WORKING ON SUNDAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 190, 12 August 1922, Page 14

WORKING ON SUNDAY.

(To the Editor.) | .Sir, —In your isstic of August 8 on . the above. G. W. Blair charges' Mr. Kelly with evading tbe issue, 'because he (Mr. Kelly) pointed out that there was no Biblical authority for regarding Sunday other than a working day. But 1 venture to say that most of your readers will regard 'Mr. Kelly's to be lucid and conclusive. When G. W. Blair, like many others, attempts to tell ns what Christ intended, he becomes wise aibove that which is written. Christ's, intentions, regarding the first day of the week being henceforth regarded as a day ! of rest, are nowhere recorded in Scripture. Neither "an we read such an intention even between the lines. Knowing the end from the beginning, Christ, as (the Creator of the World, selected not I only a Sabbath but also the exact day I upon which such a rest was to be j observed. He named' His day. It was jthe seventh He chose. Inference in this I matter will not do. The Master did not leave baptism and the communion, a* instituted by Him, to inference; He definitely commanded these. Nothing short of this is required for the sanctity of the first day of the week. But nothing of this is forthcoming. No example, precept, or desire for the future sanctrfication of Sunday is given by Christ. While I hold that the seventh day is certainly the Sabbath, to enforce ! that or any other day by civil enactjment would be an outrage on the i religious liberties of any individual or community. Civil law was conceived to proU-ct civil liberties,* irrespective of whether men believe in religion or not. It was not devised to promote spiritual things. In religious matters every man should have the right of choice, and civil law that liberty,""not coerce it. The founder of Christianity invites, never forces. "Whosoever will," is the slogan of the Gospel. Had the I Christ a purpose to compel men. ' He had the power to pull Caesar out of tho throne of Rome, and then set going legislative enactments that would compel compliance with His desires. But instead, He went to Calva.-y. In this He designed to win men by the power of love through choice. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all unto mc," He declares. There is no force there. It is by the liberty of choice that the Gospel is propagated. Millions of the best men and women that ever lived denied, by the sacrifice of their lives, the right of any man, or body of men, to compel the conscience. If the One responsible for the success of the Gospel did not see fit to force it upon the conscience of man, then I fail to see the right that any of His followers can claim for forcing, by civil | law, any religious dogma, upon the reluctance of their fellow man. Therefore I hold that the justice who dismissed the recent case for Sunday labour was acting up to the best traditions of our glorious Bible and British religious liberty.—l am, etc., J. W. KENT. (To the Editor.) Sir, —Mr. G. W. Blair, in your issue of Wednesday last, is to be commended for making a fair presentation of the facts and imaginings that form the basis of the claim that the first day of the week is entitled to be observed as the Lord's Day or "Christian Sabbath." How meagre the facts and bow ample the imaginings I leave readers to judge. Mr. Blair frankly admits that Christ did not "sweep away the Sabbath." Of course not; that act of sacrilege was reserved for the so-called Christian Church; and this is by no means the greatest of its many errors. Although the question of the change from the seventh to the first day of the week is not the main issue in this correspondence, it is well to have these facts admitted. I am accused oi dragging in that question with a view to camouflage or evade the main issue. I assure Mr. Blair that I had no desire.to cloud or evade anything, so I ask him to return to the main issue that I raised, which had three branches—(l) I contended that the magistrate's decision in tlie Ellerslie case was perfectly sound, (2) that there was no flouting of God's law, and (3) that there was no offence against the law of the land, and therefore nothing was disclosed that should offend correct "Christian sentiment." In his lengthy reply, Mr. Blair does not combat any one of these assertions, but deals almost exclusively with the minor question. He does not dispute my statement of the law, but rather endorses it when he says the statute bearing on Sunday la-bour is "both illogical and irrational," and if carried to extreme limits would produce "an impossible state of affairs in the community." That is precisely -what I pointed out, when I referred to the many thousands of men and women in this country who work at their "ordinary avocations" every Sunday in the year, in open and unashamed breach of. the statute. The law is inequitable (incidentally, it imposes serious disabilities on .Tews and Seventli Day Advcntists) and it ought to be repealed. The Christian" institution of Sunday, if it ,is right should not require the aid of the secular arm to secure its proper oV loervanee.—l am. etc., J. MDDELL KELLY.