Getting Data for Sunday by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 4, 1913

Getting Data for Sunday

By C. M. S.

For many years the advocates of Sunday laws and Sunday-law enforcement have been endeavoring to increase the observance of Sunday on the part of the people by making it dangerous for them not to observe it. Their program has not produced the desired results, but still many of them are holding to the idea with grim determination. The editor of the Continent, in the issue of July 3, practically admits the futility of that program, and encourages the work of the New York Sabbath Committee in seeking to find some more satisfactory basis of operations for inducing the people to keep Sunday. He says:—

"The New York Sabbath Committee is moving up to 'fill a long-felt want.' It is a want that has been felt by every minister or teacher or public-spirited citizen who has undertaken to inculcate in individuals or communities a sense of the importance of the Sabbath—want of authoritative data abreast of the times to tell why the Sabbath is necessary to man physically and mentally and spiritually and socially. There is a good deal of fugitive stuff on these topics floating about in the newspapers, but nobody knows where it comes from, and much of it is as old as the much-worn story about the California wagon emigrants of sixty years ago, who by resting on Sundays got across to the coast a month ahead of the travelers who drove Sundays just the same as week-days. Certainly to the modern American it sounds like poor argument to bring up a tale as ancient as that, but there is mighty little available literature on the subject that is much more recent.

"But now the New York Sabbath Committee has determined that there is going to be something more satisfactory on hand for those who need ammunition in this service. The committee has instructed its secretary, Dr. William P. Swartz, to institute a 'scientific research into the influence of the Sabbath on human welfare' just as soon as funds can be supplied to meet the cost of it. Already a beginning has been made, for Prof. William J. Gies, who occupies the chair of biological chemistry in the medical school of Columbia University, has been engaged to direct the investigation into the influence of the Sabbath on the physical well-being of the race. Dr. Gies is going into the matter with heart and soul of interest, and no doubt before many months will have worked out something more serviceable as a Sabbath-rest argument than the emigrant-train story. In like manner other experts as able and convincing will study how 'a Sabbath well spent' helps mental efficiency, business success, and home cheer.

"Dr. Swartz is preeminently right in insisting that the present-day problem of Sabbath observance is not going to be met by pointing to restrictive acts on the statute-book—the acts so often sneered at as 'blue-laws,'—and rudely reviling the masses for not obeying their prohibitions. That is not after the manner or spirit of Christ. He said, 'The Sabbath was made for man,' and if his followers in the twentieth century expect to maintain the day as either a day of worship or a day of rest, they must demonstrate to the people the concrete truth of the Lord's saying. There must be steady, patient education to show the people how and wherein the Sabbath is for their benefit. And that is the viewpoint from which this progressive committee is starting out to provide the proof."

We might in all seriousness suggest that a committee of Biblical experts be appointed to secure some "authoritative data" from the Word of God concerning the necessity of Christians' keeping the day at all. In the lack of such data lies the whole difficulty. In the absence of any divine command for Sunday-keeping, it will be difficult to make men see the binding obligation of the institution, even with "authoritative" sociological data. If it is "not after the manner of Christ" to "revile the masses for not obeying" the commands of the clergy to keep Sunday, is it not doubly opposed to "the manner of Christ" to throw Christian men into prison and into chain-gangs and subject them to burdensome fines for failure to observe that institution? If we can see the un-Christlikeness in the one case, how can we fail to see it in the other? The above article is in itself a severe criticism of the previous program. Will not the committee go a step farther and abandon the whole un-Christlike procedure? C. M. S.