THE makers and preservers of the “American Sabbath” are in trouble. In 1892 they forced from Congress the first legislation in the history of the nation touching Sunday sacredness. It was the fruits of a long and bitter fight. They had secured State recognition of the Sunday Sabbath, but to make the “American Sabbath” complete, it must be sanctioned by the national legislature. Congress yielded, and the “American Sabbath” was finished. When the final vote was taken, the “Christian lobbyists” in the gallery arose and amid great rejoicing, declared, “Now we’ve got it.” Congress had made them a Sabbath, and they were happy.
But now Congress has spoiled the “American Sabbath;” utterly ruined it. It held business sessions all day Sunday, March 3, and thus desecrated what a preceding Congress had sanctified. Of course the Sunday-law people are angry. But what can they do? “Turn the rascals” out, of course, and vote in another Congress that will reëstablish the sanctity of the “American Sabbath.” The following is one of the resolutions passed with this end in view, by the eastern Pennsylvania conference of the United Evangelical Church at Schuykill Haven, Pa., March 7:—
Resolved, That we are deeply grieved by the godless action of our National Congress in having Sunday sessions and consider it an insult to this Christian nation, whose representatives they are, and hold that if any of the men who are guilty of the above offense should at any time seek the suffrage of their fellow-citizens for offices of public trust, every Christian should deem it his duty to oppose them by voice and ballot.
If all these Sunday-law people would exchange their man-made Sunday Sabbath for the “Sabbath of the Lord,” a day sanctified by the Lord himself and which does not depend on human law for its holiness, they would not have to spend their time making a Congress to make and preserve the “American Sabbath.” [99]