INSTEAD of entering a vigorous and manly protest against the persecution of Seventh-day Adventists, a Baptist paper in this city, enters upon a labored defense of Sunday laws, and incidentally remarks:—
If there are any whose consciences oblige them to rest from labor on some other day, they may be relieved from the hardship of a double Sabbath by being permitted to pursue their ordinary callings on Sunday—only so as not to disturb others in the enjoyment of their day of rest.
But what would constitute a disturbance of others? Some people are very much “disturbed” by the mere knowledge of that their neighbors rest on the seventh day while they work, and work on the first day while they rest. And in at least one State this annoyance has been held by the courts to amount to a public nuisance, and Christian men have been imprisoned as common criminals under this legal fiction. Such a permission as our Baptist contemporary proposes may mean something or nothing according to the whim of the courts.
BUT why should observers of the seventh day, or of any day other than Sunday be permitted to work on Sunday only provided they disturb no one any more than observers of Sunday should be permitted to work on Saturday only provided they disturb no one? Why should any more protection be thrown around the Sunday keeper than around the man who keeps another day? And if in order for one to rest all must rest at the same time, and if it is right and just to require the seventh day observer to rest on Sunday so that he shall not disturb the Sunday keeper, why should not the Sunday keeper be required to rest on Saturday so that he shall not disturb those who observe the seventh day?
BUT those who keep the seventh day ask no laws requiring others to keep it also. They are not disturbed because others are at work while they are resting. They simply ask to be let alone in the enjoyment of their natural right to work when they please and to rest when they feel tired or when their sense of duty to God moves them to rest. They ask no special legislation in their behalf, and they insist that there should be none in the interests of other religionists.