GOVERNOR GREENHALGE, of Massachusetts, recently addressed a compulsory Sunday observance meeting in Boston, and among other things, said:—
I came here, my friends, as an individual, and I may say, also, as an official of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. I am bound by my oath to support and to execute the laws of the commonwealth, and as one of those laws gives official sanction to the Lord’s day, I am pledged to see, as far as I can, that the day is kept holy. (Applause.)
Massachusetts, kneeling upon the desolate seashore, two and a half centuries ago, heard the thunder of this Sabbath law from Sinai, and wrote it into her statute book. There it is to-day, and, I prophesy, there it will remain forever. (Great applause.)
Here is no mincing matters; no attempt to hide the religious character of Sunday laws behind the “civil Sabbath” mask. The governor proposes to enforce the thunders of Sinai upon all the people. But who delegated the governor to interpret and enforce the divine will? Is he the vicegerent of the Almighty? Is he the Moses of this modern theocracy?
The governor says Massachusetts heard the thunder of this Sabbath law from Sinai and wrote it into her statute books. Massachusetts must be hard of hearing. What is in the statute books is not at all like the thunderings of Sinai. The Massachusetts statute requires the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, while the Sinaitic law says “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” However this is as near the truth as any self-constituted representative of God ever gets. [99]