p. 3 | The World-Rest One Day in Seven

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 7, 1907

“The World-Rest One Day in Seven”

The demand for Sunday laws is now being based upon a so-called social foundation, the catch phrase being “the world-rest one day in seven.” The argument is illustrated by the following extracts from one of the leading religious papers:—

To-day we are concerned not for the Hebrew Sabbath, but for the world-rest one day in seven, which by the influence and usage of the Christian church is kept by most of us on the first day of the week, and which, in memory of our Lord’s rising again, we call his day. We have ceased, with the abandonment of direct alliance between church and state, to feel that we have any right to compel men to worship, but we have a vital interest in securing them the opportunity of rest, on which at last the invitation to worship must largely depend. We recognize that private practise, except in so far as it prevents the cessation of labor and the quiet which is essential to the free and undisturbed enjoyment of rest and worship, does not fall within the view of our lawmakers. . . .

There is not now—there never really was—room in our American social life for the authority of a Sabbath law dictated by any church. But the rest-day law which is built upon the general conviction of the validity of the Sabbatic principle of rest one day in seven—a law which insists upon the widest possible cessation of labor, and which leaves the individual free to worship undisturbed—rests upon the broadest social foundation. . . .

We welcome, then, with peculiar pleasure, the action of France in enacting a law forbidding Sunday labor. That is the first step; that clears the way. In a country like France, where Puritanism was never supreme, and organized Christianity has ceased to be the controlling factor in the government, the popular conviction of the necessity of the world sabbath for the laboring man, opens a door of hope for religious progress, though it does not close it upon selfish self-indulgence in mere Sunday pleasure. . . .

It [the question of Sunday laws] is a question of social efficiency and personal opportunity. We have a right to claim the world-sabbath of one day’s rest in seven, but not the Hebrew Sabbath or the Christian Lord’s day from our lawmakers. But we have the further right to claim that freedom shall be left for all who choose to keep the Hebrew Sabbath or the Christian Lord’s day to do so without disturbance—it is our good fortune under God’s ordering that common consent of Christendom dictates that the rest day shall be the first day of the week. . . .

The first, though not the final interest of Christians is in securing the enactment of laws for the world-rest one day in seven which shall so commend themselves to the good sense and sober judgment of all the moral and industrial classes of the community that they will have the strong support of public opinion behind them for their enforcement.

Let us give a little study to the statements made in these paragraphs. The demand for Sunday laws upon a religious basis is apparently abandoned, and the plea is made for a “world-sabbath of one day’s rest in seven” purely upon a “social foundation.” But it is perfectly plain that those who see so clearly “the necessity of the world-sabbath for the laboring man” have no other intention than that this “world-sabbath” shall be the first day of the week. While professedly acknowledging that the church has no right to dictate a Sabbath law, there is the well-defined purpose to secure, under cover of a so-called “world-rest of one day in seven,” the enactment of laws which shall enforce the observance of that day “which by the influence and usage of the Christian church” has been exalted into a “sabbath.” It is declared that “we have a right to claim the world-sabbath of one day’s rest in seven, but not the Hebrew Sabbath or the Christian Lord’s day, from our lawmakers,” and this “right” is professedly based upon “the necessity of the world-sabbath for the laboring man,” as if the only purpose was to prevent employers from enforcing continuous toil upon the laboring man; but in every case where such legislation has been sought, the only thing which would satisfy these self-appointed guardians of the laboring man has been a law requiring rest upon Sunday. They have never been willing to accept a law which gave to the workers “one day in seven,” unless that day was Sunday. This demonstrates that the catch phrase “the world-rest one day in seven” is not a sincere expression of the real purpose of those who use it. This is further shown by the assertion that the “common consent of Christendom dictates that the rest day shall be the first day of the week.”

It matters not how great the effort may be to conceal it, the real purpose of demanding legislation in behalf of the laboring man is to secure the recognition of Sunday as a religious day. The talk about “one day in seven” is but a thin veneer which does not conceal the Sunday idea underneath it. Behind all these movements is a master mind seeking to work out his purpose to set aside the law of God, and to bring the true Sabbath—the seventh day of the week—into contempt. But the commandment remains unchanged: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”