CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS AND SUNDAY SALOONS.
By Editor
WE learn by the Examiner of September 22 that the "Christian Endeavorers" of Alameda County propose to make the Sunday saloons an issue, and thereby show their strength in the political field. Dr. Robert Coyle, of the First Presbyterian Church of this city, in his address before the quarterly convention, held in the First Methodist Church, September 21, after stating that nothing could be expected from manipulators of politics, said (we quote from the Examiner):— "But we don't propose to allow this Moloch [the Sunday saloon] to feast unchecked upon the flower of our land. The Christian Endeavorers say that the open Sunday saloon must go. "We propose to compel the caucus and the conventions to respect us. We propose to compel the saloons—although they may not respect our principles—to at least fear our power. The first decade of the Christian Endeavor Societies' existence meant organization. The second and third will mean a battle for the church and Christ, for God and humanity. "The young people are in earnest, and their tramp, tramp, tramp, which is heard in the East and West and North and South, means annihilation of the open saloon. The hour is coming when the saloon keepers will have to change the key of their tunes. There is enthusiasm, plan, purpose, in this movement to close the Sunday saloons. "We are going to gather it up into one mighty volume and then we will see who laughs." Now we do not question the motives of Dr. Coyle or the Y. P. S. C. E., in this matter of the Sunday saloon, but the methods which they are using, or propose to use, the influences which they propose to bring to bear upon the saloon men, are certainly not Christian, although there may be large endeavor behind them. It may be well to note some of these briefly. 1. The whole question is a politico-religious one. It is the Sunday saloon that is the great Moloch. Says Dr. Coyle:— "We oppose the open Sunday saloon because it is the great citadel of the liquor traffic. Close it and the Gibraltar is won. We oppose it because it draws into its coffers the earnings of the working-men. Close the Sunday saloons and laboring men will have more to contribute to their families. It saps their intellect and undermines their manhood, destroys the workman's tenderness for his family, destroys his health and energy, and leaves him a wreck upon the wayside of life, to die in poverty and disgrace. The Sunday saloon is filled with the men from shop and factory who spend the money there that is due to the butcher, the grocer, and to the dry goods merchant. "It opens temptations to the young, who are drawn into the Sunday saloon most frequently for the first time; and the saloon, like death, loves a shining mark. "We oppose the Sunday saloon because its existence is a discrimination in favor of business that is confessedly bad. If banks and hardware stores and all other necessary shops should open for trade on Sunday, it would cause overwhelming opposition. Why then tolerate an open Sunday saloon? Why should a business that is deadly be more highly favored?" According to the above, if language means anything, the saloon is wicked only on Sunday. In other words, the Monday to the Saturday saloon is tolerable, but the Sunday saloon takes all the workman's money, robs his family, saps his intellect, destroys love for wife and children, and ruins him generally, and all because the rum is sold on Sunday. But is this true? Is not a glass of whisky as full of evil if imbibed on Monday as on Sunday? Who cannot see that the whole thing is a plea, not against the saloon, but for the Sunday. The fact that the Sunday saloon is made the object of attack is saying in so many words that the rest-of-the-week saloon has a right to existence, and that it is proper enough in its way. It is not the deed, but the day on which the deed is done, which constitutes it criminal. 2. If the Monday saloon has a right to exist, so has the Sunday saloon. The dry goods store, or the grocery, or any other business right, on six days of the week is just as proper on Sunday, so long as those who engage in it do not interfere with the equal rights of others. Dr. Coyle has as much right to preach on Monday or Tuesday as he has on Sunday, and no man has the right to interfere with him. The whole Sunday-closing business is not in the interest of temperance, but of Sunday. It is ever the Sunday saloon, the Sunday itself, of which the Sunday-closing law is the entering wedge of still further and more restrictive legislation. 3. The methods of the Y. P. S. C. E. are unchristian. Says Dr. Coyle, speaking for the Endeavorers, "The open Sunday saloon must go." "We propose to compel the caucus and conventions to respect us." And to show that this respect is not compelled by a Christian life and godly example, he continues, "We propose to compel the saloons—although they may not respect our principles—to at least fear our power." Jesus Christ said to his disciples: "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion [lordship] over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you" (Matt. 20: 25, 26); and then he tells them that those who are greatest are those who serve in humility. Again he says: "If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world. . . . The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12: 47, 48. Says the apostle Paul: "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord [which awaits the ungodly in the day of judgment], we persuade [not compel] men." 2 Cor. 5: 11. The power of the gospel never rests in carnal means, and for its followers to turn to these, while professing to do Christian work, is a denial of Christ. We do not believe in saloons. We would that they were closed every day; but we do not propose to be deceived, nor do we wish others to be, by a so-called temperance measure which is nothing less than religious legislation. In just this way—as "beneficent" measures—began the union of Church and State that slaughtered thousands of "the whitest of the saints of God."