Sunday Legislation on Hygienic Grounds
It is too bad that a Baptist journal should be so deceived as to set forth such sophistry as the following from the Boston Watchman:— “The Watchman is too loyal to the Baptist principle of the separation of Church and State to indorse the various proposals for Sunday legislation without submitting them to the most careful scrutiny. The fact that good men are promoting this legislation, and that those who do not favor it are classed as enemies of the Lord’s day, does not weigh with us. The only safe ground is to hold that the function of the State is to protect the liberty and quiet of worship and to guard the day of rest on hygienic grounds. The fact that a religious end can be accomplished by legislation is to a Baptist no reason whatever for approving such legislation.” That is, a Sunday law is all right, religious legislation is proper, if it is based on the subterfuge of “hygienic grounds.” It is religious legislation just the same. Of course there is hygiene in properly resting once a week, but no law can secure this. Thousands are worse for their Sunday lay-off than tho they worked. Hygiene of the day, like its worship, is a personal matter. What right has law to step in and say how a man shall eat or drink or rest or recreate? The mere stating of the idea condemns it. Furthermore, no true religious end can be accomplished by religious legislation. Such legislation is always the perverter of the true. Let Baptists and all Christians stand on the true ground, namely, that no religious institution or dogma is entitled to the support of civil law.