The American Sunday by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 57.

The American Sunday.

By Editor

The Tacoma School Journal of July has been sent to us containing an article on "The American Sunday," in which the writer contends that, as all of

these traditions of America are in favor of Sunday and Sunday laws, so the friends of the Sabbath should boldly assert themselves against a lawless Sunday. He admits that the first Sunday laws after the birth of Christ were made by Constantine; "for the purpose of giving laborers a rest and a day to attend divine worship. The friends of the sabbath [Sunday] have always insisted that on this day the laborer should have rest; but now there are some philanthropists who have such a burning love for the workingman that they would destroy all laws that the workingman might better enjoy himself on Sunday." The Journal concludes:—

It is high time that the friends of the American institutions should stand up and be heard. Here is a field for the A. P. A. Let every American citizen come forward and demand that this, the fairest flower of Christian civilization, should not be trodden beneath the ruthless foot of greed, lawlessness, and infidelity.

But it might be well for the Journal to ask itself the question if the laboring men of this country are not free men. Have they not the privilege of resting every day of the week if they so desire? or can they be compelled to work seven days in a week by their masters? The workingman is free to rest on Sunday just as long as he wishes. No one can compel him to work. Sometimes it may cost him sacrifice, but if his manhood and religion cannot afford that sacrifice, they certainly are not worth saving. He who has any religious regard for Sunday certainly has the privilege of showing it by observing the day as strictly as he will. He who has no regard for the day cannot be compelled to have it by any number of Sunday laws, howsoever severe they may be. But Sunday laws are in perfect harmony with the day itself. Its origin as a sacred day is human, and it can only be sustained by human laws; and when the Journal and all its other friends meet the success which they desire in a universal Sunday law, they will find, not the A. P. A. as masters of the situation in this respect, but that church which they now condemn as an enemy to the Sunday, namely, the Roman Catholic Church, as mistress of the situation. It is that church through which Sunday has come to us as a sacred day, and by which Sunday will be held up through civil laws in the future. It is a mark of the papal beast, the badge of its power, and Protestants who have departed from Protestant principles are simply submitting to its demands instead of following the word of God.