SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY PEOPLE TO THINK ABOUT.
THERE has come to our table, through the kindness of a friend, a copy of the Catholic Press, of Sydney, New South Wales, “the leading Catholic paper of Australia.” In it is an article on “Rampant Sabbatarianism,” by which the writer refers to those zealous Sunday-keepers who are endeavouring to enforce a stricter observance of Sunday. After his contention that it would be counter to common sense and religion to prohibit amusements on Sunday, he continues as follows:— “But there is something still wanting to a full statement of the untenable position taken up by those sticklers for ‘sabbath’ [Sunday] observance. What right, anyhow, have these gentlemen as Protestants to lay down the law as to what is to be done or not done on Sunday? Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. If the ‘Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants,’ if ‘whatever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby’ has no claim on their faith or observance, what scrap of title can they show for all their dogmatic insistence as to the requirements of the Lord’s day? From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first. Thus Sunday observance is an incongruous adjunct of the Protestant faith, utterly out of keeping with its fundamental principle, and strongly suggests a religion that suffered sadly from too much hurry in the making. If any Sabbatarian wants to know the proper method of spending the Sunday, the Catholic Church is the natural source to apply to for information. Under her direction the Sunday supplanted the Jewish Sabbath, and she is, therefore, the best fitted to settle any dispute as to its claims. She has no sympathy with a Puritan or Scotch sabbath, and still less with the ‘Continental Sunday’ of German Lutherans and French infidels. She forbids all servile work, and requires the day to be devoted to public prayer and worship and hearing the Word of God; but, these duties fulfilled, she has no objection to such hours as remain being employed in any form of innocent outdoor amusement. This is the true view of Sunday observance, and it is the view that is bound to prevail.” Of course, this only states what many students of Sabbath lore know, and what Catholics have stated again and again. The sum of the matter is that there are but two ultimate results in this Sabbath controversy,—the seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible, the Rest-day of Christ, or the Sunday of tradition and Roman Catholicism. Which, reader, do you prefer?