Sunday Closing by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 11, 1903

Sunday Closing.

By G.

A Sunday-closing movement is on foot in Red Bluff, Cal., and in Red Bank, a smaller town near-by. Quite a spirited discussion pro and con is being conducted in the local press. One advocate of the measure disavows any religious motive, and says that “religious feeling should not be lugged into the agitation;” that “the demand, so far as the writer understands, is for a corporeal rest-day.” But, like all other advocates of a civil Sunday, he gives away that plea when he adduces the argument that “Sunday has been selected as the one day of the week for rest, for the reason that it is the day observed for religious devotion by a great majority of the American people.”

A minister of the place appeals to a decision of the United States Supreme Court (March 16, 1885) as settling the matter. He quotes:—

Laws setting aside Sunday as a day of rest are upheld, not from the right of the government to legislate for the promotion of religious observances, but from its right to protect all persons from the physical and moral debasement that comes from uninterrupted labor.

According to this discussion, and the use that is made of it, the full benefit of physical rest is only to be secured by resting on Sunday. This minister also quotes the New York Court of Appeals on the subject:—

It is the law of our nature that one day in seven must be observed as a time of relaxation; and experience proves a day of weekly rest to be of admirable service to a State considered merely as a civil institution. The stability of government, the welfare of the subjects, and the interests of society, have made it necessary that the day of rest observed by the people of a nation should be uniform, and that its observance should be to some extent compulsory, not by way of enforcing the conscience of those upon whom the law operates, but by way of protection to those who desire and are entitled to the day.

It will be observed that while this decision does not say that physical rest must needs be on Sunday, that is the way it is interpreted by those who make use of it in advocating Sunday observance on the plea of needed rest. It is also evident that such a decision would not have been made in behalf of rest on any other day. While the decision disclaims any design to enforce conscience, it does declare that the observance of the day “should be to some extent compulsory.” It is impossible for a civil law to be anything else than compulsory in some sense, and have any effect at all. That is what civil law is for, and that is why it can not be legitimately applied to matters pertaining to conscience.

When these Sunday-closing movements are inaugurated there is always the plea that there is no religious sentiment; that the welfare of the laborer, the needs of the physical system, common custom, the good of the State, etc., are the ostensible considerations. But when the ministers speak they invariably uncover the real animus of the agitation. So while some of the advocates of the movement in Red Bluff declare against any religious intention, the minister in question illustrates what has been often demonstrated, that there can be no agitation of the Sunday question without the religious aspect coming in, for the reason that Sunday as an institution different from other days of the week is religious; and any movement for the regulation of any man’s conduct on that day, to induce him to do differently from what he would do on other days, is a species of compulsion. This minister shows the kernel of all such movements, when he quotes the old Sunday-law slogan, “The liberty of rest for each demands a law of rest for all.”

Of course the movement in Red Bluff is not for a law (at present), but for an agreement among business men; but their ministerial advocate says, “It is plainly the imperative duty as well as right to enforce the observance of an institution whose fruit has ever been better citizens.” Enforcement does not always mean law, as was demonstrated in this city a few years ago. One merchant who persisted in keeping open when the others closed was beset by a rabble of clerks, and coercion attempted, and practically effected, by urging customers away from the store.

This minister further argues that unless all places of business are closed on Sunday, “competition would strongly constrain merchants to keep open” their stores. This is an old threadbare argument, and one born of jealousy. It is the argument of men who imagine that they are compelled by the action of others to compromise principle, and are therefore justified in so doing. But the fallacy of this doctrine has been demonstrated by the house that publishes this paper. For more than a quarter of a century it has been engaged in business in which there is the very closest competition. In face of the competition of two large cities, it has invariably closed its doors on a day on which all others are open—the recognized principal business day of the week. So from this long experience, we can confidently affirm that one house does not have to keep open on any particular day because others do—no, not even when all others do.

There is a deep underlying principle in this matter of making a distinction between Sunday and other days of the week, a distinction that would not have been made but for the fact that many people recognize the day as a holy day. This principle is evidently overlooked by the men who advocate such a movement from a mere business standpoint. The Sunday institution was set up as an opposition to the law of God, and any recognition of it is so much in the way of enforcing it upon the people of the world, no matter what may be the motive of those who do so.