He Misses the Point

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 7, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 22.

He Misses the Point

An article by the Rev. H. I. Andrews in an Elmira paper on Sunday observance demands that Sunday laws shall be enforced and Sunday baseball suppressed; “the laws of the state are against it.” And then he says: “We all are for what the working man needs. If he needs a day of sports and amusements rather than a day of rest and worship, God certainly made a mistake in commanding the observance of a Sabbath day. If a man needs a day for sport and amusement, he should be given one; but there are six other days, a portion of which might be levied upon as man may find he needs. There are many agencies that are seeking to crowd out of life religion and morals, and are seeking to make Sunday a day of gain rather than a day of grace; a holiday rather than a holy day.”

Now all of this is based on the fallacy that man is the one to direct by law the time of religious worship or recreation of his fellows. Man may not need a day of sports and amusements; he may need more than anything else a day of rest and worship. In our souls we believe that he needs the latter altogether the most, for we think that most men get exercise sufficient in their ordinary work. But the question is not as to men’s needs, or as to what would be best for men; the real question is, Has one man, or any set of men, the right to regulate man’s conduct in this respect? Mr. Andrews feels that it would be his duty to go to church, and he would be blessed in so doing on the Sunday, and he has the right so to think; but has he the right to demand that his fellow men should go to church on that day? His neighbor who has wrought indoors through all the week believes that he can rest better and perhaps worship God better by going out into the woods or into his garden to cultivate vegetables rather than to go to church, and as between himself and his fellow men he has the right so to decide. Now by what rule of justice or equity has Mr. Andrews the right to regulate his neighbor’s duty more than his neighbor has the right to regulate his? Mr. Andrews may be wholly right; his neighbor may be wholly wrong; God has commanded the Sabbath; He has not commanded these other things; but the real point is this, that God has delegated to no man and to no set of men the right to represent Him in arbitrary religious enactment. He has not yet abdicated His throne for National Reformers, Sunday-law Reformers, or any other kind of religio-political organizations.

God knows, and surely His children ought to know, that no true service can be rendered Him under compulsion; that no day can be made holy by men who are keeping it under force of civil law; that in fact men can make no day holy by anything that men can do. It is only God that can make holy, and man can keep a holy day acceptably holy in God’s sight, only by being himself made holy by the power of God. If men had a right conception of Christianity, they would never seek to enforce religious dogma of any sort or kind; and if men were conscientious regarding a day, believing that they ought to keep it for God, and were true servants of His, they would never need a law to help them to observe it.