SUNDAY LEGISLATION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 8, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 23.

SUNDAY LEGISLATION.

From a leaflet now being circulated in Canada, in opposition to a proposed Sunday law, we take the following pertinent remarks by Mr. George B. Thompson, of Hamilton, Ont.:—

The parallel between the present agitation for Sunday laws, and that of the fourth century, when church and state were united, and the foundation laid for the worst persecution that ever cursed the earth, is an exceedingly striking one. The famous Sunday law, enacted by the pagan emperor Constantine in A. D. 321, commanding that the “venerable day of the sun” be observed in the cities and villages, was, the “Encyclopedia Britannica” informs us, the first Sunday law ever issued. Then other laws followed, and in Neander’s church history we read: “By the law of the year 386 those older changes effected by the Emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced; and, in general, civil transactions of all kinds on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoso transgressed was to be considered, in fact, as guilty of sacrilege.”

The people being forbidden by law to work, of course began to play, and an idle brain is the devil’s workshop. Enforced idleness caused the people to congregate more to the theater and circus on Sunday, than to church, which was not very satisfactory to the clergy, who desired that they go to church. Many of the professed Christians of that time had a religion only in form, and they, too, went to the theater and the circus. The result was that the theater was full, and the church pews were empty. Something must be done; for Neander tells us that, “church teachers were, in truth, often forced to complain that in such competition the theater was vastly more frequented than the church.” The church, having lost the power of God through an illicit connection with the state, was too weak to cope with a circus, so she must have help. But instead of petitioning the God of the universe, they sent a petition to the emperor, asking, so Neander tells us, “that the public shows might be transferred from the Christian Sunday, and from feast days to some other day of the week.” Think of this! They had no objection to a theater or a circus, providing it was not held on Sunday! And the eminent historian quoted above says, “In this way the church received help for the furtherance of her ends.” And the dreary ages which followed, when men were tortured by every conceivable means that men could invent, tells the terrible sequel of this step. The last step is in the first. They differ in degree only.

It is for this reason that we oppose all legislation upon religious matters. It is that the ship of state may not be wrecked upon the rocks which she will inevitably meet if steered in this direction, that we call attention to these things. All religious legislation is wrong, and will lead to the same dire results now as in the past.