Sunday-keeping at the West.
By Editor
The following extract from the correspondence of the Central Christian Herald shows that the Roman Catholics of this country, as well as those of Europe, regard the Sunday as a mere festival, not at all entitled to be kept with the strictness of the Bible Sabbath. What a pity that these Protestant reformers, who no doubt feel a real zeal for the sabbatic institution, should stand directly in their own light by trying to make a Sabbath out of a popish festival day. The state of things which they regard as so sad will certainly grow worse and worse while they continue to occupy this strange and inconsistent position. The correspondent in question says:— "It is an occurrence by no means uncommon, as I am informed, in this city, (St Louis) especially upon the grounds adjoining their churches, to see upon the Sabbath both the clergy and laity engaged at the sports of the season, bat and ball, marbles and the like. With a friend I visited one of these churches, on Sunday afternoon. We entered the inclosure—a church in the center of the city—and to our dismay witnessed the priests and a large number of youths thus engaged, disturbing the neighbors by their boisterous confusion and noise. I recollected how Cataline sought to corrupt the youth of Rome, and I could not but exclaim, These are the Catalines of America—the disturbers of our peace, the corruptors of our youth, the plotters of the ruin of the Republic! "The effect of this anti-Sabbath policy upon the masses is exhibited, as indeed it is in all our cities in the extensive patronage bestowed upon the numerous pleasure gardens with which the city is environed, and which, immediately after vespers, are thronged by them, and where drunkenness and revelry, to a greater or less extent, on every Sabbath, abound. "O, can the eye of the American patriot not see in all this an augury of danger to our national character and permanency? And shall we sleep over this subject? What is true of St. Louis is equally so of Cincinnati and most of our cities; and our youth, aye, our people, are being contaminated by it. State Sabbath conventions, County Sabbath Conventions, City Sabbath Conventions, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, and Baptist Sabbath Conventions, should be held all over our land; and means decisive and prompt, be resorted to, that, under God, our Sabbath and nation be preserved."