PRINCIPLE OR EXPEDIENCY IN SATURDAY-KEEPING.
The following from the Christian Guardian of Toronto will be of interest to the reader:— A British Columbia Sunday.
We have received a communication from the West stating the following facts, and asking the Guardian to offer advice on the questions involved:— In this Province the mines are generally operated on Sunday. In this section every mine runs on Sunday just the same as on any other day, and people generally pay little regard to the observance of the Sabbath. Many of those who thus work are Methodist officials and members of our church, local preachers, stewards, trustees, etc. The plea is, “If we do not work, we must quit.” Do you think the plea justifiable? Is there any difference between the man who says he is compelled to work, and the one who works of his own accord? Is Sunday observance largely a matter of conscience? What constitutes a member of the Methodist Church? We understand that in British Columbia there is no provincial statute on the matter of Sabbath work. There they have what is known as the “Municipal Clauses Act,” which gives power to the municipality to enact a by-law to regulate the work of the Sabbath, but, as far as we know, the companies have it all their own way, and no doubt the law, or the lack of a Sunday law, is the outcome of the influence of the companies in the Legislative Assembly of that Province. On this account the civil court can not help those who are righteously indignant at the flagrant and unnecessary desecration of the Lord’s day. But when it comes to a question of the obligation of a member of the Methodist Church, the case takes on a very different aspect, for there we have the law on the side of righteousness. There is but one question in such a case, and into it there may come the element of personal conscience. Is it a work of mercy, or a work of necessity? The answer to this question must decide the case; for if working in the mines is neither, then there is but one course to pursue in the case of those who violate the commandment. But it can not be a work either of mercy or necessity to remain in the employ of a company who demands that the commands of God be violated. The answer will be that it is necessary in order to support the family; but this argument would apply in a hundred cases where the law is prohibitory. The butcher and the baker might say the same thing, and the people who gave up their lives in the early days of the Christian era could have advanced such an argument with a hundred-fold more force than in the case of those who hold a job and don’t wish to look for another. There is, of course, the tremendous influence of circumstances to be taken into account, and those who are placed in the positions cited in the above communication should have the sympathy of all. Work at good wages is not picked up every day, and the father who has the responsibility of providing for a large family of young children is asked to make a tremendous effort to turn his back on the only way in sight to meet the claims upon him. But when it comes to the question of what a Christian should do, and “What would Jesus do?” were He in the same place, the path is as clear as the light of God can make anything. The days of the heroes are not yet past, and the hero of the future is to be, not the man of physical prowess, but the one who exercises moral courage in the common ways of life, where the battle is as bitter, and the manhood needed of as noble a quality, as that which won on the fields of blood, or even in the fires of martyrdom. A man can be neither a member of the Methodist Church, nor a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, who considers the law of expediency, when it stands directly opposed to the distinct commands of the Word of God and His church. We have not attempted to answer the above questions in a categorical way, as we deem it necessary only to look at the matter from a point of view which will touch it on every side. As to what constitutes a member of the Methodist Church, we think the Discipline gives a most conclusive answer, but no self-respecting person will remain in the church while he is living in violation of the commandments of God. The above questions, with one possible exception, are nobly answered. That exception is found in the first words which we have italicised. Does the editor mean that the civil court should help this class, or that the people are right in demanding such help? In the second expression italicised he seems to draw a contrast between a civil law and the law of the church, calling the latter “the law on the side of ‘righteousness.’” Does he mean to imply that in the case a civil Sunday law existed, it would not be on “the side of righteousness”? If so, he is on the side of truth. No civil law for upholding religious dogmas, however sacredly regarded, but is used on the side of unrighteousness,—an oppressor of conscience, a maker of hypocrites, an instrument of persecution, a curse to the church and true religion. And those people “righteously indignant” at Sabbath desecration, who would use such a law to compel people to act as tho they believed in it, need no such help. Perhaps the editor believed that the law, in recognizing no Sunday, is on the unrighteous side. If so, he has never learned the rightful province of civil law. He has stated the living truth of all ages in the third expression we have italicised. It is only so that character is made. It is only such characters that can mold the world for good. Why demand civil law to compel men to do duty to God? Is not God as able now to develop men as in the past? The grandest, sublimest eras of the church were when she was true to principle in the midst of the fiercest temptation, with no human law to aid her; and the worst days through which she ever passed—from the time of Constantine to the Dark Ages—were when she was hedged in by human law on every side, and became a harlot. Those days are being rapidly repeated. May we not ask our brother a few questions: (1) What is the command of God concerning the Sabbath? (2) Would those who had His law established in the heart by faith ever ask for a human law? (3) Is it not because divine law and moral fiber are wanting that human law is demanded? (4) What hope is there in the arm of flesh?