Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-06-01
MEMPHIS APPEAL
SUNDAY, JUNE 1, 1879.
mOssENT,s MORT.

Momento haOril remember DEATH Not
very cheerful subject for this June Sunday
morning, nor at all appropriate for Sunday,
which is the celebration OF Une most joyous
occasion in the christian histOry-the resur-
rection of Christ; the victory over the tomb;
the demonstration of immortality. 'Joy!
joyl" shout the Prussian peasants as they
meet each other on Easter Sunday morning;
'Joyi joy! the Lord is risen!" That is the
true feeling that makes "the Lords day" a
yet diviner thing than the Sabbath of the
Jews, and that Sabbath was delight.
What, then, has niOmsrtO mort to do with
SundayP What, indeed2 To turn the
resurrection day to a day of gloom, direct
ITS thoughts to sternness, degrade its
duties to task, turn its observance to pre-
cision, sober walk, a subdued voice,
watchful, careful, regulated, grave demeanor,
for fear we should transgress the solemnity
i. of the most cheering, the most enlivening,
tRe most soul-elevating day IN the christian
caAndar. How little the early christians,
whol when the toll of the day was over-for
t'the Lords day" was no rest-day to them,
especially to the many who were
Savior's love, and to celebrate the
simple institution Of " breaking bread ~
10 commemorate his unstiuted devotion and
Standardization little they thought, as
they pealed forth their joyous hosannas, and
sent bounding on the night-wind their glow
ing ballelujahs-how little they thought of q
time when, to christians, the Lords day"
would be day of gloom, day Of banished
smiles, a day when sven childhood must be
denied its sports, and youth its joyousness.
If held to strict accountability, how much
would they have to answer for who have
made the happy, delightful Lords day a
burden, day Of heaviness, and sadness. No
merry laugh bursts on the air, no CHEEKY an
them-except in church, if there-breaks
upon the breeze, no OVERLOOKING of joyous
feelings, no exhilaration of spirit, no raptur-
GUS outbreak of gladness, nothing but-D'o-
mento MORT! We have often listened to a
preacher who used continually to enliven his
Sunday dlscourses by saying: "My brethren,
put yourselves In your coffin every day." A
cheerful suggestion, and one for which no
saying Of Christ gave him warrant. Christ
taught the worth of the soul, but its worth
had reference to the world to come, not to
perishing mortality, which could inherit no
joy, know no future beyond the coffin that
must perish with it. The utter misappre-
R6od' results for religion. How many 4
youth has hated religion all his life because
of the hateful gloom, stern severity, and re-
pressive discipline he had, in childhood, to
endure on Sundays. Many readers as they
peruse these words will testify to their truth.
A writer OF our day, quite unintentionally,
depicts this depressing, misery generating
influence of the distorted theology whose
dictates we have been trained TO submit to.
young husband, who has married a charm
ing girl from the lower ranks of life, has
taken her to Paris with whose splendors she
is intoxicated, of course. One day as they
are driving past Notre Dame he takes her in
to see that grand old cathedral, place made
classic to US all by the mastery pen of Victor
Hugo-the writer says: when Arthur
stopped to let her see Notre Dame, Nancy
was respectful, but failed a little in interest.
II chilled her to go into church "a the middle
Of a toeek day so soon after she was married.
Church was for Sundays, she felt, not a
place to 90 into in the midst Of laughing and
talk. She felt it like mopIentO mort, sud-
den chill upon her exhileration, and supposed
that Arthur took her there with the inten-
ton OF making her remember her duty, and
her latter end, which was a suggestion she
did not like" These words tell the expert
ence Of thousands who have been mistaught
how TO apprehend religious truth. Christian
ity exalts life. and briehtens the future with
the glowing grandeurs of Immortality
teaching that gives to Sunday and to church,
gloom, austerity and stern repression, is trea-
son to the religion Of Christ.