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A FALLACY EXPOSED

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 11, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 6.

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A FALLACY EXPOSED.

By Editor

A SHORT time ago we heard one of the ministers of Oakland read an essay to his congregation on Sunday observance. It was one of a combination of discourses designed to stir the people up to see the necessity of a State Sunday law, but one of the illustrations used was most unfortunate. It is well known that the strongest plea for a Sunday law is on the ground that the workingman is ground down by soulless corporations. Pathetic stories are told of conscientious men who would like to keep Sunday, and who feel that they ought to, but who are not able to follow out their conscientious convictions lest they should lose their place.
The preacher was showing how strictly Sunday ought to be observed, and how God's blessing follows its strict observance. He told of a man with whom he was acquainted in Chicago, who was forced to drive on a street-car for a living. When it came Saturday night his employers required him to work the next day, but he refused, saying that he could not work on "the Sabbath," and that he would throw up his job. The managers, however, concluded that so conscientious a man would be valuable, and did not discharge him, but gave him constant employment after that.
He also mentioned the case of the young man who was discharged by Stephen Girard, because he refused to help load a ship on Sunday. The young man wandered around for several weeks in search of employment, and finally found an excellent place in a bank, to the managers of which he was recommended by Girard himself, as a model of conscientious honesty.
If this proves anything, it proves that the talk about a Sunday law being a necessity in order that the laboring man may keep Sunday in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience, is all cant. It proves that there is no necessity whatever for any Sunday law. Everybody who wants to keep Sunday can do so without a law, and nobody can hinder him; while those who do not want to keep Sunday will not thank those who make a law compelling them to. The only necessity there is for a Sunday law is in the selfishness of those who are clamoring for it.