IN THE LAND OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
Noble principles and holy deeds are not native to the soil of any spot of earth; they are heaven-born. When he whose life embodies the principle passes away, when the principles which moved him and gave his land fame cease to live dominantly in human hearts, the people soon revert to the selfishness and tyranny of former conditions. The traditions and halos linger in page and song and tale, but the liberty, righteousness, and justice are forgotten. Among the most blasted of lands to-day is that which once knew the earthly footprints of the Son of God. It was not many years after Roger Williams lived at Salem, that the people of that town persecuted as witches, even unto death, innocent men and women. Roger Williams, driven out from Massachusetts Colony, went to the wilderness of Rhode Island, to enjoy the religious freedom and true liberty of which men sought to deprive him in Massachusetts. But to-day Rhode Island possesses in letter that union of religion with the State against which Williams revolted, and on account of which he raised the standard in the wilderness. Rhode Island has on its statute books that relic of the Dark Ages, a Sunday law. On July 14 a match game of baseball was played in Westerly. The Sun of that city of that day says:— There is considerable feeling being manifested in regard to the playing of Sunday ball, especially as it is an innovation. The clergymen claim that it is a direct violation of the law, and therefore should be stopped. This does not seem much of an argument to those in favor of the game, as the sentiment of the people of Westerly does not favor rigid enforcement of many of the old laws. No attempt has been made to stop the street-cars, to shut up livery stables, to close drug stores, to keep still merry-go-rounds, or affect any of the stores at Watch Hill. At the latter place golf is played, and never any complaint by Westerly clergymen, say the baseball enthusiasts, and naturally they are asking why any distinction is now made. One is as much a violation of the law as the other. The ministers, feeling as they do, as usual have preached sermons on the subject. One by Rev. F. H. Decker, Congregationalist, reported by the Westerly Sun of July 15, we notice in part, because it is representative of Sunday-law sermons all over the country, and because of some of the errors it contains, received by many as truth. Mr. Decker's text was Mark 2:27: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The following solid paragraphs are from Mr. Decker's sermon as reported. If he has been misquoted in these, we will gladly correct if he will inform us:— The ancient Egyptians began their week with Saturday, and, continuing seven days, we find that their Sabbath fell on Friday. The Jewish Sabbath changed each year to a different day of the week because of the pentecostal Sabbath. Once in each year two Sabbaths came together on consecutive days. If the pentecostal Sabbath fell on Sunday one year, the following year it would fall on Monday, and so on through the week. There was a change of the Jewish Sabbath once each year, and in each succeeding year the Sabbath fell on a different day of the week. The Jewish Sabbath never fell on the same day of the week on consecutive years. For these statements Mr. Decker has no authority. The old Egyptian language had no word for week. The first day was dedicated to Ra, the sun; the second to Thoth, the moon; the third to Hor, or Mars (corresponding to the Norse god of war, Woden); the fourth to Sebkan, or Mercury; the fifth to Jupiter; the sixth to Morning Star, or Venus; the seventh to Hor Ka, or Saturn. It will be seen that their week corresponds to ours. The Coptic, an Egyptian language, dead for two centuries, defines week by pi anan z̄, with a macron over the letter z, meaning seven, the whole meaning, “A period of time, belonging to the Sabbath.” The days are numbered, the last in the period was called both “the Seventh” and “the Sabbath.” The authority for this is “A Chart of the Week, showing the unchanged order of the days,” in both ancient and modern languages, prepared by the late Rev. Wm. Mead Jones, D. D., of London, Eng., assisted by the best scholars all over the world. The “pentecostal Sabbath” had absolutely no effect on the seventh-day Sabbath. How could the seventh-day Sabbath fall each succeeding year on a different day of the week, when the week was constituted and the days named by number, with direct and sole reference to the Sabbath day? If by “Jewish Sabbath” is meant the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, Mr. Decker has no other authority for his statement than the groundless assumption of men to support an unreasonable, unscriptural, and God-dishonoring theory. Here is another statement as groundless:— The Seventh-day Adventists have gone to the Legislature, and with money and printing-presses have helped to repeal many of the Sunday laws. This may not be applicable to all Seventh-day Baptists, but it is applicable to the class. We know of no instance on record where Seventh-day Adventists have helped to repeal a Sunday law. They have protested against them as contrary to the principles of liberty expressed in the national and State constitutions, as against the equal, God-given rights of mankind, as against Christianity, in order that they might save men from committing themselves to a course which would prove disastrous to the State, the church, and themselves, to say nothing of the persecution of the innocent. Will the gentleman kindly point out one Sunday law repealed where “Seventh-day Adventists have gone to the Legislature, and with money and printing-presses helped ‘to repeal’ it, to say nothing of ‘many’”? There are in this country 4,000,000 men who have no Sabbath, not because they do so from choice, but because they are placed in positions where by stern necessity they are compelled to work seven days in the week. To deny a man the right of a sabbath is to deny him the privilege of Christian citizenship. When the day comes that our American citizens are not allowed to have the day their conscience dictates, then our freedom becomes a farce. But who has denied 4,000,000 men the right of a Sabbath? Who drives them as slaves to work on a day their conscience dictates should be kept otherwise? What is a conscience good for if it is not worth sacrificing for? What hinders these men, each and several, from keeping any day? “They would lose their job,” it is said. Well, what of that? Is not true principle worth losing one's job for, and if necessary, one's life? O, let men be men. Let preachers teach men to be men, instead of teaching them that it is necessary that they should be nursed and coddled like spoiled children by a great parental State. Will not God care for His own? And here is a sample of how Rhode Island law helps a man's liberty, as stated by Mr. Decker:— Every man not a Sabbatarian, who does not belong to a Sabbatarian church, has no right to work for a seventh-day man. No man, unless he can bring a certificate from a pastor or church committee of a seventh-day church, or from a Jewish priest, has a legal right to labor on Sunday, either for himself or others. There is no wonder that a liberty-loving community revolts against such a law. Mr. Decker declares:— We are not all going to take up with Saturday as the Sabbath. If we have any Sabbath in this country, we shall have Sunday, and it is Sunday that we shall defend. We do not wish him to take up with Saturday as the Sabbath, because it isn't the Sabbath. Saturday is a Roman secular day, beginning at midnight and ending at midnight. The Sabbath of the Lord is “from even to even,”—sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night. We want all to observe that day in Christ Jesus, because there is great blessing in it; but we would not compel even one man to do it, for that is not the work of Christians. In fact, we could compel no man; no power can compel any man to keep a day holy; and only so can the Sabbath be rightly kept. Only the Spirit of God received by faith can regulate that. For man to attempt it always results in tyranny, hypocrisy, and persecution. He again says:— It has pleased almighty God to unite the ministers of this town in this matter. If Sunday is a blue day to you without baseball games, then heaven would be a blue place to you. If you say that Sunday must be made pleasant by a trip down the river, by golf, by baseball, then you would be lonely in heaven. There will be no golf-links there, no Sunday papers cried upon the streets, and no baseball games in heaven. No; there will be no baseball games in heaven, nor golf-links, nor Sunday laws. This is what the prophet says of that place: “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain; and it shall come to pass, that from one new moon [month] to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66:22, 23. Sunday has no place there. Why not get used to keeping the Lord's blessed rest-day here? Once more Mr. D. says:— Sunday represents God; it represents first of all fellowship with God. Is that attractive to you? If you don't like that here, you wouldn't like it in heaven. If the Sabbath means nothing here, it will mean nothing there. God rested from His work, and if you have His nature, you will find that every man who is a child of God will love the Sabbath. Now that is all true as regards the Sabbath, the day that God made, the day He blessed, the day He commanded, the day in which he has placed His own presence; but it is not true of Sunday. Sunday has ever stood as the representative of apostasy. We do not refer to those who have observed it ignorantly and honestly as the divinely-ordained rest-day of the Lord, but to the institution as shown by its origin, its general history, its influence, and the continued appeal of its friends that it should be supported by civil law. No institution of God requires it. No true friend of any of God's institutions will ask civil support. His own mighty, glorious power will support and sustain all that is worthy in the hearts of His children; and “every plant,” says Jesus, “which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Is it because men have not the Word of God for Sunday that they ask for the law of man?