Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-20
COMMUNICATIONS.

A Disappointed Passengers Protest. To the Editor of the JOURNAL COURIER:
 share with many others in the disappoint- ment felt in the decision of the Fair Haven and Westville road not to run their cars for church services on the Sabbath It is wide and general disappointment, especially so to large number of aged, infirm and feeble persons who have been looking and longing and praying for the time when they would run, so that they might once more go to the sanctuary and worship God with his people. Some of these Christ's little ones, have heard the sound of the church bell for years with out being able to obey its summons because too intirm or.too distant to walk, and too poor to hire conveyance. To many, per sonally know, this decision will bring great sorrow To ninety out of every hundred of our best people it is a disappointment. Why is this decision reached?
 Is 1t on Christian or conscientious per sona1 grounds2 These are valid considera- tions. But is there of these directors who if his wife or child or himself were lame, or an invalid or feeble or at distance from church too great to walk, would not harness his horse and carry them to the sanctuary and feel that he was doing Gods service? Some of them may perchance do this even now, when there is no such physi- cal disability. Now the average Christian conscience fails to see why there is any more sin in providing other needy and worthy per sons with the means to reach the sanctuary than to provide their own families with such means. There is no sin in it; Christ taught us that as there is no sin in leading our OK or horse to water on the Sabbath or lifting them out of the pit when they had fallen in, there is sin in helping fellow mortal on the Sabbath and with this greater warrant that human soul is worth so much more than beast. Or is n f..1 zI III If one is violation of the Sabbath the other is. What, moreover, is the sin of riding over that of walking?
 It, moreover troubles some of us to see why there is any more sin or Sabbath dese- cration in running the cars for church running them all day and evening on Sabbath when MT Moody was here, unless it be that there were larger crowds and more money in it. A corporation that voted to con- tribute to the Tabernacle fund because on the line of their road and then profitable day of the seven, in order to get return for their outlay, cannot conscientiously refuse to run them now for church services because possibly it is a desc cration of the Sabbath. Is it any more wicked to run the cars to carry the feeble and disabled and distant to other churches to hear their own pastors, than to carry the robust and hale crowds to the Tabernacle to hear MT Moody? As humble citizen, unused to nice moral and metaphysical distinctions, I cannot see wherein the difference and greater moral turpitude lies.
 It cannot be that a mere money question, pocket conscience, lies back of this decision not to run. The men are too noble and generous and humane for such 8 thought as that. Nor can it be that mere personal and local considerations can cause them to with hold so great a boon from the church going public. It is too narrow and selfish for such men To base their decision not to run on religions and Sabbatical grounds is to lead sensible men to despise and ridicule both religion and the Sabbath as narrow and bigoted in the extreme. It would make more infdels and scoffers in one year than their running would make Sabbath breakers in ten. Experience is the proof The other roads have run their cars for church services for yeafs with no danger to public morals or Sabbath dissertation on suburban churches The Fair Haven and Westvi1le road could do the same with minimum of danger and maximum of comfort to many people I trust the decision will be reversed.
 PASSENGER.