I READ with interest what you said in your issue of Wednesday evening under the caption, “Want Blue Laws,” referring to the efforts of the Boulder Ministerial Association to secure a city ordinance prohibiting the giving of entertainments on Sunday.
I heartily approve of the principle of your dissent from this effort. Every student of history knows the evils which have inevitably resulted from all religious legislation, even tho undertaken in many instances, no doubt, with the best of motives. The persecution of the Quakers, the banishment of Roger Williams, the burning of witches,—all this and many other misguided movements, have resulted from the notion that it was right for some to dictate to others what they should believe and practise in religious matters. And the first step in such procedures created the necessity for every subsequent act of intolerance.
All amusements that are uncivil, that tend to the degradation of the community, should be prohibited on all days. An amusement that is proper to be given on Monday or Tuesday, is as entirely proper to be given on Saturday or Sunday, in so far as the civil authorities have to deal with the question.
It is certainly the privilege of the minister of the Gospel to warn his flock and the public generally, against desecration of the Sabbath day, but here his duty ceases. It is manifestly wrong for him to attempt to force upon his hearers his notion of things.
The state has to do with civil matters only. By enactment of appropriate legislation, it should regulate the civil relationship existing between the citizens of the state. If a man is uncivil, if his course of conduct is such that it invades the rights of his fellows, if his life is a menace to the civil peace of the community, then it is for the state to exercise its authority in compelling the offender to lead a civil life, whether his incivility is manifested on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day of the week; but no more so if it be manifested on Sunday or Saturday than if it be manifested on Monday or Thursday.
That legislation which seeks to improve the moral tone of the community by prohibiting evils on a certain day, is religious legislation, aimed not against the evils primarily, but designed to afford protection to the day. It is as wrong for a man to steal on Wednesday as it is for him to steal on Sunday. Proper prohibition will prohibit theft on both days and on every day. If it is wrong to sell whisky and operate a saloon on Sunday, it is equally wrong to sell whisky and operate a saloon on any and every other day of the week, therefore Sunday prohibition is but an effort to throw certain barriers around a day. Prohibition which is directed against the liquor traffic, pure and simple, will seek to prohibit it every day and all the time.
While the province of the state pertains alone to civil matters, the church has its field of operations in the province of moral questions. The state deals with those questions affecting the civil actions of men, the church makes appeal to the conscience. Says Christ, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
There is seen to-day a sad tendency for the church to enter the realm of politics, and to compel men to do by civil or legal enactment, what they can not be induced to do by moral suasion. It is the right of the Christian to vote, to hold office, and as a citizen to throw his whole influence in favor of good government. It is right for the minister of the Gospel to exercise his prerogatives as a citizen of his country. But let him keep politics out of his pulpit. As well might the ward politician be found occupying the pulpit, as the minister be found, in his ministerial capacity, doing the work of the politician. When the church as a church enters the realm of politics, when it seeks to accomplish by civil enactment what it can not do with its divinely appointed help—the Holy Spirit—it misses its high and holy calling, and misinterprets its mission in the world.
It is for every citizen to determine before his Maker how he shall spend every day of his life, without any manner of interference from his fellows, so long as he conducts himself as a law-abiding citizen. And so far as his fellows are concerned, it is perfectly proper for him to do on one day what is proper for him to do on any other day.
That which is not uncivil on one day, can not be uncivil on any other day. Every man, so far as the interference of his fellows is concerned, has a God-given, natural right to keep every day as a holy day, or to keep no day at all. And so far as such interference is concerned, every man has a natural right to worship a pagan deity, the one true God, or not to worship anything. God will sometime call this man to account, but the state or his fellowmen have not this right. They may seek to persuade him, but with that their mission must end. When in the worship of his deity the pagan becomes uncivil, then the state can step in and compel his observance of civil laws. When the professed Christian, in following a perverted sense of right, becomes uncivil, then, likewise, the state has a right to compel civility. But let it be remembered in all this that that which is not uncivil on one day is not uncivil on any other day.
The language of the Gospel is to entreat, to beseech, to implore. If men by moral suasion can not be made religious, they can not be brought to God by forcible measures. One compelled to pray is made a hypocrite, and in God’s sight a hypocrite is worse than an open sinner.
I heartily approve of every effort to improve the moral tone of any community when such effort is put forth in Christ’s lines. If I believed that any one day was holy, I should deem it my duty zealously to labor to induce my fellows to observe that day in a proper spirit, but failing there, I could not ask the city counsel to compel men to do on one day what the council should not compel them to do on every day.
We need always proper legislation to correct evils in the community, but let the legislation be so broad that it will not favor any cult or church or creed or day, but will be aimed against the evil on whatever day that evil may be exercised.
