Reported by John S. Wightman, Religious Liberty Secretary of New York
THE MEANING OF SUNDAY LAWS.
[Mr. Wightman attended and reported for other papers the Inter-Church Conference on Federation in New York; and also attended and reported for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES the late annual meeting of the American Federation of Catholic Societies in Buffalo, and was also in attendance at the meeting in Elmira for this journal. He is a student of the great principles involved, and his report is worthy of careful consideration by every American citizen. Ed.]
Compulsory Sunday Observance.
REV. E. M. Deems, D.D., of Hornellsville, addressed the convention on the subject of "Personal Responsibility in My City, County, or Local Community for the Sabbath," and dwelt upon the question of the how, when, and where, with reference to personal responsibility and obligations. What had been done for the Lord's day was encouraging, and every man should be more bold, more efficient, more determined in taking a personal stand both in private and public life, for the preservation of the Christian sabbath. Keep the matter of the observance of the sabbath before the people. "Agitate, agitate, agitate," he said, "and finally success will crown your efforts. I am one of the few of those old-fashioned Puritanical lovers of the sabbath day still left, and no Christian civilization can endure without the Christian sabbath!"
Protected and Perpetuated by Civil Power.
Rev. Mr. Deems was followed by Rev. H. S. Southall, pastor of the Centenary Church of Elmira. "The Moral Effect of the Sunday Crusade in Elmira," was his theme. He thought it was too early, we were too near the scene of the struggle for compulsory Sunday observance to rightly comprehend its far-reaching effect. One great effect, however, was that the people would begin to realize what the law said and what it meant, and that it meant what it said. The crusade has created a wholesome respect for law. The fight for the supremacy of the Sunday law had "compelled" many hundreds of people to have a wholesome respect for the law--"for the Sunday law of the state of New York." It had revived the true meaning of the word "sacred." A lack
of reverence was everywhere in evidence. The moral effect was "to teach the young men and the young women that there is such a thing as reverence and sacredness as applied to the sabbath, and it has revived their sense of obligation." The result of the crusade had been to teach the community the essential preeminence of moral and spiritual forces, and that there was something else in this world beside "work, money, and eating and drinking." The sabbath was one of the means of maintaining and cultivating the higher moral and spiritual nature. Therefore the sabbath must be protected and perpetuated by the civil power. For "no sabbath, no worship; no worship, no reverence; no reverence, no civilization; no civilization, no government." We have taught the people that, in order to properly develop all these necessary things to our well-being, there must be due regard for the sabbath.
Law-enforced Reverence.
"The result of the crusade has, to a large extent, given the ministry the true position which it should assume on this question; it has given the community to understand that the ministry in a sacred calling are the true custodians of the moral welfare of the people. We have taken our proper place, and should fear not criticism, nor be turned aside from the path of duty by the butt of ridicule everywhere assailing us. We are responsible for the moral welfare and spiritual uplifting of the people; we have quickened the moral palate, quickened the moral respect of the degenerate. It has been like the 'gold cure.' The effect of the Sunday crusade has toned the people up, proved to be a splendid nerve-tonic for the morally degenerate. All, including the most degenerate inhabitant, have been morally benefited in an increase of reverence for the law, for the clergy, and for God! It has added momentum to every good word and every good work; it has been a great and far-reaching victory for the moral forces in the civil."10(Continued on page 15.)
THE MEANING OF SUNDAY LAWS.
(Continued from page 9.)
A Note of Discord.
The Hon. Charles R. Pratt, ex-judge of the Chemung County Court and eminent member of the Elmira bar, was the next speaker. His address was on "Sunday Laws and Official Responsibility for Their Enforcement." The judge frankly admitted that there was no divine command for Sunday observance. "It has no divine sanction. It grew up gradually among the early Christians as an appropriate occasion on which to meet together and celebrate the event that distinguished their cult from all others. Hessey, in one of the Bampton lectures, shows that up to the end of the fifth century, and even later, the two days were not considered to have any relation to each other. It was finally worked into the church calendar as one of the chief holy days." Judge Pratt, very carefully and in language not to be misunderstood, put Sunday upon a distinctly civil basis, and declared that "Sunday as a religious institution can receive no legal recognition." "It is manifest that the religious liberty of the Jew or the infidel would be violated by a compulsory observance of Sunday as a religious institution. Sunday laws, so far as they require a religious observance of the day, are unconstitutional, and can not be enforced." Judge Pratt put many things in the matter of regulating the public order and peace of the day within the domain of the police power, but always upon far different reasons than those given by the clergy generally who had preceded him. He proceeded with a very elaborate plea for the rights of individuals, and closed with these words: "You can not compel a man to rest unless he wishes to. You can not make man virtuous or pious by concurrent resolutions. But you can prevent others from interfering with the rest to which he is entitled, and you secure to him the uninterrupted observance of any form of religious worship or moral and spiritual refreshment desired, leaving others to do otherwise—so long as neither interferes with the others."
The writer can hardly refrain from relating that the reading of Judge Pratt's paper produced a marked and decided chilling effect upon the assembly! I need not point out the reason; it is obvious!
A Pandora's Box of Evils.
Then a question-box was opened by President Burrell, and proved to be a veritable "Pandora's box of evils" to those who were basing their demands for compulsory first-day Sunday observance upon a commandment of God that demanded the observance of the seventh day of the week. Here are some of the questions: "What divine authority can you give for the observance of the first day of the week?" "Have you not departed from the seventh-day Sabbath and supplanted it with the first?" There were many others of like import.
The replies to all questions were so wide of the mark that it is not necessary to relate them. Suffice it to say, that ambiguous replies to the questions enumerated were as follows: 1. By the authority of God (evidence was lacking). 2. There is no departure. One day in seven was required. No more.
And then President Burrell actually launched out in a tirade against a minority that was setting up an argument and a demand for a day other than that recognized by the great Christian civilization, and was advocating other plans and ways of converting the world and benefiting society than those so universally recognized by all authorities. That "little band" could not keep the seventh day on the round world; "could not locate the definite seventh day of the week;" and "could not accomplish anything," only to mar the uniformity of the Christian civilization, and desire of the peoples of earth. Striking a posture of emphasis and shaking his finger vehemently at some imaginary foe, President Burrell fairly thundered forth in deep tones:
"Do not stand out against the vast majority and mar the uniformity of the Christian civilization, but come over and join, close up the ranks, and work for a common end, the glory of God and upbuilding
of His kingdom, and save ALL FUTURE TROUBLE!"
Sad, sad, unutterably sad indeed, that men can not see the real spirit that is back of all such work and words as these I have faithfully chronicled. Well may the Angel of the Apocalypse, flying in the midst of heaven, give forth the clarion cry to the world: "Wo, wo, wo, to the inhabiters of the earth."
Post-Office and Court House, in Elmira, N. Y.
The Certain End.
Just before the afternoon adjournment of the convention Dr. Stanley read a letter he had just received from a state senator, in which the senator had requested him to draft a bill providing for a strict observance of Sunday by the railways, street railways, and the corporations of every kind, and promising that he would introduce it on the very first day of the assembling of the Legislature at Albany, and use his influence and utmost endeavor to see it passed if possible. The convention was elated by the news of the letter, and in a measure it renewed the ardor that had been so signally dampened by the address of Judge Pratt.
Then the convention adjourned to meet one year hence in the city of Oswego. Thus came and went the sixteenth anniversary of the New York State Sabbath Association. One more step has been taken toward the ultimate goal of the complete supremacy of the church over the state. What will be the next step? Time will tell.
I must not neglect to say that on the evening following the adjournment of the convention, Dr. Burrell addressed a large audience in one of the largest churches of the city, upon "The Christian Sabbath." Herein he showed how we could "keep the first day on a round world and in all countries;" how "Sunday was the definite first day of the week;" and how all things could be accomplished in uplifting society and curing the evils of Christendom by an acknowledged uniformity in Christian practises and usages, and the universal acknowledgement of Sunday as the sabbath of the New Testament times.
So ends a true tale of what took place at Elmira, October 28, 29, 30, 31. Reader, you may draw your own conclusions; that is your right. But do not regard this recital of trivial importance. It is of national importance because the American Sabbath Union promises to carry these principles and these conditions, such as have had an apparent victory in Elmira, to every state in the union, until the very last analysis of religious legislation necessarily shall be reached, and a free people find themselves at last in the iron grasp of a religious despotism that acknowledges no boundary line, knows no limit.
