THE Presbyterian General Assembly met, in May, at Winona Lake, Ind. One of the speakers, on the evening of May 20, was Supreme Court Justice Harlan. The brief report which we have is from the Philadelphia North American, of May 22, written by the Rev. Dr. Chas A. Dickey. The heading given to the article reads thus:
CHRISTIAN SABBATH BY LAW, PLEA OF HARLAN;
Supreme Court Justice Points Out Duty of State Legislatures.
Talk to Presbyterians.
General Assembly Hears Stirring Addresses on the Observance of Sunday.
A meeting in the interest of Sabbath observance was held Saturday night. John H. Converse presided, and Justice Harlan made the chief address. Justice Harlan made it very clear that it was the duty of state Legislatures to sustain Christian sentiment, and preserve the Christian sabbath. He intimated very plainly that the Supreme Court would stand for such legislation.
The speech of Justice Harlan is thus summarized:
Poor Man's Day of Rest.
Justice Harlan pleaded for the sabbath as the poor man's day of rest, and deplored the tendency to imitate foreign custom, and make the sabbath the great day for receptions and dinners. He declared that railroads and rich persons had no right to rob the laboring classes of their appointed day of rest.
He said that the duty of Christians to observe Sunday as a day of worship and of religious service was not to be confused with the right of those who worked to have a rest one day in seven.
Presuming that special effort has been put forth to report correctly one occupying such high position among the counsellors of the nation, we wish to call the reader's attention to the following:
1. As a Christian, Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that Sunday is not the Sabbath. It is neither enjoined by divine constitutional, or divine statutory, law. It has no legal standing in the Christian's Book, the Bible. That stands for one day only, the seventh of the week.
2. Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that Sunday, as the Sabbath, has no divine or worthy example behind it in Sacred History. The one Example for all humanity was the blameless Observer of the seventh day; and so also were His servants observers before Him and after Him, so far as the Holy Record gives us account.
3. Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that Sunday, as a sacred day, came into the life of the church, not by any divine mandate, but with the worst apostasy the world ever knew. It is one of the products of the Second, Third, and Fourth centuries, built on the traditions of ancient pagan sun-worship.
4. Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that among the first steps in intolerant Christianity—if we may use the contradictory term—was enforcement of Sunday by law; that around that centered the growing union of church and state which culminated in the Dark Ages.
5. Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that around this counterfeit institution, this pseudo sabbath, at the present time, there is being built up a hedge of thorny statutory enactments which is in spirit as intolerant as any religious legislation ever enacted in the past. These laws result in elevating one class of citizens above another at the behest of a religious dogma, and in disfranchising and declaring criminal other classes in every way equal to the former, who differ only as regards religious dogma.
6. Justice Harlan knows, or ought to know, that true religion is not a matter of civil law, but a matter of choice and conscience, asking only the non-interference of the civil law; that the men who desire a9day of religious rest have, in a free land, the right to take it. If they lose something by it, that has always been one of the concomitant sacrifices of true religion. The fact is that the great mass of those who use the day use it in idleness and dissipation worse than the work. But however the day may be used, legislation is not necessary to its observance. Moreover, legislation would never be asked for were not the day a religious institution. Every other alleged reason for Sunday legislation is a subterfuge.
7. And, therefore, the plea for Sunday laws and the assurance, intimated, implied, or declared, is a bid, pure and simple, for religious intolerance, whether so intended by the learned jurist or not. If Justice Harlan would abide by God's constitution—the Decalogue—he would never make a plea for the Sunday-sabbath religiously; and if he would hold to the Constitution of the Federal Government, which he has taken oath to uphold, he would never advocate nor uphold any Sunday law or any other religious legislation.
The foregoing utterance of Justice Harlan is most significant. For years we have told Americans that this Sunday legislation, widespread, venal, iniquitous, and intolerant, would come. This was denied. We were told that it could not be in free America. We declared that it would come, because God's Word had predicted it. And it came, and is abounding more and more.
Then, when it came, our liberty-loving Americans told us that these cranky laws would be set aside by our highest court as unjust, unamerican, class legislation, and such ought to be the case; but, instead of that, we have a member of that court urging such legislation, and assuring its promoters thereby that the Supreme Court would uphold it.
What will our liberty lovers do? Will they yield conscience and their sense of justice, and stand with the law, right or wrong, or will they stand for right, for liberty, for truth, for God, and for that Book which has predicted the very things we see taking place? The people of this country are in the valley of decision. These are days of crises which are determining eternal character.
