St. Paul daily globe., 1885-06-28
PETER EXPOUNDER
He Considers the Increase in Sabbath
Breaking and its Injurious Effects
on Society.
The Law Against it Uttered on Sinai
Just as Valid Now
as Then.
The Penalty of the Law Written In
Mems Constitutions Becoming
Severer Yearly.
It's Applicat1onN Not Only to Each Man.
but to His Employees and
Dependents.
Sabbath Breaking.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy:
six days shalt thou labor and do all thy
work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath Of
the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any
work. thou. nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant,
nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within
thy gates. For in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea and rested the sew
enth day; wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and hallowed it.-Exodus, Xxx 8,
9, 10 and IL.
Dearly beloved: You may not recognize
the selection of Scripture which have read
to you, but if you had been present when
it was first given forth to mankind you
would have it indelibly impressed on your
memory as connected with the most solemn
and awful scene ever witnessed by mortal
eyes. A tribe was wandering about des-
ert led in way they knew not until they
camped before mountain, which, after a
time, began to trembIe and quake. Omin-
GUS thunders and ightnings came from it,
and finally amidst all the terrors of nature
intensified until they became unnatu-
raj, mighty voice proclaimed
pOrtentOuS message, a part of which we
have preserved under the name Of the ten
commandments, of which my textsis one.
But all this happened good many years
ago. Indeed, large and influential ,por-
tion of our community expresses doubt as
to whether it ever happened at all, and yet
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ARE HERE,
stamped with the venerable and indubitable
authority of antiquity, and very few men
who have ever seen them have ventured to
suggest that they could be improved, save
in the line Of expansion. and no one denies
that the world were much better off if they
were strictly kept. You roll up your eyes
when you say the first and second COM
mandments on Sunday, but on Monday you
are not unwilling to bow down and wOr-
ship the craven image of an eagle on $40
gold piece. The third commandment rolls
unctiously from your tongue, the same
tongue that said very bad word when you
found your last clean shirt buttOnleSs this
morning. The young men doubtless sigh
for the long life that results from honoring
their parents but if a year were taken off
the life OF the young people of this age for
every time they spoke Of their father as
''the governor and their mother as ''the
old woman" fear me much that the next
generation would make less work for the
census takers than at present.
And SO one might 60 through the list. We
believe in the commandments, but we do
them not. Sinai is a thing of the past. The
trumpet and thunderS are Silenced, the
lightnings no more dart about its head, and
the commandments are old-fashioned. But
don't for minute let any of you suppose
that they have
LOST THEIR VALIDITY. Z
If they have been repealed that fact has
not yet been promulgated. A law an
nOunced in a manner such as they were
means something, and is not lightly to be
broken. Now, the section which refers to
resting from toll one day in seven is one Of
those that is treated with the greatest con-
tempt. 1t isn't so very long ago-a good
many of us can remember well-when it
was quite the fashion to spend Sunday in
rest-to go to church in the morn
ing, spend the afternoon in sleep
or meditation, and to go to bed early at
night. There were only six daily papers a
week in those days. Railroads didn't move
wheel on Sundays, and great.many Of
the various forms of dissipations, falsely
called recreations, did not exist in those
days. But we have become wiser than our
fathers. Some OF you may have heard it
said somewhere that this is an age of pro-
gress, and that science is making great
strides. One would think that this progress
and advancement would have lessened the
amount of work to be done. and that the
tendency would be to make still another
holiday during the week. But not so. The
further humanity progresses in knowledge
The procession seems to be moving faster
yearly, and it is more and more difficult to
keep up with it. The constant temptation
was to use Sunday as working day. 1t
was to guard against this probably that the
sanctity of religion was thrown about it.
But this is growing less year by year, and
the day of worship and rest was first con-
verted into day of play, and now is rapidly
becoming day of work.
This then is one of the results of pro-
gress and advancement of the latter half Of
the so-called nineteenth century. If we
continue this rate of progress few years
longer Sunday will be entirely destroyed,
and then, ask, what are you going to do?
Under the present arrangement the week
hasn't but seven days for work and rest
ONE OF THESE
we kept for rest and you have taken that
from us. What are you going to do next?
Here is simple computation. Fifty years
ago men could labor and do all their work
in six days. Now it takes seven, and a
good many people consider that time too
short At the same rate of progress what
will you do for time fifty years hence?
Science is discovering many wonderful
things, but we may alege with considerable
confidence in the veracity of the allegation
that it will never discover a process to make
more than seven days in one week.
'sSix days shalt thou labor and do all thy
work.
Skeptics may disbelieve that these words
were ever carved upon the table of stone,
but they cannot deny that they are written
on the tables of mems bodies. No truth is
more true than that man can do more work
in six days than in Seven-a man did I say?
It's the law also of so much of the brute
kso,,f bot hos to- ynrI-f foro Twin ct-
any man that works with horses and he will
tell you that his animals will last more than
one-seventh longer and do more than one
seventh more work if they rest every Sum
day than if they work hard every day. And
speaking of men, the race in these latter
days is proverbially unhealthy. We die
young, our women grow up flat-cheSted and
our men round-shouldered. Almost every
year sees our doctors inventing new crop
of diseases, and although materia
medica is increasing in volume
and variety faster than the diseases,
it doesn't seem any more able to cope with
and arrest the decay and dry rot that has
struck the human species. Is. not this1n
large measure the direct resultof the alarm
ing increase in the habitual infraction Of
the fourth commandment?
Is not this one of the most senseless and
wasteful evils of the times?
Now it may be that some of you are inn
pressed with these facts, and act upon them
as far as you, yourselves, are concerned.
You never visit your Offices or shops on
Sunday. You go to church in themorning,
take a drive in the afternoon, and lolI
around the house all the rest of the time.
You don't violate the Sabbath. No; but
how is it about your employees? You, who
run newspapers, do you give your employees
day off? You, who own a flour mill or
steamboat or railroad, or are interested in