Closing the Exposition on Sunday
By Cyrus Simmons
The International Reform Bureau has, among other things, for its object “the defense of the Sabbath.” “Without debate or division,” Congress passed the law, drawn by the Reform Bureau, closing the exposition on Sunday. Is this legislation a wise precedent? There is a great deal of sentiment, religious and otherwise, and diversity of opinion, about the observance of Sunday. In attempting to further a seemingly moral movement, is Congress, by this law, unwittingly trespassing upon the inalienable rights of conscience? The institution of the Sabbath, and its observance, are evidently founded on the requirements and duties imposed by religion. Whatever the rest day, be it Sabbath, the seventh day, or Sunday, the first day of the week, or the Mohammedan’s Friday, the reverence shown to it is an expression of worship, which the respective adherents pay in honor to their respective faiths. The history of the Sabbath is inseparable from faith and religion. The very acts mentioned in Sunday laws which are said to transgress the sanctity of the day are licensed or considered lawful or commendable on other days. Therefore the object of Sunday legislation is not to regulate civil conduct, which is exclusively the province of the state, but it attempts to prohibit the doing of those acts that are defined to be commercial and worldly, in contradistinction to what is devotional, in order that the sacredness of a certain day may not be disregarded or violated, thus prescribing indirectly the duties we owe to God. Disguised by an apparently harmless mask, this is a sort of church teaching that has crept unawares into our legislative halls. By usage and customary sufferance Sunday legislation has obtained such a hold upon the convictions of the people that its dangers may not be discerned until it is too late. As there is more than one rest day in which religionists believe, there is consequently no unanimity in the United States, as to either the identical day of the week to be kept as the Sabbath or the manner in which it should be kept. When Congress allows one religious body, or reform bureau, to draft a law designating the observance of a certain day of the week as the Sabbath, and this law is enacted agreeably to its bidding, thereby defining by national law the day of the week that is the Sabbath, is not the arm of the state unnecessarily reaching out and clasping hands with the arm of the church in an unholy alliance, that may be fraught with dissensions, with religious differences, and, possibly, with persecutions? Why not confine the regulation of the Sabbath to the church, where it belongs? Is not the day and its observance as much a question of faith and religion as the manner of baptism, as denominationalism, as Christianity, or as Hebraism? Is not the history of every state that has enforced its religious dogmas one of decay and dissolution, of violence and persecution? Does this republic wish to parallel the republic of Rome, where Paul was beheaded, where Peter and Christ were crucified? Can no harm result from this sort of legislation? Let us reason together. 1. To believe in the Sabbath we must believe in the God who made the Sabbath. The atheist may say, “What god? Whose god?” Religionists may reply, “This is a Christian nation; we have no room here for the atheist.” Thus an occasion arises for a religious controversy. 2. To believe in the Sabbath we are told to believe that the Creator who made the Sabbath also made the world in six days. The precept enjoining the observance of the Sabbath tells why it should be kept: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” Ex. 20: 11. There are many theorists and higher critics who will not admit of the creation of the world in six literal days, while there are others who prefer to take the Word of God as it reads without further mental or verbal refinement. Here is occasion for another religious controversy,—a serious difference between two classes of believers of the same Book, which can only be reconciled by the faith of the individual. 3. To keep the Sabbath acceptably to the God who made it we are told to keep it holy. This involves a definition of holiness. The understanding of this one word has given rise to many believers of many opinions. The Christ, in magnifying the decalogue and making it honorable, taught that its precepts were so holy that they could be broken by unholy thoughts,—the overt act is not necessary. Matt. 5: 27, 28. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” 1 John 3: 15. What an undertaking for Congress, or the state, to make the thoughts of people holy by legislation. The Sabbath can be broken not only by thinking unholy thoughts, but by speaking our own words. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” Isa. 58:13. Does this not demonstrate the uselessness of Sunday legislation when tested by the requirements of heaven? No doubt, to meet the demands of this last quotation the blue law was passed which forbids a man to kiss his wife on Sunday. For breaking the Sabbath are we not answerable alone to God? Can its acceptable observance be wrought out other than by the faith and the conscience of the individual? If transgressors could be legislated into heaven, if they could be ushered into “the beloved city” by the law of the land, would it not have been useless for Christ to have died? 4. To believe in the Sabbath we are told to believe in the sacredness of a certain day of the week. On this identical day all do not agree. The Lord says in his law: “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20: 10. The majority of the Christian world are keeping Sunday, the first day of the week, for the Sabbath. The different devotees claim a divine right for adhering to their respective days. Both classes are positive to enthusiasm that they are correct. Here is an occasion for a serious religious controversy to arise, which can only be settled by the faith of the individual. An attempt to settle this difference by the law of the land will eventually arouse animosity, and make more divergent the lines of faith that separate the believers. This law, passed by Congress, closing the exposition on Sunday, is apparently harmless. But as Sunday laws on the national statute books increase, greater liberties may be expected to be taken with religion and with conscience. Doctrines of Sunday faith, championed by reform zealots, may be memorialized, petitioned, crystallized, into law. Will not the scene be a sorry one when the sect that is in the majority will be able to lobby through a law that will coerce the conscience of the few? Why not listen to the warning and the wisdom of our fathers, who, after witnessing the horrors of religious persecution, incorporated in our organic law that safeguard which is now being insidiously disregarded: that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? Why not listen to the teaching of that Master Mind who said: “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” and keep forever divorced the church from the state? The coin that was brought to Christ bore the image of the superscription of Cæsar, which showed that it belonged to Cæsar. Matt. 22: 19-21. The Sabbath bears the image of God because it declares its own Creator, the Creator of the world; it bears the superscription of God, because the signature of the divine is engraved in its bosom,—“the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,”—which shows by the same authority that in a special way this day belongs to God. In Isaiah the Lord calls the Sabbath “my holy day.” If the day belongs to God, then, according to the teaching of Christ, the respect and reverence we have for the Sabbath belong also to God, and not to the state, and should be rendered to him.