The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1894-08-18
RELIGIOUS.
THE OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY.

Now that the controversy over Sun
day observance, in relation to the
Columbian Exposition, has been we'll
nigh forgotten, ii may be once more
possible to consider dispassionately
how Sunday shall be kept. Into the
legal aspect of the question we do not
propose to enter. Laws regulating the
customs of society are rarely more
than the tardy recognition of convic-
tons already reached and manners
formed by the dominant moral force il.
the community. 1t is the creating and
deepening of true convictions, the
encouragement OF right manners, that
is important. manners maketh man."
man makes the laws. Men must think
correctly, if they are to act correctly.
There is a special reason why the
minds of people require enlightenment
as to Sunday observance at the present
time. Various factors, material, mental,
moral, religious, 90 to form the habits
and institutions of a people. When
many new influences from these differ
ent directions combine, and strongly
affect social life, a change takes place
"a nation falls back or steps forward.
Such change is in progress now. No
rational individual in the social organ
ism, no matter how obscure or heed
less, but is helping to determine
whether that change shall be for the
better or the worse. Mr.. Lecky wrote
lately: There is no better criterion Of
the political genius of 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 secularize Sunday would be to un-
Christianize American civilization.
How long a stream will continue to
flow when cut off from its source can
be automatically determined. And
something of the same defuiteness 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-
slvely 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 Rex GentiuM. All
that would be necessary is that, in the
social standards of the future, in
the altered fashions that are quickly
superseding the old, the keeping OF
Sunday as religious day should be
silently 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 dispen
sations from irksome duties are issued
by the individual conscience upon
every rise of temperature, the secular
izing of Sunday seems already to pro-.
coed apace. The immediate need,
then, seems to be 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
supreme duty and highest exercise is,
as St. Hilary words it, to "adore the
Father, 10 venerate with him the Son,
to be filled with the Holy Ghost"
Secondly, Sunday is day of joy. 1t
is a day of Joy because it is day for
Eucharistic worship, Feast of the
New Dispensation. Joy expresses
itself in simple amusements and HARM
less recreations. Lastly, Sunday is a
day of rest, and in Its observance some
thing OF the old Sabbatic peace should
linger. To work needlessly on Sunday
is far less Christian than to play. But
in the cessation from the weeks
drudgery the sweetness of family life
should re-assert itself. Sunday is the
weekly festival of the Christian house
hold. The fathers and children should
be drawn together on that day at the
table of the Lord aud 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 Tie
ChnprIWaN.
THE ONE LAWGIVER.