THE TRUE AUTHORITY FOR SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.
The following letter was published in the Catholic Press of Australia, Aug. 25, 1900. It puts in a plain way a truth that can not be published too often:— SIR: It appears that some municipal councils in town and country are putting their heads together with a view to curtailing the outdoor amusements open to young Australia on Sunday. . . . But there is something still wanting to a full statement of the untenable position taken by those sticklers for “Sabbath” observance. What right, anyhow, have these gentlemen as Protestants to lay down the law as to what is to be done or not done on Sunday? Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. If the “Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants,” if “whatever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby” has no claim on their faith or observance, what scrap of title can they show for all their dogmatic insistence as to the requirements of the Lord’s day? From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first. Thus Sunday observance is an incongruous adjunct of the Protestant faith, utterly out of keeping with its fundamental principle. If any Sabbatarian wants to know the proper method of spending the Sunday, the Catholic Church is the natural source to apply to for information. Under her direction the Sunday supplanted the Jewish Sabbath, and she is, therefore, the best fitted to settle any dispute as to its claims. She has no sympathy with a Puritan or Scotch Sabbath, and still less with the “Continental Sunday” of German Lutherans and French infidels. She forbids all servile work, and requires the day to be devoted to public prayer and worship and hearing the word of God; but these duties fulfilled, she has no objection to such hours as remain being employed in any form of innocent outdoor amusement. This is the true view of Sunday observance. . . .