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Show SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. There has been a decided tendency lately toward a better observance of the Sunday in the west than obtained in the early days. The tendency has met witli some opposition from quarters which are entitled en-titled to consideration, though it is evident the opponents of Sunday' observance do not understand the matter. It is insisted that no harm can come to a man from attending a baseball game or the theater on Sunday. Perhaps the men who talk thus are honest, and sincere; maybee the recreation afforded does them good. Put that does not necessarily neces-sarily mean lhat Sunday amusements are to be commended. The logical conclusion, if we grant the contention, of the advocates of Sunday amusements, amuse-ments, is that business would be as profitable on Sunday as on any other day of the week; groceries and dry goods sold on the Sabbath would produce as much profit, and to profit-seekers it. would furnish fur-nish a species of amusement quite as entertaining as the theater or the baseball game. When we read of ihe countries which have horse races, theaters and games of all sorts on Sunday, we arc likely to think that this is a free Sunday; we neglect to think of the picture as it is. We overlook the. fact that in these countries Ihe Sunday is as filled with toil for the worker as it is of amusement for those who have that day for rest and recreation. In our modern, complex civilization, there is some work that must be done on Sunday; we have to move perisliablc goods, lake care of the sick and injured; but care should be taken that the necessary neces-sary Ihings are not encroached upon by the unnecessary. un-necessary. And it should be plain that others cannot, can-not, be condemned to Avork for our amusement on Sunday if we are to escape work ourselves. The one thing which shouuld be remembered, if we lay aside the injunction of our Lord to remember the Sabbath day. and consider the matter solely as affecting the human being, is that we cannot have an open Sunday for amusements unless we have an open Sunday for business, too. and that very soon. And an open Sunday for business means an open Sunday for work. If the people as a whole want to maintain the one day of rest in seven, the only way to maintain it is to guard jealously the Sunday Sun-day observance as taught by the Christian church. We cannot have Sunday amusements without forcing forc-ing labor upon those who furnish it. And that is not what Sunday is for. Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "Two inestimable advantages Christianity has given us. First, the Sabbath, the jubilee of, the whole world, whose light dawns welcome alike into' the closet of the philosopher, into the garret of toil, aud into prison cells, and everywhere suggests, even to the vile, the dignity of spiritual things, j Let it stand forevermore a temple which new love, new faith, new sioht shall restore to more than its j splendor to mankind. And, secondly, the institu- j tion of preaching the speech of man to men essentially es-sentially the most flexible of all organs, of all forms.' The observance -of Sunday as a day of rest is the one safeguard which those -who work have to guarantee to them the one day of rest in seven. Let us put aside the superficial reasoning that no harm can come from the theater or baseball game on Sunday. It is a delusion.1 A free Sunday is one wherein all may cease from the ordinary occupations, occu-pations, the worker, the business man, the actor and the baseball player. If -we condemn one class to work for another's amusement, the time will soon come when the whistles of the factories will blow on Sunday morning at the' same hour as on the other six days of the week. The Ijistory of the world proves our contention that work performed on Sunday for another's amusement leads to the necessity of work by the' ones entertained. |