What Kind of a Sabbath Does He Want?
By B.
Sunday, June 24, the 1,280 letter carriers of this city and their families to the number of probably three thousand persons, attended a picnic at Santa Fe Park. That night Rev. Kittredge Wheeler at the Fourth Baptist Church, Monroe street and Ashland boulevard, scored severely all “who do not respect Sunday, but especially the thoughtless or selfish persons who make conditions so hard for toilers that no time for recreation and amusement is possible for their employees except the day set aside for rest and religion.” It will be news to many people that this describes the condition of the letter-carriers. As a class they have more time for recreation than almost anybody406else who has to labor for a living; and it is scarcely just to say that they are “compelled” to take recreation on Sunday or else not get it at all. But this we maintain, that they have a perfect right to take it then if they want to do so. And people who take their recreation on Sunday ought to be no more subject to attacks by the pulpit than those who take it upon some other day. Those who keep Sunday have no more right to abuse those who do not keep it, than those who do not keep it have to berate those who do. “Are we to have any Sabbath at all?” demands Mr. Wheeler. Well, that depends upon what he means by a Sabbath. If by that question he means are all to be required by law to keep Sunday whether they want to keep it or not, we sincerely hope that we are to have no Sabbath. But if he means, are such as wish a Sabbath to have it? we reply, Certainly. Nothing on earth can keep any man who wants a Sabbath from having it. The Lord made not only a Sabbath, but “the Sabbath for man,” and nobody can take it away from those who will keep it. The only trouble with Mr. Wheeler is that his is a man-made Sabbath; and what man has made he can unmake. Hence, while the Lord’s Sabbath is secure to all who will keep it, the Sunday bewailed by Mr. Wheeler, is dependent upon the will and acts of men. B.