St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-04-25
ORIGIN OF SUNDAY LAWS,
How They Worked in Constantine's Time
When Idleness Was Compulsory.
AVENUES OF EVIL OPENED.
Elder Jones Condemns a Democratic
Sunday Legislation in His Course
of Lectures.

At the Seventh-day Adventist chapel,
corner of Lake street and Fourth ave-
nue., Elder A. T. Jones gave his third
lecture last evening on religious legis-
lation. He had announced the evening
before that he would show that the re-
suit of Sunday legislation IN the early
centuries of the Christian era had been
productive of evil only. Accordingly
he began with an examination of the
origin of Sunday laws, with the view
OF ascertaining what was then the basis
of such laws.
He first read a passage from Neander
to show that Constantine made laws en-
Joining rest from labor on Friday and
Sunday that the people might attend to
devotional exercises. Millman says
that the well-known Sunday laws of
Constantine were grounded upon the
plenary power of the supreme pOntiff
to appoint holy days. Stanley. in his
History of the Eastern Church." says
that Constantine favored both Chris
tianity and paganism, intermingling
the two religions. Thus up
on one side of his coins, he had symbols
OF Christianity, and on the other, rep
resentation of the sun. The famous
law of Constantine in 321 A. D., allowed
people in the country to work on Sun
day, and forbidding only the town peo-
pie from labor. A little later. however,
all were forbidden to work. Then, the
people being idle, began to attend
the theater and circus. So these insti-
tutions were abolished, and religious
ceremonies were introduced in their
place.
The speaker declared that when Sum
day laws are made in this or any other
country many avenues of evil will be
opened. Up to the present time there
has been little opposition to Sunday
observance and Sunday laws. but now
opposition to both is arising all over the
country. Before the senate committee
on the Sunday bill last winter. DR..
Lewis, representing the Seventh-day
BaptlstS, asked for an exemption clause
in favor of those who observe
the seventh day. But Prof. Jones
refuses. to support a Sunday law
because SalOonkeeperS and others who
wanted to carry on their work on Sun
day could pretend to observe the sew
enth day. This is one of the difficulties
the state would have to meet in attempt
ing to enforce Sunday laws. In Con-
Stantlne'S time the state compelled the
people to be idle; then when idleness
led them into wickedness the state I'M
dertook to force them to be devoted, and
thus arose the inquisition. Eusebius
was connected with the court
of Constantine: and the speaker
read from the twelfth chapter of his
history the statement that Constantine
was sort of second Moses, and that
miracles were wrought by him as great
those as in the time of Moses. Fuse
bus draws parallel between Moses
and Constantine, naming number of
SuppoSen points of similarity. BY such
means was false theocracy established
with Constantine at the head. To keep
up the idea that he sustained to the
Christian church a relation similar to
that which Moses sustained, Constan-
tine erected tabernacle, into which
he would go and pretend to have Wis
ions, rushing out from which under his
pretended inspiration he would give
orders to his army to attack their enc
mics, which they would do with great
slaughter. Thus the system with which
the origin of Sunday laws is connected
was mixture of Paganism and Chris
tianity, and that was the papacy. AS
Eusebius says, they transferred the
observances that belonged TO the
Sabbath to Sunday. Caesar represents
civil government. To God pertains re-
ligiOus government. SUNDAY came
from neither, but from that mixture of
heatheniSm and Christianity, the
papacy.
Tomorrow night the subject will be
Unconstitutional Law and the Sabbath"
showing what constitutional law will
require when Sunday laws shall be Sc
cured.