“It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church.” Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, NJ ‘News’ on March 18, 1903.
“Sunday is founded, not of scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday.” Catholic Record, September 17, 1893
“The Sunday…is purely a creation of the Catholic Church.” American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883
“Sunday…is the law of the Catholic Church alone…” American Sentinel (Catholic), June 1893
“Protestants … accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change… But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that … in observing Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the Church, the pope.” Our Sunday Visitor, February 5th, 1950.
“They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason…The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance…The author of the Sunday law…is the Catholic Church.” Ecclesiastical Review, February 1914
“Of course these two old quotations are exactly correct. The Catholic Church designated Sunday as the day for corporate worship and gets full credit – or blame – for the change.” This Rock, The Magazine of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization, p.8, June 1997
Q. Have you any other proofs that they(Protestants) are not guided by the Scripture?
A. Yes; so many, that we cannot admit more than a mere specimen into this small work. They reject much that is clearly contained in Scripture, and profess more that is nowhere discoverable in that Divine Book.
Q. Give some examples of both?
A. They should, if the Scripture were their only rule, wash the feet of one another, according to the command of Christ, in the 13th chap. of St. John; —they should keep, not the Sunday, but the Saturday, according to the commandment, “Remember thou keep holy the SABBATH-day;” for this commandment has not, in Scripture, been changed or abrogated;… Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 101 Imprimatuer
Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; —she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority. Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 174
Q. In what manner can we show a Protestant, that he speaks unreasonably against fasts and abstinences?
A. Ask him why he keeps Sunday, and not Saturday, as his day of rest, since he is unwilling either to fast or to abstain. If he reply, that the Scripture orders him to keep the Sunday, but says nothing as to fasting and abstinence, tell him the Scripture speaks of Saturday or the Sabbath, but gives no command anywhere regarding Sunday or the first day of the week. If, then he neglects Saturday as a day of rest and holiness, and substitutes Sunday in its place, and this merely because such was the usage of the ancient Church, should he not, if he wishes to act consistently, observe fasting and abstinence, because the ancient Church so ordained? Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 181
Question: Which is the Sabbath day?
Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” -Rev. Peter Geiermann C.SS.R., The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50
Q. Must not a sensible Protestant doubt seriously, when he finds that even the Bible is not followed as a rule by his co-religionists?
A. Surely, when he sees them baptize infants, abrogate the Jewish Sabbath, and observe Sunday for which [pg. 7] there is no Scriptural authority; when he finds them neglect to wash one another’s feet, which is expressly commanded, and eat blood and things strangled, which are expressly prohibited in Scripture. He must doubt, if he think at all. …
Q. Should not the Protestant doubt when he finds that he himself holds tradition as a guide?
A. Yes, if he would but reflect that he has nothing but Catholic Tradition for keeping the Sunday holy; … Controversial Catechism by Stephen Keenan, New Edition, revised by Rev. George Cormack, published in London by Burns & Oates, Limited – New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benzinger Brothers, 1896, pages 6, 7.
“The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s Day. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. xix) condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Commandments of God, Volume IV, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, page 153.
”The [Roman Catholic] Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant.” The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4.
“All of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible.” The Catholic Virginian, “To Tell You The Truth,” Vol. 22, No. 49 (Oct. 3, 1947).
“… you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.” The Faith of Our Fathers, by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 88th edition, page 89. Originally published in 1876, republished and Copyright 1980 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., pages 72-73.
‘Deny the authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third – Protestant Fourth – Commandment of God… The Church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.” Catholic Record, September 1, 1923.
“But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn’t it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes, of course, it is inconsistent; but this change was made about fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom, even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text in the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away – like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair.”The Faith of Millions
“Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. “The Day of the Lord” (dies Dominica) was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church’s sense of its own power. The day of resurrection, the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, came on the first day of the week. So this would be the new Sabbath. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy.” Sentinel, Pastor’s page, Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995
“If Protestants would follow the Bible, they would worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.” Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter dated February 10, 1920.
“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.” Monsignor Louis Segur, ‘Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today’, p. 213.
When Protestants ask the Papacy who gave them such authority to change the law of God, they, in return pose a question to Protestants:
“”You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead?
This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer. You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded.
The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered.”” Library of Christian Doctrine: Why Don’t You Keep Holy the Sabbath-Day?, pp. 3, 4.
“Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” John Gilmary Shea, American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883
“It was the Catholic Church which made the law obliging us to keep Sunday holy. The church made this law long after the Bible was written. Hence said law is not in the Bible. The Cath. [sic.] Church abolished not only the Sabbath, but all the other Jewish festivals.” Letter by T. Enright, Bishop of St. Alphonsus Church, St. Louis, Missouri, June, 1905
“There is but one church on the face of the earth which has the power, or claims power, to make laws binding on the conscience, binding before God, binding under penalty of hell-fire. For instance, the institution of Sunday. What right has any other church to keep this day? You answer by virtue of the third commandment (the papacy did away with the 2nd regarding the worship of graven images, and called the 4th the 3rd), which says ‘Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.’ But Sunday is not the Sabbath. Any schoolboy knows that Sunday is the first day of the week. I have repeatedly offered one thousand dollars to anyone who will prove by the Bible alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep, and no one has called for the money. It was the holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday, the seventh day, to Sunday, the first day of the week.” – T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture delivered in 1893.
”Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.” C. F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, in answer to a letter regarding the change of the Sabbath, November 11, 1895.
“Tradition, not Scripture, is the rock on which the church of Jesus Christ is built.” Adrien Nampon, Catholic Doctrine as Defined by the Council of Trent, p. 157
“The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine law”. The pope can modify divine law, since his power is not of man, but of God, and he acts a vicegerent of God upon earth” Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. Papa, II, Vol. VI, p. 29.
“The leader of the Catholic church is defined by the faith as the Vicar of Jesus Christ (and is accepted as such by believers). The Pope is considered the man on earth who “takes the place” of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity.” John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 3, 1994
“…pastoral intuition suggested to the Church the christianization of the notion of Sunday as “the day of the sun”, which was the Roman name for the day and which is retained in some modern languages.(29) This was in order to draw the faithful away from the seduction of cults which worshipped the sun, and to direct the celebration of the day to Christ, humanity’s true “sun”.” John Paul II, Dies Domini, 27. The day of Christ-Light, 1998 (Prominent protestant leaders agree with this statement – See here for a statement by Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the ‘Baptist Manual’)
“The Sun was a foremost god with heathen-dom…The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands…. There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, to ‘Keep that old pagan name [Sunday]. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.’ And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.” William Gildea, Doctor of Divinity, The Catholic World, March, 1894, p. 809
“The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis, for Sunday is, in a great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects – pagan and Christian alike – as the ‘venerable’ day of the sun.”” Arthur P. Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184
“Q. What is Sunday, or the Lord’s Day in general?
A. It is a day dedicated by the Apostles to the honour of the most holy Trinity, and in memory that Christ our Lord arose from the dead upon Sunday, sent down the holy Ghost on a Sunday, &c. and therefore is called the Lord’s Day. It is also called Sunday from the old Roman denomination of Dies Solis, the day of the sun, to which it was sacred.” The Douay Catechism, (An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine) of 1649, by Henry Tuberville, D.D., published by P. J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Publishing House, 5 Barclay Street, New York, approved and recommended for his diocese by the Right Rev. Benedict, Bishop of Boston, April 24th, 1833, page 143.
“When St. Paul repudiated the works of the law, he was not thinking of the Ten Commandments, which are as unchangeable as God Himself is, which God could not change and still remain the infinitely holy God.”-Our Sunday Visitor, Oct. 7, I951.
“Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays?
Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.” Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p.58 (Same statement in Manual of Christian Doctrine, ed. by Daniel Ferris [1916 ed.], p.67)
“Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the NEW LAW, that he himself has explicitly substituted sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as holy days. The church chose sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.” – Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, Studies in Sacred Theology, No. 70.,1943, p. 2.
“If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday, with the Jews, instead of Sunday; …” — A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, by Rev. John Laux M.A., Benzinger Brothers, 1936 edition, Part 1.
“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claim to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles…. From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.” Catholic Press, Aug. 25, 1900
“The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, ‘Keep holy the Sabbath Day.’ The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church.” Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89.
”Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible.” John Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.
To show how prophecy remarkably foretold the change that the Catholic church would make, click here.
I understand the Roman Catholic claim that they transferred the seventh day Sabbath rest to Sunday. They say this is the mark of their authority. To support this claim they point out that almost all the world including the secular now rest on Sunday.
I don’t know any where they make a claim that working on Saturday is accepting their authority
Therefore I agree with them that by obeying a law to rest on their Spurious Rest Day we are showing allegiance.
Obviously if we work on this Spurious Sabbath we show our contempt for it and their authority.
I believe we should work on Sunday and show it no recognition, come what may, as did the Seventh Day Baptists and SDA’s mentioned by Senator Crockett see N.B. Uncledon.
N.B. AMERICAN STATE PAPERS.
SPEECH OF SENATOR CROCKETT.1 IN THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS. “Sir, I take shame to myself as a member of the General Assembly of 1885, which repealed the act of religious protection which this bill is intended to restore. ………..
inducements held out by her to those who desired homes in a new State. I told them of her cloudless skies …….. I told them of our God-inspired liquor laws, of our “pistol laws,” of our exemption laws, and oh, sir! — God forgive me the lie— I told them that our Constitution and laws protected all men equally in the enjoyment and exercise of their religious convictions. …… These people are, many of them, immigrants Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists. They are Sabbatarians. people who religiously and conscientiously keep Saturday, the seventh day, as the Sabbath, in accordance with the fourth commandment. They find no authority in the Scripture for keeping Sunday, the first day of the week, nor can any one else. All commentators agree that Saturday is and was the scriptural Sabbath, and that the keeping of Sunday, the first day of the week, as the Sabbath, is of human origin, and not by divine injunction. The Catholic writers and all theologians agree in this. These people understand the decalogue to be fully Moral law still considered as binding upon them to-day as when handed down amid the thunders of Sinai. They do not feel at liberty to abstain from their usual avocations, because they read the commandment, ” Six days shalt thou labor,” as mandatory; and they believe that they have no more right to abstain from labor on the first day of the week than they have to neglect the observance of Saturday as their Sabbath. They agree with their Christian brethren of other denominations in all essential points of doctrine, the one great difference being upon the day to be kept as the Sabbath. They follow no avocations tending to demoralize the community in which they live. They came among us expecting the same protection in the exercise of their religious faith as is accorded to them…….. p.358
Persecution in Arkansas. Operations of Sunday laws. Prosecutions in various States. Tennessee Adventists in jail. in all the States of Europe, in South Africa, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, and every State in the Union except, alas! that I should say it, Arkansas! Sir, under the existing law, there have been in Arkansas, within the last two years, three times as many cases of persecution for conscience’ sake’ as there have been in all the other States combined since the adoption of our national Constitution. Let me, sir, illustrate the operation of the present law by one or two examples. A Mr. Swearingen came from a Northern State and settled a farm in Benton county. His farm was four miles from town, and far away from any house of religious worship. He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and after having sacredly observed the Sabbath of his people (Saturday) by abstaining from all secular work, he and his son, a lad of seventeen, on the first day of the week went quietly about their usual avocations. They disturbed no one— interfered with the rights of no one. But they were 1 For a summary of many of these cases, see pages 654-730. Similar outrages have since been perpetrated in Tennessee and elsewhere.
The truth is that religious persecution goes hand in hand with religious legislation. During recent years, since the Sunday-law agitation has been revived, over one hundred conscientious Sabbatarians have been prosecuted in the United States, seventeen States being involved — Alabama, California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas. In the Nashville ” Daily American” of October to, 1886, we read: ” The readers of the ‘ American ‘ are aware that three of the members of the Seventh-day Adventists are lying in jail at Paris [Tennessee]. for carrying out the principles of their faith concerning the Sabbath of the decalogue.” Two of these Christians contracted a fever from the filthy, sickening cells, and on account of this they were released under promise of returning when they recovered. One of them, in order to have paid his fine and costs in jail, at the rate fixed by law, would have been confined two hundred eighty days, or over three fourths of a year; and all this simply because he acted contrary to the religious belief of some one else! In a Georgia jail a Sabbatarian contracted a fever front which he died.
PLEA t’Ok SABBATARIANS. ….
observed, and reported to the grand jury — indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, fined ; and having no money to pay the fine, these moral Christian citizens of Arkansas were dragged to the county jail and imprisoned like felons for twenty-five days — and for what? For daring in this so-called land of liberty, in the year of our Lord 1887, to worship God ! Was this the end of the story? Alas, no, sir ! They were turned out and the old man’s only horse, his sole reliance to make bread for his children, was levied on to pay the fine and costs, amounting to thirty-eight dollars. The horse sold at auction for twenty-seven dollars. A few days afterward the sheriff came again, and demanded thirty-six dollars, — eleven dollars balance due on fine and costs, and twenty-five dollars for board for himself and son while in jail. And when the poor old man– a Christian, mind you — told him with tears that he had no money, he promptly levied on his only cow, but was persuaded to accept bond, and the amount was paid by contributions from his friends of the same faith. Sir, my heart swells to bursting with indignation as I repeat to you the infamous story. 850 Adventists fined and – sent to jail. Christians imprisoned like felons. Old man’s horse sold. His only cow levied on. Helped by friends. On next Monday, at Malvern, six as honest, good, and virtuous citizens as live in Arkansas are to be tried as criminals for daring to worship. God in accordance with the dictates of their own consciences, for exercising a right which this government, under the Constitution, has no power to abridge. Sir, I plead, in the name of justice, in the name of our Plea for Sabbatarians republican institutions, in the name of these inoffensive, God-fearing, God-serving people, …….. and last, sir, in the name of Arkansas, I plead that this bill may pass, and this one foul blot be wiped from the escutcheon of our glorious commonwealth.”
From California’s Spiritual Frontiers. 4. Sacred Time and Holy Community. University of California Press.
“The debate raged throughout the 1870s. Meanwhile, secular forces were gaining ground, and petitions for repeal of the Sunday law came regularly before the legislature. In 1870 a mild law permitting theater performances on Sunday but prohibiting the sale of alcohol was passed. Anglo-Protestant churchmen became concerned about gradual erosion of the law through lack of enforcement. Apparently there was good reason to be concerned; at least in the larger cities, there was some popular demand for grocers to be open on
― 53 ―
Sunday. Saloon keepers and tobacconists often opposed the law. The Adventists joined the campaign for repeal on the ground of religious liberty; but just as their approach to the Bible, intended to establish their interpretation as absolute authority, had undermined all authority, so their attacks on the Sunday law, based on a fine principle, undermined the weight of custom and the social authority of the clergy.
By the early 1880s, the Occident was complaining loudly about the growing sentiment against the Sunday law. The popular California magazine, the Argonaut , had come out openly against Sunday observances, saying they were “unreasonable, unprofitable, and tedious.” The Atlantic , with its national readership, had claimed that popular sentiment demanded at least some recreation on Sunday.[17] In an effort to stem the tide, the San Francisco Ministerial Union and other religious bodies began to call for enforcement of the law by public officials. They seemed ready for a confrontation; perhaps the traditionalists felt stronger as a result of the Moody revivals of 1881. In any case, they were strong enough to get their way in the election year of 1882. As a result, over 1600 arrests were made between march and June of that year, mostly of Seventh-day Adventists and Jews, with some Chinese. Among the more notable figures arrested was the editor of the Pacific Press Publishing Association, the state’s largest publishing firm and the fount of all Seventh-day Adventist literature. Nearly all those arrested demanded a jury trial, thereby flooding the courts. Juries all over the state consistently refused to convict.[18]
Had the arrests focused on the saloonkeepers, public opinion might have been different. But the 1861 law was written so as not to discriminate among types of business that could be open, so that wholesale enforcement meant wholesale arrests. The Adventists in particular had finally forced the hand of their opponents, with the result that large numbers of upright, pros Sunday law persons, and otherwise law-abiding citizens were being jailed and tried for a serious crime. Popular furor over these developments influenced the political campaigns of 1882. The Democratic platform committee, headed by none other than David Terry, who had overturned the 1858 law, wrote a strong plank demanding repeal of the. The delegates to the convention hesitated to endorse it because they feared losing churchpeople’s votes. But Mr. Grady of Fresno, the District Attorney of Fresno County and himself a Southern Methodist, spoke
― 54 ―
up, saying that he had nearly ruined his own reputation and bankrupted the county by spending four or five thousand dollars trying violators of the Sunday law. In his county, known as one of the most religious areas of the state, he had been unable to get a single conviction. Grady’s conclusion was that even the religious people of his county did not want the Sunday law. After hearing his testimony, the Democrats adopted Terry’s platform.[19],
The Republicans were in trouble in 1882, although they had gained a majority of twenty thousand votes in the last election and generally had an edge on the Democrats in the state. Their party had become clearly associated with the railroad interests at a time when anti-monopoly sentiments were on the rise. Although they tried to salvage something by adopting a mild anti-monopoly plank (shocking the railroad moguls) and an anti-Chinese statement, the Democrats had taken much stronger stands on both those issues. Republicans decided to go for the church votes by supporting the existing Sunday law; but even on that they vacillated, saying they did not wish “to force any class of our citizens to spend that day in any manner.”[20] Their stand mattered little. The Democrats turned the tables, counting a majority of more than twenty thousand votes on their side. One of the first acts of the 1883 legislature was to repeal the Sunday law.[21]
Historians have generally not focused on the Sunday issue, treating the railroad monopoly and the anti-Chinese agitation as the crucial issues. The big-city papers would tend to support that interpretation. The San Francisco Examiner claimed that “the day of rest is no more an issue in this campaign than is the man in the moon,” while the Oakland Times said Sunday was merely a political football. But the Examiner also reported that newspapers in the inland cities were devoting whole columns to the Sunday question. The Los Angeles Times —then still a small-city paper in a heavily Protestant area—had declared that Sunday would be the issue of the campaign.[22] In cosmopolitan San Francisco, religion had already been squeezed off of center stage, but inland and in the newly emerging southern part of the state, it could not be so easily discounted.
This evidence suggests that the people of the inland cities and towns (we will examine the south later) were formulating new religious attitudes. It is no coincidence that Adventists had worked actively in small towns like Healdsburg, Napa, and Fresno, preaching their distinctive gospel and campaigning strongly for religious liberty.
― 55 ― They never became a large denomination: in 1873, after five years of work, they could claim only about three hundred Sabbath-keepers in the state; thirty-five years later they still had only about 6400 members in California.[23] But they had convinced people that their beliefs and way of life deserved respect and that the religious liberty clause of the Constitution should protect them from having to observe Sunday in any way. That is why juries would not convict Sabbath-breakers even in Fresno County, and why many traditional Republicans voted Democratic in 1882.
California never had a Sunday law again. The heavily urbanized states of New York and Massachusetts relaxed their statutes at roughly the same time (1883 and 1887 respectively), but California was the first state to repeal its Sunday regulations entirely. The 1882 election in California marked a permanent victory for openness and tolerance, many years ahead of the rest of the nation.[24] Yet something was lost in the process. Protestants were not simply trying to force dissident minorities to conform to their standards; they believed that preserving the Sabbath (Sunday) would promote social order,” ………….
What a shame the 7th. Day Sabbath Keepers of today do not give this counterfiet Sabbath “a run for it’s money” as they did back then! Uncledon.