"Our Sabbath" (Sunday).
By William Penniman
THE Banner of Holiness of July 19, 1884, comments upon an article in the Northwestern Christian Advocate as follows:— "Can you read the following terrible paragraph without a shudder? It comes from a man who trembles, but who is faithful in his resistance to the downward current: "There is a dark eclipse, not of the sun, but of Sunday. Cannot you read it in the signs of the times? One star of the flag has already lost its sacred light and passed under the coming shadow. California has blotted the Lord's day from her statute book. Our chief cities in the West have no Sabbath. The theaters in Chicago and Cincinnati are open on Sundays. The daily papers have no Sabbath. The railways have no Sabbath. The base-ball clubs have no Sabbath. The dime-at-the-gate Sunday excursion camp-meetings, have no Sabbath. Ten stores and groceries are open now for Sunday trade where one was open ten years ago. What will it be ten years from now? What class of people are most responsible for these things? How can a reaction be brought about? Such questions force themselves on every thoughtful mind. Meanwhile, the heavens are darkening and the earth growing ghastly and chilled with the coming eclipse." "Our Sabbath" is the caption of the article in the Banner. We earnestly wish that the Banner and the Advocate would call things by their right names, and that they were as much alarmed at the desecration of the genuine Sabbath as they are of the counterfeit—Sunday. They seem to think that it is a terrible thing that there is such an "eclipse of Sunday," and as this eclipse is ten times worse than it was ten years ago, what are they going to do about it to bring it into the light again? Let the Christian Evangelist of Aug. 21, 1884, answer:— "The increasing prevalence of Sunday labor is becoming a matter of alarm, not only to the friends of a religious Lord's day, but to the working classes who are robbed of this day of rest. The desecration of the day by foreigners, and its conversion into a day of amusement, revelry, and horse-racing, have so robbed it of its sacred character that the covetous are converting it into a day of labor. The saloons, breweries, distilleries, iron mills, and railroads habitually keep their employes in Sunday slavery. It is reported that the railroads alone condemn 800,000 employes to the loss of the day of rest. This is due in part to the greed of the railroad managers, who are ready to run Sunday trains whenever they can make it pay, due in part to the excuse that they cannot stop stock and perishable articles shipped on Saturday, over Sunday on the way, and also in part to the demand of the Government for Sunday trains to carry the mails. It is estimated that Sunday mails keep about one-third of the post-office employes engaged on the Lord's day. For all this the Government is directly responsible, and we are sure that the demoralization which is caused by its example is by no means counterbalanced by the benefits of Sunday mails to the country. The Sunday work forced upon the post-office officials is anything but welcome, and the railroad employes groan under this slavery. A short time since the locomotive engineers on the New York Central Railroad petitioned Mr. Vanderbilt for the suspension of Sunday trains, but were refused. There is no one thing in which the working men of the country ought to be more interested than in compelling by law a complete suspension of labor on the Lord's day." Here, then, we have the key which will unlock this dilemma, or take the eclipse off from Sunday, and that is the enactment of the Sunday law. WM. PENNIMAN.