Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/27

Rh decided what Christianity was. It defined orthodoxy and heresy, thus involving the whole realm of religious conscience in the meshes of political intrigue.

As the Holy Roman Empire grew upon the ruins of the pagan empire, it continued to secularize and corrupt Christianity. Civil legislation relative to Sunday and other festivals and fasts prevailed during the dark ages. Our Saxon ancestors, converted under this empire, received this inheritance, and transmitted through the Saxon and English laws the entire genius of Sunday legislation to our own time. The chain is unbroken which binds the Sunday law of to-day to the first pagan Sunday law of 321

There was little or no development of the Sabbatic idea, as drawn from the fourth commandment, until the time of the Puritan reformation. Under the theory that the fourth commandment might be transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, Sunday legislation took on the more distinctively Sabbatic type which has prevailed in America. The theocracy of the New England colonies, which made the civil government subservient to the Church, instituted the most rigorous Sunday legislation. These early colonial laws were not only rigid, but were rigidly enforced. Their power was short-lived. As the colonial governments gave way to the States, and the States became united in the nation, Sunday legislation was continually modified and its influence steadily declined. The laws still exist, but are disregarded by all classes of society, according to choice or convenience. Religious men assemble in conventions, speak through resolutions, and editorials bewail the state of things and talk of the necessity of a more rigid enforcement of the Sunday laws. No one heeds such talk, and no law is enforced. Year by year we drift further away from a religious regard for Sunday. The most cogent arguments driven into the public mind are like a nail driven into the weak mortar of a thin wall; it looks well till you attempt to hang a weight upon it, when it gives way, deepening the sense of failure. Hence we say, as at the beginning, either the Sunday laws are not grounded in Christianity, or the public conscience has become wickedly indifferent.

The real philosophy of the situation is this: Sunday laws, coupled with the false no-Sabbath theories which were developed in the second century, have depraved the public conscience and produced the very results over which good men now mourn. Granted, for sake of the argument, that Sunday has rightfully taken the place of the Sabbath, and ought to be observed in accordance with a Christian interpretation of the fourth commandment. The fact remains that the civil law, assuming control of religious actions, places itself between the human heart and God. It shuts out the divine authority. It forbids the conscience to rise above the human authority. The result is, no conscience. If, on the other hand, the observance of the Sunday, or the