THE NEED OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION.
By C. P. B.
THE Examiner (Baptist), of New York, has an article in its issue of July 25 on "The Need of Sunday Legislation," in which some ideas worthy of notice are advocated. The article is a review of a paragraph or two from an article in the Twentieth Century. The sentiment expressed by the Century, and to which the Examiner takes exception, was that no laws should be made in regard to Sunday, and that consequently everybody should be left to do as they please about observing it. This, the Examiner thinks, would be utterly destructive to all Sunday observance. That paper admits, however, that "no laws should be made enforcing the religious observance of Sunday." Just what those who say they are in favor of Sunday laws, but not in favor of enforcing the "religious observance" of the day, mean, we do not know. Sunday is purely a religious institution. It is observed because it is a religious institution, and how any observance of it whatever can be enforced without enforcing a religious observance, is more than we can understand. It is true that no law can compel anyone to have a real regard for Sunday, and possibly the advocates of Sunday laws would regard nothing short of that as religious observance; but any law that prohibits secular occupations on Sunday, compels people to act as though they had a sacred regard for the day, and what is that but religious observance as far as it goes? The Examiner argues that Sunday laws are necessary in order to afford those an opportunity to rest who desire to do so. To prove this, it cites the case of the Saturday half-holiday in New York. It says:— "For several years, by a concerted action, some few large firms in the same lines of business adopted a system of early closing during the summer, but the practice was by no means general, and it had no sure basis until a statute made Saturday afternoon a legal holiday. When all banks and public offices closed at noon on Saturday, it was found not only practicable to close private offices and shops, but of little use to keep them open, and so the half-holiday became assured as a summer institution, and is more and more generally observed with every year." But instead of proving the necessity of Sunday laws, this proves conclusively that no such laws are required further than to make Sunday a legal holiday. There is no law in New York forbidding work upon Saturday afternoon; the law simply makes Saturday afternoon a legal holiday, and banks and public offices and courts must of necessity suspend business, because business done at488that time would not be legal. But this would not satisfy Sunday-law advocates. This is exactly the case now with Sunday in California. It is a legal holiday, and yet Sunday advocates say that California has no Sunday law, and they are demanding that a Sunday law be enacted in this State. The truth is, that that which they want is a statutory recognition of Sunday as a sacred day. And that, they say, would not be religious legislation!