The Michigan State Christian Convention on the Sabbath Question.
A CORRESPONDENT has sent us the full published proceedings of the State Christian Convention of Michigan, held last January. Its tone upon the Sabbath question can be seen from the following extracts: Pres. Mahan said: The Sabbath was made not for Baptists or Presbyterians, but for man. It was the common property of all. Mr. Fisk said: The persons who attacked the Christian Sabbath were nearly the same persons who favored the expulsion of the Bible from our schools. The Sabbath was necessary to the human family, both in a physical and moral sense. No nation had ever existed permanently which did not have its foundation on a religious idea. The cry for changing the Christian Sabbath into a holiday was put afloat by the foreign born population and those of foreign parentage. It was not raised by the native population. If this land was to be preserved we must preserve the Christian Sabbath. This country belonged to the Sabbath-loving class. It was founded by reverers of the Sabbath. It was our duty to go for the protection of the Sabbath by legal measures. If our Sabbath was destroyed as a sacred day, the speaker believed that the nation would be destroyed. He would rather the idea of a Christian Sabbath should be destroyed entirely, that it should cease to be a day of rest, rather than it should be changed into a holiday. Government had a right, it was its duty to throw its legal protection around the Christian Sabbath; for the morality of the nation was its life. Rev. Mr. Williams, of Somerset, said the question was whether we should Americanize the foreigners who come to our shores, or whether they should foreignize us. It was a question whether we should be allowed to keep our Sabbath at all. The foreign idea of freedom was license, the American idea was freedom to do right. We must uphold the sacredness of the Sabbath. The kingdom of Heaven or the kingdom of hell must go down. Inseparably connected with the Sabbath question was the very existence of our country. Rev. Mr. Bangs, of Ionia, was impressed with the idea that there was a God in this question. When the nation legally sanctioned an evil, God would punish us as a nation. Should we, as a nation, legalize the desecration of the Sabbath? This was the question; for the advocates of Sabbath license asked to be legally protected in their Sabbath breaking. Mrs. Comstock opposed the practice of Sabbath visiting. If it was not right for men and horses to work on the Sabbath, it was wrong for women to be compelled to do the work incident to entertaining company. The lady thought the Jews would not respect the Sabbath unless compelled to do so by legal enactment. Rev. Mr. Carman, Hudson, opposed Sabbath funerals as a desecration of the day. Rev. Dr. McCarthy said the convention could not resolve the people into observing the Sabbath. About one eighth only of the people of Detroit attended any church. It was the duty of Christians to attend to the strict observance of the Sabbath in their own families. Rev. Mr. Donnelly, of Port Sanilac, thought Christian example should be so set as to attract unbelievers to the observance of the Sabbath. So long as Christian people would make the Sabbath a day of labor, or pleasure seeking, and visiting, it was useless to agitate for the better observance of the Sabbath by others. If foreigners came to our shores they should be taught to observe our Sabbath.