Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    August 21, 1889

    “Where Does the Civil Sabbath Come In?” The American Sentinel 4, 30, pp. 233, 234.

    ATJ

    IN the California Christian Advocate, July 31, 1889, is a long article by Rev. E. D. McCreary, Ph. D.—Doctor of Philosophy—on “Observance of the Sabbath.” It hasn’t anything in it particularly new, but now when there is such demand for the enforcement by law of a civil Sabbath, it is important to keep the run of the discussions upon the subject. The Doctor says:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.1

    “The saloon is the worst enemy of the Sabbath, persistently in the face of all laws, human and divine, devoting the hours of that holy day to its nefarious work, it reaps larger returns from its Sunday traffic than any other day in the week.”AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.2

    Is it because the saloon is more open on that holy day than any other day of the week, that it reaps larger returns? How is this? Why is it that the saloons reap larger returns from Sunday traffic than upon any other day of the week, when the saloon is open every other day of the week as well as on Sunday? There is one reason, and only one, that ever can be offered in explanation of this fact. That reason is, that more people are idle that day than any other day of the week. Other days of the week men are allowed to work, and while a man’s time is occupied by work, and his mind is upon that, it is easy enough to keep sober and to keep away from the saloon. Allow people to work on Sunday, as they have a right to do, and the returns from liquor traffic on Sunday will be no larger than on any other day. But instead of this, the preachers throughout the whole country demand laws both State and national, to compel men everywhere to be idle on Sunday, and then they make a national complaint that the saloons reap larger returns upon Sunday than any other day; when the reaping of these larger returns is because of the idleness into which the laws have forced the people, to satisfy the preachers.AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.3

    Again the Doctor says:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.4

    “It is estimated that not less than two millions of workingmen in this country are engaged in Sunday work, while millions more spend the day in frivolity and amusement, turning its holy hours into seasons of recreation and dissipation.”AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.5

    Well, now, Doctor, are not those two millions who are engaged in their honest occupation on Sunday a good deal better off than those other millions who spend the day in frivolity and dissipation? And, indeed, are they not better off than the great mass of those who spend that day in amusements and recreation? Because, you know that much of the amusement, and of the recreation, too, indulged in on that day, is not by any means as innocent, nor as harmless, either morally nor physically, as is the work in which the two millions are engaged on that day.AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.6

    Has it come to this that honest labor must be counted worse than frivolity or dissipation? worse than questionable recreation; and more than questionable amusement? Shall it be admitted that the man who follows his honest occupation on Sunday as on other days; is more wicked than those who spend the day in amusement and recreation? or that he is as bad as those who spend the day in frivolity and dissipation? If these Sunday-law ministers have such a tender regard for the laboring man, and such high respect for the dignity of labor, as they profess, they ought to have respect enough not to class honest occupations with frivolity and dissipation, nor to put the workingman on a level with the frivolous and dissipated. As for us, we never will admit that the man who follows his honest occupation on Sunday is as bad as those who spend that day in frivolity and dissipation. Nor will we ever admit that work is worse for men than are frivolity and dissipation.AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.7

    Again, says the Doctor:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.8

    “California, of all the States in this great commonwealth, enjoys the unenviable reputation of having swept from its statute books every legal safeguard of the Sabbath, both as a civil and religious institution.”AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.9

    But nobody but the Sunday-law workers hale counted California’s reputation in this as unenviable. They are the only ones that are complaining of it. But, admitting that she has this “unenviable reputation,” it is only proper that she should enjoy it, because by the plain evidence of the field secretary of the American Sabbath Union, who is just now the chiefest Sunday-law worker of the Nation, it is shown that California has the enviable reputation of having “the best Sunday observance” and the “best attendance at church services” of any State in the Union. This being so, California has a right to enjoy this “unenviable” reputation, because by it she enjoys the entirely enviable reputation of having the best Sunday observance and best church attendance of any State in the Union. And if in sustaining this enviable reputation she is made subject to the unenviable reputation, it is proper that she should enjoy it, because it certainly is enjoyable.AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.10

    The Doctor quotes Blackstone to the effect that “a corruption of morals usually follows the profanation of the Sabbath,” when the truth is that corruption of morals precedes the profanation of the Sabbath. Man’s morals has got to be corrupt before he will profane the Sabbath. This statement of Blackstone’s is of the same piece with all religious legislation and Church and State schemes. The whole thing is wrong end foremost, and it is only by that means their demand for legislation on the subject can ever be justified even in appearance. For instance, they start with Blackstone’s statement that corruption of morals usually follows the profanation of the Sabbath. Then the argue that that being so, if they can only get a law prohibiting under pains and penalties the profanation of the Sabbath, they can prevent corruption of morals and save the Nation. But the thole thing is a fraud from beginning to end, just as is every other attempt to justify religious legislation. Corruption of morals precedes the profanation of the Sabbath just as it does the profanation of the name of God. Man’s morals has got to be corrupt before he will profane either the name or the day of God.AMS August 21, 1889, page 233.11

    Therefore, the first thing to do is to purify the morals, and that in itself will prevent the profanation of the day. But this can be done only by the inculcation of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that can be done only by the power of the Spirit of God, and never by legislation. If the Lord could have stopped the corruption of morals in this world by law, he never would have needed to send the gospel.AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.1

    Then, having started in the wrong, way, it is inevitable that the farther they go the farther they will be from the right. It is not at all surprising therefore to find him presently making this statement:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.2

    “Bishop Vincent, during the Christian Workers’ council recently held in this city, expressed a great truth when he said, ‘Better have the old Puritan Sabbath with all its somberness and rigidity, than the present laxity of Sabbath observance with its corresponding laxity and lowness of morals.’”AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.3

    Yes; no doubt the Sunday-law preachers would count that ever so much better than the present condition of things, because then the preachers ruled everything. Then the Sunday laws compelled everybody to go to church on Sunday, and if there was no church in the country of their own profession, they were compelled to go to the church of another profession and listen to the preaching there. Absence from the ministry of the word was punishable by a fine; and then, when people were thus compelled, under penalty, to go to church and listen to the preaching, it was such preaching as, said one of the victims, “was meat to be digested, but only by the heart or stomacke of an ostrich.” Yes, we have no doubt that the Sunday-law preachers would be glad to see those good old times again. That is just what they are trying to bring about by their National Sunday law which is to make the State laws effective. And some of these State laws do actually at this hour of the nineteenth century command attendance at church on Sunday.AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.4

    The reader will perhaps wonder where, in all the Doctor’s discussion, the civil Sabbath and its observance come in. In fact it doesn’t come in at all. He says “we are commanded to keep it holy, and its sacred hours are to be employed in religious meditation and worship, and in deeds of charity and mercy.” He speaks of “the silent, but insidious and steady, encroachment of traffic and trade upon the sacredness of our holy day.” He speaks of railroads being “flagrant violators of the sanctity of the Sabbath.” He says “the Christian Sabbath is in great peril.” He says that Mr. Crafts “should receive the hearty co-operation of all persons who desire the perpetuity of our Christian Sabbath and the cessation of its desecration.” He says “the Sabbath is one of the chief safeguards of morality,” and quotes Justice McLean as saying that where there is no Christian Sabbath there is no Christian morality. He says the Sabbath is “essential to morality” “and much more” to the “preservation of religion;” and that “Sabbath desecration of all kinds imperils the very existence of our holy Christianity.” He says they must “labor unitedly and earnestly to secure the enforcement of Sunday laws where such exist, and to secure the enactment of better laws for the protection of this holy day;” and that the Christian church is natural custodian of the Sabbath.AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.5

    Now if anybody can find anywhere in that, any hint of the civil Sabbath we should like to have it pointed out. If it is the civil Sabbath, why didn’t he say we are commanded to keep it civilly? and that its civil hours are to be employed about civil things? Why didn’t he talk about the insidious and steady encroachment of traffic and trade upon the civility of our civil day? Why didn’t he arraign the railroads as being flagrant violators of the civility of the Sabbath? Why didn’t he say the civil Sabbath is in great peril? Why didn’t he say that the Sabbath is one of the chief safeguards of civility? Why didn’t he say that the Sabbath is essential to the preservation of civility? If it is the civil Sabbath they want, and which they want laws to preserve, why didn’t he say that the civil government rather than the Christian church is the natural custodian of it? The mere asking of these questions fully answers every one of them, and exposes the sophistry of all their plea for civil Sabbath. There is no such thing. There never was and there never can be any such thing as a civil Sabbath. A. T. J.AMS August 21, 1889, page 234.6

    “The Evils of Enforced Idleness” The American Sentinel 4, 30, p. 237.

    ATJ

    NEW YORK State last year had a law forbidding the use of motive power machinery in its State prisons; forbidding contract labor of State prisoners; and forbidding the selling or giving the product of any convict labor. It seems that that law was passed in the month of August, 1888. And what the law had accomplished from that time up to the month of April, 1889, the New York Independent tells in its issue of April 18. It says:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.1

    “The prison is crowded. Discipline is becoming impaired. The men are deteriorating. They are begging for work, sending by hundreds to the head keeper with the same old petition. The best evidence of the evil of the Yates law is that they are going crazy under it. About a dozen have been sent to the asylum from Sing Sing, and three dozen in all during the last six months, or more than twice the number during the same time in the previous year. These are of the first fruits; and as to what may be counted on hereafter, let the prison officers tell us officially:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.2

    “Warden Dunston, of Auburn:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.3

    “‘The enforced idleness of the convicted criminal demoralizes his mental, and wrecks his physical, system.’AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.4

    “Warden FulIer, of Clinton:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.5

    “‘To avoid the debilitating effects, mental, moral, and physical, that are the sequel to the confinement of prisoners in their cells without occupation, and in answer to the personal appeals of men for work, I have made for them such employment as I could.’AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.6

    “Warden Brush, of Sing Sing:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.7

    “‘Idleness in a prison is horrible to contemplate, especially to prison officials, who understand fully the consequences. The prisoners soon become restless, unhappy, and miserable. Time with them passes slowly their bodies soon become unhealthy, and the mind must become diseased. In fact, nothing but disease, insanity, and death can be expected from this condition.’AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.8

    “Physician Barber, of Sing Sing:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.9

    “Confinement in their cells five-sixths of the time in almost solitary idleness appears to be forcing them back upon themselves,—a prey to the baneful influences of impure thoughts, corrupt conversation, disgusting personal habits, physical and mental prostration and moral degradation.’AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.10

    “General Superintendent Lathrop:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.11

    “Idleness is the bane of a prison, whose malign influence no prison administration, however humane, ingenious, and energetic, has ever been able to overcome.’”AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.12

    That is the effect of enforced idleness in a prison where its effect can be definitely determined. Enforced idleness can never do anything else than to force men back upon themselves with the result stated by Physician Barber. Yet in the face of all this evidence of the corrupting influence of enforced idleness, the National Sunday-law workers still go ahead in their efforts to secure a national law by which everybody shall be compelled to be idle one-seventh of the time perpetually. Then, when they get their Sunday law, if a man will not be idle every Sunday he shall be imprisoned; and then, if they should extend the New York system to other States, when they once get them into prison they can compel them to be idle anyhow.AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.13

    But in view of the facts set forth by these prison officials upon the destructive effects of idleness, every man who has any care for his mental, moral, or physical well-being, ought to oppose, with all his might, the making of any such law, and then, ought to refuse to obey any such law when it is made. In view of these evidences, we do not wonder that Dr. Crafts pronounces idleness to be Sabbath-breaking. It is one of the very worst sort of wickedness. The idle man is thrown back upon himself, and nothing good can ever come from it, even though it be done voluntarily. But when men are compelled by law, under pains and penalties, to be idle, they are forced back upon themselves, with the fearful results recorded above. And those who are responsible for making the law which forces men into such a condition as that, cannot be guiltless. The more that Sunday laws are tested, the more hideous they appear in their essential wickedness.AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.14

    A. T. J.

    “What They Want It For” The American Sentinel 4, 30, p. 237.

    ATJ

    Mrs. J. C. BATEHAM, superintendent of Sabbath Observance, of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, is one of the leading workers for the National Sunday law. There is no disputing this. What she says therefore on this subject must be authoritative. What she shall say it is for which they want a National Sunday law, that must be the thing for which they want it. This cannot be questioned. She issued, last spring, a leaflet inquiring, How a weekly day of rest and quiet can be best secured by law? and in this leaflet she tells what they want the Sunday rest for. Here are her words:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.1

    “We want it for the purposes for which God designed it when he bid us keep it holy; not for frivolity and amusement, not for sleep and idleness, not for the Sunday newspaper with its demoralizing literature, but for reading which is elevating and improving, including the Word of God, and for attendance upon church services.”AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.2

    Then, a little further along, in the same leaflet she says:—AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.3

    “Senator Blair’s Sunday-Rest bill prepared at the request of the W. C. T. U. and in response to the first two millions of petitions, is in the main entirely satisfactory to us.”AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.4

    Now let us analyze this. What they want a day of rest and quiet for, is, the reading of the Word of God and for attendance upon church services. The inquiry is, “How these can best be secured by law?” Then the statement is, “That the Sunday-Rest bill prepared at their request, is in the main, entirely satisfactory.” It therefore follows that the object of the Blair Sunday-Rest bill is to establish a day of rest and quiet for the reading of the Word of God and attendance upon church services. This is the inevitable logic of the statements of one of the very chiefest of the Sunday-law workers. If this be not so, then there is no truth in axioms, there is no force in logic, and Roger Bacon was a fraud.AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.5

    And yet, they blame us for saying that the object of the Sunday law is religious, and that it is the religious observance of the day that they are trying to secure by national law. But why should they blame us? We say no more than they say themselves. We simply draw the conclusions from their own premises. We cannot forsake our senses. We cannot renounce our own power of reasoning, neither can we be so uncharitable nor so ungallant as to hold that Christian women do not mean what they say. She says they want the day “for reading the Word of God and for attendance upon church services.” She wants to know how such a day can best be secured by law, and she says Senator Blair’s Sunday-Rest bill, is in the main entirely satisfactory. Then the direct and intentional object of the Blair Sunday-Rest bill is the religious observance of Sunday, and the religious observance, too, even to the extent of reading the Word of God and attendance upon church service.AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.6

    Therefore, in the interests of the Word of God and of church services, and of Christianity as a whole, we are everlastingly opposed to the Blair Sunday-Rest bill or any bill like it in any degree. The Union Signal says that the strongest opponents of the Sunday law spent twenty thousand dollars last year in defending their opposing doctrines. That may be true, we have not kept exact account, but we are inclined to think it is rather less than more than the sum; but whether it be less or more, we can inform the Union Signal and the Sunday-law workers all together, that we intend to spend every cent we have in opposition to the Sunday law, so that when they get it, they cannot take anything from us in the way of fines for breaking it. It is evil and only evil, and that continually, and in obedience to the scriptural injunction we do, as far as in us lies, “Abhor that which is evil.” A. T. J.AMS August 21, 1889, page 237.7

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents