Part 22
They [the house of commons] also enacted laws for the strict observance of Sunday which the Puritans affected to call the Sabbath, and which, they sanctified by most melancholy indolence. (Vol. 5, p. 10.)
Besides this, it is important to remark that the Puritans were more fanatical than superstitious. They were so ignorant of the real principles of government, as to direct penal laws against private vices. ("Buckle's History of Civilization in England," vol. 1, p. 261.)
The same spirit is rampant now in our prohibition laws, Sunday laws, profane swearing laws, etc. Repressing vices does not extinguish them but causes them to become more deep-seated and wide-spread. Moral natures can be made more moral only by the use of moral means.
The Puritans.
Not dancers go to heaven, but mourners; not laughers but weepers; whose tune is Lachrymae, whose music sighs for sin; who know no other cinquepace but this to heaven, to go mourning all the day long for their iniquities; to mourn in secret like doves, to chatter like cranes for their own and others' sins. Fastings, prayers, mourning, tears, tribulations, martyrdom were the only sounds that led all the saints to heaven. ("Bayne's Chief Actors in the Puritan Revolution," p. 112.)
Presbyterianism in Scotland was the twin of English Puritanism; Presbyterianism prohibited all sorts of pleasure as being sinful and of the Devil.
The following extracts are copied from Buckle's History of Civilization in England, volume 2, page 304:
Smiling, provided it stopped short of laughter, might occasionally be allowed; still, being a carnal pastime it was a sin to smile on Sunday. It was wrong to take pleasure in beautiful scenery; for a pious man had no concern with such matters which were beneath him, and which should be left to the unconverted.
The unregenerate might delight in these vanities, but they who were properly instructed saw nature as she really was, and knew that she, for about five thousand years, had been constantly on the move, her vigor was well nigh spent, and her pristine energy had departed. To the eye of ignorance she still seemed fair and fresh; the fact, however, was that she was worn out and decrepit; she was suffering from extreme old age; her frame no longer elastic, was leaning on one side, and she soon would perish.
Owing to the sin of man all things were getting worse, and nature was degenerating so fast that already the lilies were losing their whiteness and the roses their smell.
On this account, it was improper to care for beauty of any kind; or to speak more accurately, there was no real beauty. The world afforded nothing worth looking at save and except the Scotch Kirk, which was incomparably the most beautiful thing under heaven. To look at that was a lawful enjoyment but every other pleasure was sinful. To write poetry, for instance, was a grievous offense, and worthy of special condemnation. To listen to music was equally wrong; for men had no right to disport themselves in such idle recreation. Hence the clergy forbade music to be introduced even during the festivities of a marriage.
Dancing was so extremely sinful that an edict expressly prohibiting it was enacted by the General Assembly, and read in every church in Edinburgh.
It was a sin for any Scotch town to hold a market either on Saturday or Monday, because both days were near Sunday. It was a sin to go from one town to another on Sunday, however pressing the business might be. It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday; it was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered or your beard shaved.
No one, on Sunday, should pay attention to his health or think of his body at all. On that day horse exercise was sinful; so was walking in the fields or in the meadows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting at the door of your own house. To go to sleep on Sunday before the duties of the day were over was also sinful and deserved church censure. Bathing, being pleasant as well as wholesome, was a particularly grievous offense; and no man could be allowed to swim on Sunday.
It mattered not what man liked; the mere fact of his liking it made it sinful. Whatever was natural was wrong. The clergy deprived the people of their holidays, their amusements, their shows, their games, and their sports; they repressed every appearance of joy, they forbade all merriment, they stopped all festivities, they choked up every avenue by which pleasure could enter, and spread over the country an universal gloom.
On Sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefitting others; and the Scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the people that on that day it was sinful to serve a vessel in distress, and that it was a proof of religion to let ship and crew perish. They might go; none but their wives and children would suffer, and that was nothing in comparison with breaking the Sabbath. So, too, did the clergy teach, that on no occasion must food or shelter be given to a starving man, unless his opinions were orthodox.
Sunday Should be Regarded as a day of Rest and Recreation.
But every one should be protected in his individual liberty of choosing how he shall rest and enjoy himself. My neighbors certainly have no right to say how I shall conduct myself on Sunday, nor would they have if they were elected to the state or national legislature. My right to freedom of conscience is inalienable. It is true that I may be robbed of my liberty by those in power. The Sunday laws are the spoliation of the weak by the strong. A most remarkable trait of this nation is that it is constituted more than any other people that the sun ever shone upon of law makers and law breakers. It forebodes national decay. The people who indulge in this spirit are lacking in moral sentiment, and the current history of the politics and religion of this country furnish a lamentable proof of the fact.
Unconstitutionality of Sunday Laws.
There is no provision in the constitution requiring the citizens of the United States to observe Sunday in a religious manner; but there are on the contrary, distinct and unqualified guarantees made to secure the religious liberty of every one. Sunday is a day of rest in the eyes of the Constitution but not a day of religious worship. Constitutionally it is every one's privilege to spend Sunday as he chooses. He may, if he wishes, go to Sunday-school, class-meeting, preaching, prayer-meeting, and preaching again, and thus employ all his time on Sunday in religious exercises; or if he prefers, he need go only once to service and fall asleep as soon as it begins. Others who desire it may visit the parks, green fields, ride upon the cool waters or visit the libraries, museums, picture galleries, zoological gardens and such other places of amusement and instruction as they see fit. It is the right of every American citizen to decide in what way he should pursue his own happiness.
We read in Article 6 of the Constitution, that "no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." This foundation principle was supplemented by a provision in the first amendment, which says: "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
What could be clearer than this, that the framers of the Constitution intended to exclude all religious questions from the charter of liberty? The Constitution recognizes the beliefs of neither Jew nor Gentile--neither Christian nor Infidel.
The one special object of the framers of the Constitution was to establish a free government, and especially did they aim to secure to the people their individual rights, and no right was so greatly in demand by the people as the right of a free conscience; the right to exercise their own judgment upon questions of religion.
"We, the people of the United Slates, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."
The Declaration of Independence shows us that this question of liberty was that which the framers of the Constitution were seeking to establish: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
With these words of the Declaration of Independence before us and the provision in Article 6 of the Constitution, namely, thus, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any public trust under the United States," and the further guarantee in the first amendment, that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"--it is as clear as a sunbeam that all laws seeking to enforce a religious observance of Sunday are unconstitutional, and should not be executed; and where attempts are made to bind religious observance of the day upon Liberal people they should resist it as an intolerable despotism.
The different states of the Union have numerous Sunday laws, which in most cases are a dead letter. Take for instance Massachusetts. In its history seventy-five cases have been decided mostly in favor of a rigid enforcement of its Sunday laws. But both laws and decisions are powerless in controlling the people to observe Sunday as Sabbath.
The present laws of Massachusetts prohibit games, sports, concerts, plays, work, travel, idling, fishing, hunting, buying and selling, but no one feels bound to obey them. Occasionally some new society springs up calling itself "The Society of Law and Order," and goes to work to set the world right. The first thing to be done is to enforce the Sunday laws, preventing barbers from shaving, milkmen from distributing milk, newsdealers from selling papers, flower girls from selling flowers, cigar stores from selling cigars, croquet players from enjoying on their own premises an hour's exercise and amusement, steamboats from carrying excursions from the city, ball players from practicing their games, the angler from taking a few trout, and many others from finding rest and recreation in other ways. But these good people who think that the world is out of joint and they are called to set it right, find it a greater task than they had bargained for, and so they soon tire, and the old world wags along as it did before the "Law and Order" society came into existence.
Sunday laws are a solemn farce, and a burning shame. They are a warfare upon the rights of man, in the interest of ancient traditions and modern despotism.
As for travel on the Lord's day, lo! how the people go their journeys, take their pleasure rides, rattle over the streets with their horse-cars, thunder through the villages past churches with their locomotives, and plow the bogs and coastways with their yachts and excursion steamers. Who questions the right? In the line of sport and diversion, how common such things as boating and fishing and hunting and ball playing and roving over pastures, through woods, picking berries and gathering nuts, and attending many a public entertainment to which an admittance fee is charged and taken for purposes of gain, but whose character, however sacred in name, is as secular as a banjo concert or a play of the drama. No complaint. As regards traffic, do not livery stable keepers let their horses as freely on Sundays as on week days? Do not druggists sell as freely what they possess, whether cigars or whisky, hairbrushes or perfumery? Do not hotels ply their business as freely, always at the tobacco stand and often at the bar? Do not newsboys run as loose with their shouts of "Herald and Gazette?" While if you sail down of a Lord's day to Martha's Vineyard, where "religion is the chief concern," shall you not see cigar stores, fruit stores, toy stores, souvenir stores, etc., undisguisedly open for business, and pedlars hawking canes and gim-cracks unchallenged by any deacon or dignitary? When, therefore, the legislature (of Massachusetts) enacted as late as 1863 that whoever does any manner of work or business on the Lord's day shall be punished by a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, instead of a fine not exceeding ten dollars, the former penalty, it would seem that the intention must have been to provide a penalty commensurate with the gravest breaches of the statute. What are these, if they be not the running of passenger and freight railway trains, whose mercenary noise makes havoc of all Sunday calm and quiet; the repairing of railway tracks and bridges, the gangs of workmen oft so large and belligerent enough to take a city; the repairing of machinery in shops and mills; the racket of the press turning out Sunday editions of newspapers secular as politics and earthly as a quack medicine advertisement? These truly are open and most gross violations of the law, but against them what murmur has been heard taking the form of prosecution? Nay, the breaches of the law that are prosecuted and have been are for the most part the petty breaches, while the more flagrant offenders, as a rule, have offended with impunity and still so offend.
Considering, therefore, the sturdiness with which the people of the commonwealth resist the law's repeal, and the indifference with which they treat its violations, it must be confessed that Artemus Ward's sarcasm, as applied to "prohibition," applies here with peculiar force--in favor of the law, but against its enforcement. ("The Sunday Law of Massachusetts," by a member of the Massachusetts bar, p. 29.)
Puck, in its history of the United States, says: "The Puritans instituted many beautiful customs, and they had some very remarkable laws. They provided strict penalties against Sabbath breaking. On Sunday, they decreed that every able-bodied man, woman, and child in the country should go to church three times a day. They forbade reading anything except the Bible, forbade walking in the fields, and generally shut down on amusements. Then they called it the Lord's day, and thus strove to make the Lord unpopular."
Ben. Franklin on Connecticut Sundays.
The following is an extract from a letter written by Dr. Franklin to Jared Ingersoll of New Haven. The original is in the possession of the New Haven Colony Historical Society:
Philadelphia, Dec. 11, 1762.
I should be glad to know what it is that distinguishes Connecticut Religion from common Religion:--communicate, if you please, some of these particulars that you think will amuse me as a virtuoso. When I travelled in Flanders I thought of your excessively strict observation of Sunday; and that a man could hardly travel on that day among you upon this lawful occasion, without Hazard of Punishment, while where I was every one travelled, if he pleased, or diverted himself in any other way; and in the afternoon both high and low went to the Play or to the Opera, where there was plenty of Singing, Fiddling and Dancing. I looked round for God's Judgments, but saw no signs of them. The Cities were well built and full of Inhabitants, the Markets filled with plenty, the People well favored and well clothed; the Fields well tilled; the Cattle fat and strong; the Fences, Houses and Windows all in Repair; and no Old Tenor anywhere in the Country:--which would almost make one suspect that the Deity is not so angry at that offence as a New England Justice.
B. Franklin.
If you have any inalienable rights your freedom of conscience must be one of the most fundamental. That is, it is for you to say how you will deport yourself on matters of religion. It is nothing less than despotism for your neighbor to step up to you and say: "Brother Jones, I want to see you at church to-day, and if you are not there I will see to it that there is a law passed which will make you attend church." This is what the Puritans actually did. They did it all for the glory of God, but our modern Puritans, the orthodox, seek to stop milk wagons from delivering milk on Sunday morning, flower girls from selling flowers on the streets of New York, all because of the welfare and purity of society. In several cities in Texas the sale of cigars on Sunday is a violation of the law.
But where do these members of the state and national legislatures get their power from? Do they have any except that which is delegated to them by the people? They do not get the power from the people to usurp their inalienable rights. But here is a legislature passing laws upon the religious observance of Sunday, who have never been instructed to secure the enactment of such laws. And even if ninety-nine out of a hundred should so instruct their representative, the law could not be binding upon the one hundredth person who did not so instruct his (mis)representative in congress. He can be made to obey by their brute force. And this is what legislation amounts to generally. The people are not represented by the law makers, but their interests and rights are invaded one after another until the poor people are subjugated. Among the rights of man perhaps there is none which is more generally recognized abstractly, and more frequently violated practically, than his right to freedom of conscience, or, in other words, his religious liberty. How does this come about? One of the principal reasons for this anomaly is that most people think that we ought to obey without question the will of the majority. They seem to think that an enactment by congress settles the question, whatever it may be.
Here is the secret of the Sunday legislation. The church is a spiritual despotism always seeking to materialize. It is in the nature of power of all kinds to seek for more power. As a spiritual despotism the church is not a success. The nineteenth century has said to this mental and moral Lazarus, "Take up thy bed and walk." But it has no place to walk to, and hence it refuses to obey the voice of humanity. It is slowly, however, undergoing the transformation of a dissolving view.
A Common Sense View of the Sunday Question.
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Now, at first sight, this seems a true and wise saying, but upon reflection we are forced to modify our estimate of it. In the first place there is no evidence that the Sabbath was ever made at all. It is the result of many things. The causes assigned for the institution of this day are conflicting. One reason assigned is because the Lord rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. It is a very empty noddle that can believe that statement. Such a childish view of creation would remind us of some one who had carried a heavy load up six flights of stairs, and then sat down puffing and blowing until he was rested and refreshed. Fancy an omnipotent being tired, hungry, and sleepy. A common sense view of the creation story leads us to reject it all as a myth.
Another reason assigned for the origin of the Sabbath is that it was instituted in commemoration of God's deliverance of the Hebrews out of Egypt. But this is a flat contradiction of the previous reason given for observing the Sabbath. This contradiction is enough to invalidate the evidence of both these testimonies; but that is not all--the first story about God Almighty being tired after a week's hard work, and his resting and being refreshed on the seventh day, is so evidently a myth as to need no argument. It is on a par with all stories about the man in the moon, and the bit of legend recounting the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt is full of contradictions and impossibilities which renders the story absolutely useless as a piece of evidence.
No one knows when or where the observance of the seventh day as a day of rest and recreation began. It doubtless had small beginnings in different countries and different times, and has been subject to the law of evolution. The Sabbath was not a man-made product, but grew in character and importance as time rolled on. Therefore it is not true to say the Sabbath was made for man. All the making we see in history is what the priests have done in this direction. While it is not true that the priests originated the Sabbath, yet it is true so far as we can trace the existence of the priesthood that we find them continually making the day a day for themselves. Sunday is priests' day. Everybody must go to church to listen to an ignorant man talk, scold, misrepresent, and abuse everyone who does not believe as he does. And this is called Divine Service. When the priest rests temporarily from his labors upon the sinner and the skeptic, he trains his guns upon some of those who profess as strongly as himself to be true blue Christians. Take the extremes; the Salvation Army saint and a fashionable member of the fashionable Episcopal church. The latter looks down upon the former and calls them "trash, rubbish," and other classical names, while the soldier of the temporal army returns the compliment by styling his brethren of the Episcopal persuasion as "the Devil's dudes." Behold! how these Christians love--to go for one another.
We have seen that there is no history for the institution of the Sabbath. We have learned also that to keep this day holy did not mean to attend preaching or prayer-meetings, or special religious services of any kind.
We have discovered that the Jewish Sabbath was not incorporated into the early Christian church. We have seen also that Jesus repudiated the Jewish Sabbath. That Paul, the founder of the church, also rejects the Sabbath; and that the early fathers did not observe it. That the great men of the middle ages repudiated it. It was left for the Puritans and Scotch Presbyterians to bewilder the undeveloped mind and poison the susceptible hearts of the people, by teaching the gloomy doctrines of Puritanism and Presbyterianism. Puritanism and Presbyterianism die hard. They still live. Their spirit is hostile to freedom. Talk to them of liberty and you will readily wake the remark, "Oh yes, we believe in liberty, but not in license." Now what does license mean with such people? Why it means that you shall conform to their religious notions and practices.
Especially must you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy; that is, you are at liberty to do just as you please, if you please to do as pleases them.
Protestants all agree upon the right of free conscience, the right to believe as one chooses (which however he never can do, because he must believe according to evidence).
It is the great boast of Protestantism that the individual has a free will (another error), and that he must search the scriptures, and decide for himself. They say every man has an open Bible put before him, and he must make up his own mind on the "truth of God." When he has made up his mind, and seeks to enter a church which is full of liberty, what do the officers of the church say to him? Do they tell him that his conscience is free and the Bible is an open book for him to read and interpret as he can? Oh, no! There is no free conscience, or open Bible business when one is getting into a church. On such occasions the candidate is taken by the proper officers into an ante room, and placed upon a Procrustean bed usually called a creed, and if he is the proper length, all right, but if not he must either be stretched or sawed off to the proper dimensions. And these are the people who have such a holy horror of license.