Sunday Observance and State Compulsion
By Editor
The Presbyterian synod recently in session at Syracuse, N. Y., appointed a committee to devise a plan to promote Sunday observance within its bounds. Among other things, they recommend "that on the second Lord's day of May all our ministers be requested to present to their congregations the claims of the Lord's day." The committee also appeals to lay members of the various congregations in the synod, "whether in office as elders or trustees or not, to use all their private and official influence for the better observance of the Christian Sabbath." "This we do," says the committee, "in the interests of that large and growing number of men in every community who are being robbed of the weekly day of rest, and of all their home and church blessings, by the demand for their Sabbath labor, or the loss of their places of employment." Of course it is the right of every man who desires to do so to keep Sunday, the so-called Lord's day or Christian Sabbath; but is it the duty of the State not only to remove all difficulties in the way of keeping that day, but also to make its keeping obligatory upon all in order that those who regard it as sacred may be compelled to do that which they now feel that they ought to do, but which, from fear of losing employment, they neglect to do? We think not.