p. 87, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · March 17, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 11

The real meaning of the general alliance to close the World's Fair on Sunday is understood by some, as is shown by this note from the Eye, Snohomish, Wash. :—

It is seldom that the so-called representatives of God and the devil shake hands over the smoking chasm, so to speak, and co-operate in the interests of a few selfish bigots who want special legislation from Congress to drive “trade” to their doors; but such a picture is presented in Chicago, where the saloon keepers and the breweries, under instruction from their associations, are co-operating with the different church denominations in an attempt to have the World's Fair closed on Sunday. “It is calculated that from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand people will visit the exhibition on Sundays, and that would take away the saloon patronage on that day,” is the reason given by liquor manufacturing and selling organizations for their action. With the saloons, as it seems to be with the churches, the closing of the Fair on Sunday is a strictly business proposition; in each case it will drive patronage to their doors because there would be no other resorts open. If the church organizations desire to work in the real interests of morality, let them concentrate their efforts in securing the closing of the Chicago saloons on Sunday and stop their opposition to the opening of the Fair on that day!

This is twitting on facts, but the last sentence embodies an error. To attempt to close the saloons on Sunday, or any one day, and thus legalize them for the remainder of the week, is not working in the real interests of morality. The church which concentrates its efforts on the closing of saloons, and the stoppage of the liquor traffic on Sunday is striving to serve both God and Bacchus. God will not have his Church serve him but one seventh of the time. The principles of righteousness are the same for all days of the week so far as concerns the questions of temperate living.