The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-07-02
SABBATH BREAKING.
Rev. MIR. Day ON Sunday Trains and sun
day Newspapers.

day Newspapers.
Rev. Mr.. Day, pastor of Chestnut street
church, preached on Sunday very radical ser
mon on the observance of the Sabbath, taking
his text from Deut. v: IL, which has occasioned
considerable discussion and will doubtless give
rise to more, and therefore we reproduce some
of the more practical portions of it. Mr.. Day
opened with history of the institution of the
Sabbath and the purposes for which it was es.
tablished. He considered at length the argu-
ments of those who would, to use their pet
phrase, "modernize" the day, and declared that
their efforts in this direction were in violation
of the moral law. Proceeding to the considera-
ton of some of the more common ways in
which the Sabbath is desecrated the speaker
said:
By express statute no man has a right by
traffic or travel or pastime to break in upon the
Christians Sabbath orltraduce the worship and
spirit of that day, and the man who by any
such practice or the corporation which violates
that day by train or boat or trade commits an
outrage and crime against the Christian com.
nunity, which he should be compelled to cease.
1t is not for us to say that any man shall keep
the Sabbath as we keep it, by worship, by at
tendance upon church or by keepingh is house.
but it ia the right of the Christian community
to demand that men shall abstain from that
form of Sabbath breaking which breaks in up-
on the quiet of the day and disturbs the family
worship or the public service of the sanctuary.
The running of steamboats, and trains, the bus.
tie and confusion of excursions, the blowing of
steam whistles, the shouting of wares upon the
streets are such disturbance and nuisance,
and we should contend emphatically and per-
SlSt0ntlV that thew cease.
We wish to call attention secondly to the as
sumed right of the Sabbath breaker to use his
Sabbath as he pleases. 1t is one of the funda-
mentals of our government that when ones
course is opposed to the public veal his right to
act in that direction ceases This communityjhas
recognized the Holy Sabbath as public good
and we have statute to that effect. 1t one
doubts the mind of the community a vote
would doubtless give returns which no Sab
bath breaker would care to question. No one
mas right to undermine or obtrude upon this
institution.
If there is such right then it is an impartial
right. 1t one man has right to run steam
boat, another man has right to run a factory.
than another man has a right to run an open
shop. If one man has right to publish
newspaper and sell it for money, another
has right to hawk oranges and small wares
around the streets. And all the arguments
that can be urged for the one case are of force
in the other
We wish to observe thoroughly the incon-
ei.senes and partiality of this community in
the administration of-th Sabbath question.
A grocery dealer with the argumens1 chat he
ing couple of hours on Sunday morning, is
justly told if he doesn't shut mp his shop he
will be shut up in the lock up. An apothecary
under the pretense of furnishing medicines in
may be true and nine parts of which are silly
pretext to keep his shop open, is allowed to
drive Furnishing trade all day Sunday in
cigars and candies. Things are not equal. If
the grocery man must close the apothecary
should be asked to cease his illegal sales as
we'll.
An honest Jew who conscientiously keeps
one seventh of the weekssscredly is arrested
and brought before the court for open shop on
our day. The merits of the case we don't pro-
pose to discuss. But the Gentle proprietors of
Sunday papers are permitted to carry on their
business on the Sabbath and send out
pack of screeching gamins to shout their traffic
to the very church doors and interject their
cries into the services Of the sanctuary and the
devotions of the family altar. And if the
certain satanic apostles set mp great cry
about religious bigotry and puritanic blue
laws.
If young lad should so far forget himself
as to knock base ball on either Promenade on
Sunday you could see one of the faithful guard
ians of the city start for that boy at double
quick, and unless the luckless urchin is very
fleet of foot he will appear before His Honor
Of the Police Court the next morning and re-
ceive fine for breaking the Sabbath. But
with its freight of excursonsts into the city on
Sunday, policeman is sent to the station to
support them in their nefarious business. You
can see almost any Sabbath big, fat police
marbles on an unfrequented street; and on
Sunday, the same day, you will find the same
sleek official on the island steamer wharf or
boat defending the big Sabbath breaker from
trouble and disturbance-the whole language
Of which is, boys wait until you are big sinners
If you commit little sins for sanitary pur-
poses even we will put you in the lookup but
when you get big enough you may commit big
sins and if anybody troubles you we will put
him in the lookup.
man has right to violate the day all men have
that right. If the boys must not play ball for
fun on Sunday. neither should their big brother
be permitted to go on grandsSunday excursions
for fun.
We wish now to say that this whole question
is moral question which you should take
home to your consciences. Here is Gods
Every commandment of that law
is sacred. He who break one of them is gnilty
of an immortality. Christ made no discrimina-
ton In these commandments but taught that
whoever offended in one was guilty of the
whole If it is an immortality to break the
seventh it is immoral to violate the fourth
Whoever violates the Sabbath is an immoral
man. The man who Egoes an Sunday excur-
sons is an immoral man. The man who
drives the street on Sunday for pleasure is an
i'm coral man. The man who buys and reads
ne wspapers on Sunday is an immoral man. No
man can break one of Gods commands and
continue in go doing and be moral.
The preacher closed by noticing the incon-
sistency of the churches in making such vast
Of and tQlant n kppn N q forp
of religion in the churches and at the same
time presenting such guilty indifferentism to
the community with regard to these funda-
mental institutions and moral questions of the