For Rest Simply | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 5, 1883

For Rest Simply.

A SHORT time ago an Adventist preacher made some inquiries of the Independent concerning the Sunday Law question, and received a reply, of which the following is a portion:—

“We can only repeat that it is a great disadvantage to be in the minority. People there may be right; but they must suffer and submit. With the Seventh-day people it is a matter of religion and conscience. They must rest Saturday, and may, generally should, work Sunday; but the State has no quarrel with their conscience and religion, and no favor for the religion of the other citizens. All the State wants is that the citizens shall have one day in seven for rest; not for religion. Which day it shall be the majority must decide; but the law should be very considerate of those whose conscience requires another day. They should be allowed to work Sunday if they do not disturb the rest of the majority. If they insist on so working as to interfere with the rest-day of the majority, they must either move or be moved away. We are sorry, but there is no help for it.”

The Sabbath Recorder, after reading the Independent’s reply, takes that paper to task in the following forcible manner:—

“Now we should like to ask the Independent a question or two: If the Sunday of the State is for rest simply, having no regard for the conscience of the minority, and no favors for the religious opinions or preferences of the majority, then why is it needed at all? Does the fact that a few persons, more or less, choose to pursue their regular avocations on any given day prevent all the world besides from resting on that day if they choose to do so? It is probable that a majority of the business men, especially in our large cities, suspend business on our national holidays, as Washington’s birthday, Thanksgiving, etc., and so make it a rest-day. Do they rest any less on those days because, forsooth, the railroads run their regular trains, and a few men keep open stores, shops, or mills? On public holidays many people prefer to go on excursions, with extra railroad trains, banners, and bands of music. Does that prevent those who prefer to do so from staying quietly at home and resting? How, then, if Sunday is simply for rest, can the ordinary labor of a few persons on that day be any serious interference with the resting privileges of the majority? Some men have found it necessary to take a day or a week or a month from business for rest, and they get it, and with it returning health and vigor, although the great majority of mankind have kept the very air full of the hum and clatter of business. If a few men can rest effectually with business going on all about them, ought not the majority—the great majority—to be able to rest without invoking the aid of the State, even though a few people, here and there—a very few—choose to go quietly about their regular business, never very noisy? We have noticed that when for any reason people have chosen to do so, they have been able to rest, irrespective of the activities of business or pleasure-seeking on the part of other people, on every day of the week, except Sunday. But when Sunday comes, and the majority of the people have suspended business, if a few persons conscientiously go about their legitimate work, forthwith a great cry is raised, ‘These few people are so disturbing the rest of the people, they must quit, move or be moved.’ Is it not the baldest nonsense to plead for the Sunday law on any such ground? If the Christian people of this land did not want to preserve the traditional sanctity of Sunday as a day of religious worship; if they were not conscious that such sanctity cannot be maintained by any authority from the word of God; if, in a word, the religious element were taken out of this question, it would cease to have an advocate.”