A “NECESSITY”-TO WHOM?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 3, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 39.

A “NECESSITY”—TO WHOM?

HERE are two utterances from one editorial note in the Christian Statesman of September 7. In speaking of seventh-day observers and their persecutions, the editor says:—

There is no law against observing Saturday or any other day as the Sabbath. If any one chooses to observe every day as a sabbath, the law will not interfere.

In speaking of the persecuting Sunday laws he says:—

Sabbath laws are a necessity to protect all people in their right to a weekly rest day.

Now if the first statement be true, the second is not. If men can observe any day they wish, if there is no law to interfere, what is the necessity for Sabbath laws? It means just this, that men shall be compelled to observe days which they do not choose, and the thing is stated as a “necessity” to hide its fallacy. It means that, whatever other days a man might choose to keep, he must keep the day selected for him by the Sunday keeper. The Sunday-law man says in effect, Though you have kept the day of your religious choice, now you must give one-sixth of your time, or 16⅔ per cent. of your income, in keeping the day of my choice. Mark this, a law which demands the observance of one day over which men may differ, or, in the language of the Statesman, a “law which protects the first day of the week,” does NOT protect men. It says to the man who chooses to keep Sunday,

“You are all right,” but to those who do not so choose (and every one has the right so to do), “You must observe the day or suffer the penalty.”

“To protect all people!” Then the people of California are not protected! They may be driven out like cattle or slaves to work on the day they choose to keep! Such a defense of Sunday laws would be laughable were they not wicked. The truth is that every man is protected now in keeping any sabbath he desires in all places where no Sunday law exists. It is only when such laws exist and are enforced that the rights of men are not protected. And so it is in Tennessee, Maryland, and other states. It is not so in California, and yet men are protected in keeping Sunday.