Shall We Compel Rest? by J. O. C.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 23, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 24.

Shall We Compel Rest?

By J. O. C.

STRONG sentiments of sympathy in the interest of the overworked laboring man are now expressed in various quarters. This is as it should be; and every laborer, confined as he is from week to week in the effort to support a dependent family, should have one day in every seven for rest and recuperation. Could this be universally so, the laborer and his family would doubtless be made happier, and his employer would reap larger and more satisfactory results from his labors.

But how ought such a condition to be provided? Should a religious law be placed on the statutes, which would require everybody to rest on a given day, whether agreeable to him or not, and thus some be deprived of the God-given right to employ their time as they think fit, when by so doing the rights of others are not infringed? This seems to be the decision reached by some, especially those who religiously rest on Sunday, and desire to have everybody else do the same as their own religiously trained consciences dictate.

But is such a course wisest and best? Some say that there appears no other way open to secure to the working man his right to a weekly day of rest; but would this reach the root of the matter?

Sunday laws are on the statute-books of most of the states, but they do not minimize Sunday labor. The one thing they have done, so far, is to open the way for the persecution of those who conscientiously observe another day.

The only way that laboring men get a day of rest is to demand it, and assert their God-given manhood and take it. In this way the laborer secures his own rights, and does not endanger the rights of others. J. O. C.