WHAT THEY WANT TO SECURE.
By C. P. B
THE leaders in the Sunday-law movement have been engaged for some time past in explaining that what they want is not to enforce the religious observance of the first day, but simply to secure rest for working people. It is rather unfortunate for them, however, that their witnesses do not agree, and in their meetings the less discreet are continually giving expression to their true sentiments. This will be understood by a few points from the report of the meeting of the Kings County (New York) Sabbath Association, held May 19, 1889, published in the New York Mail and Express of May 24. After the devotional services, Mr. A. A. Bibbins, Esq., the president, delivered an address, reporting some of the practical workings of the society since its organization. The first important item noticed was the efforts of the society to secure the closing of candy stores on Sunday. Concerning this, the president said that the Legislature had so amended the penal code as to allow drug, cigar, and candy stores to do business on the Sunday. He continued: "It was thought in this association that it was very important that the law should be re-amended so that the candy stores might be closed, realizing that perhaps above all other ways in which the Sabbath might be violated that was the worst, for the reason that it teaches our children to grow up with the impression that candy selling is right on the Sabbath. Of course as they grow older it will be difficult for them to distinguish the reason why candy stores should be open and others should not." This shows conclusively that the motive of the Kings County Sabbath Association is not to secure a day of rest for the working people, but simply to secure the religious observance of Sunday, or perhaps more properly speaking, to secure the general observance of Sunday because they regard it as sacred. Another item noticed by the president was the delivery of ice-cream on Sunday after 10 o'clock A. M. He said that restricting the delivery to the morning hours was one of the matters which the society had had in hand for some time, and he believed that it is very important. Just why this is so important from a religious standpoint is not as easy to see as in the case of the candy stores. For it is difficult for the uninitiated to understand why the hours of Sunday from 10 o'clock forward are any more sacred than the early hours of the same day. However, the report by the secretary which followed that of the president will aid us somewhat in understanding just why this is. Said the secretary:— "The delivery of ice-cream after 10 o'clock Sunday morning has proven a great annoyance to many sections of the city, and has disturbed public worship in many of our churches." This of course requires some further explanation. How the delivery of ice-cream could disturb public worship in churches may not be readily understood, but the secretary also makes that clear. He says:— "We regret to state that many church people absolutely ignore their duty in these premises by requiring ice-cream to be delivered to them for their Sunday dinner." This explains it. The unavoidable conclusion is that the delivery of ice-cream disturbs public worship in the churches because church-members cannot be prevailed upon to live consistently with their profession! They profess to regard Sunday as a sacred day, and yet persist in buying ice-cream upon that day for their dinners. This is about parallel to the case of some of the Christians in the fourth century, when a law was demanded that public shows should be transferred from Sunday and fast days to some other days of the week, in order that the Sunday might be devoted with less interruption to the purpose of devotion, and, as stated by Neander (vol. 2, p. 301), that the "devotion of the faithful might be free from all disturbances." The matter of disturbance is also explained by the same writer in these words: "Owing to the prevailing passion at that time, especially of the large cities, to run after the various public shows, it so happened that when these spectacles fell on the same day which had been consecrated by the church as some religious festival, they proved a great hindrance to the devotion of Christians, though it must be allowed, to those whose Christianity was the least an affair of the heart and of the life." Why this was is also explained in these words: "Church teachers were often forced to complain that in such competitions the theater was vastly more frequented than the church." And it seems that in the case of the "Christians" in Brooklyn, Kings County, N. Y., the Sunday dish of ice-cream proves a greater attraction than the church services; hence the demand for a more rigid Sunday law. The secretary also reported that through the influence of the society, a bill had been introduced into the Legislature to close all barber shops on Sunday at 12 o'clock noon. This he seems to think would be a great victory, but why, we cannot imagine. So far as we are acquainted with barber shops, it is a rare thing to find one open after 12 o'clock on Sunday, even where there is no law requiring them to close. And here again the question arises, Why is it any worse to keep a barber shop open after 12 o'clock on Sunday than before that hour? Another point worthy of note in the secretary's report is the matter of closing art galleries on Sunday. It will be remembered that it is persistently urged by the friends of Sunday legislation, that Sunday laws are for the purpose of securing to the working people a day of rest. But in his report the worthy secretary of the Kings County Sabbath Association strongly deprecated the idea of opening art galleries on Sunday, and said:— "The patrons of art are the better educated and more cultivated of any community. Their tastes and aspirations are more refined. They take advantage of all reasonable opportunity to cultivate their tastes in this direction. It is this class of people who patronize art exhibitions. They attend them whenever and wherever they are held. They enjoy them at any and all times. Art exhibitions on Sunday simply prove an additional facility to enjoy this taste. Sunday exhibitions refine them no more. They would be no more gross without them. The people of depraved, gross appetites do not attend them. They absolutely fail in exerting a refining influence upon these classes in the community. They cannot therefore be indorsed on this account." The conclusion arrived at by the gentleman is, that art exhibitions should not be open on Sunday; which is only to say that "the people of depraved, gross appetites"—which is the description he gives of the working people—and those who are not able to attend such exhibitions on other days, shall not be privileged to attend them at all. Sunday is about the only day in the week upon which thousands of people can have an opportunity of going to such places, and it is far from being true that all these people are "depraved" and "gross." Many of them are quite as refined in their tastes as those who are more highly favored by fortune, and as far as physical rest is concerned, it would certainly do them quite as much good to attend an art exhibition occasionally as to spend Sunday in any other way; which only shows that it is the religious, and not simply a secular, observance of the day which is demanded by the Kings County Sabbath Association. The secret of the whole movement is that these people regard Sunday as a sacred day, and they are determined to compel others to at least act as though it were sacred whether they so regard it or not.