SPECIAL MENTION | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 29, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 5

SPECIAL MENTION.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Our readers have already been made acquainted with the case of Danl. C. Waldo, a Seventh-day Baptist of Pennsylvania, who has been subjected to persecution for working on the first day of the week, under the old Sunday law of that State, enacted in 1794. The case has been before the Supreme Court, and a decision has been rendered against Bro. Waldo. As our readers will be interested in a full statement of the case, we give the following letter from Horatio Gates Jones, as it appeared in the Sabbath Recorder of Jan. 22, 1880, with the comments of the Editor thereon:—

DANIEL C. WALDO VS. THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.

DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT.

PHILADELPHIA, PA., JAN. 16, 1880.

To the Editor of the Sabbath Recorder.

I have just heard from Hon. H. L. Richmond, counsel for Bro. Daniel C. Waldo, that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has recently decided at Pittsburg against Mr. Waldo. Mr. Richmond maintained in a very strong and lucid argument that the Act of 1794 was unconstitutional, and it does seem to me that candid, open-minded men who heard his reasons should have been convinced that his position was impregnable. But our Judges appeared to regard the question as a very old one, and therefore scarcely worthy of consideration or examination by them at the present time. Had it only come up for the first time, the Court seemed to think, “it certainly would deserve very serious consideration!” What a strange mode of reasoning is this! Because an old custom has been persisted in for scores of years, no matter how preposterous it may be, it is not worthy of consideration! One might think that our Judges have been taking a Rip Van Winkle nap, as they do not appear to know that the principles of the gospel of our blessed Master are teaching us that bigotry is not religion, that prejudice is not wisdom. But let me give you what is taken from a Pittsburg paper, as the opinion of the Court, in the case of Daniel C. Waldo, appellant, vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Court says:—

“The able and learned counsel for the appellant has presented to us a very eloquent and exhaustive argument against the unconstitutionality of the Act of April 22, 1794, known as the Sunday Law. Were it a new question, it certainly would deserve very serious consideration. It must now certainly be considered as finally settled, and is not open for argument. Wolf vs. Commonwealth, 3, Sergeant and Rawle, p. 45, was decided in 1816, more than sixty years ago. It was again mooted in Specht vs. Commonwealth, 8 Barr, p. 312, in 1848, and the constitutionality of the act, after a very elaborate argument, was affirmed. There are some questions in regard to which we may say sit alia pax, let us have peace. Order affirmed.”

The above decision was made at Philadelphia, Jan. 5, 1880. With all due regard to the majesty of the Bench, I beg leave to say that the Judges have wholly misunderstood the animus of those of us who are contending for religious liberty when they assert that this question is finally settled, and is not even open for argument. Finally settled! Not open for argument! What! shall the free people of Pennsylvania, who are suffering for conscience’ sake, be told by seven men whom they have requested to act as Judges of the Supreme Court, that the great question of religious liberty is not open for argument? Thank Heaven that there is no power to prevent free discussion; that the people still have voices, which can be heard through the Legislature; and that there are living in the State founded by William Penn many thousands of good, honest, upright men “who have not bowed the knee to Baal,” and who have vowed a solemn vow never to cease their attacks on the unrighteous Sunday Law of 1794 until justice is granted.

As I intimated to many friends, the decision of the Court did not astonish me, but I confess that the sentiment of the decision did surprise me.

But let not my worthy friends give up in despair. Let not Mr. Waldo yield an iota of his principles. His name will long be remembered when that of his persecutor is forgotten—as it is even now. If our lives are spared until 1881, we must renew our attack along the whole front of the battle ground, and I hope we shall rout our enemies and scatter them to the four winds. The band of twenty-two Senators who stood by me in 1879, form a group which is placed in the hall of my country house, and I see their faces every day, and am thereby reminded that a great duty still remains for me to perform, and with God’s help I hope to accomplish it.

Trusting that Mr. Waldo and Eld. Joel Greene, that staunch defender of the truth, and you, Mr. Editor, may live to behold your rights secured, I remain as ever, Your friend, HORATIO GATES JONES.

COMMENTS BY THE RECORDER.

In reference to the foregoing letter, the editor of the Recorder says:—

We scarcely need call attention to the letter of Senator Jones in this week’s Recorder, because whatever he writes attracts attention; but the information contained in this letter is of so grave a character that our people will be deeply moved by it. The fact that in the person of Bro. Waldo the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has deliberately decided that those who in obedience to the fourth commandment of the decalogue, having rested on the seventh day, work on the first, are outlaws and nuisances according to the Constitution and laws of that State, is startling, and should bring every man of us who is either directly or indirectly menaced, to his feet.

We say this is a startling announcement. Is it so, that in the “Keystone” State of this boasted land of religious and civil freedom, a man is doomed to fine and imprisonment for obedience to the plainly written law of God? Who is this Bro. Waldo? and what has he done? He is an intelligent, quiet, industrious Christian man. No man in the community is more honored for sterling worth than he. He is a loved member of a Christian church, and has been for many years. In his Christian profession he solemnly promised to take the Holy Scriptures as the guide of his life. In reading this precious book, he learned that the Creator made the world in six days, and that on the seventh he rested; that because in it he had rested, he blessed and set it apart from the other days as a day of rest; and that Jehovah, when he wrote the immortal decalogue with his own finger on tables of stone, put in the midst of them the command to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” and then said, “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Reading this, he could not, as an informed and conscientious man, refuse to keep the day commanded. He also saw that this day was sacredly regarded by the ancient people of God; that it was honored by Christ, and was everywhere called in the New Testament “the Sabbath.” Under these circumstances, what could this Bro. Waldo do but keep the day commanded by God to be observed?

But you say, Let him also, in obedience to the law of the State, rest on the first day. To this there are serious objections, some of which we will notice.

1. God, the author of time, and the maker of Bro. Waldo, gave him the right, and made it his duty, to work on the first day. He has as clear a right to work on this day as he has to work on the next day, or as he has to live. This right he has, not simply as one given by nature, but as one specially guaranteed to him by the word of God, and with this right the State cannot meddle. It is as clearly guaranteed to him as is his life, and the State has no more right to take from him the former than it has to take from him the latter.

We are not opposed to civil government, but believe it authorized by God; but it has its bounds, and beyond this it cannot go. If it be insisted that it has a divine right to enforce the observance of the Sabbath by civil enactments, then we say that it follows that these enactments must be in the interest of the divinely-appointed Sabbath. To say that God has given the civil government authority to supplant his own institution is a contradiction so bald that every one should see it. To say that God has given the State the right to require the observance of the first day of the week, is to assert that for which there is no proof in the Scriptures.

If it be said it is pleasanter for society to observe the same day, we heartily subscribe to the statement, and ask, Who shall appoint the day to be observed? To this but one answer can be given, and that is, God must appoint it. We wholly deny this right to the State. We do not deny but the State may name certain days as holidays, and recommend their observance as such, but these are not Sabbaths, nor can the State compel men to cease from work upon them.

2. It is the height of injustice to compel a man to rest from his business upon the first day of the week, who has already, for conscience’ sake, rested upon the seventh day. Would those who observe the first day be willing to be compelled to rest upon the seventh day also? We are not advocating the right to disturb worshiping assemblies on the first or any other day of the week. Take the case of Bro. Waldo. He was far away from any worshiping assembly, attending quietly to his own lawful business, having first rested on the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. Now, what right had the State to interfere with him? Not any. This is an offensive exercise of power. It is an exercise of might in disregard of right. The State is as much bound by the law of right as is the individual. We hold the State of Pennsylvania to have outraged the rights of an unoffending citizen, and that it is in duty bound to restore that which it has taken away. If it be said that Mr. Waldo violated one of its laws, we answer, It had no business with this law.