THE CLOSING OF THE MIDWINTER FAIR ON SUNDAY.
By Editor
SOME time ago the Occident, the Presbyterian paper of the coast, gave up the closing of the Midwinter Exposition on Sunday as a lost cause. But the clergymen do not seem willing to let it rest there. They are repeating their efforts with more vigor than before. The Examiner of the 31st ultimo reports the result of ministers’ meetings and the opinions of several noted clergymen regarding the matter. The Congregational club, “after a thorough discussion of the question,” adopted the following resolution:— We, as ministers, vigorously protest against the opening of the Midwinter Fair on Sunday, and recommend the exhibits of Christian denominations and individual Christians be covered on that day. “The same protest,” says the Examiner, “was unanimously adopted by the Methodist ministers last week,” and “will be adopted by the Presbyterian Ministerial Union next Monday.” The Examiner gives the following utterances, ascribing them to the various clergymen whose names follow:— The Sabbath day should be kept in accordance with Christian principles. All the religion we have comes to us directly from God, and there is no use of trying to compromise with the Lord on the question of religion and pleasure. I think the Midwinter Fair and all other institutions should be closed on the Lord’s day. Every place should be closed that is not open for a religious purpose. I have great sympathy for the toilers who work from early Monday morning until late Saturday night, and have no time but on Sundays to visit the Fair, and can understand how a man can stretch his conscience and modify the point of duty, yet I think the ministers are right in protesting, if only for the sake of the reputation of our State, the only one in the Union that is without a Sunday law. It falls to us to do what we can to counteract the Eastern impression that we are a lawless people. Most of the revenue for carrying on the Fair will be derived from Eastern visitors, and when the description of the Kanaka race, as exhibited at the Fair yesterday, travels Eastward, I fear some who intended to come here will winter in Florida in preference.—Rev. C. O. Brown, D.D. (pastor First Congregational Church). But if our religion as regards the Sabbath day “comes to us directly from God, and we are to keep the Sabbath in accordance with Christian principles,” we will keep that day which the word of God declares to be “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God” (Ex. 20:10), the day which Christ kept, the seventh day, not the first. Is it not “in accordance with Christian principles” to follow Christ? Again, can it justly be said that Californians are a “lawless people,” when in doing business or seeking pleasure on Sunday they are transgressing neither civil nor divine law? The animus of the whole Sunday-law movement is shown in the expression:— Every place should be closed that is not open for a religious purpose. The Sunday-law movement means that the great Sunday-law churches consider that the day is theirs, that they are in the right, that their influence is more than all others, and that the day should therefore be used only in accordance with their dictation. But be not deceived. The Presbyterian or Methodist Sunday-law people do not, if “orthodox,” believe in Unitarianism, Theosophy, Esoteric Buddhism, Spiritualism, nor Roman Catholicism; and when the great art and mechanical exhibitions are closed, the theaters suppressed, the athletic sports on that day made criminal, then the next step will be to eliminate, by methods to which history is not a stranger, one religious body after another, till the one church shall stand supreme, monopolizing the only religion which by law will be allowed to exist, and tyrannizing over the people. For no one will contend for a moment that an orthodox Catholic believes that Protestantism preached and expounded as of old, will do less damage than an open Midwinter Fair on Sunday. No one will for a moment contend that an orthodox Methodist or Presbyterian believes that an open Midwinter Fair on Sunday is as subversive of truth as the free teaching to vast throngs of Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Unitarianism, etc. But in the closing of the Fair the Sunday-law men expect the coöperation of all professing Christians and social reformers; yet when this end is accomplished, they will never rest till one faction or other of them is supreme, and religion is the monopoly of the one and the tyranny of the many. This is the logic of the thing; it is not, however, based on the word of God nor on Christian principles. I fully indorse the protest, and think that it would be right for Christians to emphasize their disapproval of Sunday opening by covering their exhibits and remaining away from the Fair on that day.—Rev. W. C. Pond, D.D. (Congregational). It would be right for Christians to do so who did so voluntarily; but no man nor association of men has any right whatsoever in bringing to bear upon such men any other influences than Christian,—Christian persuasion and prayer to God. It would be the duty of every seventh-day observer who has an exhibit at the Fair to close that exhibit on the Sabbath of the Lord, but he has no right to seek to coerce or compel others so to do, nor can others compel him. I believe that it would be wise to close the gates on Sunday out of respect to the principles of church-going people. They include a large proportion of the useful and enterprising citizens of the State, and it is not prudent nor in good taste to antagonize their views or weaken their interest in the success of the Fair.—Rev. H. A. Wikoff (Congregational). Is it not well to modestly inquire what more right “the church-going people” have to demand, “out of respect” to themselves, the closing of the Fair than their opponents have to demand that the Fair be kept open, without protest from the church people, “out of respect” to the world; that is, putting it on the basis of mere respect, as Mr. Wikoff does? Those who desire the Fair open also “include a large proportion of the useful and enterprising citizens of the State.” Is not the same respect due as much to the one party’s convictions as the other’s? But Mr. Wikoff goes farther; he says that it is not only not good taste, but “it is not prudent” “to antagonize” the church-going people’s views. This covert threat of some future danger is similar to that of many others. It meant the boycott in Chicago. It meant in the Dark Ages the dungeon, the rack, the stake. It evidently will mean that here if they can be worked and are found necessary. I avow a strong opposition to a Sunday exhibition, and if Christian sentiment could have prevailed, the gates of the Midwinter Fair would not have been open yesterday.—Rev. John Kimball (Congregational editor of the ‘Pacific’). All of which is doubtless true, if we take the term “Christian sentiment” to mean the sentiment of the majority of professed “orthodox” “Protestants.” But the Roman Catholics are in favor of the opening, and they hold their sentiment to be Christian sentiment, and they have a large following in San Francisco. I think it is sad and deplorable to have the exhibition thrown open on Sunday. It is a blur upon the beauty which nature has lavished on this favored State. Chicago did not make anything on her Sunday exhibition days; they were the poorest paying ones of all. I trust the same experience will come to them here.—Rev. Dr. Porter. But Chicago’s poorest day was not a Sunday, but a Friday, May 5, when the attendance was but 10,791, about 2,000 less than the first Sunday in San Francisco. There was also a legal question involved at Chicago; there is none here. It was to be expected that the question of the Sunday opening of the Midwinter Fair would be raised here just as it was at Chicago. The principles involved here are the same as were offered there on both sides of the question, and involve, perhaps, a discussion of the nature and use of Sunday. Men of good sense will differ in regard to it, and I am always in favor of giving those persons who have conscientious and religious scruples the benefit of the doubt. I would not do anything to hurt the reverent regard and religious sensibilities of any human being; yet my opinion of this matter, according to its intrinsic merit, is in favor of opening the Fair on Sundays, provided that the attendants should be relieved227from their daily routine and have a day of rest. There is much dissipation on Sundays, but it will not probably be increased by the Fair, neither would there be any recreation there so violent and coarse as is frequently witnessed in places of Sunday resort. In all matters we must take society as it is and not as it ought to be, and it is no small gain if pleasant and refined recreation can be offered to those who choose it. The question whether or not it will be remunerative is a matter on which I have no opinion; only this much seems to me just and right, that if the Fair be opened on the grounds of the public welfare and as an honest desire to give those who wish an opportunity to go on Sunday, the management should stick to its bargain and keep the Fair open for the benefit of those who wish to visit it, even though it does not “pay.”—Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D.D. (Unitarian). I do not look upon the Sunday opening of the Fair as a desecration, and if it is properly conducted, as there is every evidence it will be, it is more likely to prove a blessing than a curse. It will be a liberal education for people to go quietly to the Fair on Sunday and be instructed by familiarity with fine art, the wonders of science, and the various products of the soil, and not be breaking the Lord’s day any more than going to the park or libraries. The people who will go to the Fair on Sundays would go some place for recreation, and there are worse and more immoral places in and around this city than the Midwinter Fair. If the people would do nothing worse than go to the Fair on Sunday, the Fair would prove a godsend and would make San Francisco the most moral city in America.—Rev. Father Montgomery (Roman Catholic). It is a very good move for the ministers to protest, but in my opinion they will gain nothing satisfactory. Protests have never yet amounted to anything, and are not likely to in this particular case. The Midwinter Fair is a purely business enterprise, and will continue to be conducted as such. California has no Sunday law and no Sunday sentiment, and a religious stand against such an enterprise as the Midwinter Fair will, I think, be productive of little good. California has always had the reputation of being irreligious, and the Sunday opening of the Fair will be but so much against her making any headway in gaining Christian reputation.—Rev. John Hemphill, D.D. (Presbyterian). The Bible is the professed standard of Protestant Christianity, and yet every one of the above must know that Sunday has no authority as a holy day, or as the Sabbath, in the Scriptures. They know that Christ did not observe the first day of the week. They are making special pleas in an unchristian way for an institution which every principle of true and original Protestantism condemns. Is it not time to return to God and his word?