The Portland daily press., 1873-04-17
The Fast Day Of the Period.

The Fast Day Of the Period.
To-day is Fast Day. The State assumes for
this occasion direction of the public conscience
and the people permit to the State, in care
less acquiescence, this exercise of Papal ft,nc-
sion; the more freely because they reserve to
themselves, and exercise without let or him
drance, their privilege of doing as they please.
Perhaps if the annual proclamation meant
more 1t would soon be made to mean less; if
the people felt obliged to regard it they would
not permit 1t to be issued; it is now permitted
because, while it can do no harm, since it is
not enforced, possibly it may somehow do
good; 1t may be of some mysterious avail at
the Court of Heaven. Who knows? At any
rate it seems eminently proper that the State
should thus sanction the claims of religion
and gracefully acknowledge the piety of our
fathers. The custom has good old-fashion-
ed conservative flavor, is suggestive of an
tiquity, and every one knows that the for
mer days were better and wiser than these
There is, however, some reason to appre-
hend that so much of the ancestral piety as
stood for the the quality which we call sinceri-
ty is included in the heritage of the present
generation and may ere long prove fatal to
that good old-fashioned custom. Sincerity is
terrible iconoclast. Already the more ven-
turesome are SO bold as to remark that there
is aeertain degree of incongruity between the
proclamation promise and the Fast Day per-
formance. Expectations are held out, it is
impossible to say 20 whom, and probably
there are no takers,-that on q certain ap-
pointed day in spring the people will assem-
bic religiously in their several churches, and
viii fast religiously in their several homes.
Drafts are drawn on the public conscience
which it is well known will not be honored at
maturity. For what purpose is this equivo-
cal transaction. Is it formal act of homage
TO the shades Of our ancestors? Is it merely
an inert yielding to an acquired momentum?
Or is it, in bald fact puerile attempt to win
credit at the celestial bank by a deposit of
worthless securities.
Our people do not assemble in the churches
TO observe this day. Perhaps one half the
churches are thrown open to the public, and
the public strenuously abstain from entering.
A few, however, do 60 in, and, appearing
here and there, rari nantes IN gurgite Dasto,
are just numerous enough to remind the OBJ
server that the church is empty, except
when it is known that the preacher will have
something very scathing to say about politics
then there will be an assembly. What irony
in that fact! If minister has established a
custom of using the Fast Day opportunity as
an escape valve for those political convic-
tions and predictions which are at other
times repressed by the traditional proprieties
Of the pulpit, he will draw together consid-
cradle Fast Day audience to hear him. Poll
tics must not be mixed with religion; there
fore politics must not be preached ON Sunday,
because that day is for religious observance;
but politics may be preached on Fast Day
without danger of mixing; why? because
that day Is not for religious observance
That tells the whole story as concerns Fast
Day "worship."
There is an equal lapse from the terms OF
the proclamation in the matter of fasting.
Who in this community fasts? Who tries to
''afaict his soul' by incurring the pains of
hunger? The proclamation calls and no
man answers. The season in which the day
occurs is full of invitations to joy and glad
ness, and its voice is obeyed. Boys cover the
sidewalks with their games of marbles and
the fields with their older games, and if the
weather is especially inviting, boats are
launched and the harbor is dotted with the
xvhifa xpjn0c Of birds ho
worn and weary toilcr appreciates too well
the luxury Of holiday to try to afflict
his soul by fasting or in any other way. He
has other business in hand, and that is, to Sc
cure from his holiday the utmost rest and
recreation it can be made to yield. His OBJ
ject is,-not to weaken himself, in which case
fasting would be in order, but-to strengthen
himself, an object which fasting would not
promote. Whatever may be the reasons, the
fact Is patent to observation that people do
not fast on Fast Day. The observance of the
day is limited pretty strictly to the proclama
ton; it is good fast-on paper.
1t may be surmised that the public common
sense which objects to paper money and pa
per railroads and paper pretenses and subter-
fuges of all sorts will presently be found pro-
testing against paper fast. Nay, perhaps
the very piety which once instituted this OBJ
serrance will move for its abolishment; for
certainly piety ought not to encourage relig-
Ious shams. The State may, indeed, enforce
the fast which it'proclaims, by law framed
after the ordinance of parliament which, with
a view to the encouragement Of fisheries and
navigation, prohibits meat on fast days; or it
may do better than that. 1t may fulfil the
prophecy of Zechariah who, enumerating all
me Jewish fasts save one, declares that they
shah be 'joy and gladness and cheerful
,.,.,.'.,' uvu'tedy spring festival day would be
i"i'hlu,iy observed, and would, as holiday
squareiy announced and bonest,v en;onad
exercises far more wholesowa N"s sDIoSou'
public morals than does the repnlat,on rast M
Day, which opens the door to '0oa ho,isSN ' '.s'
ings, but says with hollow pretencs % 'eSu'o @
ion, Don't rejoice; afiict your SON, ,na ,e,s s.
to chnrch. The consciences of some aTa au ;,s ~
posed upon by that duplicity, and their ~, an
peal for liberalism, not less pathetic becaps,
silent, should be regarded.
LATER accounts of the massacre at Colfax