THE SUNDAY LAW'S RESPONSIBILITY.
By G.
The Ram's Horn, in commending the action of a certain railroad president in abolishing Sunday excursion trains, makes this very erroneous statement: The American Sabbath was one of the corner-stones upon which our temple of liberty was erected by the country's founders.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the first place, there is no such a thing as the American Sabbath. Sunday, which some people call the American Sabbath, is not in any sense an American institution. It is Roman, pure and simple, and was so long before America was discovered by Columbus. It came down from Rome through the Puritans and the Church of England, to the American colonies long before the "corner-stones" of our "temple of liberty" were laid. It was the cause of much intolerant persecution in New England for a long time, and through that persecution Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts. The government of this republic was placed upon a secular basis altogether. Every one was supposed to be absolutely free in matters of religion, under no obligation to any religion whatever. "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," says the Constitution, Article VI., Section 3. And this is emphasized by Article I. of Amendments, which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now the compulsory observance of any religious institution is not a free exercise of religion. Therefore the framers of the Constitution did not contemplate any compulsory sabbath law, nor was there any law to hinder the free observance of any day. And the administration of President Washington, one of the recognized founders of our "temple of liberty," so far disclaimed any religious element in the structure of the government as to disclaim even the Christian religion. In a treaty with Tripoli, signed by Washington in 1797, it was expressly stated that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian Religion." Again, the Ram's Horn says: When men bring themselves to ignore the laws of God they can and do readily ignore the laws of man.
This is in every word true, but it recoils very heavily on Sunday observance. The Sunday institution is in direct contradiction of the law of God, which says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." And so the Ram's Horn's statement recoils very heavily on the United States Government, if we assume that Sunday is "one of the corner-stones of our temple of liberty." It leaves us the logical conclusion that in this ignoring of the law of God we have the solution of the excessive criminality now extant. It leaves us also the further logical conclusion that the increasing effort to enforce the Sunday laws of the states—in defiance of the law of God—is the direct cause of the increasing disregard of the laws of the land. This is probably more than the Ram's Horn editor contemplated in his statement of fact, but it is a straight conclusion from his premise. G.