Yachting and the Fourth Commandment
By Editor
The Boston Recorder is grieved at what it is pleased to denominate the "open and audacious violation of the Sabbath" by the yachting clubs of that city. It says:— "Within its proper restrictions, and ordered by due care, yachting is a healthful and manly—and there is no reason why it should not be a Christian—pursuit. But if its fundamental principle is to be that the owning, or the right to use, a steaming or sailing craft, works dispensation from all obligation to the fourth commandment, it threatens in the end to prove an unmitigated curse not only to all immediately connected with it, but to that large part of society which is more remotely influenced by it." Our contemporary ought not to assume so much, and might as well stop to show what connection yachting on Sunday has with the fourth commandment. If we mistake not the fourth commandment makes no reference whatever to Sunday, but specifies another day, namely, the seventh day. It reads, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." We think the Recorder will find it a difficult task to show that yachting on Sunday is a violation of any divine law.