SUNDAY LAWS AND THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.
By C. P. B.
It is claimed by the advocates of Sunday laws that they are Christian laws, but it is a notable fact that they invariably infringe the rights of conscience, and hence are anything but Christian. The fundamental principle of Christianity is for each one to do as he would be done by, and that he must do to all, whether believers or infidels, if he would not belie his Christian profession. But Sunday laws are always and everywhere in conflict with the golden rule. Where is there a Sunday-keeper who would wish to be compelled to refrain from work one day each week in addition to the day which he regards as sacred? Such an one cannot be found; and yet that is just what thousands of them want to force upon other thousands of their fellow-men. Indeed, bigotry and intolerance seem to be inherent in the Sunday institution. But it may be said that they seek to do this from a sense of duty to God. Then they had better get a correct sense of duty. But that it is nothing of the kind is shown by the fact that many of them, at least, do not believe that Sunday is the Sabbath, nor do they believe that there is any divine obligation to keep it. In a Sunday-law convention held in San Francisco a little over two years since, a leading Baptist minister said:— "There is no such thing as a Christian Sabbath. And if anyone here has fixed upon the idea of a Christian Sabbath, he had better revise his scholarship. The term Sabbath has no place in Christianity; it is a Judaistic expression. The term Christian Sabbath the Lord never used, nor his disciples." But the poor man showed his utter disregard of the rights of conscience by declaring, "I want a Sunday law; I believe in having a Sunday law." And yet we suppose that he would be highly indignant if anyone should intimate that he is not a Christian. Nor was his an isolated case; for the convention decided by vote that what they demand is "a civil Sunday law." Said a Disciple minister:— "I come in simply as a citizen to work for a civil Sunday, not as a preacher to work for a law to enforce a religious institution." Thus these men, though virtually saying that with them Sunday-keeping is not a matter of conscience, demand a law compelling all men to keep a day which they admit is not the Sabbath, a day of which the Scriptures say nothing except as a common working-day. And not only so, but they propose to compel those who are conscientious in keeping another day, to violate their consciences by keeping a day which they feel in duty bound to devote to labor, according to the word of God, which says, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work." A law requiring them to keep Sunday would virtually impose upon them a fine to the amount of one-sixth of the time which God has given them for the support of themselves and their families. This is manifestly unjust; and yet this is just what the advocates of the Sunday law propose to do, that they may have merely a "civil Sunday." But it may be urged that this is a religious question, and that it is a matter of conscience with those who desire the Sunday law. Then why do they not say so? But the majority of them did nothing of the kind; the expressed sentiment of the convention was that the question was one of political economy and State ethics, and not of religion at all. The preacher, they said, should be entirely separated from the question, and the law should be demanded by them as citizens. And this is just what the American Sabbath Union, so called, says. The demand is for "a civil Sabbath," and they well know that there can be no conscience back of such an institution. A civil law for the enforcement of religion is a religious law, and no amount of sophistry can make it otherwise. Calling the first day of the week the "civil Sabbath" does not alter the fact that a law requiring its observance may be made the instrument of religious persecution, as has been the case in several of the Eastern and Southern States, where within the last three years nearly a score of conscientious observers of the seventh day have been arrested, and some of them fined and imprisoned for not keeping the "civil Sunday," and that after they had religiously and conscientiously observed the seventh day "according to the commandment" of God. If these Sunday-law advocates are sincere in the declaration that they wish only a "civil Sunday," it shows that they place a very low estimate upon the rights of conscience, because in that case they exalt a mere "police regulation" above a conscientious adherence to the divine law; and if, as we believe, they are not sincere, and really desire to enforce their religious tenets by civil law, in what respect are they better than the minions of the Inquisition? And are they not part and parcel of the forces of antichrist? But suppose that it were with every Sunday-keeper in the land a matter of conscientious conviction, would that make Sunday laws right? Suppose that A keeps Sunday, but B feels that to preserve a conscience void of offense toward God, he must keep the particular day enjoined in the fourth commandment, and so keeps Saturday; has A the right, simply because he has the power, to compel B to violate his conscience in the matter of Sabbath rest?—By no means; for no one has a right to force his conscience upon another. Every man has a right to demand of his fellows all that God has guaranteed to him by the second table of the law (the last six commandments); but no one may constitute himself censor of another's actions toward God. To his own master every servant must stand or fall. So far then as B owes any duty to A, A may exact the performance of that duty, but A has no right to exact from B the service that B owes to God. To go further than this is to justify the Inquisition; for if men may enforce upon others one religious duty, then they may likewise enforce upon them any and all religious duties. And, like the Church of Rome, they may even dictate to men what they shall believe.