A Dangerous Law Proposed for California
By Eugene W. Farnsworth
Seeking to Drag Us Back to the Days of Intolerance and Persecution
Sunday Laws the First Step—Then Laws Compelling Church Attendance
By EUGENE W. FARNSWORTH WHILE no one doubts the good intentions of the church people and others who have, by petition, placed upon the ballot for the coming November election the Sunday bill known as "An Act to Provide for One Day in Seven as a Day of Rest," yet much more is involved in this question of Sunday laws than appears on the surface. In the first place, Sunday is not the Sabbath; for the commandment says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," and the seventh day of the week is Saturday. The observance of Sunday is nowhere commanded in the Bible. It is through the decrees of church councils and the customs of religious people that Sunday has come to be observed as it is to-day. It is an establishment of religion. THE OFFICER COMPELLED CHURCH ATTENDANCE
In early colonial days, strict church attendance was required by law on pain of whipping, sitting in the stocks, or death on the gallows. It was the duty of the tithing man to report all who "lye at home," and all the "sons of Belial strutting about, setting on fences, and otherwise desecrating the day." Likewise, in Massachusetts blasphemy was punished by imprisonment, whipping, the pillory, boring the tongue with a red-hot iron, or sitting upon the gallows with a rope about the neck. The colonists came to America to escape the religious persecution of the Old World; but they so far forgot the rights of their fellow beings to the same exercise of a free conscience—a right which they themselves demanded—that they consigned Roger Williams, who disagreed with them in religious opinions, to banishment and the tender mercies of the Indians in the dead of winter. PROVIDED AGAINST SUCH BIGOTRY
A few years later, our forefathers having learned that Puritan blue laws made men hypocrites without changing their wicked hearts, if wicked they were, wisely placed in our national constitution the provision that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." A provision of the same import is contained in all the state constitutions. As Sunday is an establishment of religion, its compulsory observance by law is thus condemned. Further than this, the declaration of our independence from Great Britain, the chief foundation stone of our government, declares that all men are created equal, and "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," among which are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is manifestly subversive of this principle to compel our citizens to refrain from doing on one day of the week what it is proper and right for them to do upon other days. It was that all might have full freedom in religious matters that the first amendment to the national constitution was drawn. If it is proper to violate its provisions in the passage of a Sunday law, it is also proper to violate it in the passage of laws taxing our citizens for the support of the church, or obliging all to partake of the mass or to be baptized. If baptism becomes compulsory, who shall say whether it shall be by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion? Of course, the real object of these laws is to compel a better church attendance. Ministers who have forsaken the word of God to make a lecture platform of the pulpit, or who have indulged in picking the Bible to shreds until only the covers are left, have found that their hearers prefer the ball game or the exciting show to listening to their platitudes. What is needed is not a law to bolster up the observance of the day, but a ministry charged with love for souls, and a return to the old-time faith in the Bible. Is it unchristian to stand against Sunday laws? Was it unchristian for Christ to say, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them"? And would those who are laboring devotedly for the passage of Sunday laws, consent to the enactment of a Mohammedan Friday law in America? Or would they wish the observers of Saturday to secure the passage of a Saturday law, compelling all to rest on that day?—No! Such laws would be unjust. Neither these nor a Sunday law can make our citizens one whit better; for if they do not hold Sunday sacred, and yet are compelled, by the strong arm of the state, to observe it, they become hypocrites; while if they do hold the day sacred, they will properly observe it without the compulsion. HOW SUCH LAWS HAVE PERSECUTED MEN
"But," says one, "these laws are harmless, and can not result in persecution in these modern days of enlightenment and civilization." We answer, Such laws did result in persecution in colonial days, and have so resulted in modern times, since Sunday laws have been passed by the states. In eleven years, from 1885 to 1896, fines and costs aggregating $2,260.69, imprisonment for a total of 1,438 days, and 455 days in the chain-gang, were meted out to more than one hundred conscientious, God-fearing Seventh-day Adventists in this country, and about thirty in foreign countries. Such prosecutions have taken place in at least fifteen states in this country. Yet these are laws similar to that proposed for California. EXEMPTIONS ARE NO PROTECTION
Exemptions placed in Sunday laws do not make them less harmful. They are un-American religious laws just the same. The exemptions make of them class legislation. The object of such exemptions is to silence opposition to the enactment and enforcement of the laws. After such a law is enacted, it is comparatively easy to secure a revocation of the exemption clause. Liberty of conscience is a right to be respected, not a grant to be tolerated. There has been talk of closing the Panama-Pacific Exposition on Sundays. But why? Will our citizens receive harm from viewing upon Sunday what they may look upon with no ill effects on other days of the week? The attitude of Sunday law advocates regarding the Chicago exposition in 1892-1893, in boycotting the fair because the gates were not closed on Sundays, and in calling upon President Cleveland to guard the gates Sundays with troops, shows a spirit other than that of brotherly love. In fact, the whole Sunday law propaganda is based not upon the principle of Christ that men render to Cæsar the things of Cæsar, and to God the things of God, but upon the antichristian principle of a state guided and dominated by the church for her own aggrandizement,—a principle which in years agone bathed its sword in the blood of millions who dissented from the established church.