ROMAN CATHOLIC SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.
By G.
THE Messenger, a monthly magazine, in discussing the Sunday question that is agitating the country, says:— It is gratifying to us, as Catholics, that we never think of having recourse to the civil law to regulate our Sundays. . . By an unwritten law, the world pays tribute to the Catholic custom of observing this day, Catholic, because whatever true regard there is for the Lord's day is due, not to the Reformers, not to Sabbatarians, with their puritanical restrictions, but to the reasonable and truly religious manner in which the church has safeguarded this observance from the beginning. If we wish to derive profit from the present controversy, we should take the pains to study the origin of this day, and strive to appreciate the spirit in which the church has ever required her children to observe it. If, besides, we desire, as we should desire, to help our fellow-citizens who are now agitating the question, whether they be members of a church or not, to derive benefit from the controversy, we can do nothing better than to set them an example of true Sunday observance by attending strictly to what the church requires. This statement is a fair exhibit of Catholic policy. The first sentence contains the characteristic Catholic evasion of truth. The Messenger would have the people of this country believe that Catholics do not resort to Sunday laws. But it is Catholic doctrine that the State should sustain the church in all of her dogmas, and that includes the observance of Sunday with all the other church institutions. And where is the record of the Roman Church's ever opposing any civil Sunday law? She is quite willing to allow professed Protestants to do her work for her; and where they are willing to do it, she is just as willing to keep quiet for the time, knowing that it all leads her way, and that she will eventually be the winner. But it is not an “unwritten law” that leads men to reject the written Sabbath law of the Lord. It is very plainly written that “the carnal mind is enmity9against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7. And it is a fearful “tribute” which the world pays to “the Catholic custom” of observing Sunday; it is the tribute of holding to the traditions of men instead of the law of God. The transgression of the law of God is sin (1 John 3:4), and the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Surely this is an enormous tribute. However, the theory of advocating any religious institution, be it Sunday observance, or Sabbath observance, or what not, is correctly set forth in the last quoted sentence. If we want to convince people of the correctness of either doctrine or dogma, the most potent evidence of good intentions is consistent example. Force never can successfully appeal to the conscience. G.