New-York tribune., 1901-03-17
SUNDAY OPENING or THE EXPOSITION

The question of opening the Pan-American
Exposition mt Buffalo on Sunday is up for dis
cussiOn and all the old arguments for and
against such an opening are being vigorously
presented. y new feature in the present dis
cuSsiOn however, Is the fact that much larger
proportion of avOwedy religious people than
ever before are either in favor of Sunday open
ing or acknowledge the force of the arguments
in support of it, II still remains true doubtless
that the prepOnderance of Christian sentiment
is opposed 10 what is called the secularzation of
the first day OF the week and in fairness it must
be admitted that much can be said in favor of
such an attitude. The secularization Of Sunday
to the extent of making ii ordinary workday
would be a misfortune which all good citizens
should strive to avert, whether they accept the
dOgmas Of Christianity not.
The question, however, is whether the specific
act of opening the exposition on Sunday would
lead to such a secularization The extreme Sab
batarians say that it would But the old Puri-
tan Sabbatarians of the last century would have
condemned just as strongly the present day
observance of Sunday by these same extreme
Sabbatarians Thousands of Christian people
who are to-day protesting against the Sunday
opening of the exposition do not scruple to drive
on Sunday, eat hot dinners. make and
receive Sunday calls Yet when Christians
began to do these things on Sunday they were
denounced as Sabbath breakers. To-day how
ever, no religious organization except perhaps
one of the smaller Presbyterian denominations
either directly or indirectly forbids this relaxed
observance of Sunday. And we may therefore
ask if it is not possible that fifty years hence
the churches will in the same way recognize
the Sunday opening of expostions libraries
museums and art galleries. Indeed the ten
dency to take this view is manifest already in
the approval by many representative Christian
ministers of the opening of art galleries and
museums. Moreover it must be remembered
that specific directions for Sunday observ-
ance are given in the New Testament and n
result the mode of its observance has varied
widely in the history of the church, fact which
gives the right to assume that even the pres
ent accepted ideal of the day may he greatly
modified in the future.
The advocates of n rigid observance of Sunday
always assume that they speak for the religious
consciousness of the country But this assump-
tion is not altogether warranted. They do not
speak for the Jews or for such denominations
the Unitarians and Unversalists, not 70 speak
of a great many liberal Christians in the other
denominations; and these people cannot he left
out of the account in determining what is the
religious consciousness OF the country just
because they happen to be in a minority. There
fore. when they plead for the opening of the
exposition on Sunday, as they do, on professedly
religious grounds. their plea cannot he brushed
aside though they were evil liyers or enemies
of religion. The fact that religious people are
not unit on this question is brought out in the
last issue of The New-York Evangelist which
prints several letters from ministers of religion
in Buffalo. some Of whom advocate Sunday