THE INJUSTICE OF SUNDAY LAWS.
WE are told many times that Sunday laws are in the interest of justice; that they are to provide for the laborer a rest day, which the greed of his employer cannot take from him. But in reply to this it is sufficient to say that every man in this broad land may refuse to work Sunday if he wishes, and the law will protect him in that refusal; no man or corporation can compel him to work against his will. "But he may lose his employment." True, but our Sunday-law friends, when pressing the purely religious side of the question, argue, and present instances from real life to demonstrate the correctness of the argument, that it is better for a man in the long run in every way to refuse to work on Sunday and stand to his conviction of duty. Men, business men, even though they despise religion, appreciate moral worth. Of course it would be a temptation to a man to work on the day he held as sacred, but this is a world of temptation, and there is always strength vouchsafed to resist if a man wants to resist. Again, the operation of Sunday laws thus far shows that it is not the great corporations which suffer. The laws are rarely if ever enforced against wealthy employers. Railways, great manufacturing establishments, and large printing offices are unmolested, while some peanut vender, news boy, or Sabbath-keeping farmer, not one of whom employs anyone, suffers the penalty of the law. And the avidity and zeal shown in prosecuting the latter class, and seemingly studied avoidance of anything like prosecution of the strong and wealthy, looks as though the law was especially made for the restraint of the weak and poor. But further, a Sunday law destroys the equality of good citizens, equal in every respect save that of religion. It stamps the keeper of Sunday as a law-abiding citizen, while it brands the man who does not keep Sunday as a law breaker, even though he have religiously kept another day. If an exemption from the law is granted those who observe another day, it then places them, not as on an equality with the Sunday keeper, but only "tolerated" by the law, and toleration is not justice. What every subject of a free government ought to demand is not toleration, but right, and right is equality before the law. To illustrate: In the State of New York are three men, neighbors, A, B, and C. All are good neighbors, enterprising, generous, upright. A observes Sunday; B, the seventh day, and C, in common with many professed Christians, observes no Sabbath at all. A works his six days and rests and attends church on Sunday. B works his six days, and rests and attends church on the Sabbath. C rests sometimes on one day, sometimes not at all. As men they are equal in every respect before the community. But New York has a Sunday law, which some zealot, like Saul of old, desires to see enforced, and it has been put upon the statute books for that purpose. A of course is a law-abiding citizen and is not molested. B is arrested, but when examined in court he swears that he regularly observes the Sabbath, and this the law declares to be a sufficient defense to save him from the penalty, but not to save him from annoyance and expense fifty-two times a year if some zealous Sunday keeper wishes to thus tantalize him. He is considered a "tolerated" law breaker. C is arrested, found guilty, and fined. Not having any strong convictions in either direction he falls in with A on Sunday, because the majority are on that side, and thereafter observes Sunday, so as to satisfy the law. B, however, believes the law to be unconstitutional, unjust, and unchristian, and, being zealous of the faith he professes,—that the seventh day is the Sabbath and ought to be kept as a duty to God,—he so teaches, and this enrages the Sunday-law partisans still more. Through the influence of threats, legislators are induced to sweep away the exemption clause of the law, as they did in Arkansas some years ago, and B becomes a law breaker, before the law a criminal. He is just the same man in conduct and character as before,—a good Christian citizen and neighbor. But the law makes him an outcast and criminal.242"Oh, no," says our Sunday-law zealot, "we only ask him to keep the day the majority does; if he wishes to keep another day, that is his own matter!" But what does this involve?—Just this: The law has made two men, equal in every other respect before the law, widely different purely for a matter of conscience and religion. It allows the first-day man to work on the seventh day without let or hindrance, and that right belongs to him so far as civil power is concerned; but he arrogates to himself the privilege of saying that the man who has kept the seventh day from religious scruples shall keep the first day also. The law therefore demands one-sixth of the time which God has given to B, as a sacrifice to a religious dogma in which he has no faith. In other words, it places a weekly tax of sixteen and two-thirds per cent. on the income of B, which it does not ask of A. Reader, do you wish to perpetuate such rank injustice? Then throw your influence in favor of Sunday laws. Do you wish it to cease? Then unite with those who are lifting faithful warning against their iniquity. Sunday laws are evil and evil only. In the very principle on which they are based they are wrong; how can they be otherwise in their nature and working? And the fact that there are ninety-nine or nine hundred and ninety-nine Sunday keepers to one opposed, gives the greater number no more right to do injustice to the one than one tyrant has to do injustice to a thousand subjects.