Manuscripts and Memories of Minneapolis

SENATOR BLAIR’S TESTIMONY ON THE CHARACTER OF HIS SUNDAY BILL

A telegraph operator in Indiana writes to an exoperator now employed in this Office, as follows:- MMM 412.46

I had the pleasure of meeting U. S Senator Blair, who is trying to get the Sunday bill through Congress. He was in our city to deliver a political addres. “I hoped for a chance to speak with him in regard to his Sunday bill, and had the opportunity, as be came to my office to take the morning train. While waiting for it. I engaged him in conversation. Then, referring to the bill, I (?) as to what effect it would have upon those who observed the seventh day, in case his bill should become a law. He replied that they would not be prohibited from keeping the seventh day, and would not be compelled to keep the first day, Sunday. I asked him bow it would be about such persons’ working on the first day. He said that the law would not admit of any work, except where really necessary. MMM 412.47

To my question as to the origin of Sunday observance and the first Sunday law, he said that Constantine made an edict in a. d. 321 to that effect, and that this edict became a law throughout the whole Roman empire in 325. He was also acquainted with the fact that Constantine was a heathen at the time his edict was proclaimed, I said to him, “Mr. Blair, it seems strange to me that so enlightened a nation as ours should bow down as it does to a heathen institution.” He said, in reply, that he would not attempt to argue that point, “for, according is the Daily your people are right about the seventh-day Sabbath, but the majority cry for Sunday, and know no better than that it is a divine institution.” He said he did not belong to any church. Just then the train whistled. He gave me his address, saying I could send him any reading-matter I liked, and that he would be glad to get it We parted with a friendly shake of the hand, he remarking that we could not flash the argument then. Surely, the people ought to know that political preference is prompting men to speak and write in MMM 412.48