RELIGIOUS LIBERTY VIOLATED.
In the Independent, of Aug. 16, 1877, H. L. Wayland, D. D., speaks of Sunday laws as follows:— About five years ago, I wrote an article for The Independent on “The Sabbath Laws,” in which I expressed the opinion that we have no right to compel any one to regard Sunday, or any other day of religious observance. No one must interfere with his neighbors in the exercise of their religious liberty; but we may not prevent a man from laboring on Sunday, unless his labor be of such a kind as to destroy the Sabbath of others.
Very many who would admit all this in regard to those who religiously observe the seventh day of the week would stop there. To me it appears plain that it applies universally—to the friar, who regards every day as a Sabbath, and the atheist, who sets at naught all days. We have no right to demand that a man should observe our Sabbath or any other Sabbath. We have simply the right to say that the great body of the community shall not be prevented from observing their Sabbath. Hence the right to prohibit bands of music, public processions, railroad trains, steam-whistles, military displays, bolt factories, and all sources of noise and confusion in the vicinity of a place of worship on the Sabbath. Beyond this we have no right; and it is a violation of religious liberty to require my neighbor to forego his labor on my day of worship. I am sure of the sympathy of The Independent in speaking of a recent flagrant violation of these principles. In the town of Cussewago, Crawford Co., Penn., on the 16th of June, Mr. Daniel Waldo and his hired man, Albert Wood, were tried before Justice Blystom, Venango borough, on a charge of violating the Sabbath laws, by running a planing mill, and by tilling a field of potatoes with a cultivator. It was shown that there was no place of worship within several miles, that Mr. Waldo and Mr. Wood are Seventh-day Baptists, regularly observing the seventh day by abstinence from labor. But, for all that, they were fined $4.00 each. I most earnestly hope that this instance of actual oppression may lead to a re-examination of all our Sabbath legislation, and that we may put our Sabbath laws on the true basis—the real Roger Williams ground.