Sabbath-Breaking Partnerships
By Editor
From the Sabbath Recorder.
# SABBATH-BREAKING PARTNERSHIPS. We have been sitting with pen in hand for half an hour, or more, pondering upon the best manner of discussing this important subject. It is our wish to discuss it in such a way as will give no offense. We wish, at all events, to say nothing but what will stand the test of truth. We may not succeed in saving the feelings of our brethren, but if we may be instrumental in saving them from their sins, we shall feel that we have not labored in vain. By Sabbath-breaking partnerships we mean those associations for business which involve the breach of the Sabbath on the part of one or more of the firm, or on the part of those in its employ. These associations have multiplied among us, within a few years past, causing not a little anxiety with some as to what will be the final result. There are some, who fear that the result will be most disastrous to the cause of the Sabbath, to say nothing of other unhappy consequences; and they consider it high time that the subject were agitated earnestly, till those who are implicated shall see, either that they are sinning against God, or that their course is justified by the Scriptures of Truth. If we understand the Fourth Commandment, it requires abstinence from labor, not only on the part of the individual himself, but also on the part of all who are in his employ. "Thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant." It makes it a man's duty to control his own household—his farm—his shop—every place, in short, over which his lawful jurisdiction extends, and for the management of which he is in any way responsible. If it is wrong for him to break the Sabbath himself, it is wrong for him to employ others to break it. A person who would employ another to commit an act of murder, is accounted as a murderer himself. He that hires a ruffian to set fire to his neighbor's house, is no less guilty than the ruffian himself. And he that employs another to rob the possessor of his goods, promising to make him a sharer in the spoils, is too flagrantly an accomplice in the crime to stand justified before an honest community. Now, if our inability to see, that he who employs others to break the Sabbath is not just as guilty as if he broke it himself, argues obtuseness of intellect, we hope that somebody will endeavor, by that plainness of speech and simplicity of illustration which cannot fail to impress the dullest understanding, to set the matter in its true light. The Sabbath-keeper by his profession declares that the keeping of Sunday, to the displacement and violation of the day designated as the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment, is a sin. He believes that the substitution of Sunday for the seventh day was accomplished by the Man of Sin. He hesitates not to say, that to keep Sunday instead of the Sabbath is to symbolize with Popery. He says that it is to make void the commandment of God in order to uphold a human tradition. He enters into controversy upon this point, wherever he goes, and proclaims it to be the duty of all to keep the Sabbath just as God appointed. It is one of the duties enjoined in the Law, he says, and the transgression of the law is sin. But what says the Sabbath-keeper by his business arrangements? An observer of the first day of the week proposes a copartnership, the condition of which is, that the establishment shall do business the Sabbath-day. The Sabbath-keeper consents, on condition that he himself shall be exempt from all active participation in what is done on that day. He consents that his partner shall work, and, of course, that all the employees, servants, or agents, that may be required for the management of the concern, shall work also. Not only so; he consents to receive, and appropriate to his own use, as his lawful property, a portion of the profits that may arise out of this Sabbath labor. In yielding this consent, does he not say that to work on the Sabbath-day is no sin? Does he not flatly contradict his religious profession? For, what is the nature of a copartnership? Does not each member of the firm work for the other? Even admitting that there are no clerks, journeymen, or under-servants of any sort, in the establishment—none but the partners themselves, who of course are equals, and have equal rights—still each one serves the other. For there is no reason why two or more persons should enter into partnership, except the mutual service which they render one another, thereby rendering the profits of the concern greater for each, than if he carried on business by himself alone. Thus, when a Sunday-keeper proposes partnership with an observer of the Sabbath, this is the inducement which he holds out—"I will serve you," says he, "on the Sabbath-day—a very profitable day for business—thereby augmenting your gains much above what they would be, if you were in business by yourself, and should shut up the establishment on that day." The Sabbath-keeper agrees to the proposal, and by that very agreement says, "I consent that you shall work for me on the Sabbath." This, we take it, is the plain, common sense view of the matter. Turn and twist it as we may, we think it comes to this in the end. And if the Sabbath-keeper can thus deliberately say to his partner, "I agree that you shall work for me on the Sabbath," he either flatly contradicts his religious profession, and says that to work on the Sabbath is no sin, or else deliberately makes up his mind to commit sin. Let it not be replied, that the partners, being equal, each one acts for himself, and is responsible for himself. For though each acts for himself, he does not act only for himself. He acts also for the other. He acts for himself in the same sense as the common hired laborer acts for himself, who, though he works for himself in respect to the wages he hopes to receive, works for the man who employs him also. If he is hired to work on the Sabbath-keeper's farm, on the Sabbath-day, or in his shop, or counting-house, there is no sophistry which will make it appear that he acts only for himself. The employer is guilty also. And when the Sunday-keeping member of a business firm manages the business on the Sabbath-day, he does it not only for himself, but for the other also. He is employed, nay, to all intents and purposes, hired, by the other to do it. The act of hiring is not done formally, from week to week, but it enters into the very nature of the contract by which they agree to do business jointly, in partnership. Brethren, is it right—is it a lawful contract? Does it involve nothing of sin against Him who said of the Sabbath-day, "In it thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant?"