p. 240 | The American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 30. (8/21/1889)

Earlier text: The Evils of Enforced Idleness

More Evidences.

By Editor

The Congregational Club of San Francisco met in their regular Monday meeting, July 29, in the Y. M. C. A. Hall. Rev. W. H. Scudder read a paper on “A Sabbath-Rest Law.” The following brief report we clip from the San Francisco Examiner of the 30th:—

“‘I hope,’ said Mr. Scudder, ‘that Congress will pass a law similar to the Blair bill, compelling one day’s rest in seven. The laboring classes need at least that amount of rest. I am not in favor of allowing street and railroad cars, theaters, ferry-boats, amusement gardens, or even newspapers, to carry on business on the Sabbath. There are over 2,000,000 people in the United States who work on Sunday. It is only since the great influx from Europe that the Sabbath has been turned into a day of amusement instead of rest. The people of the Continent have no idea of observing the Sabbath. The saloons should be closed by law on the Lord’s day.’”

“Rev. Dr. Holbrook said that Congressional legislation to this end would be contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, but the States individually can regulate the matter.”

“Rev. G. W. Bothwell, of Oakland, said that the way to obtain such a law is for the ministers and their friends to fight for it at the primaries.”

“Rev. J. H. Phillips of Los Angeles spoke of the church work in that section.”

“Rev. Dr. T. C. Easton, of Newark, N. J., said that he had been told that San Francisco was a very wicked city. He was happily disappointed. It is no worse than Newark, and, excepting San Francisco’s Chinatown and a few other nuisances, she would rank among the best.”

Dr. Easton’s testimony is additional evidence to the proofs which we have given in the SENTINEL, that the best Sunday observance is where there is no Sunday law. We have known for a long time that San Francisco is no worse than Eastern cities of its class, and we are satisfied that, as Dr. Easton says, with the exception of Chinatown, San Francisco would rank amongst the best. But as no Sunday law is expected to abolish Chinatown, that can bear no part in the question of Sunday laws. Consequently San Francisco with no Sunday law rules amongst the best cities on Sunday. The truth of the whole matter is that, when brought down to strict honesty, the Sunday-law movement is not to benefit society at all. It is simply to give the church managers control of the civil power, so that they can compel those who do not belong to the church to act as though they did. But that will only repel men, and cause them to respect both Sunday and the church less than they now do.

The California Voice of July 18, has an editorial article entitled, “Opposed to Sunday Laws,” in which it takes the AMERICAN SENTINEL to task for representing, as the Voice puts it, that the leaders of the Sunday-law movement intend “to secure a union of Church and State, to establish a State creed, to persecute heretics,” etc. It illustrates the matter in this way:—

“Should a party of reputable men take tickets to Reno and back to San Francisco and say that is the extent of their intended journey, it would be absurdly unjust and wicked to assert proof positive that they intend to go to New York and then to Rome, Jerusalem, and China, simply because they are heading eastward.”

The illustration is not perfect. To make it perfect we would have to suppose that the road upon which the “party of reputable men” were to take their tickets was a single track road, running trains only one way, making it impossible to return by the same road. It would be necessary to suppose, too, that the trains were all through trains, stopping only at the points to which the “reputable men” asserted that they were not going; and furthermore, that some of the party should assert boldly that they were not only going to Reno, but that they intended going to New York, Rome, Jerusalem, and China. This is substantially the case with the advocates of the Sunday-Rest bill.

National Reformers are all in favor of this Sunday-rest movement, and of the Blair Sunday-Rest bill. They, and the leaders of the American Sabbath Union are making common cause to secure the passage of just such a law. They are embarked on the same train, and it is not unreasonable to say that they are bound for the same destination, because some of them openly avow the fact.

The National Reform System

The Christian Nation of July 24, has the following:—

“The government of the United States is a grand government. The rich young ruler who came to Christ was also a model young man, and the Lord loved him, but said to him: ‘One thing thou lackest.’ And so we, remembering our allegiance to a power that is above all human authority, are compelled to say to our government, adopting the Lord’s words to the young ruler, ‘One thing thou lackest; put away thy interests in the American saloon and prohibit it forever, and thou shalt be saved.’”

There is so much evil in this paragraph that we have not the time nor the space to expose the half of it. And not by any means the least wicked thing about it is its outrageous assumption of the place of Christ, promising salvation; and in addition to that, exalting itself above Christ in promising salvation by works. The whole National Reform system is only the Papacy over again.

National Sunday Law Petition Defeated

At a mass meeting held in the First Congregational Church, Oakland, Cal., Monday evening, August 5, which was addressed by Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts, the petition for a National Sunday law was defeated instead of being endorsed.

Dr. Crafts in San Francisco and Oakland

AUGUST 3 to 5, Dr. W. F. Crafts spent in San Francisco and Oakland. He spoke at Howard St. M. E. Church at 11 A. M., and at United Presbyterian Church at 8 P. M., Sunday; and to the San Francisco pastors at the Y. M. C. A. Hall, Monday, at 3 P. M., and at First Congregational Church, Oakland, Monday evening. We shall notice his speeches in future issues of the SENTINEL.

The Principle of Prohibition

THE Christian Nation of July 24, 1889, says:—

“The history of America is the history of the success and beneficence of the principle of prohibition.”

Well, if prohibition is a success, why is such a contest waged to get constitutional prohibition State and national? But if it be only the principle of prohibition, without the prohibition itself, that is a success, then we should like to know how the principle can be a success without carrying with it the fact.

The Continental Sabbath and Sunday Laws

It is argued by the advocates of Sunday laws that what they call the “continental sabbath” is exceedingly demoralizing and tends greatly to crime. France is frequently referred to as a country which has suffered a great deal from this “continental sabbath.” On this point the following testimony from the late Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh, who, by the way was a strict Presbyterian, is worthy of note. He says:—

“I counted on one occasion in Paris thirty-three places of amusement open on the Sabbath-day. Coming home, in one hour I saw in London and Edinburgh, with all our churches and schools of piety, more drunkenness than I saw in five long months in guilty Paris.”

This is significant, when we consider that Paris has no Sunday law, while Edinburgh has a strict Sunday law, and is noted for its Sunday-keeping; and while London is referred to as an exemplary city as to Sunday laws.

A Minister Opposes Church and State

The following letter from a minister to one of our correspondents in Maine, is of interest:—

“I am much pleased to receive the paper you so kindly sent. I am in full harmony with its anti-Church and State sentiments, and have for many years worked on that line of thought, ten years ago getting fifteen hundred names to a petition to Congress to move for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting all States and municipalities from any and all religious legislation and from any sectarian use of money. I always preach of this in every place where I live, as I have here.

“The SENTINEL has given me very desirable information and thus helped me to better work. I wish it was in every family in the country. It has so clearly exposed the bad methods and falsehoods of those who are trying to bring the country into that worst of bondage, ecclesiastical.”

May this brother’s number increase mightily.

The Influence of American Liberty

THE world has changed its character and governments have been greatly modified from what the world knew in the century before the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. The influence of the government of the United States is felt and seen on every hand throughout the earth. Ancient despotisms are modified and the monarchies of Europe have developed constitutional guaranties to suit the people. All the world looks to America, and the nations formed in the western hemisphere follow the precedent set by our United States. The influence of our free institutions is felt in the uttermost parts of the earth, and must go on working to free and enlighten mankind until the world is reconstructed to correspond. It is not easy to fix a value on the Pilgrim Fathers’ action, or on the work done by Virginia cavaliers, and by the Huguenots who settled the Carolinas. Differing as they did, they planted on this hemisphere seeds of liberty that have enlightened the world.—Oregonian.