SUNDAY DESECRATION—THE REASON.
AMONG the contributions in the Topeka Capital of March 14 (Sheldon edition) is a solicited report on "Sunday Observance," by Wilbur F. Crafts. The readers of the SIGNS will be interested in this review by the foremost advocate of Sunday observance by law:— "To the Editor of the Capital— "You have asked me to report on the above subject at a time when the sabbath is more attacked from the front and rear than ever before. Its worst foes are those of its own household, Christians who patronize Sunday trains, Sunday newspapers, and Sunday mail. One often hears a preacher speaking openly of going on a Sunday train, which is run in violation of both human and divine law. Churches advertise in Sunday papers that are also violations of both codes. Sabbath-schools adjourn fifteen minutes before church to leave time to sandwich a visit to the post-office in between the services. In a New York village I recently heard a Methodist preacher say that communion would be in the evening because so many of his members worked in the paper mill in the earlier hours of the sabbath. Thousands of persons are received into church membership while they are breaking the sabbath laws of heaven and earth, on the ground they might lose something if they refused. What fools the martyrs were who lost life rather than do wrong! "With such news coming in from the churches we can not expect much from those who represent the State. The telegraphic despatches report that the national Democratic committee journey to Milwaukee on Sunday to see what facilities it could offer for the next Democratic convention. These are not sinners above all other politicians in regard to the sabbath. The Post-office Department during this administration has steadily rejected the local option plan of closing post-offices on the sabbath, which Mr. Wanamaker inaugurated and Mr. Wilson followed. And recently the Postmaster-general recommended such a change in the eight-hour law for postal employees as would make it apply to the sabbath as well as other days so far as postmasters chose to require full time on that day. A protest, made at the suggestion of the undersigned, has quashed this effort of the department. "Business is encroaching more on the rest day. Even in Pittsburg, the best of large cities in this matter, Sunday work is increasing in the mills, even those that are earning forty millions a year not being content to give their men the full benefit of the sabbath. "The most inexcusable of the new attacks on the sabbath is that of the golfers, who are mostly people of abundant leisure, who play too much already. And yet a Connecticut court has held that Sunday golf is not illegal. "The greatest victory for the sabbath this year was the swift suppression of the novelty of Sunday papers in London. Two rival daily papers issued Sunday editions. The nobility, including even the sporty Lord Roseberry, and the workingmen, joined in condemning this attack on the British sabbath. Business men withdrew advertisements. Workingmen bought other papers, which advertised 'no Sunday paper,' and thus in a few weeks both Sunday papers were suppressed. The contrast with the supine weakness with which we have said, 'The Sunday paper has come to stay,' ought to arouse us to a new and ceaseless battle for rescue of our half-lost sabbath. "There has been some good fighting here and there. Baltimore is, at this writing, battling against a special bill in the Maryland Legislature to make other exceptions than 'mercy and necessity,' which would destroy the fairness of the law, and so cut out its very heart, as New York, in contrast with Pennsylvania, illustrates. People will despise a law which says that one may sell tobacco while another may not sell books. "The Philadelphia Sabbath Association has been closing up some of the small shops that have disregarded the law in Pittsburg, and a civic league of young men from the young people's society auxiliary to the Reform Bureau, is checking the very beginnings of sabbath-breaking in that exemplary city. "The best omen for this and all other Christian reforms is that stalwart Christian literature is in such enormous demand. It surely indicates that the great 'plain people,' in whom Lincoln so much trusted, tho fooled by the political oligarchy so often, are seeking light on the Christianizing of society. "WILBUR F. CRAFTS,
"Supt. of the Reform Bureau,
"Washington, D. C., March 10." It is well to note that among the chief desecrators of Sunday are professed Christian observers of Sunday. Their example is tenfold worse than any worldling's can be. The trouble is there is little conscience behind Sunday observance, because there is no scripture upon which conscience can rest. True, men attempt to use the fourth commandment to support the day, but the application is false, and eventually reacts upon the user. If men only had God's Word to support Sunday observance, they would ask no other law. They take the best they can get, human legislation, always, if effectual, ending in injustice and oppression.