The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1911-07-24
SUNDAY LAWS SCORED
s. s. Savage's Opinion On the Rights of
All Affected by the Sabbath
(Polk County Record)

1t is with genuine regret that We
noticed last week the passage of the
ordinance dealing with this subject.
engender bitterness and antagonism
among our people and will result,
mot only in being barren of any good
results, but will work positive harm.
The day when any set of men could
constitute themselves the conscience
keepers of their neighbOrs was
thought to have passed away long
ago. While it prevailed in Europe
many people were killed under the
sanction of the church because their
opinions did not coincide with the
accepted doctrines of the dominant
religion.
The wars of the reign of Louis the
XIV. of France, which covered a
period of nearly sixty years, was to
coerce mems religious beliefs.
The st. Bartholomew Massacre was
the expression of this feeling of re-
ligious intolerance
America was indebted to this in.
tolerance for her splendid Huguenot
pioneers, for the great Scotch-Irish
settlements in the Carolinas, for the
Quaker settlements of the Pilgrims at
Plymouth Rock. They were driven
hither in order that they could en-
joy liberty of conscience even if they
had to face an unbroken wilderness
and hostile savages.
Now let us examine a little into the
religious authority for this move
ment: because, whether the churches
in Barlow be responsible for it or not,
it is going to be attributed to them,
and they are going to be the princi-
pal sufferers from this ordinance.
In the ten commandments that
were given for the government of the
Jews there was one which was as
follows:
Remember the Sabbath day, to
| keep it Holy iSx days shalt thou
labor and do all thy work: But on
| the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not
! do any work, thou. nor thy cattle, nOl
| thy stranger that is within thy gates
For in six days the Lord made
| heaven and earth, the sea, and al
| that in them is, and rested on the
| seventh day: wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed
| it,
| Genesis 2-3 says: And God bless
ed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
because that in it He had rested from
all His work which God created and
made"
Here we find the origin of the Sab
bath. and we find that it was hallowed
because God rested on that day.
This commandment was one of ter
given to the Jews for their govern
ment They were fixed and absolute
in their character, and We're not
amenable to construction by any
supreme court to write reasonable
or unreasonable" into them, butwho
ever broke the least of them hat
in the eyes of the law broken all ol
them.
The Jews made a pretense of obey
ing this law. but to the time of Christ
it is not believed one human beins
had ever kept it. and even His decip
| les broke it in His presence: HI
even defended them against their &C
cusers for so doing, saying that the
Sabbath was made for man. not mar
for the Sabbath.
Perhaps a great majority of Christ
ians believe that the Mosaic law was
repealed when Christ set up his King
dom The great underlying spirit O
l.truth and justice embodied in it were
appropriated by Christ and permeatee
every part of the doctrine that ha:
governed the civilized world since He
came He, however, struck from th<
limbs of men the shackles that chain
ed them to the performance of empt,
ceremonials. whose object was to ap
pease an angry God, and set up fol
His followers a standard of excellence
measured by the love of. and service
to their fellow-men. Both He and Hi:
tApostles were singularly silent on the
subject of observing the seventh day
of the week, or the first day, either
for that matter.
Our city council will. therefore
have to fall back for their authority
to the ten commandments, and w
areD interested in knowing how ia
they propose enforcing them. If the,
are now in force as the Divine Law