LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS CONCERNING THE SABBATH.
To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.
It is some time since the Christian public has heard of any measure intended to be proposed to the Legislature in reference to the violation of the Sabbath, and it is time, as it appears to me, that those who have such a measure at heart should be awake, and setting about their great work in earnest. Whether the measure of which Sir Andrew Agnew gave notice in the last session, be the same as his last bill or not, is at present unknown; but I trust, if it be not the same, it will be founded on the same principle, and equally comprehensive in its provisions. It is true, that upon this subject, the opinions, even of good men, are much divided; and there are not a few individuals, of undoubted piety, who think that a legislative remedy should extend to a part only of the acknowledged mischiefs at first; whilst others prefer making the different provisions of the whole measure the subject of several bills, to be simultaneously brought forward.
The advocates of the former plan insist, that there is no chance of carrying the whole measure at once, while the attempt to do so is calculated to produce hostility; improvements in this, as well as in other matters, requiring to be gradual:—that the sense of the majority of the population is against the measure as a whole, to which popular sense, deference must be paid:—and, that Sir Andrew’s former bills were lost entirely from their being too sweeping and comprehensive.
To the first objection, which is nearly identical with the third, it may be answered: Supposing it to be true, that there is no chance of carrying the whole measure at once, this is no reason why the whole should not be proposed at once. If of the whole measure so proposed only a part should be carried, the carrying of that part would be a subject of thankfulness and rejoicing, just as much as if that part only had been proposed. Those members of the Legislature who would exhibit hostility to the bill to the extent of rejecting it altogether, would doubtless exhibit hostility to any portion of its provisions if brought forward as a distinct bill; because hostility to the whole of a measure acknowledged in some part to be good and necessary, must arise from an evil principle. There is much difference between hostility to the whole of the bill, and opposition to some, nay, even the majority, of its provisions. Those who would be hostile to the whole of the bill, must necessarily be so to any detached part; whereas many might oppose even the larger part of its provisions, who would approve the rest; and it is conceived such would vote for the bill going into Committee, where they might distinguish between the provisions they approved and those they condemned. That this would be the case appears from the experience of the last session, when members who were not prepared to support any clause of the bill, nevertheless voted for its second reading. It is true, that many who voted against it alleged its comprehensiveness as the ground of their opposition; but when actually limited measures were brought forward, they were either crushed at once by the very same persons, or first reduced to nothing—and, indeed made worse than nothing, by repealing the provisions of existing statutes for protection of the Sabbath, substituting nothing for them—and then ignominiously rejected. This answer may also be given to the allegation, that Sir Andrew’s bills were lost from their comprehensiveness.
As to the second allegation, that the sense of the majority of the population is against the measure brought forward by Sir Andrew’s Bill as a whole, it may be replied:
In the first place, that this is an assertion which is incapable of proof.
In the second place, it is not merely a numerical majority of the whole population of the country to which the advocates of the measure ought to defer; but it is to a majority of that class of persons who are well informed upon, and have wisely considered, the whole subject, in connexion with all its consequences and results.
In the third place, it is apprehended, that if the sense of the majority of such class were taken upon the several provisions of the bill, although it may be within the limits of possibility that the majority might be against the bill as a whole, yet there is scarcely a provision in it which the majority of such class would be found to reject; for in point of fact there is not one single clause in the bill which has not been the subject of petitions numerously signed in its favour.
But even attaching some degree of weight to the above objections, which are, I believe, the whole that have been brought forward by those whose opinions are worth regarding, it is to be considered, whether there may not be set against these objections considerations which will operate so as greatly to turn the scale in favour of bringing in the whole measure at once, such as the following:—