1867.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 857

the institution of that law, and they remain offences in spite
of the abrogation of that law by Jesus Christ.

To imply that when we ask to be released' from particular
sectarian modes of keeping Sunday we should be treated as
if we had asked the Legislature to license foul crimes against
the law of nature and the Gospel of Christ, is worthy of
bigots and persecutors in grain, but can hardly prevail with
fair-minded and reflecting men. We are urging no objec-
tion to the keeping of Sunday; though we regard this weekly
holiday as a Christian institution, resting on a Christian
basis, and quite independent of the Jewish Sabbath, with
which it is so commonly confounded. The Sabbath of the
Mosaic economy was Saturday, the seventh day; which the-
Jews still observe. It was a part of the same ceremonial law
which kept the seventh year and the jubilee of seventimes
seven According to the thirty-third chapter of Exodus
(13th, 16th, and 17th verses,) it was a special covenant be-
tween Jehovah and the children of Israel through their
generation. .

At any rate, it wag not regarded as binding among the
early Chriitians, though some of the Jewish converts contin-
ued to keep it for a time. The first day of the week, Sunday,
was celebrated by the primitive followers of Jesus Christ, as
the day of their Lord's resurrection, and by no means as a
continuation of the Sabbatical institution. In vain will one
search the recorded teachings of Christ for any command to
us to keep a Sabbath; and we respectfully ask our Legisla-
ture to remember the maxim that the State is not competent
in spirituals, and to do away with the audacious attempt to
add a sectarian supplement to the Gospel that has descended
from apostolic times. While men diner as to many particu-
lars of religious belief and practice, it is the promise of the
law to protect all, and to allow none to fetter others with
their special opinions.

We protest against having the notions of the Light Street
Meeting to bind us in law, as we should against an attempt
from the Cathedral congregation to impose the discipline of
the Council of Trent, or one on the part of the Courtland
Street Quakers, to require us all to repudiate what they con-
sider superstitions and evil compliances, and keep within the
bounds of their sober persuasion.

In 'our view of the Sunday question ire have the
vast majority of the Christian world, Protestant and Catho-
lic, on our side, and in the assertion of our rights as Christ-
ians, as citizens, and as men, we are sustained by the voice
of even a higher authority than the distinguished orator of
the Sabbatarian Committee, that, namely, of the great Apos-
tle Paul, who, in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Col-
lossians, sixteenth verse, says: "Let no man therefore judge
108