New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-20


them to Ego to" that other place sup
posed to be prepared for those who will
not go to church.
To one not blinded by prejudice, it
would seem that the proposition of
opening public reading rooms on
Sunday is a most excellent one.
There are hundreds, nay, thousands, OF
young men in every large city upon
whose hands Sunday is drag. They
do not know what to do with themselves.
They will not go to church; they feel
neither edited nor entertained when they
do go. They do not feel at home in 1.-the
house of God" Nothing they hear there
seems to concern them. And yet they
are restrained by some undefnable feel
ing from participation in out of door
amusements and SO they read morning
paper, or perhaps two, if they can afford
the luxury, and spend the rest of the day
lounging around the streets, or doing or
smoking in their rooms. This is pecu-
liarly the case in New Orleans, where SO
many young men come in search of
better livelihood than they can make
In their native towns or villages:
and where, being cut off from
the restraint of home and family
ties, they speedily abandon the formal
attendance at church, which was the
burden of their boyhood. Now, if we
had public reading rooms, open on Sun
day, where mental food of a healthy and
stimulating character could be obtained
on moderate terms, or better still, gratis,
these wandering sheep might be insensi-
bly, and indirectly led into the path of
morality, and perhaps into that of re-
ligion. The reading room might turn out
to be the vestibule of the church, for, in
reading the simplest thing, a poem,
a work on science, the biography of
some great or good man, some
idea or fact might be brought I'm
der their notice which would strike
the key note to that psalm of worship
that throbs, though often inaudiblv. in
every human heart. Anything which
withdraws the mind from the ordinary
topics of weekday life, and fixes it on
those Of deeper moment, is a sermon. To
quote from a valued Northern contem-
porary: eff in reading physiology a man
gets hint even of the divinity of his
body, and grows ashamed of the debasing
uses to which he heretofore put it, that
is preacher to him, and
through this more healthy physical
growth the soul may have a better
chance by and by. If in geology he
sees even dimly the traces of a God. there
is hope that sooner or later the spark of
reverence will be developed into an ador-
ing flame"
The free religious services held in
theatres in some Northern cities we think |
likewise an important step in the right
The very novelty of the plan
will attract the curious, and then it rests
with those who conduct the services to
'eattract and retain as many as possible.
f these or similar means, such as free
ectures on moral or scientific subjects
delivered on Sunday, were adopted by the
'arious Young Mems Christian Associa-
ions instead of the distribution of the
ouerile literature called ''tracts, in whose
potency for good some sects have so much
confidence, a decided reformation we
hink would soon be observed in the
ational observance Of Sunday, which
would thus become moral, mental and
perhaps spiritual help to thousands who
low find it the dreariest day of the seven.