LAST week, in answer to Dr. Crafts’ question, “How is it consistent with liberty that those whose religion requires them to rest on the seventh day are compelled to give up public business and public amusements on the first day?” He gave an answer, so far as the Jews are concerned, to the effect that as Sunday-keepers are the majority, and therefore have the power, they are “decided” that nothing shall be done by anyone “that could shock or disturb a thoroughly Christian community.” In short, that the institutions of their religion shall be observed at the expense of the conscientious convictions of every one else in the country. And this is “consistent with liberty”! It is, with that species of liberty which is created by relentlessly crushing out the exercise of every dissentient opinion. And with that kind of Liberty, no act of the papal church has ever been inconsistent.SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.1

Of other seventh-day keepers, illustrated by his citation of the Seventh-day Baptists, he says: “So, the Seventh-day Baptists, being only one five-thousandth of the population, can hardly ask to have the laws change for them.” Why not, pray? Is it not just as proper for the Sabbath-keepers to ask that the laws be changed in their behalf, as it is for the Sunday-keepers to have those laws enacted in their behalf? Or is it true that all rights, civil and religious, human and divine, are summed up in Sunday-keepers?SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.2

Again: “It would not be responsible for the Legislatures to compel the other ninety-nine-hundredths of the population who do not regard Saturday as a sacred day, to stop business, for the few who do.” True enough. But suppose that those who “regard Saturday as a sacred day,” were the majority, then, according to the premises of Dr. Crafts, and the Sunday-law people generally, it would be reasonable for the Legislatures to compel all who did not so regard it, to stop business on Saturday. But will they admit the reasonableness of this logical conclusion from their own premises? Not for a minute. Suppose, for instance, that in the State of Ohio the Seventh-day Adventist word the majority. Then suppose that they, being the majority in the Legislature, pass a law compelling all the people of the State to rest on the seventh day (Saturday), what a roar of indignant protest would immediately arise from united Christendom! Exclamations of “religious bigotry!” “Destruction of religious liberty!” “Violation of the rights of conscience!” etc., etc., to the end of the catalogue, would fill the air. And justly so, say we. But if the claims of the Sunday-law advocates be just, where would there be any wrong, where any injustice, in such an action? If it would be wrong for Sabbath-keepers, when in the majority, to pass laws compelling Sunday-keepers to rest on Saturday, where in then is it right for Sunday-keepers, when in the majority, to pass laws compelling Sabbath-keepers to rest on Sunday?SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.3

And, too, in answer to all their protestations, we could say, Why, dear sirs, you need not make so much ado. This is no restriction of your rights, this is no invasion of your liberties. You are right to rest on Sunday still remains to do. You are at perfect liberty to refuse to work on Sunday. Our action is entirely “consistent with liberty.” We do not by this law compel you to keep Saturday religiously; this statute has “nothing to do with religion.” This does not compel you to go to church; you are at “liberty,” to stay at home. This law has nothing to do with “the religious aspects of the day,” it only has relation to your “health,” to your “education,” to your “home virtue,” and to your “patriotism”! Now, reader, we ask you to candidly, is there in all the United States, one person who regard Sunday as a sacred day, who would accept any such reasoning as that? And yet those who do so regards Sunday, are the very ones who offer this reasoning (?) to us, and expect us to accept it as conclusive, for the reason that they are the majority, and for that reason alone.SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.4

But if it be thus, as Mr. Crafts says, that “laws for protecting the worshiping day of the prevailing religion from disturbance, are then vindicated,” who does not see that loss for the protection of the institutions of the prevailing religion are vindicated in the same way, whatever and wherever that religion may be? And then is not the Mohammedan, in his own country, fully justified in enacting laws compelling Christians to shut up their places of business, and rest on Friday, his Assembly day, and saying to them, in the words of Dr. Crafts, “If you cannot do more business in five days in Turkey or Arabia, then in six days elsewhere, you are free to go elsewhere. If you find that in Turkey or Arabia and a conscientious Christian cannot make a living, the world is all before you to choose where you will dwell.” Every man who has the least conception of liberty will say that that would be oppression. Yet the same Sunday-keeping Christians, who would unanimously pronounced that oppression in Turkey, will do the same thing in America in behalf of Sunday, and call it liberty. And wherever a voice is raised against their action, it is immediately branded as the “brazen despotism of a loud and low minority,” even though the opposition be made by a majority of the inhabitants of a whole State, as in California in 1882. And for this these free citizens of the sovereign State of California are called by this Sunday-law champion, “this oligarchy of foreign liquor-sellers.” Hear him: “In California this oligarchy of foreign liquor-sellers was actually allowed to repeal the Sabbath law, as a ‘league of freedom.’”SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.5

His application here to the “League of Freedom,” is as false as any of the other of his claims. The Rescue, the organ of the Good Templars, said of the Sunday plank in the Republican platform, that it was an “entire blank, acceptable to the League of Freedom, and entirely in their interests.” And Dr. McDonald, president of the Home Protection Association, said that he was “disgusted with the Sunday-law plank in the platform.” That it was “too treacherous and unsafe,” etc. and the Home Protection Association was the most active opponent of the League of Freedom. It “is a consummation devoutly to be wished,” that, while the spokesman strive so strenuously for their Christian Sabbath, they would show some respect for the Christian duty to “speak the truth,” and to “not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.6

They were “actually allowed,” he says, to “repeal the Sabbath law.” “Allowed!” By whom? That Sunday law was repealed by virtue of an issue that was carried by a majority of 17,517 votes, in the State election. And the Governor and other State officers who were “actually allowed” to be elected in that campaign, are still “actually allowed” to conduct the affairs of the State. And by the same token, and on the same day, Secretary Folger was “actually allowed” to be beaten for the Governorship of New York. We should not wonder if Dr. Crafts would one of these days volunteer the information that the people of the United States were “actually allowed” to abolish slavery! After this display of erudition, we are not at all surprised to find him, in the very next sentence, calling the repeal of the law, an act of oppression. See, “This oppression of masses by margins must be stopped.” So, then, a condition of affairs under which Sunday-keepers and all others are at liberty to keep the day as they may choose, without the slightest interference, is oppression. But if only a law could be enacted compelling all to keep the Sunday, under penalty of fine, or imprisonment, or confiscation of goods, or banishment, that would be LIBERTY. To quote his own words, it “leaves a man’s religious beliefs and practices as free as the air he breathes.” Yes, it does. As free as the air that was breathed in the Black Hole of Calcutta.SITI September 11, 1884, page 546.7

And in leaving “a man’s religious beliefs and practices” so free, “it only forbids the carrying on of certain kinds of business on a certain day of the week,.... in deference to the feelings and wishes” of a certain class. It therefore was no restriction whatever, of the “religious beliefs and practices” of the apostles when the priests and Sadducees laid hands on them and put them in the common prison, and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus. That was perfect religious liberty. And for the apostles to oppose the will of the majority as they did, was the “brazen despotism of a loud and low minority,” we suppose. Acts 4 and 5. The priests and Sadducees and the Council, did not command them to not believe in Jesus, and his resurrection. They did not command that they should not worship him. They only commanded that they “should not speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.” The Sadducees were the “majority,” and as the preaching of the apostles disturb their “thoroughly” Sadducean religion, “this oppression of masses by margins “had to be “stopped.” And thus might Dr. Crafts and the National Reform party justify every act of repression, and condemn every work of reform that has ever been in the world.SITI September 11, 1884, page 547.1

One other point we will notice at another time.SITI September 11, 1884, page 547.2

ALONZO T. JONES.

September 4, 1884

September 18, 1884