THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER by C. P. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 18.

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.

By C. P. B.

Speaking of the London Sunday edition of the New York Herald, the Christian Union says:—

“The incident gives occasion for restatement of the objection to the Sunday newspaper. This is not that it entails Sabbath work, for it does not entail as much Sabbath work as the Monday newspaper; nor is it because it sets the newsboys at selling papers, for Sunday labor is no more demoralizing than Sunday loafing, and the newsboys do not attend worshiping assemblies on Sabbath morning in any very great numbers; nor is it because worshipers sometimes stay at home from church to read their Sunday paper, for it will do the ministry no harm to be subjected to a little healthful competition, and the church which depends for its congregation on the fact that they have nothing else to do than to come to church would better stir about and get some other and better dependence. The objection is that the daily paper intrudes into the Sabbath rest the toil and burden of the weekly life, and so despoils the Sabbath of its mental and spiritual restfulness. This is not, in our judgment, an evil which calls for legislative interference. So long as the law prevents that public hawking of the newspapers in the streets which interferes with the restfulness of those who do not wish to read the Sunday newspapers, they have no political right to ask for more.”

Of course by Sabbath the Christian Union means Sunday, and it is pretty generally known that that day has no title whatever to the name. But aside from that fact there are several points in the extract worthy of note. It will be observed that the argument that the Sunday paper deprives the printers of Sunday rest is abandoned, as is likewise the argument that it deprives the newsboys of “their Sabbath.” And not only so, but it is admitted that “Sunday labor is no more demoralizing than Sunday loafing,” and this is certainly stating the case mildly, for loafing is utterly demoralizing, and people who are idle one day each week from no higher motive than simply because others are, would better be at work. And just here is one important reason why the observance of any day ought to be left to the consciences of the people, for to compel those who have no conscience in the matter to be idle one day each week is to compel them to loaf, and “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.”

The demand for Sunday laws springs really from the disposition so common among men to compel others to conform to their ideas. Men are naturally intolerant, and intolerance is diametrically opposed

to the spirit of true Christianity. Certain it is that all the legislative interference which anybody ought to demand in religious matters is that the law shall guarantee to all, even as it now does in all the States, the right to worship God according to the dictates of their several consciences. Possibly the hawking of Sunday papers on the streets may be a nuisance in some quarters, but if it is so simply because it cuts across the religious convictions of some, it is not a proper subject for legislation. C. P. B.