The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-11-19

call your attention to an agency that is
fast stealing away the Sabbath from our
homes. 1t is the Sunday secular paper.
With q scrap of religious news as the
excuse, or piece of a sermon on some
popular issue, or some semireligious
selection, the whole circle of trade, of
business, of game, of amusement and of
crime is thrust upon your Sabbath hours,
and you authorize the intrusion. There
are families protesting religion with one,
two or three secular journals on their
tables, but not one religious paper. And
the same persons assure you that they
cannot afford to take religious paper.
This is not the worst of it. The children
are thus efectually taught by example
that religion is of the very smallest i'm
portance, and that Sunday is we'll spent
by reading about the very things in
which the hands are employed on Mon.
day. My brethren, let US all try to keep
the Sabbath holy. Let us resolutely
| keep all our secular papers on file until
Monday morning. The Sabbath is the
great family day, the child's day, when
father is at home, when mother rests
from her cares, and when the finest op-
portunity exists for loving and affection
ate instruction. This day lost, the finest
work of the family is lost. You tell me
that it is iron government to imprison
the children the whole of Sunday. But
how could it be that the yoke of religion,
which our Lord tells US is an easy yoke
and its burden light, had become an iron
government Notice one moment aud
you will see. You had the finest oppor-
tunity in the world to train up your little
tender child TO love what you loved.
Had they seen father and mother keep
ing Sabbath holy from morning to night,
reading, singing, talking with kind,
cheerful, affecticnate joy, the whole day
clean of business, of the store, the mar
ket, of idle jokes, otworldly conversation,
they would never have known that Sab.
bath law was other than q law of nature,
to be obeyed just as much as the law of
work. But when you lost your opportu-
nifty and allowed the children to hear
conversation on farming, on trade, on
politics, when you led them out with you
to examine fine stock, to see fine build
ings, to stroll in quest of entertainment,
you taught them as we'll as you could
that Sunday was an idle day, an obsolete
law, kept as far as popular opinion SEEM
ed to require; and when you began to
tighten the reins of family government
it was iron government because the sub.
iects had not known law; had, in grow
ing up, borne no Sabbath yoke. The
young horse that has had no yoke upon
him, no bit or bridle to hold him, cannot
be broken to service without great severi-
ty, cruelty and danger. This, my breth.
ren, is the iron government and the cru.
city of which many parents complain,
and finding themselves incompetent to
the task of recovering their lost power
give it up in despair or yield with the
protests of Intellectual complaints and
groans when it is too late. But what
must parents do in such case as this?
Give up the task of recovery? No. Not
so long as prayer may 90 up to God I;
never give up so long as aftectionate tears
and gentle entreaties and loving epistles
and holy parental love, deep and lasting,
have power over erring youth; not so
long as there is Holy Spirit to invoke
to your aid.
6. My brethren, this leads me to speak
of the influence Of outside popular opis.
ION on the household, which renders pa
rental energy and watchfulness trebly
arduous. Popular opinion in any COM
munity is the outcome of the family
centres of that community, the effect Of
training in childhood modified by tho
current thought of the day. This popu-
lar sentiment grows into q controlling
influence aud reacts upon the homes of
our people with almost irresistible power.
It is almost impossible for young people
to resist it without the very strongest
succor from their parents. Your son
observes his youthful companions from
other households selecting their associ-
ates at will, shaping their Sunday life
at will, keeping late hours, rising late in
the morning, visiting churches at q dis.
tsnce from home, sitting with their
associates in rear pews in the sanctuary,
yacating their place in the family pew,
seldom at family prayers. Your daugh-
Ter observes her young friends strolllng
the streets on Sunday afternoon with
nice young gentlemen; going with them
at light to public resorts, to open re-
ligious meetings where no one is respon-
sible for religious order; going with
their escorts to open balls where no one
is responsible for the promiscuous asso.
citation, or to some theatrical exhibition or
some fsrcical expose gotten up by q
foreign troupe, unknown to anybody, aud
for the delicacy of which no mortal
under the sun is responsible; and your
daughter, poor child like Gagged bird,
desires 10 60. What tremendous in
fluence is this upon children that desire
to be obedient to their parents and faith.
full to the VOWS taken at their baptism!
What a tremendous influence is this upon
parents who do not wish to cage their
children, as if they would run away into
lawless liberty, or to shut them up at
home as if the country were infested
with wild beasts? What are these strug-
Cling, pious families to do? Yield to
tho tide? Succumb 10 popular opinion? !?
No. Not, 80 long rs there is a protest
deep down in the parental heart; not 30
long rs there is loving, flial bond that
binds The heart of the child to its mother
aud 10 its home not so long as there is
a sovereign voice from above saying:
my son, my daughter, go not in the way
of evil men. No, we will sever the bond
that binds us to human society rather
than dare to break the cord that binds us
to God. Yield our boys to the floating
malarias and moral pestilences Of the em.
poisoned air, our daughters to the teach
Ing and manipulations of vagrant
cockneys from foreign countries seeking
a living by miserable toll upon the do
cency and virtue of our youthful popula-
ton? No. Let us hold our children in
our arms and cling to the ark of God,
rather than be swept by a resist'ess tide
of opinion into sin and into hell.
Mothers, fathers, are you floating before
that tide? Are you falling PROSTATE be.
fore remorseless public opinion and
saying can't help tiny children must
be fashionable or lose every prospect of
success in life? Then, 0, mothers Q,
fathers l must hold you responsible
fer thrusting that tender girl of "A into
the heaving, surging, remorseless billows
of wild opinion and of wreckless sinners.
| must hold you responsible for the
agonized death-bed of that child, when
in forthcoming years you shall wiring
your hands and cry to Heaven, but there