THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
By U. Smith
BY ELDER U. SMITH.
(Continued.) But it may be asked how the Sunday question is to be affected by the proposed Constitutional Amendment. Answer: The object, or, to say the least, one object of this amendment is to put the Sunday institution on a legal basis, and compel its observance by the arm of the law. At the National Convention held in Philadelphia, Jan. 18 and 19, 1871, the following resolution was among the first offered by the Business Committee:— "Resolved, That, in view of the controlling power of the Constitution in shaping State, as well as national, policy, it is of immediate importance to public morals, and to social order, to secure such an amendment as will indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all Christian laws, institutions, and usages in our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the nation, specially those which secure a proper oath, and which protect society against blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, and polygamy." By Sabbath-breaking is meant nothing else but Sunday-breaking. In a convention of the friends of Sunday, assembled Nov. 29, 1870, in New Concord, Ohio, the Rev. James White is reported to have said: "The question [of Sunday observance] is closely connected with the National Reform Movement; for until the government comes to know God and honor his law, we need not expect to restrain Sabbath-breaking corporations." Here again the idea of the legal enforcement of Sunday observance stands uppermost. Once more: The Philadelphia Press, of Dec. 5, 1870, stated that some Congressmen, including Vice-president Colfax, arrived in Washington by Sunday trains, Dec. 4, on which the Christian Statesman commented as follows (we give italics as we find them):— "1. Not one of those men who thus violated the Sabbath is fit to hold any official position in a Christian nation." "He who violates the Sabbath may not steal, because the judgment of society so strongly condemns theft, or because he believes that honesty is the best policy; but tempt him with the prospect of concealment, or the prospect of advantage, and there can be no reason why he who robs God will not rob his neighbor also. For this reason, the Sabbath law lies at the foundation of morality. Its observance is an acknowledgment of the sovereign rights of God over us. "2. The sin of these Congressmen is a national sin, because the nation hath not said to them in the Constitution, the supreme rule for our public servants, 'We charge you to serve us in accordance with the higher law of God.' These Sabbath-breaking railroads, moreover, are corporations created by the State, and amenable to it. The State is responsible to God for the conduct of these creatures which it calls into being. It is bound, therefore, to restrain them from this as from other crimes, and any violation of the Sabbath, by any corporation, should work immediate forfeiture of its charter. And the Constitution of the United States, with which all State legislation is required to be in harmony, should be of such a character as to prevent any State from tolerating such infractions of fundamental moral law. "3. Give us in the National Constitution the simple acknowledgment of the law of God as the supreme law of nations, and all the results indicated in this note will ultimately be secured. Let no one say that the movement does not contemplate sufficiently practical ends." From all this, we see the important place the Sabbath question is to hold in this movement—the important place it even now holds in the minds of those who are urging it forward. Let the amendment called for be granted, "and all the results indicated in this note," says the writer, "will ultimately be secured;" that is, individuals and corporations will be restrained from violating the Sunday observance. The acknowledgment of God in the Constitution may do very well as a banner under which to sail; but the practical bearing of the movement relates to the compulsory observance of the first day of the week. Even now the question is agitated why the Jew should be allowed to follow his business on the first day after having observed the seventh. The same question is equally pertinent to all seventh-day keepers. A writer signing himself "American," in the Boston Herald of Dec. 14, 1871, said:— "The President in his late message in speaking of the Mormon question, says, 'They shall not be permitted to break the law under the cloak of religion.' This, undoubtedly, meets the approval of every American citizen, and I wish to cite a parallel case, and ask: Why should the Jews of this country be allowed to keep open their stores on the Sabbath under the cloak of their religion, while I, or any other true American, will be arrested and suffer punishment if we do the same thing? If there is a provision made allowing a few to conduct business on the Sabbath, what justice and equality can there be in any such provision, and why should it not be stopped at once?" And this question, we apprehend, will be very summarily decided, when once the Constitutional Amendment has been secured. At a Ministerial Association of the M. E. church, held in Healdsburg, Cal., April 26-28, 1870, Rev. Mr. Trefren, of Napa, speaking of S. D. A. ministers, said, "I predict for them a short race. What we want is law in the matter." Then referring to the present movement for a law, he added, "And we will have it, too; and when we get the power into our hands, we will show these men what their end will be." From a work recently published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, entitled "The Sabbath," by Chas. Elliott, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest, Chicago, Ill., we take this paragraph:— "But it may be asked, Would not the Jew be denied equality of rights by legislation protecting the Christian Sabbath and ignoring the Jewish? The answer is, We are not a Jewish but a Christian nation; therefore, our legislation must be conformed to the institutions and spirit of Christianity. This is absolutely necessary from the nature of the case." There is no mistaking the import of this language: No matter if the Jew does not secure equal rights with others. We are not a Jewish nation, but a Christian; and all must be made to conform to what the majority decide to be Christian institutions. This affects all who observe the seventh day as much as the Jews. And we apprehend it will not be a difficult matter to lead the masses, whose prejudices incline them in this direction, to believe that it is "absolutely necessary" that all legislation must take such a form, and cause them to act accordingly. Several years since, Dr. Durbin of the Christian Advocate and Journal, gave his views on this subject as follows:— "I infer, therefore, that the civil magistrate may not be called upon to enforce the observance of the Sabbath [Sunday] as required in the spiritual kingdom of Christ; but when Christianity becomes the moral and spiritual life of the State, the State is bound through her magistrates to prevent the open violation of the holy Sabbath, as a measure of self-preservation. She cannot, without injuring her own vitality and incurring the divine displeasure, be recreant to her duty in this matter." At a meeting held at Saratoga Springs, Aug. 12, 1860, ex-president Fillmore said that "while he deemed it needful to legislate cautiously in all matters connected with public morals, and to avoid coercive measures affecting religion, the right of every citizen to a day of rest and worship could not be questioned, and laws securing that right should be enforced." And the Christian Statesman of Dec. 15, 1871, speaking of the general disregard of the Sabbath [Sunday] in the arrangements for welcoming the Grand Duke Alexis, says:— "How long will it be before the Christian masses of this country can be roused to enact a law compelling their public servants to respect the Sabbath?" A very marked and rapid change is taking place in public opinion relative to the proposed religious amendment of the Constitution. We have learned of instances of men who were at first openly hostile to the movement, now giving their influence for its advancement, and clamoring loudly for a Sunday law. And some who at first regarded it with indifference, are now becoming its warm partisans. As a sample of this change of feeling, the following paragraph from the Christian Press of Jan., 1872, may be presented. The Christian Press is the organ of the Western Book and Tract Society, Cincinnati, Ohio, and its editor, speaking of the National Association above referred to, says:— "When this Association was formed, while we were prepared to bid it God speed, we did not then feel that there was any pressing need for the object sought; and as our mission was specially directed to the Christianizing, enlightening, and elevating of the masses of the people, we have said little in our columns on the subject, being assured that if the people are right, it is easy to set the government right. The late combined efforts, however, of various classes of our citizens to exclude the Bible from our schools, repeal our Sabbath laws, and divorce our government entirely from religion, and thus make it an atheistic government—for every government must be for God or against him, and must be administered in the interests of religion and good morals, or in the interests of irreligion and immorality—have changed our mind, and we are now prepared to urge the necessity for an explicit acknowledgment in the National Constitution of the authority of God and the supremacy of his law, as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments." With the anti-Sunday movements of the present day, considering their associations, and the manner and object in and for which they are carried forward, we have no sympathy. They aim at utter no-Sabbathism, freedom from all moral restraint, and all the evils of unbridled intemperance—ends which we abhor with all the strength of a moral nature quickened by the most intense religious convictions. And while the indignation of the better portion of the community will be aroused at the want of religious principle and the immorality attending the popular anti-Sunday movement, a little lack of discrimination, by no means uncommon, will, on account of our opposition to the day, though we oppose it on entirely different ground, easily associate us with the class above-mentioned, and subject us to the same odium. Meanwhile, some see the evils involved in this movement, and raise the voice of alarm. The Christian Union, Jan., 1871, said:— "If the proposed amendment is anything more than a bit of sentimental cant, it is to have a legal effect. It is to alter the status of the non-Christian citizen before the law. It is to affect the legal oaths and instruments, the matrimonial contracts, the sumptuary laws, &c., &c., of the country. This would be an outrage on natural right." The Janesville (Wis.) Gazette, at the close of an article on the proposed amendment, speaks thus of the effect of the movement, should it succeed:— "But independent of the question as to what extent we are a Christian nation, it may well be doubted whether, if the gentlemen who are agitating this question should succeed, they would not do society a very great injury. Such measures are but the initiatory steps which ultimately lead to restrictions of religious freedom, and to commit the government to measures which are as foreign to its powers and purposes as would be its action if it should undertake to determine a disputed question of theology." The Weekly Alta California of San Francisco, March 12, 1870, said:— "The parties who have been recently holding a convention for the somewhat novel purpose of procuring an amendment to the Constitution of the United States recognizing the Deity, do not fairly state the case when they assert that it is the right of a Christian people to govern themselves in a Christian manner. If we are not governing ourselves in a Christian manner, how shall the doings of our government be designated? The fact is, that the movement is one to bring about in this country that union of Church and State which all other nations are trying to dissolve."