The Arkansas advocate., 1830-04-28
VOL. I.--NO. 5.

'sSissS sa1es 0e'iS.a'J VI suC bist udy ol tue week.
 This being the fact, and the petition CTS having indignantly disclaimed even the wish to unite politics and religion. may not tic committee reasonably cher sh the hope, that they will feel recon eiied to itsdecision, in the case ;especiai- iy, as it's also fact, that the cogntern1e- morlals, equally respectable, oppose the interference of Congress, upon the ground that would be legislating upon areligious subject, and therefore nneon. stitutional.
 Resolved, That the committee be dis charged from the farther consideration of the subject.
 Mr. MsCreery from the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, submitted the following
 The minority of the committee, to whom
 were referred the memorials relative tss
 the transportation of the mail, and the
 delivering of letters, &c. on the Sabbath.
 beg leave to state the reasons of their
 dissent from the report made by the com
 mittee on that subject:
 
 All Cristian nations acknowledge the first day of the week to be the Sabbath. Almost every state in this Union have, by positive Legislation, not only reeog- nised this day as sacred, but has forbid den its proclamation under penalties im- posed by law
 1t was never considered by any of those states asan enerea hsa t :. upon CT. the rights of conscience, or as an improper interference with the opinions oI the few. to guard the sacredlAess of that portion of time acknowledged to behoIy by the many.
 The petitionersask not Congress stoex- pound the moral law; they ask not Con gress to meddle with theological contro- versies, much less to interfere with the rights of the Jew or the Sabbatarian. or to treat with the least disrespect the re- ligious feelings of any portion of the in- habitants oi the Union; they ask their troduetion of no religious coercion into our civil institutions ;no blending of re- ligion and civil affairs, but they do ask, that theagents ofGoyernment, employed in the Post Office Department, ma, be permitted to enjoy the same opportuni- ties of attending to moral aud religious instruction, or intellectual improvement, on that day, which is enjoyed by the rest oftheiF fellow citizens. Theyapproach the Government, not for personal cmol- ument, but as patriots and Christians,. to express their high sense of the moral en- ergy and necessity of the Sabbath. for tie perpetuity Of our republican institu- lions; and respectfully request that Con- gress will not by legislative enactments, impair those energies.
 Among the many reasons which might be advanced, that it is both expedient and duty to grant the prayer of the petitioners, the following arc onlyssub- mitted:
 The petitioners ask the enactment of no law establishing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath; they only ask the extension aid application, to one department of government, of a principle which is recognized, and has, since the foundation of our government, been acknowledged in every other de- partments The principle embraced in the petitions, has been recognised by Congress, by adjourniDg over the first day of the week. At the first session of the first Congress, a law was passed establishing Judicial Courts, and in that law Sunday is excepted from the days on which that court may commence it's sessions. All the other executive de- partments of government arc closed on that day. Congress has never, by this, considered itself as expounding the moral law, or asintroducing any religious coercion into our civil institutions. or making innovations on the religious rights of the citizens, or settling by le- gislation any theological question that may exist between Jews, sabbatarians, and other denominations. The good of society requires the strict observance of one day in seven. Paley, and other writers on moral philosophy, l have shown, that the resting of men every seventh day; their winding up l their labors and concerns once ifi seven days; their abstraction from the affairs of the world, to improve theirminds and converse with their Maker; their order y y attendance upon the ordinances of public worship and instruction, have a directand powerful tendency to improve the morals and temporal happiness of mankind.