The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-11-24
SUNDAY RAIlRu ID AND SIN
DAY NEWsPA piss.

The recent session or the Methodist
Conference in Virginia was marked
by more important incidents than usu-
ally accompany a religious assembly
a young preacher was hauled over the
Goals because he married within two
months after joining Conference, as II
cupid could be curbed by eccIesiastics;
an old and prominent divine was rep
rimanded because he married again af-
having been divorced: the gifted and
learned editor OF the old Richmond
Christian Advocate was reprimanded
severely for not furnishing the proofs
Of statements that he used in a contro-
yersy with the son of DR.. Bennett; and
in the closing hours of the session
passed resolutions that left no stand
ing place for the railroads or the edi-
tors of Sunday newspapers, incident
ally CRYING a bacllhanded lick to DIR.
Barbee. who had commended the sec
ular newspaper, comparing it to "a
mirror The resolution on Sunday
trains and Sunday papers is in vaseu-
lar language, We quote:
In this active age, when everything
connected with humanity is brought
into requisition to meet its demands,
the Sabbath with its hallowing in
fluences and conserving power, is run
over rough-shod, and treated as de-
funct institution. Railroads and
steamboats, must make dividends, and
to make them the multitudes must be
made to Use Gods day for their recrea-
ton and amusement. Half-rates on
Sunday offer the temptation which
lures the crowds. The Sunday School,
the church, and the home are deserted
for the day. The excursionists come
back home demoralized. The railway
employees on the excursion trains de
prived of their needed rest, are not
only demoralized, but depressed with
the thought that they have been
forced to make sport like Samson for
the pleasure of others
In our cities, towns, and stations,
along our railways on Gods day. the
first thing YOU hear and see is the pa
per yender.selling and distributing the
sunday papers" with all sorts Of
reading. with "A deal of sack and
pcnnV-worfh Of bread" which if d man
would swallow before going to
church, would from it's mass alone,
rot counting its matter, utterly pre-
vent the entrance OF any good seed
sown by the preacher. 1t is appalling
to think of the mental and moral con-
dition of the mnltitudes who read the
contents Of Sunday papers and nothing
else. Mental and moral dyspepsia
would be mild disease to follow such
regimen. Mental and moral paraly-
sis would be more likely TO result.
Think. then, of the effect Of this on
the young. Eapes, murders, embezzle-
ments, theatres, prize-fights, filing
nine pages Of ten, magnifying what
ought 10 be in large part in the back
ground, and minifying the true, the
honest, and All that IS of good report.
They are influenced thus 10 believe
that mankind are nine-tenths bad, and
are drawn in, as by a whirlpool, 10 be
and TO do what appears the world ut
large would have them 70 be and to do.
We repudiate what has been said:
the secular press is intended to be and
should be a mirror, rejecting only
!, what is cast upon its surface. Why
should this be 500 1t has been called
..The Third Estate" If so, why should
this great power pander to the corrupt
tastes and practices of mankind? AS
we'll say that the doctor should pam
der TO the morbid appetites of his pa
fients that the father should give 10
his children stones and serpents, as
we'll as bread and fish.
Mirrors are good things when they
show men their defects and deformities
with view to enable them TO correct
them, but when they encourage them
in such deformities they are evil.
THE TWO SHERMANS.