The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-15

has replaced the dreary Puritan Sabbath,
has become day when man may properly
stroll into the parks, the woods, or fields,
may move quietly through galleries OF art,
sit down in the halls of music, hear music
in the open air.
The European Sunday which legaiizes
the bull fights and the race track on sum
day is not wanted in America, because, as
DIR. Swing truly says, "Such day intensi-
fies the passions that Sunday was designed
to abate and doubles the opportunity OF
both vice and crime" The American
Sunday should stand for open churches.
parks, libraries. galleries and fields. Un-
der this view of Sunday there does not
seem to US any justice in closing the doors
of the Worlds fair at Chicago in response
to the prayer of Baptist and Methodist
conventions The fair is a Worlds fair;
to close its gates in face OF the world
and the people of the United States
on Sunday is to satisfy theory OF Sunday
observance which Is rejected by the great
majority of the people OF Christendom
and of this country also. The protest OF
the extreme Sabbatarians against the
opening of the Fairs gates on Sunday is
an attempt to force the managers OF the
fair to arbitrate between the majority of
the public, who want to enjoy Sunday as
a day of leisure, and the minority, who
would treat it as fast day, on which all
amusement Is forbidden by Divine COM
mand.
When the same question came up IN
New York city in the discussion as to the
Sunday opening of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art it was decided contrary to
the views of the extreme Saboatarians. As
matter of moral equity ifit is allowable for
the American people to visit Central park,
listen to the music, gaze at the geological
gardens; If it is proper 10 visit the picture
gallery of the Metropolitan Museum Of
Art on Sunday, it is proper to look at the
collections of the Worlds fair.
The petitions to congress to close the
Worlds fair on Sunday are absurd. Sum
day is not Sabbath to the Jews and Sey-
enth-Day Baptists, who have an equal
right to ask that the Worlds fair be closed
on Saturday. Out of s. 100000 of people
less than one-tenth attend churches of any
denomination, and but a small minority OF
church-goers sympathze with the extreme
Sabbatarians in this request. The Roman
Catholics, Lutherans, Eplscopalians, Uni
tarians, Agnostics and other believers and
unbelievers form the bulk of our popula-
ton.
To ask congress to authoritatively enact
as the American Sunday the idea of very
small majority Of even church-goers is an
unconstitutional request, for the trainers
of the constitution inserted this clause:
Congress shall make no laws respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibit
ing the free exercise thereof"
The error that the extreme Sabbatarians
make is their assumption that the Sab
bath is to be devoted to religious thought,
religious speech and religious action ex-
clusively. The modern Sunday is not to
the church, the clergy or the people,
what it was even fifty years ago.
although neither the civil laws
nor church laws have acknowledged it by
promptly burying its dead. The Ameri-
can Sunday was illustrated a week ago by
thousands of decent men, women and
children whom the street railways carried
out to Lake Washington; it will be illus
trated again today and every pleasant Sum
day until the end Of the summer season.
In face of this fact wha; folly for a small
minority of even the church-goers to ask
the Worlds fair to close its gates in face
Of the whole American people and the
whole world on Sunday.
The extreme laws governing Sunday
observance are not enforced and cannot
be enforced in the case of great numbers
of church members. These church laws
remain nominally in force, but they are
just as obsolete as the civil laws which in
corporate the idea of the extinct Puritan
Sabbath. The Chicago exposition is a
public enterprise, conducted largely at the
public expense, and it ought to reflect the
wish of the people rather than the wish
of q small minority of the people.
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