THE SANCTITY OF THE SABBATH.
Putting the word Sunday in place of the Sabbath in the following article, as it is Sunday it speaks of, not the Sabbath, we learn how the Sunday movement is progressing. It is from The Christian Woman, of June, 1879: There seems to be a general uprising of the people in behalf of the Sabbath. Law and Order Leagues, Temperance Societies, and Ministerial Associations all seem to be putting forth efforts to secure the sanctity of the day and the enforcement of Sunday laws. At Pittsburgh, Pa., and Newark, N. J., the saloon-keepers, hoping to disgust the masses of people by a rigid enforcement of all Sunday laws when forced to close their saloons, helped on the good cause by forcing the cigar stores, and milkmen, and newsboys to stop their business. But the people were not disgusted. Even irreligious men and women enjoyed the quiet and holy calm of an orderly Sabbath, and openly expressed themselves as willing to forego their Sunday papers. In Reading, Pa., the mayor has taken the matter vigorously in hand, and is enforcing all Sunday laws with a vigor and determination that makes saloon-keepers and Sabbath-breakers hold their breath for very fear. In Boston, the ministers have taken the matter in hand, and called a convention to consider measures for the proper enforcement of the Sunday laws of Massachusetts. If ministers, and moral, law-abiding citizens, take the matter in hand, with the determination and courage the cause demands, the Sabbath laws will soon be respected and obeyed. For years, a few blatant, beer-drinking foreigners, sustained by the lowest and most disorderly and law-defying of our own citizens, have so terrorized over the better classes of our people that they have been timid in attempting to enforce the law; but now that they find that the masses are with them, we may hope for better times.