A CIVIL SABBATH LAW by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 11, 1897

“A CIVIL SABBATH LAW.”

By Editor

Let California Be Free.

THE Marysville (Cal.) Democrat says:— The question of a Sunday law is being considered again in certain quarters and undoubtedly will not down until a reasonably just law has been placed upon the statute books. There are many people who do not approve of a sabbath law, yet there has not, to our knowledge, been a tenable argument presented against a law that will cause the people in general to show greater respect for the day. From birth to manhood we were taught by a good mother to not only respect the day, but to honor it as a blessing. In nearly all the older states there is in force a civil sabbath law, and under such provisions of restraint the day is observed by mercantile firms and nearly all branches of business.

There is a text in the paragraph above for many sermons, and we notice it because it presents the views of many; but we will perforce have to content ourselves with a few brief comments.

1. “Civil sabbath law.” There never was such a thing as pertaining to a religious day; there never will be such a thing. The Sunday law is in the interest of the religious day, pushed by the religious people. As a purely civil day, what preeminence has Sunday over Monday or Tuesday, or any of the other six working days? Logically every one will answer, “There is no difference.” If a civil Sunday law, then, why not a Monday law and Tuesday law, etc.? Of course this would make nonsense. Well, the civil Sunday law is just as much nonsense as a law regulating Monday observance would be.

2. “Reasonably just law.” There can be no such thing as a “reasonably just” sabbath law. If such a law is right and just and good, it should apply to all persons alike. To make exceptions condemns it at once as class legislation. California is the one great State of the Union that can boast that all classes are religiously equal before the law. It is a proud position and worthy of all honor. Orthodox Jews, Seventh-day Christians, First-day Christians, no-day Christians, unbelievers, and idolaters are equal before the law so far as the religion goes. Each can practise his own mode of worship (or he can refuse to worship) so long as he does not infringe the equal rights of his fellows as individuals. Every man can work every day if he chooses; and as a free man, he can refuse to work any day he chooses. The Orthodox Jew and Seventh-day Christian can observe the seventh day and follow legitimate employment on Sunday. The First-day keeper may observe Sunday as holily as he can and work on Saturday when it comes. There is absolute justice, and every man is left with God-given freedom to choose, unhampered by intolerant law.

Now for the State to pass a law that the Sunday-keeper should, after observing Sunday for conscience’ sake, observe Saturday for the sake of the conscience of somebody else, would be injustice. His resting on Sunday is to the Sunday-keeper a religious duty, and his right so to do is guaranteed by the Constitution of the State. As a matter of conscience he must observe it. Now for the State to demand that he shall observe another day, or refrain from labor on another day, out of deference to the wishes of his Seventh-day brethren, would be to deprive him of one-sixth of his income, or to place upon him a tax of sixteen and two-thirds per cent., which it did not place upon his Seventh-day neighbor. Propose such a law, pass such a law, and a cry of injustice, intolerance, and persecution would resound from every Sunday pulpit and paper and throat from Siskiyou to San Diego, and from the Sierras to the Pacific Ocean. Nay, more; from the Atlantic to the Pacific in inhabited America would be heard the cry. More than this, every true lover of liberty among no-day observers, and Seventh-day observers, including the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, would protest by tongue and pen against such injustice. The Sunday-keeper shall not be taxed to the extent of sixteen and two-thirds per cent. of his income to honor an institution held (rightly or wrongly) as sacred by his Seventh-day brother, whether the Sunday-keeper be 900 in 1,000 or 1 in 1,000,000. Such a law would be monstrously, unreasonably unjust.

And, reader, and you, neighbor Democrat, would it not be as unjust to turn the case around and tax the Seventh-day man sixteen and two-thirds per cent. for the sake of the conscience of the First-day man? Or has the Seventh-day-keeper and the no-day man no rights that Sunday people are bound to respect? Make the thing personal. Bring it home. Test it by the Golden Rule: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” To tax a man even to any extent on account of his religion, to demand by law that he shall pay deference, or reverence, to any religious dogma in which he does not believe, is unreasonably unjust, and degrades the dogma in his eyes rather than exalts it.

3. “Greater respect.” Outward deference may be compelled, but true respect never. Law may make weak men hypocrites, and free men haters of the thing deference to which is compelled by law, but to arouse respect and honor for such a thing never. There is but one law which will awaken, quicken, and demand respect and obedience concerning the Sabbath day, and that is the law of the Most High pressed home by the Spirit of God. But it is not at the behest of human legislation. Let the adherents of the various sabbaths appeal to this law, if it will apply; if not, let them choose the day to which it does apply. The very fact that men appeal to human law to support, uphold, or protect a religious institution, shows that they have no faith in God or his Gospel.

4. Men Not Institutions.—It is the duty of civil government to protect men, not institutions. Wherever religious institutions which do not apply equally to all persons are bolstered up by law, there is always injustice done somewhere. But laws equally applying to all persons protect the weak against the encroachments of the strong, and leave each religion to its own intrinsic worth and the voluntary zeal of its adherents. It permits the Chinese to worship his Joss, the Catholic to adore “the Host” and anathematize the heretic, the ultra Protestant to condemn Roman Catholicism as idolatry, and worship with simpler ceremony, the unbeliever to not worship at all or to worship self, the Sunday-keeper to keep Sunday, and the Sabbath-keeper to keep Sabbath—each in his own way, providing he does not interfere with the equal rights of his neighbor. Let the law be for the man, not the dogma or institution. For protecting man civil government is ordained of God. For protecting religious dogma or institution or creed under cover of sanitary regulation, civil law, or otherwise, civil government is perverted by the devil.

“He’s true to God who’s true to man; wherever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest, ’neath the all- beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race.”

California is still the glad land of freedom. Religion is as free so far as State law is concerned as the wild waves of ocean that break on her rocks or wash the sands of her coast; as free as the breezes that blow over her snow-capped mountains, her fertile valleys, or her sun-kissed orange groves. Here Sunday

is kept as well as in the creed-bound States of the Old World, or in those fettered with colonial laws in our east. Let California remain free!