Untitled article by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 31, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 30

The Sunday Paper Again.

By Editor

PITTSFIELD, Massachusetts, is a city of fifteen or sixteen thousand inhabitants, and has of course several papers. One of these, the Call, is published on Sunday. We are not informed that its publishers make any profession of religion, but one of its editors is a church member. At a recent meeting of the official board of the church to which he belongs, it was voted that one of the brethren be requested to see the editor and expostulate with him in reference to his publishing the Call on Sunday, and to request him either to change the date of publication or withdraw from the church. To this the editor, made reply in the next issue of his paper as follows:—

The Call has been published in this city for the past eighteen months. The editors of the paper (not the publisher, for its editors have no ownership in the property, and are simply employes,) have tried to maintain the standard they first set up when a Sunday paper was thought of, and that was to publish a clean paper. . . . We make no boast, but we claim that no paper in Berkshire County makes a greater effort to keep its columns clean and pure than our own. Quack medicines of the “Penny-royal Pills” order, “Errors of Youth,” or quack doctors have no place in the Call. Many of the religious journals cannot say so much. Not because they are not offered us, but because we will not take them. We deal in no sensations and we print as much church news as any paper in Berkshire. The Call is printed late Saturday nights, and the work of its getting out is done largely on Saturday. The Monday paper which the good brother who brought up the resolution reads so gladly, is all made on Sunday. This same brother we refer to has no scruples about hitching up his horse of a Sunday afternoon and riding over the highways of Berkshire, and in which we are of the opinion that he does no harm; excepting as he draws the line of Sunday observance.

The date of publication of the Call will not be changed. We find that the good people of this city and county patronize us well; and we, on the other hand, attempt to give them a readable and clean journal for their education, and we hope, their profit.

We have the highest respect for religious things, and advocate good order, morals and all that makes men and a community better. The Call is willing to compare records with the over-zealous brother who wants to excommunicate one of the editors of this paper. Its sole harm lies in the fact that it is read on Sunday. The Call has no disposition to attack the church, and whether excommunicated or not, we shall hold in the highest love and heartfelt devotion the church to which we have always been proud to know we belonged, whether we have always walked in its ways faultlessly or not. We shall not withdraw. The board has the right to expel, and no one questions that, after a hearing and proper charges are preferred. . . .

The editors of the Call await the action of the board, as expressed in their resolution, with interest. The fight about Sunday papers may as well be met here as anywhere. As we said before, for the people of our faith, for the church of our choice, and for the esteemed pastor of that flock, we have now and always shall maintain the highest regard and affection.

We have italicized one sentence in this straightforward statement of the matter of difference between the editor and the church, because it gives in a few words the gist of the whole matter. The opposition to Sunday papers is not on account of the work done upon them on Sunday, but because they are read on Sunday, and the objection to this reading is, that it keeps people away from church. Of course the church has a right to overcome this difficulty if it can, by proper means, that is by church discipline and by moral suasion, but it has no right to ask the State to interfere and forbid the publication of Sunday papers.