to show that there was some reason for his arrest. For instance, a Mr. L. said that “it looked as though the Seventh-day Adventists were fighting the Home Protection Society. They wanted Saturday. It had been asserted that Mr. White was working in the interest of the League of Freedom.”
If Mr. L. knows anything of the position of S. D. Adventists, he knows, and knew, that that assertion was false. Again he said: “It looked as though the Pacific Press was playing into the hands of the League of Freedom when they issued a pamphlet advocating the enforcement of the Sunday law on Saturday.” (Italics ours.)
This was the wildest thrust of all. The tract referred to, on the Sunday law, repudiates the idea of enforcing the Sabbath on anybody; and this Mr. L. well knew. But the idea of enforcing “the Sunday law on Saturday,” is, as the Signs well remarks, “worthy of the most brilliant punster that ever graced the ‘Emerald Isle.’”
Some of those who are not connected with the Society can see more clearly, it appears, than the members themselves. Thus the Independent, of Oakland, though favorable to the Association, says: “Several members were of the opinion that the Seventh-day Adventists were in sympathy with the League of Freedom. These gentlemen had evidently not perused the pamphlet recently issued by the Adventists, in which they declare themselves in favor of suppressing the liquor traffic entirely.”
That this is the position of S. D. Adventists, and has been for years, all know who have any acquaintance with our views and work.
One of the officers of the Association said: “If Mr. White is going to fight the law, he is our enemy, and we must fight him from the word, Go. If he is going to play into the hands of the League of Freedom, I, for one, will prosecute him.”
Another member of the Association said: “Mr. White has seen fit to plead, ‘Not guilty;’ and it would be inconsistent for the Society to step in and defend him. If he had pleaded, ‘Guilty,’ I would be in favor of the Society’s paying the fine.”
Compare this with the statement mentioned above, that “the design of the Sunday law is not to disturb any one who conscientiously observes Saturday as the holy Sabbath,” unless such person is a disturber of the peace. Such are not to be held as violators of the law. Bro. W. C. White conscientiously observes the seventh day, and is not charged with violating the peace. The design of the law, then, is not to touch cases of this kind; and yet they ask him to plead guilty to a violation of the law!
These are specimens of the confusion that evidently exists in their own minds on this subject, and of the awkward position they find themselves in.
Another member of the Association, to his honor be it said, rose to a clear conception of the nature of the case, when he said that “there was a higher law than the law of man,—the law of God. I do not believe in violating the law of God by enforcing the law of the Legislature.”
Five thousand copies of a tract on the Sunday law were issued from the Signs Office, and speedily distributed. The churches of Oakland and San Francisco distributed 2,500 copies of the tract. Another edition is already called for, and has ere this been provided. Its publication is timely, and it will do immense good, not the least evidence of which is the uneasiness it is causing among those who are involved in the inconsistencies of the Sunday law.
The California Christian Advocate, the organ of the M. E. Church on the Pacific coast, wilts entirely before the question of enforcing Sunday as a divine institution. It says: “We cannot sustain it before the people, if we claim its sanctity as a religious institution. It is necessary to the life and health of the people.”
To this ground the advocates of Sunday enforcement are fast coming. And this is only history repeating itself; for it has ever been that when divine sanction to sustain the inventions of men has been found wanting, appeal to the civil arm is the next resort.
But while they claim that Sunday desecration is only the violation of a “police regulation,” they cannot forbear revealing the fact at almost every turn that it is as a religious institution, after all, that they want it enforced. Thus a resolution in the Home Protection Society asserted that “the weekly rest and worship of the Christian Sabbath is a right guaranteed both by the laws of God and of the State.” Yet later on in the proceedings, the same person thought that the Seventh-day Adventists, in carrying on their printing business on Sunday, did not violate the letter or spirit of the law of man; but they did violate the law of God! Now look at their position: Sunday observance is only a “police regulation,” a law of the State. It cannot be made to stand as a religious institution, inasmuch as there is no law of God to support it; but, secondly, in working on Sunday Seventh-day Adventists do not violate the letter or spirit of the law of man (which expressly forbids work on that day), but they do violate the law of God (which says nothing about it)!
It is a Scripture adage that the legs of the lame are not equal. Does the reader discover any limping in the Sunday system?