The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-01-13

Lords Day Will Pay Dearly for
Their Folly in the End-The Sun
day Holiday Evolves Into the
Sunday Work-Day-Degrading In
fluences of Sabbath Toll.
Rev. DR.. Isaac j. Lansing, pastor OF
the Green Ridge Presbyterian church.
preached last night the second of a
series of sermons on the Sabbath,
taking for his theme "The Sabbath for
Man and Man for the Sabbath" The
doctor chose two texts Ezekiel, 20:1l-
II, 10, and Mark, 2:27:
And gave them my statutes, and Showed them
my judgments, which II man do he shall even
live in them.
Moreover, also gave them my Sabbaths, TO he
n sign between me aud them that they might
know that am the Lord that sanctity them
But the house of Israel rebcllcd against me in
the wilderness! they walked not in my statutes,
and they despised ny judgments, which il a man
do he shall even live in hem and my Sabbaths
they greatly polluted: then | soid would pour
out my fury upon them in the wilderness 10 csn.
sumo them.
enlarged upon the fundamental fact
contained in the last verse above
quoted THE Sabbath" said he, was
made for man TO break or for man to
keep. just as he chooses Continuing,
he sad
And he said unto them, the Sabbath was made
for man, and not man for the sabbath.
There are many enemies of the sabbath. Oi
course there are There never goon thing
yet without enemies. The enemies OF the Sabbath
can be easily divided into classes. First there
| are those who really hate the Sabbath because it
is Christian institution. They petition lcgis
latures and congress TO do away with It. These
are the people who are averse to the use OF the
Bible in court and who cannot bear anything,
connected in any way with the Christian ic'
ligion. These can be passed by because they con-
stitutc but small part Of the encmSa OF the
Sabbath.
THE SECOND CLASS.
In the second class of the enemies Of the Sih-
bath can be placed those people whose avarice
| forces them 10 work on Sunday and who compel
others to work that their lust Tor money may be
satatcd. We can SEE what this class VI people arc
doing all around us and their number is daily in.
creasing
In the third class OF the enemies Of the Sab
bath can be found those who make Of il day
| Of play and sport Those who attend Sunday rN-
cursons and who take part in or witness games
or theatrcnls on the Lords day are to be found
in this class. The majority OF them do NOT go to
church or if they do 90 they do SO IN p;rfunc
| tory sort of way and allow the services to have
! no effect upon them. Their idea OF the s,h
bath is day OF recreation and diversion They
fail 70 realize until it is tuo late that wherever
| the Sabbath comes TO he made day at pleasure
| il comes also to be a day OF work.
| The fourth class OF cue,nies Of the Sabbath com
prises those who are its passive enemies. the pro
| Pile who agree with the society in Which the,
may happen to be- the people who go TO church
| if they're with churchgoiing people and whe
break the Sabbath with fight heart il ttci'
| companions for the day break it, These people
| do more harm than any of the other enemies Of
| the Sabbath and they are far more numerous thar
any other class.
| One thing is an established fact and that is that
where the Sabbath is pcrsstently violated ii l.
made not only a wicked day, but the very wick
| odest day OF the week. II is made unholy ins;ea'
| Of holy. / should like to have every Christian
| man and woman ask himself or herself this cues
| ton II God designated the Sabbath as a hol,
| day and men make OF it the worst day OF tl.t
| week what will God think OF these mcn9
| IL has been proven by abundant observation
that where the Sabbath is profaned ii becomes th'
| wickedcst day Of the seven. 1t has been provcl
| that there is more drunkenness more vlllainr
| more crime and more outrage on that day whef,
| it is publicly desecIated than ON any other day
| Of the week. The statistics which quote are
not recent but they show fully enough the hor
| rible TRUTH
SOME STATISTICS.
| In Germany up to fifteen years ago 81 per cent
| Of the crime of the week was committed bctwecl
| Saturday night and Monday morning. In Londo'
| up to fifteen years ago one-half OF the drunken
| ness and twothirdS Of the crime We're connect 70
| with violation of the Lords day. In New iorl
| city prior to 1867 the crime on Sunday was n
| per cent. greater tlmn the crime on Tuesday. II
| the period between lstI and 1870, Just before lh
| Tweed regime, when the saloons wer> kept cose'
tight on Sunday, the crime OH Sunday tell off t.
| such an extent that It became p per cent les
| than the crime any week day.
| 1t is fact us wide the world that whei
| the best is made bad it becomes the very worts
and this truth applies TO the proianed Sabbath,
| | have never doubted that Sabbath desecratol
will he followed by ultimate disaster and il
| rcmediable ruin and that the divine intent vii
| thus be demonstrated.
| The dcsecraioa of the Sabbath is source o
| damage to the community and is degrading 4
| government Goldwin Smith, who s no
| Christian and who may be called philosophioa
| agnostic has said ''rhc sacrcdnes5 Of the Sabbat
! and the freedom Of worship have been the mai;
J ing OF America"
| Professor H. VI. Scott, of the Chicago Theo
| logical seminary, who has made a personal stud
Of social conditions in Germany declares tina
the moral tone Of the German empire is becoming
| lower and lower and lie holds the increase IN I'll
| number OF saloons during the last twenty wear
! to be responsible for this. The number of 81
Icons in that country have increased 20 per cent
| in twenty years.
Look at the situation in our own country. Oh
serve that It is the Cody peoplc oi New Eng
land Who have dominated the thought OF thi
land for the last 80 years and then remembc
how they observed the Sabbath day. ! wisn tha
New York city, that Chicago, Denye, and Sa
Francisco would think Of that. It is a we'll Is
tablislcd fact that municipal corruption in tn
large cities is intimately connected with The vio
| aton OF the Lords day.
| warn Chicago, 81. Louis and New York TIA
they cannot go on breaking the Divine law will
out meeting with Iellibution in the end Citis
can live for greed and gaycy and get II hut III"
will pay for it in the end thousand times nor
than II is worth,
DEGRADE THE POOR.
The enemies OF the Sabbath degrade the poor b
compelling them To work or Sunday and whe
say compelled | mean exactly what ! say fc
no man of good sense will work the Lord
day unless he is obliged to do 80. Twenty yc,I
ago lifted my voice and declared that the sur
day holiday would become in time the Sundl
workday and today there is ten times mole wo7
done on the Sabbath than there was then
Oh, YES, we'll ny 10 get back our Sabbat
when It's gone like poor, decaying France Is tC
dag but its Us hard to get the sabbath back whc
once its gone as it is to get character blp
when that's gone.
H. f. Shepherd in his little volume on capit