OUR POSITION MISAPPREHENDED.
By Editor
THE Rev. Leslie W. Sprague, Unitarian, of San Francisco, preached a sermon October 1 on the Midwinter Fair, and gave his reasons why he thought the Fair should be open on Sunday. The Morning Call of the next day gives a column report of the sermon, from which our quotations are taken. Some of the points made are worthy of consideration, but what we wish to notice here is a misapprehension of the speaker as regards the position of Seventh-day Adventists. He is reported to have said:— You know that command, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," does not apply to Sunday at all. The seventh-day people, Jew and Adventist, are the only really consistent followers of the text. On the authority of the Bible the Seventh-day Adventists petitioned Congress to have the Chicago Fair closed on Saturday, and this was the only consistent application. If I professed to believe in the absolute authority of the ten commandments, I should fight for Saturday as the closing day. It is true that the only Sabbath of the Bible is the seventh day, not Sunday; but it is not true that Seventh-day Adventists ever petitioned on the authority of the Bible or anything else to have the World's Fair closed on Saturday or any other day. They petitioned Congress to have nothing to do with the closing of the Fair on any religious day; and they did this because to do so would be unconstitutional and wrong. It would be legislating outside of the proper sphere of civil government, and will inevitably lead to the rankest persecution. Granted that Sunday is the Sabbath of the Lord, the Congress of the United States has no business to meddle with it, nor, for the matter of that, with the seventh-day Sabbath. The only consistent position is to leave religious matters between the soul and God. Just as soon as a government, Federal, State, or Municipal, decides that either Sabbath or Sunday shall be regarded or observed, it has decided a religious controversy and made itself an arbiter of conscience. Because of this the Seventh-day Adventists petitioned Congress to have nothing to do with Sunday closing in any way; and as for the Sabbath of the Lord, they believe that God is abundantly able to care for that matter without the aid of civil government. WE have reached the time of which the United States Senate of 1829 forewarned us. That body at that time said:— Extensive religious combinations to effect a political purpose are . . . always dangerous. . . . All religious despotism begins by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequences. We now have the religious combinations; the civil power has bent under it; some of the consequences have already been seen in the persecutions in Tennessee and Maryland. We know what will inevitably follow. Are we prepared in God's strength to meet it?