The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-28
SABBATH MADE FOR MAN.
But Sunday Concerts We're Not, Rev.
BascOm Anthony Says.

BascOm Anthony Says.
At the morning service at Trinity Meth
odist Church, Rev B4sccm Anthony In
discussing his text had someti. g to say
about the sacred concert subj ct. The
objection to it, he sad, is the same OBJ
lection he had to selling dry goods on
Sunday-it is out of place on that day.
Both he said, can be supported by the
same arguments and both are open to the
same objections.
The Divine prohibition of labor on the
Sabbath is not based on opposition to la
Dor, for that is enjoned during the other
SIX days, but because time is Leeoed 10:
relig Gus meditation and the worship o.
Almighty God. Anything that int es
with that is a miause of The day, w.eth~r
t be idlGg at home. or gving to the sea
side. or Longing in the parks.
1.-The oppos on that ext ted in this
city an hundred years ago to theaters on
Saturday mig IT'S" sad Rev. Mr.. A4thory,
was based on a strong priAciple-that
the Sabbath being the one day of sewn
given to the moral and religious
elevation of people, it suou d
net be begun with wea led boy
or an exhausted intellect. Every man
who knows God in the conscious fogive-
ness OF his sins and who strives to make
the Sabbath as a lock in the canal where
he shall accumulate forces sufficient to
float him through the week, knows from
experience that this is true.
THAT the Sabbath was made for man,
and not man for the Sabbath is not a
discovery of the twentieth century, but
iaheres in the nature of man
II was made for him as surely as Mon
day was made for him, but for a differ
ent purpose. The command is six days
shaie thou labor Not that you may
work if you wish or loaf if you prefer,
but thou shalt labor. Sinners against
the six days are nearly as numerous as
against the seventh.
1.-THE six were made for man that he
might work, the seventh was made for
man that he might worship, and the COM
mand is that he keep it holy, or wholly
unto the Lord.
"A people without a Sabbath will soon
be a people without a God, and a peo-
pie without God will soon be a people
without a restraint other than brute
force. The one hope for Savannah's flu
ture is in the moral training of the
young. Sunday concerts must necessarily
Interfere with that training, not only In
keeping them away from Sunday-schools.
tut IN drawing IHSm INTO
assemblages whose very spirit is out of
harmony with the solemnity of the day.
THE best that can be said in favor of
| these concerts by their advocates, is that
they keep people away from worse
places. This argument comes with poor
grace from every man whose sworn
duty it is to shut up these worse places
1 believe in the Counter irritant'' theory
In some things, but not in morals There
is nothing in the plea. If the concert be
put between the closing of the Sunday
schools and the Y. NJ. c. A. and the
opening of the churches at night-the
time is too short to keep men away from
that bar-room at Tybee all day. They will
have plenty of time to go and return.
And as for that matter what need to
hunt barroom at Tybee when perhaps
not less than 200 of them are open every
Sabbath in our city to the shame of de-
cency and the disgrace of the guard
ians of the law whose business it is to
step 1t.
mo, with many of our most prominent
citizens spending the Sabbath with gun
or rod, with some of the elete, properly
chapercned, going grabbing or fishing in
the spring, and in the autumnal season
gathering to play golf with business
men and clerks in their places of bust
ress hard at work. with barrooms open
al lover our city on Sunday and all in
defiance of law, we do not need to go one
step further and legalize Sabbath desc
Grafton"