SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CANADA.
By Rabbi S. Jacobs
A Jewish Rabbi's Defense of the Jewish Position.
[Reply of Rabbi S. Jacobs to statements of Rev. Dr. Hill, of Montreal.] SOME few days ago a deputation of Jewish citizens waited on the premier and the minister of justice with reference to the bill, as drawn or suggested by the Lord's Day Alliance, for the more rigid observance of Sunday. This action on our part has provoked some adverse criticism. I don't know why it should, but certainly it has. Some of the objections are unworthy of comment. But surely, we who are Canadians have as much right to protest against the passing of any law as others have to seek for its enforcement. For we have equal rights with our fellow citizens. We are not even new comers, because, whilst General Wolfe was investing Quebec, Jewish officers, under Amherst, were fighting for the glory of England in the invading host. One became Seignior de Brancour, others large landowners. Long before 1768 there was a large and flourishing Jewish community in the city of Montreal. They were accounted as men of sterling character and public-spirited in every respect. A hundred years ago a Jew was elected to represent the constituency of Three Rivers in the Parliament of Canada; and since then other Jews have been elected and set in the Parliament of Canada. Yes, in every respect we have now the same civic and political rights as our Canadian fellow citizens. But Dr. J. Edgar Hill, president of the Lord's Day Alliance of Montreal, thinks otherwise. According to his line of reasoning, the Jew has no rights whatever as a citizen. It would be interesting to know on what ground. Would he deprive other religious bodies of their rights? Would he concede any to the Catholics, or to the Unitarians, or to the Seventh-day Adventists, or to any sects which think differently than himself? His statement that this is the bill of a Christian government in a Christian land is a weak argument in its favor. England is a Christian country, and yet has no such law on its statute book so drastic and severe as this law would prove itself. According to the Factories Act of 1878 and 1901, special privileges are accorded to Jews who keep their factories closed on the Jewish Sabbath. According to this bill now proposed, there are to be certain exemptions. Are we not as much entitled to them as other sects? But there are many who object to this proposed bill besides us Jews, even some who consider themselves, and are, Christians. How should they be dealt with? Surely the president of the Lord's Day Alliance would not subscribe to the evil principle of making men religious through fear of the law, and to the pernicious doctrine of outwardly observing the Sabbath day, but inwardly chafing because the statute of Parliament compels them to do so. Even granting that the people of Canada by a large majority are in favor of this bill, we have still to learn that the president of the Lord's Day Alliance is their mouthpiece. Have not minorities also their rights? One man in a minority, espousing a good and righteous cause, is a majority with God. Minorities the Saving Power.
If majorities were always in the right, history would have to be written afresh, and the tide of civilization turned backwards. Never were truer words spoken than that minorities lead and save the world, and the world knows them not till long afterward; and again, that "governments exist to protect the rights of minorities." The president of the Lord's Day Alliance makes an uncalled-for attack on our co-religionists. We are told that, in his civic experience, we are not the law-abiding, Sabbath-keeping, and inoffensive people we claim to be. This statement is strangely15at variance with many facts and figures, and other authoritative facts, which can be quoted to the contrary. It might be of some little interest to Doctor Hill to learn, as he does not seem to know, that in the year ending June 30, 1903, only three Jews were incarcerated in the Dominion prisons—one in Kingston and two in St. Vincent de Paul—according to the statement of the minister of justice. Whose word is more reliable, Doctor Hill's or that of the minister of justice? "The trouble with the Jews everywhere," continues the president of the Lord's Day Alliance, "is that in London, as well as in Montreal, the Jew is an anachronism in modern society." That is just what Pharaoh thought, just what Amalek thought, just what Haman thought, just what Antiochus Epiphanes thought, and what all Jew-haters and Jew-baiters since those days have thought. As the psalmist puts it, "Come and let us cut them off, so that they may be no more remembered." This good "Christian" divine does not tell us why we Jews are an anachronism. Let us hope that on some future occasion he will enlighten us on this point. But he is singularly unfortunate in quoting the Jew of London as an anachronism, for in no city in the world does the Jew hold a higher position, commercially and socially, than in the metropolis of the British Empire. Its most popular of lord mayors and sheriffs have been Jews. Its most public-spirited citizens are Jews. It is an acknowledged fact that the most generous supporters and benefactors of the charities of the city of London are followers of the Jewish religion. Such names as the Rothschilds, the Moeattas, the Goldsmiths, the Montefiores, stand unequaled for loyalty to their country, for charity, for sympathy in the cause of suffering, and for being interested in every movement of public utility. There are Jewish peers of the realm, Jewish baronets, Jewish knights, Jewish members of Parliament, a Jewish under-secretary of state for the home government, Jewish judges, Jewish magistrates, Jewish lawyers, Jewish sailors, Jewish soldiers, yes, and even Jewish governors of British colonies. And yet we are gravely told that the Jews are an anachronism in modern society. The late Mr. Gladstone did not think so. He quoted the public-spirited Jews of England as a proof that the Jew has justified his claim to emancipation and the right to full civic rights in whatever country he was located. And is the Jew in Canada an anachronism?—Not as long as he discharges the duties of citizenship worthily, and identifies himself with his fellow men in the public life of the country, and mixes with his fellow citizens of other creeds, and unites with them in works of loving sympathy and active benevolence. We in Canada are not ashamed of our record in the past, nor shall we be in the future, with God's help. No, dear brethren, we Jews are not the anachronism; but it is the president of the Lord's Day Alliance who is behind the times, who, perhaps, if he had his own way, would again treat us to the unsavory atmosphere of the ghetto, to the hot, but unchristian, argument of the Inquisition, and to the burning argument of the stake. We say to him, "Good Christian brother,"—for we recognize all men as our brethren,—"surely you have spoken in haste, or in error, or thoughtlessly, when you tell us we are unfitted for the spirit of the times. In these materialistic days it should make you happy and gladden your heart to behold ten million of your Saviour's people, His kinsmen, fulfilling the mission and the word of that Holy Writ you profess to revere and teach. The waters of baptism could free us forever from the heritage of suffering which has been our portion, and would cause the curtain to fall on the tragedy which Israel has played on the stage of the world's history, but the truth and the Word of God and His promises are dearer to us than the wage of apostasy. Never, perhaps, before did the world need more the salutary lesson, that the satisfaction of conscience is worth any suffering of the body. Then, because we believe and carry out the Jewish faith, and are willing to make the sacrifice it entails, do not call us an anachronism. Read the Scriptures again; yes, even the New Testament, tho its writers were Jews, and let your future utterances be more sympathetic, more just, and more tolerant to the people of Israel, who gave you a Saviour; for He Himself declared, "Salvation is of the Jews." Otherwise, Dr. Hill, you yourself are an anachronism. [It is the unchristian attitude of professed Christian teachers that calls forth such replies as the foregoing, and makes them logical from the Jewish standpoint. If Christianity consists in the enforced observance of days by the power of civil law, the Jewish opposition to the whole fabric is logical. But the Word of Christ does not sustain such "Christianity." It is not Christianity in any sense. The New Testament was all written by Jews, who knew what Christianity means, and every principle announced is against enforced religion in any phase, or the compulsion of any man's conscience.—EDR. OF SIGNS.]