p. 231 | SUNDAY-LAW ROBBERY by Alonzo T. Jones

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 15.

SUNDAY-LAW ROBBERY.

By Alonzo T. Jones

NATIONAL REFORMERS and those who are in favor of Sunday laws are, according to their own statements, always very fair, very liberal, and very tolerant. Yet they demand a Sunday "law that shall make itself effective by small exceptions and large penalties." So the "American Sabbath Union," on the Blair Sunday bill. They desire no exemption to any religious class whatever, and in this they are true to the traditions of their fathers—the Roman hierarchy. The Sunday is a religious institution, and legislation on religious institutions is wrong and only wrong.

But it is not this phase of the question which we wish to discuss at this time. A civil Sunday law, if enforced, not only infringes upon the rights of all who may desire to spend Sunday in a different way than that prescribed by the law, but it works positive hardship and robbery to that class of citizens who observe religiously any other day than Sunday.

"Oh, but we grant them the privilege of observing any day they choose," say these tolerant reformers; "we only ask that they shall not desecrate Sunday. We deprive them of no rights; we only compel them to respect ours."

Let us examine this. The only divine law which we have for a Sabbath is that found in Ex. 20: 8-11. Laying aside the question as to what day is enjoined, all will agree that permission is given to work six days. The Jew, the Seventh-day Adventist, and the Seventh-day Baptist believe that the law of God demands the observance of the seventh day, or Saturday. They cannot conscientiously do otherwise than observe the day which the commandment enjoins and conscience dictates. Thousands would die rather than labor on the seventh day.

But the members of these religious bodies also avail themselves of the privilege of working six days. God grants it, the Constitution permits it, justice and equality and necessity demand it. Thousands of them cannot support and educate their families if the privilege of working the six days is taken from them. They hold, and justly, too, that they have the same right to observe the seventh day as others have the first day. Numbers do not and cannot regulate worship to God. If this were so, no Christian would have the right to worship Jehovah in a heathen land. Just as long as the seventh-day man does not work any ill to the life, property, chastity, or reputation of his first-day neighbor, or interfere with his worship, he has as much right to labor on the first day as the first-day man has to labor on the seventh day. This is simple right and justice, and it would be just the same if the large majority were seventh-day keepers.

But how would a Sunday-law affect these Sabbatarians?—It would take from them one-sixth of their time. In effect, it levies a tax of sixteen and two-thirds per cent. upon the seventh-day man, which it does not upon the first-day man. In all other respects, except that of the day to be observed, both classes sustain the same relation to the Government. But civil laws which designate a day to be kept by all when there is difference in faith and practice, thereby discriminate between class and class, elevating and favoring one, and correspondingly depressing and oppressing the other. Such laws are in favor of a particular religion and particular dogmas. The State, therefore, is responsible for the hardship, and not the Sabbatarian, unless the Roman Catholic claim is true, that the individual has no right to choose his religion. As a natural result of his religion, the Jew would suffer no more hardship than the Sunday-keeping Christian. Each could work six days, each would observe one. But if Sunday is protected by law, hardship does come to the seventh-day keeper as the result of such legislation solely. Therefore we are just in saying that the State in enforcing Sunday laws places a tax upon the seventh-day keeper of sixteen and two-thirds per cent. which it does not place upon the first-day keeper. But what is the trouble with the Sabbatarian that he should thus be discriminated against? He is God-fearing, conscientious, honest, sober, upright. He only asks what is taught by the golden rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." To this class the Sunday law is a robbery, a robbery that enriches no one, that benefits no one; but a robbery the only effect of which is to increase the arrogance of what is rapidly becoming a dominant and proud hierarchy. Can any Christian or man even indorse such injustice?

M. C. W.