THIS DAY IN JOURNAL HISTORY July 10, 1934: ‘Observe Sunday’ slogan on stamp cancellations sparks protest
Seventh-day Adventists forwarded a letter to Canada’s postmaster general objecting to the “Observe Sunday” slogan on cancellation stamps.
“The observance of a day is purely a religious question and one which a person must determine as between himself or herself and the Maker, without any interference or pressure from civil government,” said the letter, written by M.N. Campbell, secretary of the religious liberty department of the Canadian Union of Seventh-day Adventists, after receiving many letters of protest from church members.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, which had several thousand adherents in Canada, is Christian, but observes Saturday, or the Jewish Sabbath, instead of Sunday.
“If a government may issue such counsel as ‘Observe Sunday’ on post office cancellation stamps, it may with equal consistency advise to ‘Attend Mass,’ ‘Be Baptized,’ or ‘Go To Confession,’ ” Campbell contended.
The dictum of Christ is that man should render to God the things that are God’s and onto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, he noted.
Campbell warned that certain associations were urging the government to promote religion. Such a principle was responsible for all religious persecution and resultant bloodshed in the past, he wrote.
Finally, the words “Observe Sunday” on cancellation stamps were a violation of the British principle of both civil and religious liberty, and the practice should be speedily terminated, Campbell said.
The Sabbath was first observed by the ancient Hebrews. In Hebrew, the word means “week,” but it is also explained as “rest from all labour.” The Sabbath was the last day of the Hebrew week and lasted from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.
The origin of the rest day or seventh day was to commemorate the completion of creation, the story said.
Legislation on behalf of the observance of Sunday appeared in the early days of the Roman Empire. In Britain, compulsory observance of the Lord’s Day dated back to King Canute in 1028.
The Adventists’ objection doesn’t seem to have swayed the postmaster general, since variations of the cancellation stamp “Observe Sunday,” continued to be used until at least 1965.