The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-06-14
How ONE GAN BEST SPEND SUNDAY.
HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS FROM LEADING THINKERS.


cree OF tho first Christian emperor that the
only work lone on this day should DO to
FREQ tho slave. and when we take note how
hushed and still the grent toiling world IN
Of Sunday, the good day, it makes the old
decree take on new meanings md shine with
a still fairer light. Sunday is especially tho
~workingman's day. It's the ono day in the
seven when the house becomes his home and
those TINT dwell there his choicest and best
company. There may be scant time for the
good homo spirit to play among them on
other days, but when Sunday comes the
clouds lift with tho burden of toll and care,
the family life is made whole and whole
some once more. and tho recreation OF the
household comes. luther, tho prince Of
the reformation says: If we Observe Sun
day the reason should be not because Moses
said We must, but because nature said we
must" Many great teachers and e%xpound-
ers of the Mosaic law would have nothing
to do with the narrow md bigotsd bondage
into which their own race had fallen,
but said the Sabbath should be a day
of JOY and delight. 1t should be a
festival and not a fast or a time
for "a cold bite" as we say. A day
when people should wear their best robes
bread after the service. While SO far from
its being a day in which you must do no
manner of work, they said it WAS far better
that n man should work on the Sabbath. If
he must, rather than dapend on others for
his bread. This was tho way the noblest
and most literal thinkers held the Sabbath
day who still believed it had been made
sacred by divine enactment; sacred to free
DOM, mot to bondage, to rest and recreation
and to the worship of the Most High.
So ! stand by the churches and the wor-
ship to which Sunday opens the way and
know of no recreation quito 30 sacred and
true when | put mp heart into it, nc matter
Sul,fInr mo otpvla -, {hn ,t,lr1t or ci4u -,
the pew. But this bars out 10 love or 10y
atty to other recreations that can come and
sho1ld como hand in hand with the rest
and worship on good Sunday.
Rest is tho first prime factor in our Sun
day and helps to put back the balance of
power into the workers own hands which
during the six days has passed into the
SO that the strong fibres of his nature are
touched again, as our wise woman says, and
if there is good stuff in him ambition
changes once more into energy and the
muscles move better when the rested
spirit makes merry music. 1t was OBJ
also some years ago now that q spirit of
gloom had come over that sunny hearted
race and a bitter temper, among the work.
ingmen especially, while he traced the root
of it to the fact tlat they had almost lost
track of their Sunday. l thought of this
myself on the first Sunday l ever spent in
Paris when | counted over thirty separate
sorts of workmen as hard at work between
my hotel and the church as IL it was a week
day. And thought l it again six years after
when the fair city was strewn with smoking
ruins kindled by the commune and again
when l counted the dead over there a short
time ago. Those workingmen had grown
even more bitter and sullen at their tasks
week day and Sunday, and then the time
came when the furies broke loose. The
terms of their lives gave them no fair and
restful Sunday. And this was no doubt one
reason why they were driven and are still
driven to this savage and ruthless work.
This question of Sabbath day or Sunday
is clearly a question then to be settled by
each man for himself with nc reference at
all to what the priests and churches may
say about Moses and the rest of the old
trouble. And as Bishop Horseley said long
ago: 'This should be dome without any in
terferencs of any man with another or the
authority of the %stato.' 1t is my day and
yours, l say again, set apart by common
consent for rest, for recreation and for wor-
ship, and in answer to a great general need
of our nature for these three blessed things.
ROBERT COILYER.