SUNDAY LAWS AND THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.
By C. P. Bollman
IT is a notable fact that in Sunday legislation the rights of conscience are very generally disregarded. Indeed bigotry and intolerance seem to be inherent in the Sunday institution; and from the published reports of the late Sunday convention in San Francisco, it appears that the spirit of the institution governed the majority of the members of that convention. It is safe to say that there was not a minister in that meeting who is not well aware that there is no divine law for Sunday observance. Indeed, we know that such is the case, for one of them, a Baptist, said:— “There is no such thing as a Christian Sabbath. And if any one here has fixed upon the idea of a Christian Sabbath, he had better revise his scholarship. The term Sabbath has no place in Christianity, it is a Judaistic expression. The term Christian Sabbath, the Lord never used, nor his disciples.” But the same man showed his utter disregard of the rights of conscience by declaring: “I want a Sunday law. I believe in having a Sunday law.” Nor was this man alone in such sentiment, for the convention decided by vote that what they demand is “a civil Sunday law.” Said a Disciple minister:— “I come in simply as a citizen to work for a civil Sunday, not as a preacher to work for a law to enforce a religious institution.” But if, as they declare, the Sunday is not the Sabbath, why do they seek to enforce the observance of it upon others? If it is not the Sabbath, and it certainly is not, then the keeping of it is not enjoined in the Scriptures; for if the Scriptures do not enjoin the keeping of the Sabbath, they do not require the observance of any day. But again, if the Scriptures do not require the observance of Sunday, and these men know that they do not, then the keeping of it cannot be with them a matter of conscience, and their desire to keep it, and to compel others to keep it, is not the result of right principle. But though these men virtually say that with them Sunday-keeping is not a matter of conscience, they demand a law compelling all men to keep a day which they admit is not the Sabbath, a day of which the Scriptures say nothing except as a common working day. And not only so, but they propose to compel those who are conscientious in keeping another day, to violate their consciences by keeping a day which they feel in duty bound to devote to labor, according to the word of God, which says: “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.” A law requiring them to keep Sunday would virtually impose upon them a fine to the amount of one-sixth of the time which God has given them for the support of themselves and their families. This is manifestly unjust; and yet this is just what the advocates of the Sunday law propose to do, that they may have merely a “civil Sunday.” But it may be urged that this is a religious question, and that it is a matter of conscience with those who desire the Sunday law. Then why did they not say so? But the majority of them did nothing of the kind; the expressed sentiment of the convention was that the question was one of political economy and State ethics, and not of religion at all. The preacher, they said, should be entirely separated from the question, and the law should be demanded by them as citizens. But suppose that it were with every Sunday-keeper in the land, a matter of conscientious conviction, would that make Sunday laws right? Suppose that A keeps Sunday, but B feels that to preserve a conscience void of offense toward God, he must keep the particular day enjoined in the fourth commandment, and so keeps Saturday; has A the right, simply because he has the power, to compel B to violate his conscience in the matter of Sabbath rest? By no means; for no one has a right to force his conscience upon another. Every man has the right to demand of his fellows all that God has guaranteed to him by the second table of the law (the last six commandments); but no one may constitute himself censor of another’s actions toward God. To his own master every servant must stand or fall. So far then as I owe any duty to a fellow-creature, he may exact the performance of that duty, but he has no right to exact from me the service that I owe to God. To go further than this is to justify the Inquisition; for if men may enforce upon others one religious duty, then they may likewise enforce upon them any and all religious duties. And, like the Church of Rome, they may even dictate to men what they shall believe. This principle is recognized even by those Sunday advocates themselves. Said one of them (a minister) in the San Francisco convention:—3"If we can come in here this year as preachers and call on the State to enforce the observance of the Christian Sabbath, next year we may come in as preachers and ask the State to compel everybody to be baptized; and the next year ask the State to compel everybody to celebrate the Lord's Supper, and so we shall have Church and State. But none of these things are wanted. Therefore," said he, "a civil law is all that is wanted." But a civil law for the enforcement of religion is a religious law, and no amount of sophistry can make it otherwise. Calling the first day of the week the "civil Sunday" does not alter the fact that a law requiring its observance may be made the instrument of religious persecution, as has very recently been the case in several of the Eastern and Southern States, where within the last six months nearly a score of conscientious observers of the seventh day have been arrested, and some of them fined and imprisoned for not keeping the "civil Sunday," and that after they had religiously and conscientiously observed the seventh day "according to the commandment" of God. If these Sunday-law advocates are sincere in the declaration that they wish only a "civil Sunday," it shows that they place a very low estimate upon the rights of conscience, because in that case they exalt a mere "police regulation" above a conscientious adherence to the divine law; and if, as the writer believes, they are not sincere, and really desire to enforce their religious tenets by civil law, in what respect are they better than the minions of the Inquisition? and are they not part and parcel of the forces of antichrist?