THE CLOSING OF SALOONS ON SUNDAY.
By Editor
THE Los Gatos "Mail" of January 10, in speaking of the proposed Sunday Amendment to the Constitution of California, and our Special thereon, refers to the object of the Amendment as "regarding Sunday as the Sabbath or legal day of rest from all labors." The "Mail" is in favor of the Amendment, and the editor speaks truly as to its object; it is to make Sunday the legal Sabbath, the religious day of the week, supported by civil law, a thing contrary to primitive Christianity, primitive Protestantism, primitive Americanism. Regarding the position of Seventh-day Adventists, the "Mail" says: "As a matter of course this sect would oppose any legislation making Sunday a day of rest, when bars, saloons, race-courses, stores, workshops, banking-houses, and other places of business, of any class or calling, shall not be open on the first day of the week, altho the same proposed amendment claims to exempt 'persons who conscientiously believe that the seventh day of the week should be observed as the Sabbath,' etc." The position of Seventh-day Adventists is entirely apart from saloons, horse-races and similar places of resort. The SIGNS OF THE TIMES does not believe in religious legislation whether that legislation pertains to the Sunday or the Sabbath, Good Friday, or any other religious institution, right or wrong. And if we believed Sunday to be the Sabbath by divine authorization, we should oppose the legislation just as strongly and vigorously. If the proposed amendment should include the seventh day, we would just as persistently oppose it, and consistently we could not do otherwise. We are old-fashioned enough to believe that the Decalogue is not superseded; but we would oppose with all our power an amendment making that wonderful code a part of the Constitution or statute law of California. We would do this for the simple reason that civil law can not enforce morality and spirituality, which are matters of motive and conscience, any more than it can determine by all the courts within its jurisdiction whether man "conscientiously believes that the seventh day of the week should be observed as the Sabbath." To endeavor to determine such questions as this, the Inquisition came into existence. Legislating upon religious questions will again bring in religious judges and tribunals and the Inquisition. Does the "Mail" want it? Has it thought into the question that far? We believe in the closing of saloons, but the closing of saloons in this connection is a mere excuse. No Sunday law is a temperance measure. If there is temperance sentiment and vote sufficient to close the saloon one day, that same sentiment and vote could close it every day. Why not? If the saloon is evil one day, it is evil seven days. If it is evil for the community, the county, the State, one day, it is all days. To say that we will close it Sunday is to elevate the religious day, and say to the tempted youth, The saloon is all right six days of the week, only do not patronize it Sunday. There are purely economic reasons why the saloon should be legislated out of existence forever. It would be infinitely better for all peoples, all classes, all towns and cities, and the State or county or town could better afford to pay the saloon-keeper for his loss of business, which the license system has fostered, and banish the saloon, than it could to foster the saloon and take its toll from its ill-gotten gains. We have no objection to a man's keeping Sunday. If that is what he desires to do, the right is his. If he wishes to close his place of business on that day, that is his right. If he wishes to keep that place of business open, he has that right. And we would be unchristian and unfair if we sought to limit him in these rights. He has the right to believe or not to believe. He may agree with us, or he may disagree. No human tribunal may pass upon his right. God reserves judgment to Himself at the last day. The "Mail" admits that Sunday is as well observed here as in Eastern states where they have Sunday laws. It is. Every religious duty is a matter of heart and conscience. Why should we seek by civil law to make men law-breakers or hypocrites? Again the "Mail" observes: "Such laws are not a union of Church and State." Not a union of some one church with the State, granted; but a union of religion and religionists with the State which will, if operative, lead to as decided a persecution as any purely Church and State government ever knew. Let the Sunday-law regime obtain. Let it become as active and operative as our Sunday-law friends desire. Let the prosecutions go on galore. The courts would have to decide as to how Sunday should be kept; as to whose conception of Sunday should obtain, the Roman Catholic or the Puritan—to church service Sunday morning with sports and recreation in the afternoon, or church and quiet all day. Where would be the end? The more of law our Sunday-law friends obtained, the less of Gospel they would have; and this would develop, as it always has developed, into a religious tyranny, and the ruin of both Church and State. All these evil results are in the Sunday-law seed. Does not the "Mail" wish to keep the baneful weed out of California soil?