Connecticut Blue Laws

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 24, 1882

Connecticut Blue Laws.

THE State of Connecticut has been famous for the strictness of her laws, especially of those regarding the observance of Sunday. It is just possible that there is existing a misapprehension of the spirit of old Connecticut; we therefore give the following section from her Sunday Law:—

“No person who conscientiously believes that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and actually refrains from secular business and labor on that day, shall be liable to the penalties of this act for performing secular business and labor on the Lord’s day, provided that he disturbs no other person while attending the duties of public worship.”

But this is not nearly blue enough to suit the very tender consciences of the religious—the very religious—people of California. A friend in a distant city in this State writes to us:—

“The preachers, as I have personally witnessed, not only become vehement in word and gesture, but almost frantic, when talking about it. They propose to prevent its repeal, and then have it so amended as to be more stringent in its operation. To this end they have been circulating petitions for the last six weeks or two months.”

While the Sunday advocates are pointing with confidence to the Sunday laws of the different States, and saying that what they ask in California already exists in nearly every State of the Union, they entirely conceal the fact that most of the other States have exceptions similar to the above in Connecticut. We do not know that we ought to be astonished at this concealment, however, for, (1) They do not intend to allow any such exceptions to the application of the Sunday Law in this State. And, (2) They have entered upon a religio-political crusade, and it is to be expected that they will adopt the ways and wiles of politicians.

Their confidence in their present work does not spring from the consciousness that they have the truth on their side, for they well know that they have to mutilate the commandment of God in order to make it uphold their pseudo-Sabbath. They treat the law of God as Judge Morrison would not consent to have them treat the law of California. Is it any wonder that they so readily seek a refuge in a “police regulation,” in an appeal to patriotism for the “time-honored American Sunday,” and, as a last resort, to the arm of Cæsar? But their object is their “Christian Sabbath” all the same. Their confidence is solely in the belief that they have the majority with them. What if they have? What if they do succeed in the coming election? It was the remark of John B. Finch, in one of the best temperance speeches that ever was made, that nothing is fully settled unless it is settled right. It was said that the Pope of Rome could declare a circle to be a square; it was and is taught that “the church has power to command feasts and holy days under sin,” and the Sunday-Sabbath is produced as evidence of that power. But we have a large degree of confidence, also; it is this: The State election in California can never make it a sin to work on the first day of the week, nor make it right to break the commandment of God which requires us to keep the seventh day.

Our “Scripture lesson” for this occasion is the following:—

“So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun; and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.” Eccl. 4:1.

For the finality, however, we refer to Ps. 62:11; Eccl. 12:13, 14.