The International Sunday Rest Congress was held in the Hall of Congress, at the St. Louis World's Fair, Oct. 11-14, 1904. The first meeting was held in Festival Hall, Tuesday night, October 11. The leading address was delivered by S. J. Niccolls, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church of St. Louis, and was enthusiastically applauded.
The remaining meetings were held in the Hall of Congress. They were not largely attended, there being less than one hundred present at any meeting. Yet they were very representative. The program for the congress showed representatives who were to prepare papers from various parts of the United States, from Canada, Cuba, Porto Rico, Scotland, Ireland, England, Italy, Russia, Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, India, South America, Syria, Africa, and China.
Most of these papers were read, and they all bore the same testimony of petitioning state and national legislative bodies for the passage of Sunday rest laws, with more or less satisfactory results.
Besides these papers there were papers or addresses on The Sunday Telegraph and Telephone Service; Sunday Baseball; Sunday Theaters, Shows, and Fairs; The Sunday Newspaper; Sunday Traveling; Sunday Excursion by Boat and Rail; and Sunday Work in the Postal Service. There were also a number20of other papers bearing more or less directly upon the topic of Sunday Rest. One subject of special prominence was assigned Father Francis P. Cummins. It was “Catholics Should Work with Non-Catholics for Sunday Closing.”
The enthusiasm manifested in the convention I have not seen surpassed in any meetings which it has been my privilege to attend. The more emphatic and striking statements in favor of enforced Sunday rest were cheered most lustily. Resolutions were passed memorializing President Roosevelt in behalf of Sunday rest for the Post-office Department and other departments of the government.
The Sunday following Easter Sunday was especially set apart as a day to pray and speak in the interests of Sunday rest.
The following questions were handed to the secretary, with a request that they be read by the moderator, and answers solicited:—
“1. Did Jesus Christ ever ask the state to enact laws for the enforcement of Sabbath observance or any other religious doctrine?
“2. Was not the enforcement of Sunday laws, the first step taken by the papacy in religious legislation which ended in religious persecution and the martyrdom of the Dark Ages?”
“3. In our demand for Sunday laws are we not in danger of becoming responsible for a period of religious legislation that will fulfil Rev. 13:14 by making an image to the papacy?”
These questions were not read, and they may not have reached the moderator, as the moderator for that afternoon was a Catholic priest. They were passed on to the secretary of the Pennsylvania Sunday Rest Association, who, in response to them, introduced substantially the following resolution:—
“Whereas, Seventh-day Sabbatarians have in the past interfered with the passage of Sunday laws, we recommend that Sunday rest literature, and especially the work on the change of the Sabbath by S. W. Gamble, be freely circulated to meet their influence.”
It was developed during the discussion that the reason they especially recommended the work by Mr. Gamble was that they understood that no Sabbatarian had ever attempted to reply to it.
If our people would make the use of Elder A. T. Jones's reply to that work, which the times demand, those people would soon be undeceived as to that matter.
As an illustration of the zeal manifested by this congress in their work, I will cite the fact that during the convention of druggists held in connection with the World's Fair, they succeeded, through a committee sent to meet with them in securing the passage by that body of a resolution favoring Sunday rest. They succeeded in the same manner with the undertakers' association. Committees were also appointed to wait on other general organizations, soon to convene, to secure like recommendations from them.
These are only a few of the items of interest I noted in that gathering. The spirit of the movement can not be expressed in words so as to correctly convey its expression. It was confident and determined to a very unusual degree. Considerable discussion was caused by the frequent use of the expression “Lord's day,” instead of Sunday rest. It was finally decided that in order to capture the laboring men who cared not for the Sabbath, but desired a day of rest, they must make their demand for Sunday rest, and not for Lord's day observance. Great stress was laid upon their success in securing Sunday closing of the World's Fair.
It is very plain to the observer of the signs of the times that time is short. What is done in warning the world must be done quickly. What is not done now in times of peace must be done under adverse circumstances. It is time that literature containing the warning message be scattered like the leaves of autumn. Shall not every lover of truth awake to his opportunities, and go out quickly with the last call of the gospel, ere the day closes and the work is done?
How little do those who are so ardently working for Sunday legislation realize that the next step beyond their success in this unrighteous act is to place them, unsheltered, beneath the awful judgments of the wrath of God as manifested in the seven last plagues. What responsibility rests upon a people who know what is coming, to hasten with the light to a world in such danger!