IN the city of Boston, last month, representatives of the Presbyterian, Baptist, Unitarian, and Congregationalist churches met to discuss the question of Sunday observance, and passed a resolution saying, “We favor every wise effort to secure such speedy legislation as shall compel every transportation company to provide one day’s rest out of every seven.”
We believe as much as anybody does that people ought to have one day of rest in seven—the seventh day—but we have been under the impression that God himself has provided this rest for everybody; and if this is so, we do not see the force of asking the legislatures to provide it.
If the seventh day of rest is not yet provided for people, then it is no sin for the people to work on the Sabbath; for how can they have a rest which is not provided for them? and on the other hand, if the rest is provided, then it only remains for the people to take it, and there is no necessity for calling for legislative action in the matter.
Why should a legislature be asked to provide the people with something they already have?
Now there is a plain command of the Lord given in the Bible that all persons should “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” not doing any work upon it. But if God commands the people to take a rest which is not provided them, he is unreasonable and asks them to do an impossibility. This is altogether contrary to our conception of God.
“Freethinkers” and other non-Christians say that God is unreasonable and that his requirements are unjust; and when Christian bodies get together and gravely [51] pass a resolution calling upon the legislatures to provide the people a chance to do what God has enjoined upon them all to do, the contention of the “freethinkers” is sustained. But we would urge upon all Christians the propriety of giving no support by word or deed to the doctrines of infidelity.
The weekly day of rest is already provided; and all that any person who wants it has to do, it to take it. If you doubt this, try it, and be convinced. Accept God as the provider of all good things, and don’t make a god out of the legislature.