ATJ
THE appreciation of force in religious matters always drives the soul upon which it is directed farther from God. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.1
CHRISTIANITY can no more be advanced by the ballot than by the bullet, since both alike are the emblems of force. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.2
THE “sword of the Spirit” is effective enough to accomplish all the work that is committed to the church to do. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.3
A “CRIME” that cannot be recognized as such by reason and common sense, deserves no recognition from the law. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.4
CONSIDERING how much trouble the state has to enforce its own laws, would it be wise for it to undertake to enforce the laws of God? AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.5
“PUT up thy sword into the sheath,” is the word of Jesus Christ to such of his professed followers as desire to propagate Christianity by force. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.6
RELIGIOUS legislation tends always to break down conscience, make hypocrites, and obliterate the distinction in men’s minds between right and wrong. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.7
TO force a man to do right, is to put force in the place of conscience. Men must be forced to respect rights, but beyond this force cannot rightfully go. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.8
“EXPCEPTIONS prove the rule,” but they do not always prove the rule to be a good one. The exemptions of a Sunday law do not prove the law to be just and right. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.9
THE hardest work of all work is to be obliged to do nothing,—to maintain one’s mental, physical, and moral equilibrium under a condition of enforced idleness. And this is the work which is thrust upon multitudes by the enforcement of a Sunday law. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.10
THE people are calling for Sunday rest by law need to learn that there is an essential difference between rest and idleness. The law can force an individual to be idle, but it cannot force him to rest. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.11
ATJ
JESUS CHRIST said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This is not one of the “recently discovered sayings” of Christ, but has been in the Bible all along, and we may suppose, therefore, that it is familiar to, and firmly believed by, every member of the Christian church. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.1
And to all such, this saying ought to come with peculiar force at the present time; for it is a fact, as everybody knows, that the “rest” question is agitating and troubling the industrial world more than anything else at the present time. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.2
Yet it is also a fact, too plain to be denied, that the church forces are advocating a method of settling this question which is wholly different from that set forth in the Scriptures. Their method is not by invitation, but compulsion. They would compel every person in the land to refrain from work upon each first day of the week. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.3
For years the working men have been agitating for an eight-hour day. That is their method of gaining the rest which they desire. Nor is it a surprising one to be advocated by associations of a worldly character. But it is surprising that an association which claims to be altogether unworldly in character, should, in the very face of the words of Christ, propose to give men rest by civil enactment. AMS December 16, 1897, page 769.4
From the Christian standpoint, these words of divine invitation constitute the true basis upon which this rest question must be settle for all men. For it is actual rest which this invitation holds out to all. It is no figure of speech, but a literal statement. And everybody who has accepted it, and tried it, knows that it is literally true. No one who has found the rest that is in Christ, is complaining to-day that he does not have rest enough to satisfy every physical need. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.1
And it is easy enough to see why this is so. For when an individual comes to Christ, he brings himself into harmony with the purpose of God for humanity in this fallen world, and that purpose embraces everything that is for man’s benefit. And God, who created man, knows better than any one else just how much rest man needs. It was God who, in the beginning, ordained that man should live by the sweat of his brow, and who provided for him the weekly day of rest. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.2
The Being who made man has himself provided a rest for man: and he has set forth that rest in the words of the fourth commandment. It is recorded that God himself set the example in this respect, and that “on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” In the rest which God has provided there is refreshment: but in the rest which the state provides, there is only turmoil and trouble. For it will not be denied that the police have harder work in taking care of a city full of people which they are idle, than when they are at work. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.3
It is to this rest, with its refreshment, that the individual comes when he accepts the invitation, “Come unto Me.” There is rest in Christ at all times,—rest for the heart, rest for the mind, rest for the whole being: but there is the special rest of the Sabbath,—the seventh day, which God blessed for the benefit of mankind. Let an individual come to Christ, accept the seventh day of rest from work as God has commanded, and see if he does not find all the rest that he needs. We have never heard of a case in which it was not so. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.4
The working men are, many of them, under a heavy yoke. But the Saviour says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;” “for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light;” and he gives the assurance, “Ye shall find rest unto your souls.” It is not surprising that the world should not believe these words; but it is certainly to be expected that the church will believe them, and will make them the basis of her work for the betterment of mankind. It is certainly to be expected that, as the church views the prevalent conditions which emphasize the world’s unrest, she will throw all her energies into the proclamation of the divine message which alone can provide the remedy. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.5
Does not the rest ordained and provided for man by the Creator, exactly meet the requirements of man’s nature to-day? Is it not the only rest that will supply man’s need? and is not this rest to be secured alone by acceptance of the gospel invitation? Does not the church, at least, believe this? and is it not her mission to proclaim this to all the world, and that to the full extent of her ability? Is it not, then, “another gospel” to which the church is turning, in proclaiming rest for mankind by the force of civil law? AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.6
ATJ
THERE have been several changes made in the calendar since it was first known to man, but it appears that there is yet need of another “reform,” more radical than those made by Julius Cesar and Pope Gregory. What this is, is indicated by the following words from the annual address of Miss Frances Willard, at the late W.C.T.U. Convention:— AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.1
“We must be careful always to let it be understood that those who observe some other day than the seventh, are to be respected in their belief by any law that we are working to help obtain.” AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.2
By “some other day than the seventh,” was meant some other day than Sunday: which is to say that Sunday is the seventh day, instead of Saturday. But as everybody knows, the calendar makes Saturday the seventh day of the week and Sunday the first day. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.3
Now, when persons of the intelligence of the World’s W.C.T.U. president hold and proclaim that Sunday is the seventh day of the week, why do the makers of the almanac persist in holding to the old style of calling Sunday the first day instead of the seventh? Why can we not have a calendar that will be abreast of the “advanced thought” of the times, especially in so fundamental a matter as the numbering of the days of the week? AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.4
This is evidently what many of our Sunday-observing friends who still believe in the fourth commandment would like. But alas! even if the calendar could be so “reformed” as to make Sunday the seventh day of the week, and so harmonize its observance with the fourth commandment, it would only throw them hopelessly out of gear with other Scripture texts upon which they depend for justification of their practice. For they hold that the New Testament Scriptures plainly teach that Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and as their Sabbath observance is based upon the resurrection of Christ, it can never be any other than the first day of the week upon which that observance must fall. Hence, to make Sunday the seventh day of the week would only be to throw the “Sabbath” over to Monday, which would be the first day of the week according to this new reckoning. AMS December 16, 1897, page 770.5
And as this is so, and as the calendar cannot be “reformed” so as to make Sunday anything else than the first day of the week, we can only wonder why intelligent people will persist in calling it the seventh. AMS December 16, 1897, page 771.1
NOTHING that is good in this world can be forced upon people against their will, without entirely losing its power to benefit them. AMS December 16, 1897, page 771.2
ATJ
THE local union of Christian Endeavorers of Hackensack Valley, N. Y., have sent in a petition against Sunday mail service to the postmaster of Hackensack, on the decidedly novel ground that such service is “in violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.” The petition will, it is said, be sent to Washington to be passed upon by the post-office authorities.” AMS December 16, 1897, page 771.1
Inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States forbids, to the extent of its jurisdiction, any law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it would be in order for these Christian Endeavorers to explain how a regulation which does not deny to any the free exercise of religion, can be “in violation of the spirit” of that document; and how, also, a regulation which linked this department of the government with a religious dogma, can be in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. AMS December 16, 1897, page 771.2
In other words, since the Constitution discountenances any union of the government with religion, by forbidding Congress to make any law on the subject, ought a department of the government to keep Sunday? We think not. AMS December 16, 1897, page 771.3