SUNDAY CAUSE MEETS OPPOSITION.
By E. K. Slade
E. K. SLADE.
(Ann Arbor, Mich.) The “American sabbath” defenders are by no means asleep, nor are they in any way lax in their efforts to enforce upon others the rest and recognition that they feel that that day demands. In various parts of the country, the American Sabbath Union has, by determined attempts, sought to gain new ground for the Sunday cause. At present, the discussion of the question of the Sunday closing of the Buffalo Exposition, is causing many things to be said for and against Sunday legislation. It is refreshing, indeed, to hear, among the many voices, those who take a logical and consistent position against the whole evil principle of religious legislation and usurpation. The New York Truth Seeker has the following to say on the attitude of the clergy in the matter of Sunday closing:— “If the directors of the Buffalo Exposition thought to placate the clergy by their compromise on the Sunday-opening matter, they little knew their men. Nothing less than the whole thing will satisfy these would-be monopolists of Sunday. Anything not in accord with their puritanical notions meets their wholesale condemnation, and anything which takes a customer away from their shops is denounced as inimical to religion—meaning their trade. . . . As for the ministers of the country, they could not rail any harder at a completely open exposition than they will at a partly open one. The only policy that will really suit them is to close everything but the churches on Sunday, and then use the police force to drive the people into them. The preachers would undoubtedly be willing to labor themselves and let the policemen work if this pious state of things could be brought about.” But coming nearer to the point in the principle involved in the whole proceeding, are the words of Dr. Lewis, appearing in the Literary Digest of June 29, 1901. His reference to golf-playing points to the case of Benjamin Adams, of Yonkers, N. Y., who was arrested and acquitted for playing golf on Sunday. I quote the following very pointed and pertinent words of Dr. Lewis:— “Every student of the question knows that Sunday legislation had its beginning in the most intense form of the pagan State-Church system, under Constantine, in 321 A. D. With slight modifications, Sunday legislation continued as part of the State-Church system when the empire became nominally Christian. This tendency increased as the centuries went forward, and the largest type of civil legislation concerning religious matters obtained throughout the Middle Ages. “Christianity among English-speaking people was developed under the same State-Church system. The Puritan supremacy in England—1640-60 A. D.—was marked by an extreme union of Church and State. While Puritanism did not legislate concerning saints’ days, it intensified the legislation concerning Sundays and days of humiliation and thanksgiving. English legislation, with the strong Puritan coloring, was transferred to the American colonies, and became the source of all Sunday laws in the United States. These laws have gradually fallen into disuse, but they have never been removed from their original religious basis. Some decisions from the lower courts have attempted to evade the religious feature of the Sunday laws, though the majority of the decisions maintain or admit the religious character of the laws. . . . “If our Sunday laws be analyzed, they show a positively religious basis in their structure as plainly as they do in their historical genesis. Sunday would have no feature of ‘a civil sabbath’ except as the civil law protects it as a day upon which it is wrong to do those things which are wholly harmless on other days. For example, there is no peril to the interest of the State, local or general, from the playing of golf or similar recreations on other days. It is not a breach of good order. It does not inculcate treason, nor menace the welfare of communities in any way. Seen from the standpoint of good health and rational enjoyment, it is much to be desired. The attempt to prohibit it on Sunday is based upon the idea that Sunday is different from other days, and that men are under obligation to refrain from business, labor, and sports, on that day for the day’s sake. “This fact makes it impossible to evade the truth that religion is at the basis of all legislation concerning Sunday. The term ‘desecration’ has538no meaning if the day is not sacred in the eyes of the civil law. Certain exemptions based upon ‘necessity and mercy’ have no meaning except from the religious basis. This idea is drawn directly from the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue. It is needless to continue statements and suggestions in this direction. Golf-playing, being harmless and in keeping with the best interests of society on all other days, cannot be harmful and opposed to the interests of the commonwealth except upon the assumption that Sunday is a day upon which ‘worldly business and amusements’ are wrong because they are worldly, in contrast with spiritual or religious duties. “Until the friends of Sunday legislation are willing to separate the civil law from the religious day, and let the latter take its chances alone, it is useless for them to claim that they do not seek the support of Sunday as a religious institution through civil law. This theoretical distinction between the civil sabbath and the religious Sabbath did not appear in history until the right of the civil law to interfere in religious matters was challenged. Since then men have labored to make this impossible distinction. If the Bible be accepted as the standard of religious duty, the seventh day alone is the Sabbath. In any case, the whole question of Sabbath observance is a religious one, and should be left to the individual conscience without any interference on the part of the civil law.” These quotations are expressions of truth that need no comment. It is pleasing to know that there are still those who love liberty in its broad sense, and who are able and ardent to proclaim against oppressive measures.