THE Sabbath law of God commands that the seventh day be observed as the Sabbath, and also commands that no other day be observed as the Sabbath. Hence it necessarily clashes with every Sunday law.
IT is wrong to perform secular work on the day set apart by the Creator as the Sabbath; but this is so only because of the duty which we owe to God. It cannot become a crime to do on one day of the week what is not criminal on another day of the week.
SABBATH desecration is a transgression of the law of God; and the penalty, fixed by the same Authority which enacted the law, is death. If men are to enforce this law, they are logically bound to execute its penalty, and send Sabbath-breakers to the gallows or the electric chair.
IT is not necessary to a union of church and state, that the two should be united to enforce religious beliefs and observances in general. A single point, as for example, the observance of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, is sufficient basis for as real a union of church and state as ever existed. The results to all dissenters from this church dogma will be precisely the same—fines, imprisonment, etc.—that would follow to dissenters under the most obvious union of church and state that was ever known.
THE “civil Sabbath” is an alleged necessity of these times; yet if the men who are calling for it and expect to make so much use of it, would be perfectly civil in their own conduct, the “civil Sabbath” would amount to nothing. If they would admit the necessity of the Golden Rule, and practise it, they would never interfere with the religion of their neighbors in the way that the “civil Sabbath” is designed to justify them in doing.
NEARLY all the States of the Union have Sunday laws, but these laws differ widely from each other in their regulations and their penalties. In some States, also, they are at times quite strictly enforced; and in other States they are almost dead letters. And California has been for years without any Sunday law at all. And yet Sunday observance is about as general in one State as in another; it is not promoted by the Sunday laws, nor hindered by their absence. It is as general in California, which has no Sunday law, as it is in Pennsylvania, which has been noted for its Sunday law. And who, from these undoubted facts and conditions, can point out any necessity for Sunday laws at all, or discover any good purpose which they clearly serve in society?