SUNDAY LAW IN CANADA by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 24.

SUNDAY LAW IN CANADA.

By G.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Battle Creek, Mich., Review and Herald gives the following brief report of a Sunday law case in the province of Alberta, Canada:—

Brother Hansen's trial for working on Sunday was called in February before the Supreme Court. He was discharged on the ground that he was a farmer, and that the law did not apply to farmers. Since then the attorney-general at Regina has issued orders to the mounted police not to disturb Seventh-day Adventists or Jews for doing work on Sunday.

This order of the attorney-general illustrates the difference between toleration and liberty. This officer evidently sees the injustice of the law, and will not enforce it against a class. His sense of justice leads him to give by toleration the liberty that of right ought to be recognized in the law. But the present law would sustain him in not granting such toleration, and some day another official, with a less sense of justice, will deem it his duty to withhold the tolerance exercised by the present incumbent.

Another point in this Canadian Sunday law is worthy of consideration, and that is, its similarity to the first Sunday law on record—the decree of Emperor Constantine, A. D. 321. That document reads as follows:—

On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people living in towns rest, and let all workshops be closed. Nevertheless, in the country, those engaged in the cultivation of land may freely and lawfully work, because it often happens that another day is not well fitted for sowing grain and planting vines; lest by the neglect of the best time the bounty provided by heaven should be lost.

When this decree was issued Constantine was still a worshiper of the sun; he had not yet professed Christianity. But afterward, as the church gained more influence in the affairs of the civil government, the Sunday law was made more stringent and included all classes. Any Sunday law, on any statute book, however mild its face, is a menace to the liberties of the people, notwithstanding the tolerance of any public official charged with its execution.