Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-06-24

In recent copy of the Union Signal
hev. Wilbur Fl. Crafts of Washinpton n
y, deplores the increasing carelessness 80
women in regard to Sabbath dissertation
White ribboners deplore it also and in
this column devoted to our nse xn are
glad to give place for his words of warn.
ing. Mr.. Crafts says:
II was astonished to SEQ ca MANY 1.dr
cyclers in the parade said a wheelman
in my presence, speaking of the RIM from
Cnicaeo 10 evanston by the various cy-
cung ciuos OF The former city, to the
NUMBER Oh Three thousan', of whom two
Dunorsu were women, on Sabbath, May
20. NOT scrupulous about the Sabbath
lor hlhlself the wheelman referred to wa.
you surprised to see women going in
uroVes' whole clubs of them, into Sunday
amusements. ! had never seen woman
on cycle on tie Sabbath in eighty thou
sand miles of travel until l saw them re
Gently In Cincinnati and in this Evanston
parade. The parade started in Chicago
ABOUT nine O'Clock, just at the right time
10 give the children of the morning Sab
bath schools lesson in Sabbath breaking
In place OF the lesson of the day, on the
Gross. Passing through suburb after
suburb at the hour of morning church,
the parade arrived in Evanston Just In
time to stop the children on their way to
noon Sabbath schools and cruelty the
Lord afresh." If it had been organized as
the devils cavalry to attack the church,
the Sabbath schools, the Sabbath and the
civil law, it could not have done the work
more effectively. And in this tramplne
Oh the blood Of the Son of God, women,
waose share in the first cruciflxion of
Christ was to stand the Cross beside as
his brave friends, were in the ranks of
His foes.
1t was every way most defiant viola
ton of divine and civil law not only a
parade, but practice for race on the
following Thursday, on which, in spite OF
the too weak protest of the clubs which
should defend themselves by law gambl
ing houses sold pools, the first case OF
professional gambling on cycle races,
which are in danger of becoming in this
way as disreputable as horse races.
. The parade was not in the afternoon, tC
which Sunday amusements have usually
confined themselves, but at the church
hour, when even Germany would not have
tolerated this gross discourtesy to religion
Apparently women are increasingly sur
rendering their former general opposition
to the Sunday paper under it's willy briber
les of colored fashion plates and cheap
chromos. Do these women know that
the red in these pictures Is the blood of
fifty thousand newsbOys-some mothers
boys--who are learning almost in in
fancy our national habit of lawlessness,
selling papers whose manufacture, trans.
portation and sale is all in defiance OF
divine law, and most Of it of civil law IA
well The newsboys ply their trace in
most cases during the hours of church and
Sabbath breaking Gods law al
the very hour they should be learning t.
keep it--and would be so learning but fol
the Sunday press, which has drawn many
of its newSboys out of their proper place
in the Sabbath school.
Sunday advertisers say in self defense
- We find the women flocking on Monday
into the stores that advertise their bar
gains in the Sunday issue" 1t is this ad
vertsing not the sales that keeps up the
Sunday issue. If the Christian women Of
q community would agree to do only alb
solutely necessary shopping on Monday
unless the special advertising now
crowded into the Sunday paper wer'
transferred to the Saturday, or some other
issue, the protest and practice woulc
make 1t less difficult for ministers, with
the aid of merchants whose conscience
object to their advertising to suppress
this seemingly smallest but really most
comprehensive form of Sabbath breaking
which includes Sunday work by profess
sional mon, the editors by mechanics,
tho printers; by merchants, the news
dealers; by carriers. the express and train
and mail men by hucksters, the news
boys, and by amusement vendors, the
papers being sold chiefly for amusement.
like the wars of the theater.
There is absolutely no form of Sabbath
dissertation that a woman can consistently
rebuke with Sunday newspaper in hel
hand, for she has them all there in an
unabridged edition.