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Rev. Mr. Hatch and the Sunday Laws

About This Item

  • Title: Rev. Mr. Hatch and the Sunday Laws
  • Date: 8 August 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01467
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 8 August 1859: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Samantha Gilmore Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Rev. Mr. Hatch and the Sunday Laws." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01467.xml (TEI)
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Rev. Mr. Hatch and the Sunday Laws

MR. HATCH AND THE SUNDAY LAWS—The Rev. J. L. Hatch does not take his ejection from Dr. Cheever's church very patiently.1 He writes letters every day or two to the morning papers, explaining his position and advocating his tenets. Yesterday he filled half a column of the Herald with citations from the early Fathers, proving, what nobody of common sense doubts, that the Christian Sunday was not identical with the Jewish Sabbath. To-day he writes to the Tribune, stating that his views "are precisely the same that they were two years ago, when, in connection with the controversy concerning the running of Sunday cars in Brooklyn, they were publicly uttered, and fully reported in all the New York papers.2 And yet, since such utterance and publication of these views—for which I am now expelled—I received a letter from this same "Church of the Puritans," commending me as a member in good standing to the "Plymouth Church," in Brooklyn. If these views were not heretical in '57, they are not in '59."

Notes:

1. Junius Loring Hatch (1825-1903) was a Congregationalist clergyman in Brooklyn. Hatch was a vocal opponent of the Sunday Laws and was later expelled from the church for his stance. Following his expulsion in New York, he spent some time in New England, in Boston and New Hampshire, before relocating to California in the 1870s.  [back]

2. "Observances of the Sabbath" appeared on page eight of the New York Herald for August 7, 1859. In the Tribune, for August 8, 1859, on page two, Hatch’s letter is published in full as "The Rev. J. L. Hatch and the Church of the Puritans." [back]

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