A Sunday-Rest Law

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 10, 1909

A Sunday-Rest Law.

MANY of the secular papers of California are true American papers, and stand on true American ground regarding religious legislation. Some of them fear the effect evidently upon their subscription-list or sales, and endeavor to stand on both sides of the fence, while others with little or no understanding of the true principles of government and its relations to religion come out squarely for a Sunday law. As a sample of this case, we note an editorial in the San Jose Mercury of January 21. It starts out by saying:

"There is now a bill before the Legislature for making Sunday a legal rest day. We hope that this bill or one substantially its equivalent, reasonable in its provisions, will be enacted into law."

The character of this "reasonable" law was shown in our issue of last week; and the proposed law was shown to be, as any one who candidly and fairly examines it will see, most vicious indeed in its operation. Like all other Sunday-law measures, it demands that which can never be carried out, and would in its operation call for more and more stringent regulations, in fact its proponents tell us flatly that it is not the ideal law. The ideal law, they as clearly state, is that which our Puritan forefathers knew.

The last section of the bill, which demands that the prosecuting attorneys and constables and sheriffs shall enforce the law, leaving them no option whatever, under penalty of an unreasonable fine, and finally the loss of franchise, is one of the worst penalties that were ever attached to any law. It would demand a renewal of the Inquisition if it were carried out to its fullest extent. Another reason put forth in the Mercury is that "California is the only state in the Union which has no Sunday law. Indeed we believe it is the only commonwealth in the Christian world of which this is true. This puts us on the defensive. Why should we stand apart from and against the customs and laws of all other American states and most other civilized countries?"

One acquainted with the beginnings of the United States Government, and the principles which were made the basis of its Constitution, would never have written that sentence. Every government on the face of the earth outside of the United States has had a union of church and state; therefore, America not to be odd or different ought to have a union of church and state! Every government outside of America has demanded the support of a certain church or churches! America not to be different, not to make herself odd, ought to have followed in the same path! There are a hundred other things in the governments outside which differ greatly from the course that America has pursued. America ought to have followed in their pathway! She is "on the defensive" as long as she stands out against the customs of the nations of the world! Such an argument as this is unworthy to be called an argument. It is a special plea that every true man should set aside.

When the federal government of America was launched, she started out to do a new thing in the world. She wrote on the reverse side of her great seal "Novo ordo seclorum"—"a new order of things;" and that new order of things was a turning away from the customs and habits and laws and practises of the nations of the Old World which had fettered and ground men into the dust. The government stood for man, for the individual. As Bancroft expresses it, she dared to put in statute law the principles that were enunciated in Judea by the Man of Nazareth two thousand years before. And there were placed in the Constitution two provisions: One, that no religious test should ever be required of one holding office in the United States, and the other that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That government had no Sunday law. When effort was put forth in 1829 and 1830 to close the mails on Sunday, in both House and Senate these petitions were turned down, and the people who petitioned Congress to depart from the foundations of the government were plainly told that

"the proper object of government is to PROTECT ALL PERSONS IN THE ENJOYMENT OF THEIR RELIGIOUS AS WELL AS CIVIL RIGHTS, and not to determine for any whether they shall esteem ONE DAY ABOVE ANOTHER, or esteem all days alike holy."

The Mercury further says:

"It is objected that to pass the bill is to legislate concerning religion. That is a mistake. True enough, at bottom, Sunday, or Sabbath, is a religious institution, has its basis in religious sanctions, but it is also a social and economic institution, and it is exclusively so that the state has to do with it."

And it defends this last statement by saying:

"Marriage is a religious ordinance, and the family as we have it is a religious institution, and yet the state strictly safeguards marriage and legislates concerning the family. Is this to legislate concerning religion?"

The illustration is entirely aside from its purpose. Marriage is a civil institution. It may be regarded as religious; stealing has been regarded as religious by some nations and tribes, and it has been taught as a part of the training of the soldier-citizen. Murder has also been taught as a part of religion; that it was a man's religious duty to kill his fellow men; and yet these laws guarding life and property are not in any wise religious. They pertain to the relationships between man and his fellows. They are laws guarding society. So with marriage. Marriage is just as legal between two atheists or two infidels as it is between two Christians. A civil contract in marriage is just as binding in almost every country of the world, and in every country of the world which is not cursed by religious legislation, as a religious ceremony or contract. The justice of the peace binds together husband and wife just as strongly as does the priest or clergyman.

This is recognized and has been recognized in all the civilized countries of the earth, and preeminently so throughout America. The sole purpose of the legality of marriage is to protect society against the crimes which would naturally grow out of illicit relations, and against the support of a mass of parentless, untaught, undisciplined children. It isn't a matter which pertains to the individual's relation to his God or to his church in any way, that the state exercises any supervision over the marriage contract. The illustration is so far-fetched, so wide of its mark, as to have no application to the cause of Sabbath legislation at all.

Religious Legislation.

That a Sunday law is religious legislation is admitted:

First, by the Mercury itself which tells us that "true enough at bottom, Sunday, or Sabbath, is a religious institution and has its basis in religious sanction." This is emphatically true. The very origin of the Sabbath is religious. The origin of the marriage institution is the relationship between man and his wife. "They twain shall be one flesh." The Sabbath institution is the mark of a relationship between man and his Creator; it is a "sign" between man and his Creator; it is the memorial of that Creator's work for man. It is to be kept, not in idleness or laziness, but "holy unto Jehovah." Idolatrous nations have had holidays and feast-days. They have had no holy rest day. The Sabbath in its very nature and origin is to be kept as a holy day, but not holy unto the state, nor holy unto the individual, but "holy unto the Lord."

Secondly, all Sunday laws have their origin among, and are promoted by, religious people. No one has ever known of a Sunday law in America which has had its origin among working men or among those who do not profess religion. These have been urged and befogged until they have given their consent to such a thing; they have been warned that all their rights would be taken away unless a day of rest was given them legally, but it is only by such persistent and unscriptural methods that these men have been induced to support or give their sanction to such a measure.

Thirdly, the God-given right to rest implies the God-given right to work. He who gave man the Sabbath as a blessing gave man also the right to reject the Sabbath. He who gave man the power to choose the right gave man also the power to choose the wrong, and so far as that relationship between man and his God is concerned, no man can have the right to regulate belief or conduct, simply because he has no power to do it. True service to God lies in motive and in affection and not in act. The act is but the reflection of the motive.

Fourthly, every exemption that has ever been granted to Sabbath observers has been granted on religious grounds. If the civil

Sabbath law has no bearing on religion and is purely a social and economic institution, why should any exemption whatever be granted? But the very exemption itself proves that the basis of the law is religious sentiment.

Fifthly, the enactment of such a law as that makes the government a party to religious controversy, for there is a centuries-old controversy regarding the day of the Sabbath. We have Judaism, the oldest living religion on earth, holding to the seventh day; we have two or three bodies of Christians holding to the same thing, believing in the origin of the Sabbath, believing in the law which safeguarded it, and they observe the seventh day. They are good citizens in every respect. The very fact that they have conscience sufficient and conviction strong enough to lead them to become singular for conscience' sake, shows on the very face of it that the same conviction and same conscience will lead them to carry out every other requirement of duty.

On the other hand, there are many who are observing the first day of the week, many of them just as conscientiously as the seventh-day keeper is observing his day. The one class contends that the true basis of the Sabbath is the command of God, and the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Another class holds that there are some texts of Scripture which indicate a change, and the tradition of the church should be regarded.

Just as soon as the government adopts either one of these days it makes itself a party to religious controversy; and whenever it adopts either side of that controversy, it places itself against a class of its citizens that are just as honest and true in their convictions as others and ought to be regarded equally with them. Each of these classes presumably keep the day for conscience' sake.

In addition to that, the government demands that one class after having observed its own day shall keep another day, not because of any benefit which the government derives from it, but simply and solely because of the consciences of a large class of its citizens. This shows that it is not only a religious measure, but that it is utterly and absolutely unjust. It taxes the man who has the right to work if he will, from 14 2/7 to 16 2/3 per cent of his income in deference to the religious ideas and wishes of another class. It proportionally elevates the one class and debases the other. It places one class of citizens as friends of the government, and another class, if they followed their own convictions of duty, as out of harmony with the government, and they are classed as criminals and enemies to the commonwealth; and this again not because of any immoral conduct, but simply and solely on the basis of a religious conviction.

The founders of our government saw this and endeavored to place in the fundamental law that which should forever forbid it. True, there are Sunday laws in various states, but many of these came down from the Dark Ages, or Puritan times, and were allowed to remain on the statute-books when the colonies became states. Others have been passed in deference to religious opinion and that solely. California stands at the present time as the only state in the Union that abides by the "NEW ORDER OF THINGS;" and there she ought to stand, singular tho she may be, because she is singular in a right cause.

Upon this we shall have more to say next week.