Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-07-24
The Americans Sabbath.


at is surely pertinent inquiry, Whose
country is this, and what language does it
speak, and by what sacred traditions is it
hallowed ? Who first sought it out and
settled it-subduing its wildernesses, and
founding its cities, and opening its seaports +?
From whence got it its law and faith and its
Christian civilization? ? Who have hallowed
its hills and its valleys by their blood, shed
once and yet again in its defence? Call it
faraticism, call it intolerance, call it polit-
ical infatuation, or what you will, venture to
declare that it is high time that our brethren
of other lands, and other races, and other re-
ligions, or no religion at ALL understood
clearly and distinctly that while we welcome
them to assimilation to our national life,
America is for Americans; and that while
we will welcome every foreigner, Christian
or Jew, Pagan or Positivist, to our shores,
they are our shores, not his, and are to be
ruled by our traditions, not those of other
people. 1t is, in fact, as utter an imperti-
nence for the German or the Frenchman,
for the jew or the Mohammedan, to come
here demanding that we shall waive the
customs and repeal the laws that hallow our
Lords day, as that we shall surrender our
language for the dialect of the Black Forest,
or our marriage relations for the domestic
usages of the Sultan. No one comes here
in ignorance of American usage or tradition
on these points. 1t is, | repeat, solemn
impertinence when any foreigner demands
that we shall surrender those usages because
they do not happen to have been his. And
it does not become less of an impertinence
because, in any particular community-in
New York. for instance-the numerical ma
jority may happen to be in favor of radical
changes in, or even the utter abolition OF,
our Sunday laws. A half dozen ship-loads
of people landed at New Bedford, on the
coast of Massachusetts, might convert that
decent and self-respecting and monogamic
community in twenty-four hours into city
in which the majority of the people were in
favor Of the religion of Joe Smith and the
domestic usages of Mormonism. But have
yet TO learn that that would be valid reason
for repeating the laws of Massachusetts,, 50
far as they applied to the town of New Bed
ford, in regard to the matter of polygamy
There is something beside the accidental
presence of mere numbers to be reckoned in
estimating the moral sentiment and intelli-
gent determination of the community; aud
it is the majority not of the idle, and vicious,
and thriftless, of the ignorant, of aliens, and
of agitators, but the majority of the upright
tllAl lIluuSlllOuS, lilt IluShi oiii bthiH iHNi"Ne'
the thoughtful and the self-respecting, whose
voice should, on this point, be potential.
For one, have no apprehension as to its ver-
dict, if only it shall insist upon being heard.
" But that is the duty of the hour 1t is
one of the most remarkable facts of our
time that those older nations from which
some of us propose to borrow our habit OF
disregard for the Lords day are striving at
this very moment, with most impressive
earnestness, to restore the earlier sacredness
of that day. In Germany, in Switzerland,
aud in France, there are already organlza-
tions of serious and thoughtful men who
are seeking to Danish the Continental Sun
day. They have seen, on the one hand, as
any one may see in France to-day, that the
removal of the sacred sanctions, which with
us hold the first day of the week in kind
of chaste reserve, have eventuated not merely
in degrading it to the level of vulgar holi
day, but also of degrading and enslaving
him for whom its privileges were, most OF
all, designed-the wearied, overworked ano
poorly-paid laboring man. They have seer
that in such a capital as Paris it has already
come to pass that the working-mans Sunday
is often as toilsome day as any other; ant
that since the law no longer guards the day
from labor, the capitalist and contractor NJ
longer spare nor regard the laborer. lie L
a person out Of whom the most is to be got
aud if he can work six days lie may as wei
work the seventh also, so long as there
nothing to forbid it. Such condition o
things may not directly threaten those OF u
who are protected by wealth from the neces
sites of daily labor, but if ours is this NOR
favored condition, all the more do we ow
it to our brother man, who is less favored t
see to it that he shall have every sanctio
with which the law can furnish him to guar
his day of rest from being perverted and rev
olutionized into day of toll. And if h
himself does not see that the more "
assimiate Sunday to other days by tl
amusements, the occupations, the teachin
and reading and thinking with which we fl
it, the greater is the danger that ultimatel
we shall lose it altogether, the more earl
estly are we bound to strive to disseminat
those sounder ideas which shall set this fir
day of the week, and lis deyout observant
before our fellowmen and women of Il
aboring classes, in its true light, and so he
and teach them how not to lose, but to ke'
it."-ETtrdct OF a sermon preached at The 7
quest of The NeW York Sabbath Committee.