Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1898-03-26
The Sabbath.

hC oooDetth.
The Ministerial Association, quoted
by Rev. w. w. Wood, does not ''be-
lieve the public convenience requires
them the post-offices) to be kept open
on that day Sunday in Frostburg."
Why?
Not enough population nor business here
to justify it-even ignoring the physical,
social, religious reasons against it.
Why did not this skeptical Associa-
ton inform the Forum Just how much
population and business justify" an
open post-ot1ice on Sunday? Where
does the Association draw the line be-
tween the population and business
that justify Sabbath Dissertation and
"the population and business that do
not?
To make the Associations mustard
seed OF skeptlcism appear yet more alb
surd, why does Oakland's "popula-
tom of $40 Justify" enjoyment of
Sunday mails and Frostburg's 1855,
both including ''habitual absentees, :"
condemn it9
And then with an air truly ercatheel,u
the Association, represented by Rev.
Mr.. Wood, says:
-Four daily mails show the interest of the
government in us, and are enough for our
town.
How can an Association whose
members cant agree on several non
essentials to salvation become a unit
as to the number of mails that are suf-
ticient to insure the happiness of those
"habitual absentees ~ This inquiry
is made because 1.-THE government"
shows about, twice as much interest in
keyser, W. Va, as it does in Frost
burg, which is a discrimination be-
tween "habitual absentees" from
church which ''the government has
no equitable, paternal or christian
right to make.
With the Associations platitudes
there should be probably no conten-
ton, but when it asks the question
If the commandment, Remember the
Sabbath Day to keep it holy" must be
blotted out, why not all the other command
ments?-
it opens the door to a vast occasion
for inquiry. In the iudgmen, of many
people Christ has already strong
ly intimated that disobedience of one
is equivalent to violation of all.
Hence, the quotation of the second
commandment by the Association re-
calls frequent instances when "the
Sabbath has been remembered and
kept holy by sonorous appeals from
the sacred desk for money-''rhe root
of all evil'-an article the church and
chulchmen, of all others, should dis
pense with on Sunday. Yet "carry-
ing round the hat'' is essentially
weekday job which, done on Sunday,
is not held amenable to "the Mary
land law which forbids and Furnishes
1t. Nor can it be excused under the
pretext that ''evil is done that good
may come" Indeed, of all Sabbath
breaking offences those which are
committed IN church are the worst.
There are ways to squirm out of the
truth of these intlmations, but they are
not Scriptural ways, nor sanctifed
ways. They cannot be. The stream
cannot rise higher than its fountain.
The Lords day is not glorified by
those who on the weekday leave the
blessed sphere of ministry to the poor.
the sick and the dying to deny to
''habitual absentees" supply which
the march of progress affords without
hurt TO ''habitual absenteesn in other
places. 1t is not honored by those
who carry in embryo, perhaps uncon-
sclously, the spirit which "affec-
tionatel y" burned witches and denied
First Day" rights to Quakers.
Hence, as a matter of fact the JOUR
NAL does not believe the well meaning
gentlemen of the Ministerial Associa-
ton know that their policy of keeping
Frostburg in the backwoods tends to
drive people from rather than attract
them to the church. They do not
know that the rigid Sabbatarlanism of
New England is a better and more
consistent reflex of their idea than
they eXemplify. Yet how far, how very
far we have drifted forward from the
de9ree, not to say essence of the proscrip-
ton and torture which the Sabbatic
idealists inflicted upon "habtual alb
sentees," as well as those who sacrilege-
ously kissed their wives on Sunday.
Those people did not know, nor do their
little less Levitical descendants under
stand that Christ relaxed rather than
made severe the Sabbatic enactment of
the moral law. He said, in effect, that
''the Sabbath was made for man"-not
for the church, not for the preachers,
but 'Jor man"-for the "habltual alb
sentee" as well as for both those who
go to worship and those who Ego to see
and be SEEM"