DEPLORING THE EFFECT, BUT ADVOCATING THE CAUSE.
By W. N. G.
The American Sentinel of recent date gave a long list of journals which have deplored to a greater or less degree the persecutions of Seventh-day Adventists in various localities for doing common labor on Sunday. The list contains papers of national repute and those of merely local influence, papers of all shades of politics and various religious creeds. Aside from this list of journals, which does not include them all, a number of ministers and other public men, not of the seventh-day faith, have spoken against these persecutions which have taken place under cover of Sunday laws. Two Baptist ministers of this city have spoken quite decidedly in favor of absolute religious liberty. But a noticeable feature of all this opposition to the aforesaid prosecutions (or persecutions) is that most of these papers and ministers and other public men still favor some kind of Sunday law. A few denounce such laws in toto, and advocate their absolute repeal; but most of them advocate modifications, exemptions of certain classes, and other pretexts for retaining Sunday laws in some form. Men are becoming so imbued with the spirit of the gospel of force that they seem almost unwittingly to imbibe the idea that there must be some form of religious compulsion in order to save the country. Some otherwise reasonable men seem to think that a Sunday law is essential to the good name and moral support of a state or municipality even if it is not executed at all. There could be no better evidence of the delusive influence of our time and surroundings than to see honest men lamenting the results of the Sunday-law evil and yet advocating a continuance of Sunday laws under some specious pretext. It is strange indeed that they can not see that it is the principle itself that is at fault. It is strange, in the face of such extensive evidence, that men do not see that the absence of persecution in states where Sunday laws exist is wholly due to the fact that the laws are not executed. When the time comes, as it surely will, when overzealous men will deem it their duty to prosecute their neighbors who disregard these laws, persecution will be the result. Even if observers of the seventh day should be exempted, there will be plenty of others upon whom the spirit of bigotry will find opportunity to exercise its zeal. Not only so, but exemptions are even now being overridden in two states, and eventually will be ignored altogether. “If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” While lamenting persecutions under cover of Sunday laws, many well-meaning persons still advocate such legislation on the grounds of temperance, the necessity of physical rest, and other “civil” pretexts. But the fact that they always call for these “civil” regulations on Sunday is evidence that Sunday is chosen because of its recognized religious character. The fact that such “civil” legislation as is usually embodied in Sunday laws is never, or seldom, demanded on other days, is evidence that legal Sunday recognition is the real object. Until men can realize that all manner of legislation has in its results (even if not in direct purpose) the enforced recognition of religious dogma, whether the observance of a day or a rite, they will not understand the true import of Sunday laws. That they do not understand them is demonstrated in the oft-suggested exemptions of those who “conscientiously observe the seventh day as the Sabbath.” This suggestion of exemption may seem very charitable, and is sometimes, though not always, meant to be so. It has been openly suggested as a means of silencing their opposition. But supposing the suggestion to be made always with charitable intent, it is only class charity; for the law making such an exemption virtually assumes to see that all classes observe some day as a sabbath. It virtually says to the people, If you do not conscientiously observe the seventh-day Sabbath, you must refrain from secular business on the first day of the week. Again it says to the seventh-day observer, You may be exempt from the “civil” requirements of the Sunday law on condition that you act religiously on the previous day. Such a law is partial in its requirements, especially if it be a “civil” Sunday law; for, according to all the exemptions yet proposed, those who keep the seventh day must do so religiously, while those who keep Sunday are not so required; they have only to abstain from work; otherwise they may do as they please without any conscience whatever. And there are always certain classes of business that are unconditionally exempted. So the best that ever has been suggested in this Sunday-law line would give us an unequal law, favorable to certain classes, and therefore unjust. The crowning absurdity, however, of the proposed “modified” Sunday law, on a “civil basis” only, with the religious requirement of those who are exempt because of having “conscientiously” observed the seventh day, is yet to be mentioned, and may be stated in one sentence, namely: Such a law would be a civil Sunday statute with a religious Saturday provision. The people who are deploring the persecutions under the Sunday laws, but still think it necessary to have such laws, will find it exceedingly difficult, yea, impossible, to frame such legislation impartially, and to eliminate from it the opportunity for religious zealots to persecute those who are not in harmony with enforced Sunday observance. The principle of persecution is in all such laws, and will surely crop out when their general execution is attempted. Deploring the persecution while advocating the law which makes the persecution possible, is the height of inconsistency.