People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1892-12-16

Already the busy contractor IN Une
great city makes the hammers ring
while the church bells chime. AL
ready Congress is besieged to have
the Chicago fair open upon all days
alike; open on Sunday as upon Mon
day for gin shop, gambling hell and
every money-making device known
to the human mind.
Well, | am an old-fashioned man
simple in some things, I reckon.
God knows / am little fitted to SER
monte, but I am not ashamed to say
that | feel a profound reverence for
that old land-mark-the Sabbath
To see 1t go down under the hurry
ing feet of mere selfish money
hunters would in my eyes be a far
reaching calamity.
This is said in no spirit of narrow
sectarianism. Far from it. But |
believe periodical rest-day is so
very needful to the world; so true
an economy of time, Of energy, OF
strength so moral and elevating in
all its tendencies, that were religion
entirely removed from the debate, |
would as a law giver vote to compel
a weekly hating Of the human
hordes.
have read somewhere that in
crossing the plains, in the emigrant
days, the teams which halted for
Sunday always caught up with and
then passed those which had trav-
elled on without the halt. | do not
doubt that such would be the case in
any similar test.
The French republic, in their gen.
eral reforms, undertook to eliminate
the seventh day Sabbath and to
make every tenth day the Sunday
instead. Historians tell us the at
tempt was a failure; that men and
beasts wore away under the length
ened strain and that they had to re-
turn to the old seventh day rest.
They had to admit that God knew
something about it after all.
In the country we are threatened
with heartless, tireless, pitiless race
for wealth such as the world never
saw before. The great lines Of duty
are becoming dim. The grand ideas
of moral responsibility are in danger
of fading away. The sublime con-
ceptions of life as a trusteeship Of
noble powers, aspirations and oppor-
tunities, is battling for its very ex-
istence. -m .s
Every year this maddening rush
for money; this insane "get there"
push for success, regardless of meth
DDS; sees us drawing nearer to the
fatal limits over which so many
nations have gone down to ruin.
Whenever we lose entirely the belief
in human accountability to Eternal
powers; whenever we are possessed
utterly by the creed that life ends at
the grave, and therefore we must
''eat, drink,and. be merry; then, in
deed, are we doomed.
Money will be the God we worship.
The basest passions of our animal
nature will assert supreme authority
over thought and speech and act.
From January to January there will
be the rush, the roar, the march, the
deadly combat, the shout of onset,
the cry of the wounded, the cheers
Of these relentless civilized savages
whose only care, purpose, effort, re-
ligion, is to get money. In this mad
saturnalia, so very ruinous of the
better attributes Of manhood, the
catchwords of the procession will be
precisely the same as those under
which all the old Pagan nations went
headlong to perdition, "money, wine
and women"
Strike Sunday out Of the habits
and thoughts and reverences of men,
and we will have lost a priceless
heirloom of the past whose value we
did not know till, it was gone.
I confess to an instructive respect
for the time-honored hating day of
our people-not necessarily the day
Of starchy dressing, idle gossip,
sermonizing, formalities or gloom.
That's as may be-every man being
his own judge Of his duty. Least of
all do | mean the day of ''come-to-
stay" visiting. The only men 1 ever
MAIN and murder, with malice afore-
thought (both express and implied,
are these 'sall-day" Sabbath visitors.