THE SUNDAY CAMPAIGN by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 11.

THE SUNDAY CAMPAIGN.

By G.

As NOTED in a previous issue, the people who favor a State Sunday law for California have announced a two-years' campaign, the purpose being to educate the people up to the point of making a strong plea before the next Legislature. Whether directly to this end or not, Bishop Moreland, of the Episcopal Church, delivered an address on the subject in Sacramento, on the 4th inst. We note some of his reported statements that were evidently intended as pointers:—

God's law of one day's rest in seven is rooted in the deepest needs of man's nature. When we consider the millions of toilers in this country, we perceive that a rest-day, secured and protected by law, is a social necessity. The government has no right to consider the matter from a religious standpoint. It can have no theories about the seventh day or the first day. Christians, Jews, atheists, have equal rights under our laws. But the State can say one day in seven—Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or any which the majority agree to select—shall be observed.

No man with a real argument at hand would have ventured such an incongruous plea. “God's law of one day's rest in seven is rooted in the deepest needs of man's nature.” Granted; but (1) “God's law of one day's rest” specifically designates which day, and the purpose for which He instituted the Sabbath forbade the change of the day. See Gen. 2:2, 3; Ex. 20:8-11. Furthermore, as the law could not be changed (Matt. 5:17, 18), the day of the Sabbath could not be changed. (2) “The deepest needs of man's nature” are spiritual needs. Therefore, the Sabbath day's blessing is spiritual, which can come only through obedience of God's Sabbath law—not through any human decree. What spiritual good can any law of man bring to the individual who will not heed the law of God?

The bishop claims that “a rest-day secured and protected by law is a social necessity.” But the very things that a majority of people choose as a social privilege, are just what a Sunday law is designed to prohibit. Therefore, the logic of such a law is to define what its advocates will deem proper social entertainment. They, by this means, would become the regulators of the people's “social necessity”—both as to character and time.

Again, we are told that “the government has no right to consider the matter from a religious standpoint. It can have no theories about the seventh day or the first day.” But the bishop is basing his plea on the demands of God's law, and that law is spiritual (Rom. 7:14); therefore it is religious, and therefore it can not legitimately be considered from any other than a religious standpoint; and therefore the State can not properly consider it at all. The State has no jurisdiction whatever in the realm of man's relation to God.

“Christians, Jews, Atheists, have equal rights under our laws,” says the bishop. But under a Sunday law they do not have equal rights. The Jew is taxed one day's labor out of every six working days for the privilege of conscientiously keeping the Sabbath of the Lord. The Atheist has not the right to choose his own manner of exercising his “social necessity.” The Jew is compelled to sacrifice one-sixth of his working time on the altar of religious tyranny, while the conscientious scruples of another class are enforced upon him by law. The Atheist is compelled to forego his own ideas of sociability, because other people have secured a law to enforce their ideas. And as to the State's right to name one day in seven to be observed, the bishop and his confreres would loudly resent the naming of any other day but Sunday, no matter what the majority might be. They would very quickly see, and rightly too, that equal rights are not secured by majority dictation. But those who base their argument for a Sunday law on “God's law of one day's rest in seven” should remember that God never submitted the construction or manipulation of His law to human majorities.

The bishop grows quite patriotic in the assertion:—

I have no sympathy with the furious fanaticism which would bind public liberty with petty restrictions.

But he stultifies this fine sentiment in the very next sentence, and shows that the making of “petty restrictions” is just the purpose of his proposed Sunday law. Here is his declaration of intention:—

I have less sympathy with the loose ideas of the foreign or California Sunday, from which God is banished, and which is spent in writing business letters or in sports and revelry.

Then he again stultifies his plea that the Sunday law is not a religious matter, when he says:—

No one can rise to the full benefit and glory of Sunday who does not keep it in a Christian spirit. This is what he misses who does not attend church. The most perfect rest, better than park, ocean, or country, is in the sanctuary of God.

But how can the State give the workingman this “full benefit and glory of Sunday”? Can it put a Christian spirit into him? The bishop says he misses this when he does not attend church. Then, if the workingman's “social necessity” were restricted to going to church, the climax would be reached, would it not? Then, how about the State's adding that grand possibility to the Sunday law? Such is the natural trend of such legislation, as indicated by the bishop's remarks, and as carried out in the past, wherever public sentiment would submit. Every step in that direction is a backward step in the matter of religious liberty. All history shows that the more men were inclined to tinker with the Sabbath day, and add to it their own traditions and restrictions, the more formal and oppressive was their religion. And all history demonstrates that the more the State tampers with religious dogmas and institutions, the more extensive are the restrictions to both civil and religious liberty. G.