ENFORCING SUNDAY by John Norton Loughborough

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 15, 1857

ENFORCING SUNDAY.

By John Norton Loughborough

[Bro. Smith : I send you the subjoined portion of an article published by some religious periodical in regard to the report on the Sabbath (Sunday) law of the State of Pennsylvania, made by the House of Representatives. It came under my observation, as it is, a fragment of an article, and not enough of the paper with it so as to know where to look for it. I would like either the rest of the article or the report referred to. I have thought perhaps it might be proper to put it into the Review; perhaps some one can furnish us with this report entire. It seems to me from what is quoted in this article, that those who have looked upon the people of this government, as too forbearing to pass rigid Sunday laws, must see how the principle is working which if fully carried out will pass even a universal Sunday law, without regard to the conscience of a minor portion who conform to the spirit and letter of the fourth commandment.—J. N. Loughborough.]

SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS.

"The Sabbath Recorder publishes a report, relative to the observance of the Sabbath, made by a committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, to whom had been referred a Senate bill exempting the seventh-day Baptists from the operation of the Sabbath laws of that Commonwealth. The act from the operation of which the Seventh-day Baptists asked to be exempted, makes it a penal offense for any person to perform any worldly business on Sunday, works of necessity and charity only excepted. They say they cannot conscientiously regard the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and therefore claim the exemption, as a right secured to them by the great constitutional provision of this republic, securing to all citizens liberty of conscience.

"The committee report against the exemption asked on a variety of grounds. Without denying that liberty of conscience is a most valuable right, they ask if the very nature of government does not require, in some contingencies, the restriction of this liberty? They say that, if no law can be enacted and enforced against which a minority may conscientiously protest, there can be no government, as one class may object, to one, and another class to another law, until all great public interests are abandoned to utter insecurity. A concession, however, to certain scruples of conscience is made by the committee, who admit 'that cases may happen in which the law objected to is not to be regarded as conflicting merely with the settled convictions of the objectors, as to what is most conducive to the welfare of the community, considered in a moral, or pecuniary point of view; but as directly contravening a clearly revealed law of God and placing them under the necessity of practically determining whether they will obey God, in violation of the laws of man, or those of man, in violation of the law of God.'

"Reference is made to the Quakers, whom the law relieves from the necessity of bearing arms, but upon whom, against their consciences, it imposes the duty of contributing to the sinews of war.' Other cases are cited. Here is one:

"Should the gold mines or placers of California, attract to that country a party of Pagans from Asia, whose system of religion requires the offering of human beings in sacrifice, is it conceivable that an American legislator or jurist would so construe the declarations, that 'all men have a natural indefensible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience,' and 'that no human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the rights of conscience,' as to make them extend their protection to the horrid rites of this bloody superstition.

"The committee conclude that the exemption sought by the memorialists cannot become a law with safety to the rights and interests of the public. We quote as follows:

"The enforcement of the observance of the Sabbath so far as abstinence from secular employments is concerned, by civil statute, is not the result of bigotry or superstition, but results from a profound conviction of its importance to the public welfare. The Sabbath is believed to be of immense value as an occasion of rest from bodily and mental toil, and as furnishing opportunity for religious reading—for private, and for social and public worship, and for the training of children. It is the only opportunity which many laboring men have of being with their families."