The [Sunday] Sabbath

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 4, 1867

The [Sunday] Sabbath.

EFFORTS TO PROMOTE ITS OBSERVANCE IN NEW YORK—GREAT SUCCESS—ITS DESECRATION IN CHICAGO.

The New York Sabbath Committee held their tenth anniversary on April 28th. Norman White, Esq., chairman of the committee from its organization in 1857, made the first address. He stated that in 1857, owing to the then existing flagrant abuses of the Sabbath, a committee of twenty laymen formed themselves into an organization for the purpose of abating the evils. A canvass of the city showed that there were 10,000 places of business open regularly on the Sabbath, besides numerous theatres and dance-houses; that frequent parades and processions took place on that day, and that some 500 newsboys were crying the Sunday and daily newspapers through the streets of the city. These open and shameless violations of the Lord’s Day were the first to engage their attention; and by the efforts of the committee, with the co-operation of the clergy, the Metropolitan Police Department and the public press, they had been successful in putting all of them down, and have continued to succeed up to the present time. The chief results of their labors have been the suppression of the crying of newspapers in the public streets; of the Sunday pageant of the fire department at the funeral of Senator Broderick; the effectual remonstrance against Sunday desecration in the Central Park; the abolition of the Sunday theatres by the Sunday Theatre act of 1860; the protection of the Sabbath interest in the army and navy during the war, culminating in the issue of the Sabbath order by President Lincoln in 1862; suppression of Sunday parades in honor of returning volunteers in June, 1866; the National Sabbath Convention at Saratoga, in August, 1866; the delivery of over 100 sermons in the churches of New York and surrounding cities in 1864–1866; seven German mass meetings held from 1859 to 1867, for the better observance of the Sabbath; and last, though not least, the suppression of the Sunday liquor and beer traffic by the Metropolitan Excise law of 1866. Besides this over 2,500,000 pages of printed matter in relation to the proper observance of the Lord’s Day have been issued by the committee, and all these things have been done without a single public appeal for pecuniary aid.

Rev. Dr. Schaff, Secretary of the committee, gave an interesting account of the Anglo-German Sabbath meeting in Mr. Beecher’s church, from which he had just returned, and read a statement showing that the number of arrests by the police for drunkenness and disorderly conduct on the Sabbath have decreased one-half since the passage and enforcement of the Excise law as compared with former periods.

Rev. Dr. Patterson, of Chicago, also addressed the meeting, eulogizing the high state of order observed in New York on the Sabbath, and deploring its desecration in the metropolis of the West, which he said is not what New York was 20 years ago. Chicago has at present 1,723 licensed and 400 unlicensed liquor shops and beer gardens. At the inauguration of one of the latter places some time since 743 barrels of lager beer were consumed, and 36 assaults with deadly weapons and two murders were the results of the day’s enjoyment at that one place,—N. Y. Evangelist.

Romish Persecutions in the United States.—We had occasion recently to notice the attack made upon Dr. Mattison’s church in New Jersey, by the Roman Catholics; we find that in Quincy, Ill., there has been a still worse manifestation of the persecuting and intolerant spirit of this enemy of Christ and freedom:

“The Rev. J. C. White undertook to lecture on Romanism in Quincy, Ill., on Wednesday night; but the hall was taken possession of by the Catholics, and, upon attempting to speak, he was hustled out of the hall and barely escaped lynching. At least two thousand persons were present, inside and outside of the building, armed with clubs, stones and other missiles. An appeal was made to the Mayor, but he answered that the people had rights as well as the speaker.”—N. Y. Times.

In reference to this the New York Tribune says:

If any Catholics wish to make themselves and their church thoroughly detested by the great body of our people—to close the ears and steel the hearts of all non-Catholics against the Roman creed and polity—they may do it effectually by imitating the criminal madness of the two thousand at Quincy, whose conduct was even more impolitic than illiberal.”

If we are not to be allowed to speak our sentiments in our own churches and halls, without running the risk of a mob, then it is time to rouse ourselves out of that insane indifference to growing evils which seems to characterize us just now. These are only the big drops that precede the storm. Here is another case, which we abridge from the Watchman and Reflector:

“Rev. C. Chiniquy, the French Canadian priest of Illinois, who embraced the Protestant faith a few years ago, with his people, and who has continued ever since to hold religious service in the same church where he used to say mass, is the object just now of various annoyances and persecutions on the part of the Romish bishop of Chicago. The latter has sued him to recover the church property now held by Mr. Chiniquy, and had him even arrested a few days ago. Mr. C. has written to his Presbyterian brethren to ask an interest in their prayers.”—Zion’s Herald.