The Liberator

REFORMATORY.
ANTI-SABBATH CONVENTION.
Horsham, Montgomery Co., Penn.,
February 23, 1848.

Mr. Garrison:

I have read the Call for an Anti-Sabbath Convention with much pleasure, and have no doubt that the minds of the well-informed and good-meaning people are generally prepared for such a Call, and will receive it with satisfaction and delight. My circumstances will not permit me to attend, but I wish to encourage others who can. Sectarian or church tyranny, and slavery, are the two greatest evils our country is cursed with. The Sabbatarians will preach for money on their Sabbath day with impunity; but if their neighbors work for money on that day, they will exclaim against them as Sabbath-breakers, and wish to have them fined and punished for it, as if they thought it was breaking the Sabbath more to work for money than to preach for it. They twist the Sabbath round just to suit themselves. They are cunning enough to know, that if all people were prohibited from any kind of business on the first day of the week, except going to church, more of them would be there to pay ministers for preaching. They idolize their Sabbath days, and call them holy, and worship them as the Israelites did the golden calf which Aaron, their priest, set up for them.

St. Paul was the most learned of the apostles, and as capable of explaining the true doctrine and design of Christianity as any other man. He says, 'One man esteemeth one day above another, another man esteemeth every day alike; therefore, let every one be fully persuaded in his own opinion.' According to that definition, it rests entirely on opinion among Christians, whether one day in a week should be kept as a Sabbath, or every day be kept alike; and any law that infringes on the liberty of conscience, so far as to enforce the observance of one day in a week to be kept more sacred than the rest, by fine or penalties of any kind, is anti-christian and tyrannical, and ought to be condemned by every professor of Christianity.

The Sabbath day penalty gives an opportunity to unprincipled, idle gamblers to go about as spies, and inform of people they see at their own proper business, which does no injury to any one; and by that means, fine and distress the best and most useful people in the country. To deprive honest men of the liberty of conscience is what priestcraft has always been aiming at; and wherever it obtains unchecked power, it always drives men to the inquisition or the stake.

The Sabbath penalty is inconsistent with the fundamental principle of Christianity, which says, 'As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' The Sabbatarians have a majority on their side, but that gives them no right to treat the minority with injustice; the minority has an equal right to justice with the majority. Those who think that all days should be esteemed alike, may in a short time become the majority, and then if they were to pass an act or law against the Sabbatarians for esteeming one day above another, there would be a high charge against the anti-Sabbath men of illiberality, &c. Those who are not willing to let their neighbors enjoy the liberty of conscience deserve not to enjoy it themselves. The Sabbath day penalty bears harder on farmers than on mechanics, or people who live in cities, because there is business belonging to farming which should be done on every day.

When Jesus was presented by the ruler of the synagogue as a Sabbath-breaker, for healing the blind on that day, his answer was, 'Thou hypocrite! doth not each one of you loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?' It is just so at the present day. The rulers of the church will persecute people whom they see employed about their own business on the first day of the week, for Sabbath-breakers; when, at the same time, they have people employed to cook for them, and to curry and harness horses for them, to ride on the Sabbath day; but that alters the case, so widely that nothing must be said about it. The truth of the matter is, we shall never enjoy permanent peace at home or abroad till justice is established throughout the whole human family, and then there will be nothing to quarrel about.

DAVID LLOYD.