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MAJORITY SHOULD RULE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 36.

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“MAJORITY SHOULD RULE.”

The following is from a paper the owner of which styles it an “American Paper for American People,” the New York Evening Journal of July 29:—

Sunday Is Useful, Not Merely Religious.

We learn from the Pittsburg Post that the Jewish merchants of Pittsburg have organized to secure modification of the Sunday law.
They ask permission to continue mercantile pursuits on Sunday, alleging that they observe Saturday as their Sabbath, and should not be bound to observe a day of rest set apart by those of another religion.
Their argument is logical, from a religious standpoint.
The Constitution of the United States recognizes no religion whatever.
It recognizes the existence of God, and forbids any law which shall establish, select, or prefer any particular religion.
Therefore, believers in the Jewish religion are justified abstractly in protesting against a custom which compels them to observe the first instead of the last day of the week as a day of rest.
But the question involved in the observance of Sunday is not merely a religious question. It is chiefly a useful question.
Sunday is a necessity, physically as well as mentally.
One day in the week all men and all animals should rest, and enjoy themselves.
This is absolutely necessary to health, and to normal development.
Some one day in the week must be chosen, and all men must abide by that day—not for religious reasons, but for practical reasons. Business would be in a state of utter confusion, and many would suffer, if the adherents of different religions were to select different days for their day of rest.
On this matter of Sabbath observance, as in all others, the majority should rule. The majority in the United States at present believe Sunday the best day for resting, and the minority in this, as in all other matters of practical welfare, should abide by the decision of the majority.
We believe that the Jewish people of Pittsburg are unwise, as they will certainly be unsuccessful, in their attempt to overrule the majority in a purely secular, utilitarian matter.
What lofty assumption is here manifest! And what pitiful ignorance of the most fundamental rights of men!
The argument is logical, we are told, from a religious standpoint, and it is also from a constitutional standpoint, because no religion is recognized by that instrument. Every man is therefore left free in his religious views and practises, so long as he does not contravene the equal rights of his fellows.
“Justified abstractly in protesting”! “Justified ‘abstractly’ in living their religion! What is a religion good for, if not concrete?”
Admitting that men and animals should have one day in the week, why Sunday? How does that particular day become “absolutely necessary”?
Well, this paper finds but one reply,—“The majority should rule.”
A religious right is conceded; a constitutional right is conceded; but the majority, simply because it suits their convenience, may trample on the dearest rights of man,—the rights of conscience.
It was majority rule that put to death Jesus Christ. At first His persecutors “feared the people;” but finally the people became prejudiced through the false charge that Jesus was a Sabbath-breaker, because He did not keep the Sabbath in the traditional way, and the majority put Him to death. The majority stoned Stephen, and persecuted Paul, and crucified Peter, and burned men at the stake, and drove out from native lands Huguenots, and Puritans, and Roger Williams. It was forever to forestall all that in the future, that the fathers of this republic sought to guard, in the fundamental law, the equal rights of each and all.
But tyranny, ignorant of true liberty, seeks to crush out all these rights by the subterfuge of expediency and practicability and health.
It was Caiaphas who said, “It is expedient that ‘one man should die for the people;” and Jesus, the Innocent, died.
It is “necessary to health and normal development” that men shall eat proper food, work proper hours, sleep sufficient time, wear proper clothing, abstain from all hurtful indulgences, and live free from worry. Therefore, according to the New York Journal, the “majority” should decide all these things, and whatever the tastes of the minority, those who compose it should acquiesce.
“A purely secular, utilitarian matter”! It is nothing of the kind. The Sabbath is in its very nature religious, and only religious. Its observance is as truly commanded of God as “Thou shalt not kill.” God’s “law is spiritual.” Its observance meets man’s spiritual needs. Unbelief may not recognize this. It did not see it in Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. But the Spirit, the life of God, is in all His institutions and laws; and loyal faith can never reduce them to low utilitarian, secular levels.
We are not alarmed for the truly loyal. Even the grave can not hold him any more than it did Christ Jesus. We would that such men as the editor quoted above could see the fearful responsibility they are taking upon themselves in assuming to sit in judgment on what God has so clearly set forth and defined. Let them know that right, tho it go down to the grave, is ever in the ultimate majority, for it is with God. Yet God will not coerce the minority.
The above from the New York Journal is one of the many straws which show that the American winds of liberty have changed, and that human rights are no longer sacred.