p. 9 | SUNDAY LAWS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 12.

SUNDAY LAWS.

By Editor

Not a Question of Majorities.

The Gilroy Advocate of February 27 comes to our table with the following item marked:—

“The will of the majority of the Christian people and of all other people who enjoy rest and recreation on Sunday, is not set aside in the Old World or in the Eastern States of this country by the minority represented by Seventh-day Adventists, Orthodox Jews and a few atheists. In California the minority rules the majority. A marked copy of the Signs of the Times, published in Oakland, comes to us, protesting against the proposed Sunday law in California, and declaring the whole Christian world and all believers in this day of rest from labor, as intolerant and unjust toward the Saturday people. The real spirit of the times is against the position of the blind fellows who have charge of the Oakland paper, and this is their own acknowledgment. The most intelligent sentiment of this State is in favor of a Sunday law, and it will yet assert itself and have sway.”

We are sure that the editor of the Advocate has given little thought to the principle of our protest and the nature of Sunday laws, or he would not have thus written. In the first place, there is no man in California, so far as we know, who is prevented from observing Sunday as he desires, either in rest or recreation. The only ones who desire a law to limit his methods of recreation are Sunday people. As yet no law prevents him. He may go to church, to the fields, or groves, or stay at home if he will. Ought not this to satisfy every unselfish fairminded man? When he has had the privilege of observing a day as he will, why should he desire to compel his neighbors to observe the day as he will? Is not the will of A as sacred in his relations to God as is the will of B in his relation to God?

So far as Seventh-day Adventists are concerned they do not believe in coercing any one, nor in being coerced. The Sabbath is a religious institution and its observance is a matter which lies between man and God alone. Neither majorities nor minorities have any voice in saying who shall and who shall not keep Sunday or Sabbath. He who does this puts himself in the place of the Arbiter of conscience, and thus usurps the place of the Most High. It is to save all men from this that we protest. We have no desire to rule. The State of California has no more right to endeavor to enforce the observance of the seventh day than the first. Whenever any people, however good or sincere they may be, put themselves in the place of God and attempt to enforce religious dogmas, they of necessity become intolerant. Logically they must be, or else prove disloyal to principle. This would be true whether those who assume such authority were Methodists, Roman Catholics, Baptists, or Seventh-day Adventists.

But the Sunday law will come, for the prophecy of God’s Word has so declared, but woe worth the day. We would, and we would that the Gilroy Advocate and all others would, protest for the sake of all men against such legislation.