The Sunday Law Question
By C. P. Whitford
The city of Jacksonville, Fla., is all astir over the Sabbath question. For several weeks the agitation has been going on. A strong effort is being made to close saloons and stop amusements of all kinds on Sunday. The clergymen are preaching on the subject, and trying to establish divine authority and apostolic example for Sunday observance. I attended a meeting in one of the large churches in the city, which was held in the interests of Sunday closing, and was invited to speak on the subject. The editor of The Times Union has accepted an article from my pen, which will appear in an early issue. The way is open for me to address all the people of the city, and many in the State. I shall improve the opportunity to the best of my ability. The idea of enforcing Christian observances and morality by legal enactments savors too much of a policy that has been tried in other ages and other lands, with results which should be far from encouraging to us. The inevitable end of the introduction of religion into legislation has always been religious tyranny. Whenever any law enforcing any religious observance is placed upon the statute books, however good may be the motives of those who make or pass that law, it will be taken advantage of by religious bigots to oppress conscientious people who are not in harmony with it. The religious persecutions of the Dark Ages began with laws even milder than those now proposed by some of the good people of Jacksonville. Overzealous religionists believed that religious legislation was necessary to protect and advance the cause of Christ. They argued just as people do nowadays, that God's will ought to be made law. But it was God's will as interpreted and enforced by the majority, that put to death the early Christians, as well as the untold millions of the Dark Ages. We believe in the rights of all the people to worship or not to worship, according to the dictates of their own conscience; and in opposing religious legislation, we are advocating the rights of conscience of all the people. We are not only pleading for our own rights to observe the Sabbath “according to the commandment,” in harmony with the dictates of conscience, but we are also pleading for the rights of all our fellow citizens to worship God as they choose, and when they choose, according to the dictates of their own conscience, in harmony with their understanding of the Bible and of God's requirements. We plead that all men be forever free from the interferences and dictation of the state in all matters pertaining to religious faith and practice. And in pleading, we are only asserting the doctrine of the national Constitution. When the congress of this nation shall begin to legislate upon religious questions, if it ever does, the doom of religious freedom will have been fixed; for the onward march will surely be, step by step, down the road of religious intolerance to religious tyranny; thence quickly to horrors overshadowing even those of the ancient barbarous commune. That this nation tend not at all in that direction, let them forever cherish and practice the patriotic sentiment that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” And let their legislative servants understand that no attempt must be made to “remove the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set,” by meddling or interfering with the religious freedom which is so firmly grounded in the Magna Charta of these United States.