The Sunday Issue in California
By Editor
WE are giving considerable space in this number to the discussion of the proposed Sunday law by the initiative in the state of California. This will be a new experience in America. The people themselves are asked to decide whether or not California shall have a Sunday law. Heretofore such matters have been decided before legislatures. How many of the people who vote upon this question this fall will really stop to consider what they are doing? Sentimentally, some will say that the laboring men need a day of rest, so we will vote for a Sunday law. But the laboring man can have his day of rest if he will take it, by simply exercising his independence. This is proved by the fact that there are thousands of Seventh-day Adventists — and they are scattered through every state in this Union — who observe Saturday. They require no law outside of the law of Jehovah to compel them to do it. It is true that they face difficulties. They sometimes have to give up some job of work, and seek another where they can keep the Sabbath, but they do it. And those who really desire to keep Sunday can do it without any of these difficulties that confront the Seventh-day Adventist. The laboring people who are in favor of such a measure do not realize the trap they are setting for themselves; for if they vote that the state may control one seventh of their time, they thereby admit that the state has a right to make them slaves, and that it can control all of their time. Are we desirous of becoming slaves?