p. 384, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · December 8, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 48

It is stated that the ministers of Port Jervis, this State, irrespective of creed, have combined with the undertakers and signed an agreement to discontinue the holding of Sunday funerals hereafter. They say that they shall decline to attend any such services except in cases of absolute necessity. The agreement is signed by ten ministers, Protestant and Catholic, and two undertaking firms, and was read yesterday from the various pulpits. Sunday funerals had become so prevalent that the clergy resolved to break up the custom, and thereby lessen their labors on that day. This shows the amount of regard the ministers have for “the poor working-man,” for by this action many wage-workers will be compelled to take choice between a day’s wages and the privilege of paying the last sad tribute of respect to departed friends, and when burying their dead, many sorrowing families will be denied the satisfaction of the presence and manifest sympathy of a large number of neighbors and friends. Many of the ministers are becoming as lazy, wicked and heartless, as were the popish priests just before the Reformation.