CHARACTERISTIC OF SUNDAY ARGUMENT.
By Editor
WE take the following from the Occident (Presbyterian) of June 14:— "If it is right to close a dry goods store by law, it is right to close the churches. Many so-called churches are doing far more harm each Sunday, from the standpoint of Bible Christianity, than are open dry goods stores. This will be admitted by Sunday-law people. Sunday laws are only evil.—Signs of the Times." Our dear, verdant friend, editor of the above paper, would not take it kindly if we should question his Christianity simply because he desires the public worship of God to be held in all churches on Saturday. If it is a pleasure for our brother to observe the public worship of God with his friends and neighbors on Saturday, no one will complain. No one will scold him or call his church unchristian for worshiping God according to the dictates of their conscience. But we suggest that a little brotherly love be exercised on Sunday as well as on Saturday. We belong to a so-called church, but we are honest in our belief, and we know that many millions are honest in their belief, that Sunday is the Christian sabbath. The constant reiteration of old, whipped-out arguments for Christians to adopt the Jewish Sabbath will be of no avail. Our Lord rose from the dead on Sunday. That afternoon and evening he preached to the apostles at Emmaus and in Jerusalem. From that day until the present time the apostles and a large majority of Christians of all denominations have been content to observe the public worship of God and our Saviour on the first day of the week. The above is noticed for two reasons: First, our contemporary, like the majority of Sunday and Sunday-law defenders, entirely misses the point in the note it quotes from a recent issue of the Signs; and, secondly, we wish to notice what our Presbyterian brother does say. 1. We do not desire all churches to worship on Saturday unless the churches so desire. If they were willing to submit to God in this respect, and observe his day, made holy by his own infinite, creative power, we should rejoice. But if it is the choice of one or all of these churches to hold public worship on Friday or Sunday, we have no desire to dictate otherwise. God gives them the privilege of their own choice. He will not compel, neither do we desire so to do. 2. We repeat that we are perfectly willing that our friends should worship publicly on Sunday if they so desire, but what we are not willing that they should do is to compel others to do as they do. There is this difference, and it seems to us that our contemporary ought to see it in his obtusest day and mood. The Sunday people observe the first day as the Sabbath, and work on the seventh day. The Sabbath people observe the seventh day, and work on the first day. Thus far we have no fault to find. Each class must give an account to God. But our Sunday friends (or most of them) are not willing to stop here. They not only demand the right to keep Sunday and work the seventh day, but they demand that those who observe the seventh day shall refrain from their work on Sunday. They are demanding that the State shall compel one class of citizens to pay homage to another class to the extent of one-sixth of their time or sixteen and two-thirds per cent of their income. Now the Occident would not think it to be righteousness or justice for the Seventh-day Adventist, were he in a large majority, to compel the Presbyterian to refrain from work on the seventh day, after that Presbyterian had kept the first day. And the Occident would think truly. If the seventh-day observers numbered one million and the first-day observers numbered one, the million would have no right to compel the one to refrain from any work on the seventh day which he could legitimately do on any other day. And the principle is just as true with the number reversed. In fact, numbers have nothing to do with it. It is a matter of right, not of numbers. 3. We did not include among "so-called churches" the Presbyterian Church, nor, in fact, any of the so-called Protestant or evangelical churches, because they stand on the side of those who are demanding the closing of all places of business on Sunday. But here are all the Roman Catholic pulpits of our land, whose influence is against public schools, against true Protestantism, against religious liberty; here are the Unitarian Churches, whose influence is against the gospel of Jesus Christ; there are other communities better or worse, the influence of whose teachings on Sunday is against Bible Christianity,—and all to a much greater extent than an open dry goods store could be. And, therefore, if the store be closed on account of its baleful and immoral influence, consistency demands that the churches of worse influence also be closed. Our Occident editor would doubtless rather have his son meet the dark, insidious, immoral influence of an honest dry goods store open on Sunday, than to sit under the preaching of Unitarians, or Roman Catholics, or attend Spiritualistic seances. And the final logical sequence of Sunday laws is the establishment of one church and the closing of all others. The present indications in the government of this nation are that the Roman Catholic Church will be the one, and our Presbyterian and Baptist Churches, who hold to the principles of the presbytery of Hanover (Va.) in 1776, and of Roger Williams, will be closed. Those who submit to the dictum of the old "mother" may remain open. 4. With reference to the "old whipped-out arguments" for the seventh-day Sabbath of Jehovah, it is evident that there is too much of the corn of Scripture in them still to please our friends of the first-day sabbath. They once honestly thought that there were Biblical arguments and evidence sufficient to disprove the seventh-day Sabbath. They called it and still call it "the Jewish Sabbath," albeit Inspiration calls it "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" and "My holy day." Having exhausted all of the arguments invented by the theologians of the dimmer ages, and having proved the utter worthlessness of those invented in these days, they have grasped, and are endeavoring to wield with as much vigor as the State will put into it, Rome's favorite weapon, whenever expedient and possible,—the civil law, the secular word, prosecution and persecution. And, Mr. Editor of the Occident, your "dear verdant friend" asks you if this is not all true? For the next to the last sentence in the above quotation from the Occident we ask our readers and its readers to study Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20 and 21. These chapters will show the character of the "Sabbath-keeping" of that first "first day." For the last sentence read the history of the church since the days of Christ, in the light of God's word. In conclusion we ask for all our first-day friends and for all our no-day friends just what we ask for ourselves, namely, that the matter of working and resting, of spending the Sunday or the Sabbath in sport, or work, or worship, be left between the soul and God. No man nor set of men has any right to compel or seek to compel the observance, or the seeming observance, or homage of any religious institution whatever; and that man or set of men who does, is assuming the authority which belongs to God alone. Nay, but he is going farther than our Lord has presumed to go. He says, "If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not." The language of the servant of Christ is, "We persuade men."