OCR Text |
Show There is great agitation in California over the law requiring an observance of the Sabbath. It would seem that the religious element is antagonizing the custom of the early Californian of making the Sabbath a holiday, where any distinction at all was made between it and the other days of the week. It may be that the "golden state" will yet outrank some of her older sisters in piety, notwithstanding the years she spent in "sowing wild oats" and bringing vigilance committees to bear upon offenders. But the Sunday law is meeting with opposition from a religious source, a sect known as Seventh-day Adventists. The San Francisco Chronicle thus notices the arguments of the sect against it. The views of the Seventh-day Adventists on the Sunday-law question were detailed last evening at the tent meeting on the corner of Jones and Eddy Streets, the sermon being preached by Elder Van Hoon. The speaker contended that where the laws of the land conflict with those of God it was our duty to follow the latter. He challenged the proof of scriptural authority for the keeping of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, claiming the change from the seventh to be a creature of the Catholic Church. The Sunday-law issue, he argued, would, sooner than any other question, bring about the union of Church and State, and the enactment of a religious amendment to the United States Constitution. Legislation, with reference to it would to-day be oppressive to a minority, and no minority of conscience should submit to the majority. Such action, the speaker claimed, would be a damage to the cause of Christianity, and would destroy the moral worth of the various denominations. |