Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-08-02
THE OBSERVANCE or SUNDAY.

NOW lHal Cautiously ONeT SuHudy
observance, in relation to the Column
bian Exposition, has been well nigh
forgotten, ii may be once more posi-
l}le to consider dispassionately how
sunday shall be kept Into the legal
aspect of the question we do not pro
pose 10 enter. Laws regulating the
customs of society are rarely more
than the tardy recognition of convic
tions already reached and manners
formed by the dominant moral force
in the community. 1t is the creating
and deepening Of true convictions, the
encouragement of right manners, that
is important. manners maketh man."
man makes laws. Men must think
correctly if they are to act correctly.
There is special reason why the mind
of people require enlightment as to
Sunday observance at the present
time. Various factors, material, men
tai, moral, religious, go to form the
habits and institutions of a people.
When many new influences from these
different directions combine, and
strongly affect social life, change
takes place-a nation falls back or
steps forward Such change is in
progress now. No rational individual
in the social organism, no matter how
obscure or needless, but is helping to
determine whether the change shall be
for the better or the worse. Mr.. Lecky
wrote recently: "There is no better
criterion of the political genius of a
nation than the power it possesses of
adapting old institutions to new
events" There are few institutions
in this nation older or more extended
in their effects than the hallowing Of
the first day of each week. To secular
ize Sunday would be to christianize
American civilization. How long a
stream will continue to flow when cut
off from its source can be mathemati.
cally determined. And with some Of
the same deliniteness can the future
Of civilization be predicted that has
been severed from the high ideals and
serious faith and solemn sanctions that
created it.
And yet how gently and unobtru-
sively the secularization and final
abandonment of Sunday as a religious
day might come, it is not difficult to
see. There need be no harsh break
with old usages, no outspoken rejection
of Christ as the ReG Gentiun. All
that would be necessary Is that, in the
social standards of the future, in the
altered fashions that are quickly SUI
preceding the old, the keeping of Sun
day as a religious day should be silent
ly dropped out, as an institution that
has no particular Significance in the
new order. In many families, in some
social circles, the day has already lost
the meaning it has had for eighteen
centuries of christian living. At this
season, especially, when dispensations
| lIOll lIhbOllC uuClCo dlC ioouCu Wy III
dividual conscience upon every rise OF
temperature, the secularizing of Sun
day seems already to proceed apace.
The immediate need; then seems to be
a firmer grasp of the real import of the
christian Sabbath. We suggest that
that import may be set forth by three
words-worship, JOY, rest.
In the first place, quite certainly,
Sunday is the day in every week set
apart for Christian worship, the day
that declares that mans first and SUI
preme duty and highest exercise is, as
St. Hillary words 1T, "to adore the
Father, to venerate with him the Son,
to be filled with the Holy Ghost" Sec
ondly, Sunday is day of joy. 1t is a
day of JOY because it is day for Eu-
charistic Worship, Feast of the New
Dispensation. Joy expresses itself in
simple amusements and harmless rec
reations. Lastly, Sunday is day of
rest, and in its observance something
of the old Sabbath peace should linger.
To work needlessly on Sunday is far
lsss christian than to play. But in the
cessation from the weeks drudgery the
sweetness of family life should re-as-
sert itself. Sunday is the weekly fes-
tiyal of the christian household. The
fathers and the children should be
drawn together on that day at the ia
BILE of the Lord and at the household
board. If these principles were kept
in mind, and applied in harmony with
the impartial spirit Of the gospel, the
Sunday of the coming age need not be
less sacred than that of the past.-7'he
| ChltTchnlan.