THERE are many good men and women who believe a Sunday law to be a proper thing, just and equable to all, and worthy of support. Will they read these reasons as to why there should never be a Sunday law?
The first of these reasons ought to appeal to all just people, religious or otherwise. The second reason is an appeal to Christians.
I. Unjust
THE first reason is that a Sunday law is unjust.
There are seven days in the week.
There are "six working-days."
One of the six working-days is 16⅓ per cent of one's working time.
The orthodox Jew works six days, and rests on the seventh day.
The Seventh-day Adventist works six days, and observes religiously the seventh day.
The Seventh-day Baptist works six days, and holds Sabbath on the seventh day.
There are many, in the aggregate, who belong to no church, who conscientiously work six days, and religiously observe the seventh day.
To demand that after they have observed one day religiously, they must observe another, is to deprive them, by law, of 16⅓ per cent of their working time. It is a tax upon the laborer of 16⅓ per cent of his income.
A Sunday law demands that he shall pay this tax not to the state, not to benefit any one, but solely in deference to the wishes and will of the Sunday keeper.
In other words, conscience demands that he shall keep the seventh day as conscience demands of others that they keep the first day.
In this, both are equal.
But then the Sunday keeper declares that the seventh-day man shall keep Sunday too, if not of choice, then by compulsion — that he shall give 16⅓ per cent of his working time solely in deference to the religious predilection of the Sunday-law man.
My Sunday-law friend, turn the thing around, and see how you would like it.
You would say that such a law was intrinsically, inherently, obviously, manifestly, unjust, and ought to be forever repealed and prohibited.
II. Unchristian
THE second reason is that a Sunday law is unchristian.
Because Jesus Christ is the personification of love, and love cannot compel service.
Because Jesus Christ never taught His disciples to ask or seek the aid of the civil law, or to use force or penalty, to promote or enforce Christianity or morality; and when two of His leading, most ardent disciples sought to use it, it called forth from Him the rebuke, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." Luke 9: 55.
Because our Lord taught, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not." John 12: 47.
Because for all needed things in Christianity, Jesus Christ promises all power from above. Matt. 28: 19, 20.
Because the Golden Rule declares, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Matt. 7: 12. No Sunday keeper would wish to be prosecuted for working on any day.
Because Jesus Christ observed the seventh day, and therefore if He were here upon earth to-day, and worked as He did in Nazareth, a Sunday law, if it were in operation, would condemn the Sinless One as a criminal, or tax Him — the Saviour of men — 16⅓ per cent that it did not tax His professed follower, the Sunday observer.
A Sunday law is therefore both unjust and unchristian, and never ought to have a place on the statute books of any state or nation.
