p. 8 | SUNDAY IN CALIFORNIA by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 30.

SUNDAY IN CALIFORNIA.

By Editor

There are many good people in California who doubtless deeply feel what they term the “disgrace” of no Sunday law in this State; and from their talk one would think that California stock would be enhanced from 50 to 100 per cent. if a Sunday law were on the statute books of the State. From the utterances of those who thus feel, eastern people have come to believe that California is godless and sabbathless, and many came out to the great Endeavor convention expecting to verify their belief by sight. But here is what some of them said in the Sunday Examiner of July 18:—

Amos R. Mills, editor of the Golden Rule, the Christian Endeavor organ: “I made a careful study of Sunday in San Francisco, and I am glad to say that the day was much more quiet than I had expected it would be. I was surprised at the degree of sabbath observance, for the reports about it had been discouraging.

“One main objection to Sunday in San Francisco, as I found it, was that many stores and the theaters and saloons were open. The city was in good Sunday order, so far as I observed, but business was not suspended as much as it should have been. As I said before, San Francisco’s sabbath is much better than I had expected to find it.”

The Rev. Ira Landreth, of Tennessee, chairman of the convention: “If San Francisco observes all Sundays like it did the last, it deserves the banner. Really, I didn’t see anything out of the way Sunday. I was in Oakland.”

Rev. Howard B. Gross, Boston: “I do not feel that it is a very gracious thing to come to San Francisco and preach or give an opinion on Sunday observance in your city. At first it was arranged that several of us preach on the subject, but this arrangement was afterward changed. I should say in regard to keeping Sunday as a day of rest and quiet, that San Francisco is not unlike Chicago. Sunday there, like Sunday here, is what we ministers term ‘open.’ We do not believe in the east, as people do more generally in the west, that Sunday should be a day of recreation. It should be a day of rest and worship. I must say that San Francisco is not as bad as I have been led to believe. I saw no drunkards on the streets Sunday. There was no more noise than one should expect in a city running over with visitors. In fact, I have been agreeably surprised and most heartily delighted with California and San Francisco.”

Dr. Robert Johnston, London, Ontario: “The western Sunday is not as bad by any means as I have been led to believe it is. I rather expected to find all the stores open, and business carried on pretty much as usual. I was surprised to find none open, except, perhaps, a few small grocery stores.”

Grant Leet, president of the District of Columbia Union: “I didn’t see anything last Sunday that was a great shock to my nervous system. San Francisco seems to be much as other cities in its observance of Sunday. Of course the saloon and the theaters, as well as some few stores, were open, so I have been told. I was not in a part of the city to see them.”

Bishop B. W. Arnett, of Wilberforce, Ohio: “I haven’t seen anything more wicked in California or San Francisco than is to be found in other large cities. They are all about the same, and this city does not prove the exception by being more given over to vice than the others.”

Now if San Francisco and other California cities without a Sunday law, keep Sunday as well as eastern cities with a Sunday law, what is the object of such a law? Would these people rather give credit to the law than to the moral convictions of the people? Rather, do not our Sunday brethren wish to compel those who do not believe in their way or time of sabbath-keeping, to act as tho they did believe it? But this is making hypocrites. The keeping of a sabbath is a duty Godward, a duty we owe to him; according to divine law, “holy to the Lord.” To the Lord alone is each man answerable. What right, then, have Christians to endeavor to compel a worldly man to observe a law which he can not observe? For only a holy man can keep holy a holy day. And who has placed in the hands of Christians a right that even Jesus did not claim (John 12:47)—the right of judgment? We do not in any way believe in theater-going; but, under God, so far as man is concerned, the worldling has as good a right to go to the theater on Sunday as the Christian or Unitarian has to go to church. But the simple fact is that a holy day can be kept only as holy as there is a good conscience behind it. A good conscience is one enlightened by the Word of God. Why do not our Sunday friends press home the Word of God upon the consciences of men for better Sunday observance? Is not their demand for a civil Sunday a tacit confession that divine law is wanting?”