THE importance of the Sabbath institution to the moral and physical welfare of mankind, constitutes the strongest argument against its enforced observance. For force—the compulsion of the civil power—takes out of the Sabbath, when the two are joined, all the love and blessing the Creator put into it for mankind, and leaves in their place only the harsh hand of the law. It puts a dead fly in the ointment, which gives it a “stinking savor” in the place of the odor of Paradise.
GEORGE WAMSHINGTON, in the treaty made with Tripoli, declared that “the Government of the United States is not founded, in any sense, upon the Christian religion.” Yet it is common at the present day to hear ministers and others assert that “the perpetuity of American institutions depends upon the maintenance of the American Sabbath.” If this be true, Washington’s fame as a statesman rests upon a delusion.