THE JUDICIARY by Prof. P. T. Magan

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1893

THE JUDICIARY

By Prof. P. T. Magan

A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN.* NO. 3.

BY PROF. P. T. MAGAN.

THE JUDICIARY.

We are informed by trustworthy legal authority that "the constitutionality and the construction of Sunday laws have been considered by the courts of this country in nearly one thousand cases."

In the majority of these cases the "Sunday laws" have been sustained; but "not one of the judges who has sustained them on any other than religious grounds has ever ventured the assertion that they are passed, or that their enforcement is asked for, on any other ground than these [religious grounds]."

With the exceptions of Arizona, California, and Idaho, all the States and Territories of the United States have Sunday laws, and twenty-five of these have no exemption clause for those who observe any other day or no day at all.

That all laws providing a "special peace" for Sunday are enacted upon purely religious grounds, and for purely religious reasons, no one acquainted with the subject and possessed of common sense and common honesty will deny. Here is a quotation from a well-known authority, Mr. Tiedman, on this point:—

The most common form of legal interference in matters of religion is that which requires the observance of Sunday as a holy day. In these days the legal requirements do not usually extend beyond the compulsory cessation of labor, the maintenance of quiet upon the streets, and the closing of all the places of amusements; but the public spirit which calls for the observance of these regulations is the same which in the colonial days of New England imposed a fine for an unexcused absence from divine worship. Although other reasons have been assigned for the State regulation of the observance of Sunday to escape the constitutional objections which can be raised against it if it takes the form of a religious institution, those who are most active in securing the enforcement of the Sunday laws do so because of the religious character of the day, and not for any economical reason. . . . The effectiveness of the laws is measured by the influence of the Christian idea of Sunday as a religious institution.

That "Sunday laws" are enacted for the purpose of forcing the observance of a religious dogma upon all the people, whether they believe in that dogma or not, is very evident to all honest, thinking minds. That these laws have been sought for by professed Protestants is a fact that has been so often proved beyond a possibility of a doubt, in these columns, that it is needless to argue it here. Moreover, it is also a fact of the most potent character that professed Protestants, and above all professed Protestant ministers, have been most active in the prosecution of all who have seen fit to disregard the requirements of this religious dogma enacted into State law, and especially in several sections of the country have they been indefatigable in bringing before the courts the Seventh-day Adventists—a religious body, who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week, and work upon the first according to the commandment. This is persecution of the veriest type; and yet they assert that it is not religious persecution. There is just one sense in which they can say this in which we can agree with them. If when they say it is not religious persecution "they mean that God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son in the Bible, the book of their religion—the only true religion—never authorized it but emphatically repudiated it, and that for this reason it is not religious persecution—we will agree with them.

Now persecution by Protestant sects is in principle far worse than persecution by the Catholic Church, on the basis of their respective claims, for the Catholic Church claims infallibility, and that claim logically dissected implies that they have the whole truth and that no one else has any of the truth. But if that church has the whole truth, it necessarily follows that there is no salvation outside of it. We do not admit their claim, nor do we believe their principles to be correct; but there have been many who have believed it, and from their standpoint it is a kindness to persecute those who do not agree with them, if by this means they can bring them into the fold of the Catholic Church, and so save them from everlasting destruction. It is true that there are paintings in existence to-day depicting the heretic tied to the already lighted stake, and the priest in danger of being burned himself on account of his proximity to the flames, holding a crucifix to his lips and pleading with him to kiss it and acknowledge his alliance to Rome. On these grounds there may be a shade of a shadow of an excuse for persecution by the Roman Catholic Church. On these grounds we may offer the phantom of an apology for her, although we do not agree with her at all. But what can be said in defense of the Protestants; since they do not assert infallibility, they must admit that some of the truth at least may be with those who do not agree with them, and, therefore, it never in any possible way, by any mode of just and logical reasoning known to the human mind, can be urged in their defense that they persecute out of kindness. It therefore becomes us to inquire, Why do they persecute? Let us see:—

A North Carolina judge has officially stated that the Sunday work offends us, not so much because it disturbs us in practicing for ourselves the religious duties or enjoying the salutary repose or recreation of that day, as that in itself it is a breach of God's law and a violation of the party's own religious duty.

"So far, then" (we quote from Mr. Ringgold's paper upon this subject) "as the constrained are concerned, the object of Sunday laws is to compel them to perform a religious duty, and to punish an offense against religion, as such. . . .

"In strict accordance with this view are the New Hampshire decisions on the point of what constituted a 'disturbance' of one person by another on Sunday. At first sight it might seem unobjectionable to provide that no work should be done on Sunday 'to the disturbance of others,' as is done in New Hampshire. But the value of the qualification, if it had any, is destroyed by the judicial construction. The court has taken the North Carolina view that the statute was intended to prevent 'acts calculated to turn the attention of those present from their appropriate religious duties to matters of more worldly concern,' and hence it is settled in that State that business, however quietly conducted on Sunday, 'disturbs' those engaged in it, and that a man is 'disturbed,' though he be willing and even anxious to do business on Sunday, by the doing of it, or by any act, however voluntary, which tends to disturb him from religious observances." In this case "it was held that a proposition to buy a horse was a disturbance of the owner, and that the latter's willingness to be disturbed could not make the contract valid; and the vendee's taking a witness along with him, when he went to make this proposition, was held a further violation of the act in regard to the witness, as was also the additional interruption to the plaintiff's wife (who was in the room at the time reading a newspaper)."

I think it will now be evident that the primary object of Sunday laws is to make all men conform to the religious views and observances of a certain class of men, and through this means to make all men religious. Moreover, the advocates of these laws frequently urge that, we being essentially an English people, and that these laws having come to us from the British statutes and from the common law of England, therefore, they say that they must be construed in the same manner as similar statutes are construed in Great Britain. But here is a construction put upon "an act to prevent persons keeping open shops and disregarding the decency of the Lord's day," by an English judge:—

The spirit of the act is to advance the interests of religion, to turn a man's thoughts from his worldly concerns, and to direct them to the duties of piety and religion; and the act cannot be construed according to its spirit unless it is so construed as to check the career of worldly traffic.

The above cases are samples of one line of construction put upon the expression so common in Sunday laws, to the disturbance of others.

But frequently another argument is used. It is stated by those who set apart Sunday as a day of rest and religious worship, that the secular labors of others really disturb them in their worship. But how is it possible to estimate the damage done to a prayer in dollars and cents? How is the court to determine the amount of damage? Now we assert that if a man is a true Christian no amount of noise will disturb him in the least, nor will the sight of secular games and amusements have the slightest tendency to take his mind off his devotions. And this also we are prepared to maintain against the world. Let us see.

In the first letter to the Corinthians, second chapter and sixteenth verse, Paul writes: "Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." And again in the letter to the Philippians, second chapter and fifth verse: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Now it is clear from these two scriptures that true Christians have the mind of Christ. How much, we ask, was he disturbed in his devotions when surrounded by howling mobs and bloodthirsty Jews? He stood as calmly and composedly before those wicked men in the judgment hall as if he had been talking to a little group of disciples on the shining sands of Galilee. Since, therefore, "the mind of Christ" acted thus in him, so it is bound to act in all who have it; for "in him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

First, no prayers but the prayers of those who have the "mind of Christ" are of any real value before the throne of God; and all such prayers it is impossible to injure by noise, secular work, games, or the like; therefore it logically follows that no court could possibly in justice award damages to this class of Christians, for there can be no damage where there is no injury.

Second, all prayers offered up by all men not having the "mind of Christ," are absolutely worthless before the throne of God. True, the minds of such men are exceedingly easily disturbed while at their prayers, and distracted from their prayers, but since their prayers are utterly destitute of value, how on earth can it be proved that they are entitled to damages, even although their prayers may have been disturbed, since, disturbed or not disturbed, they are devoid of merit?

The writer does not for a moment hold that a howling mob is at liberty to enter a place of worship at any time and interrupt divine service. The ordinary laws providing for the preservation of peace and order will provide for all such exigencies. But he does hold, and that in the strongest terms, that Sunday is not entitled to any "special peace," and that all trades, callings, and professions not considered to be illegal on the last six days of the week, cannot possibly be construed by any fair method of reasoning or analogy as being illegal on the "first day of the week, commonly called Sunday."

Another argument is that Sunday laws are simply sanitary laws, a species of "sumptuary regulation," we presume. It is held that it is, beneficial to the health of mankind to loaf a part of his time, and one day in seven has been decided upon by the legislatures and courts of the United States as being the proper amount of time to be spent in loafing. The wisdom of these august bodies has penetrated even further into this deeply intricate and interesting problem. In the year 1861, in the State of Pennsylvania, in the famous case of Lindenmuller vs. the people, the court held:—

It is a law of our nature that one day in seven must be observed as a day of relaxation and refreshment, if not for public worship. . . . We are so constituted, physically, that the precise portion of time indicated by the Decalogue must be observed as a day of rest and relaxation, and nature, in the punishment inflicted for violation of our physical laws, adds her sanction to the positive law promulgated at Sinai.

No wonder that Mr. Ringgold in commenting upon this extraordinary piece of information says:—

It is deeply to be regretted that the learned judge . . . has not favored us with the tables of vital statistics or extracts from the writings on hygiene which he examined before arriving at so remarkable a conclusion.

If it is true that human tribunals may regulate the weekly rest, by what process of reasoning, we ask, can the right to regulate the proper amount of sleep, food, exercise, and study of the individual citizen be denied them? Admit the right in the one case and you must admit it in all the others. And since the mind is of more importance than the body, according to the same process of reasoning to these human tribunals should be arrogated the right to control the thoughts of the individual citizen, especially "the degree and kind of the emotions which he is to manifest and feel on stated occasions, as his daughter's marriage, or the funeral of his mother, and so on."

Cases innumerable might be cited in allegation on these points, but the above are sufficient. Suffice to say, however, that, preposterous as these conclusions may seem, they logically follow in the train of any kind of Sunday legislation. These are not conjectural and visionary theories, they are matters of fact and history. Just such a state of affairs as is depicted above has existed at more than one time and in more than one place. For example, we take the history of Scotland in the seventeenth century. Here is a group of some Scotch regulations for the keeping of Sunday holy:—

No husband shall kiss his wife, and no mother shall kiss her child, on the Sabbath day. . . . It was a sin to smile on Sunday. . . . It was a sin for any Scotch town to hold a market either on Saturday or Monday, because both days are near Sunday. . . . It was a sin to go from one town to another on Sunday, however pressing the business might be. It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday; it was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered, or your beard shaved. Such things were not to be tolerated in a Christian land. No one, on Sunday, should pay attention to his health or think of his body at all. On that day horse exercise was sinful, so was walking in the fields, or in the meadows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting at the door of your own house. To go to sleep on Sunday . . . was also sinful. . . . Bathing, being pleasant as well as wholesome, was a particularly grievous offense; and no man could be allowed to swim on Sunday. . . . A Christian must beware of enjoying his dinner, for none but the ungodly relished their food.

These were not merely the sayings of a religious assembly. They were that, but they were far more than that. The Scottish kirk united in itself, and arrogated to itself, the ecclesiastical, "legislative," and "executive" functions. "Declaring that certain acts ought not to be committed, they took the law into their own hands, and punished those who had committed them."

Such a gospel of force as this may make men hypocrites; it never can make men righteous. Righteousness does not come to man by law, no, not even by divine laws. Righteousness is the free gift of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all them that believe. See Rom. 5:15-18; 3:22. Moreover, the righteousness of man is as filthy rags in the sight of God. Isa. 64:6. The only righteousness which Heaven calls for in the sinner, and the only righteousness which Heaven will not condemn in the sinner, is the "righteousness of God."

What figure shall we use to show the utter futility of all attempts to legislate God into human beings? Men may attempt this, but they can never succeed in it. "Man looketh upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart." Man may yield to the pressure of a law and change the "outward appearance," but the heart remains as wicked as ever, with the sin of hypocrisy added.

To show the value of religious legislation, and to lay before the reader a few more of the evil consequences of it, we quote a paragraph from the writings of Lord Macaulay, which we would were engraven upon the heart of every nineteenth century Puritan. Seaking of the reign of the Puritans in England after the fall of Charles I., he says:—

"It was solemnly resolved by Parliament that no person shall be employed but such as the House shall be satisfied at his real godliness." The pious assembly had a Bible lying on the table for reference. If they had consulted it, they might have learned that the wheat and tares grow together inseparably, and must either be spared together or rooted up together. To know whether a man was really good was impossible. But it was easy to know whether he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his linen, no furniture in his house; whether he talked through his nose and showed the whites of his eyes; whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation, and Maher-shalal-hash-bas; whether he avoided Spring Garden when in town, and abstained from hunting and hawking when in the country; whether he expounded hard scriptures to his troop of dragoons, and talked in a committee of ways and means about seeking the Lord. These were tests which could easily be applied. The misfortune was that they were tests which proved nothing. Such as they were they were employed by the dominant party [the Puritans]. And the consequence was that a crowd of impostors, in every walk of life, began to mimic and to caricature what were then regarded as the outward signs of sanctity. The nation was not duped. The restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently borne, if imposed, by men universally believed to be saints. Those restraints became altogether inappreciable when they were known to be kept up for the profit of hypocrites.

This was the hollow mockery, called "sanctity," of the Puritans. The words of Jesus apply in full force to them:—

"Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Matt. 23:27, 28, 33.

This was, now is, and ever will be, in this earth, the Pharisaical, Puritanical plan,—to make men have the appearance of being beautifully sanctimonious outwardly, while within they are full of all uncleanness. They make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. "Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also." Matt. 23:26.

God starts at the opposite end from the Puritans and the Papacy. When Israel was in the wilderness, he gave Moses a pattern, after which he was to make the tabernacle in which the presence of the Most High was to dwell. This tabernacle outside was to be covered with curtains of go[at]s' hair. Not a very magnificent exterior, was it? On the other hand, inwardly, it was to be adorned with gold and silver, with "curtains of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet; with cherubim of cunning work shalt thou make them." Ex. 26:7, 1. This is God’s beautiful plan,—to adorn the inward heart of all those whose faith is fixed in Jesus, with the pure gold of HIS CHARACTER, which has been tried in the fire, with silver purged of all its tin, in the furnace of God-given afflictions; to have the inner walls of the sanctuary of the soul of the “fine-twined linen” of HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, woven in the loom of heaven; to grace the chambers of the heart by the presence of cherubim from the temple above, and, above all, to illuminate the mind by the glorious shekinah of HIS PRESENCE.

Let us joyfully contrast this lovely heaven-drawn picture, the lights and shadows of which have all been placed there by the pencil of the Holy Spirit,—let us gladly contrast it with the gloomy etching of the Puritan ideal as depicted by Macaulay, and there can be no question of choice.