The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-30
Old Fashioned Sabbath OBJ
SerVance in Moore.
The Editor Goes TO Church in the Country and
Writes of the Impressions Made
Upon Him by His
Visit.
Editorial Correspondence


Jackson Springs, N C., Aug. 2S.-Not
long ago a noted Northern bishop de,
clared that the whole country looked to
the South for the preservation of
the Christian Sabbath. He said that
in most of the Northern States
the old fashioned observance of
the Sabbath had become obsolete,
and it had been replaced by the
European free and easy observance of the
seventh day of the week. The bishop
might have said also that the germ was
working in the South and the disease
rapidly spreading in its larger cities.
Whenever reference is made to the old
time observance of Sunday and insistence
is laid upon Sabbath observance, some
body cries out that we are trying to bring
back blue laws and restore the Sunday of
Puritanism. Not at ALL In the Puritan
settlements the pendulum swing too far
in one direction as to-day it swings too
far in the opposite direction, with this
difference: the Puritan rigid and too much
long-faced observance of the Sabbath made
men whose supreme idea of life was duty
The present latitudinarian Sabbath tends
to make men whose chief idea of life is
Pleasure. Puritanism made men strong.
upright, narrow if you please The Euro
pean Sabbath makes them so broad that,
it is like a stream that broadens and
broadens until it has not enough depth at
the mouth for large vessels. ''The
narrow stream runs strong" In
the revolt from the hardness of
Paritanism have we not gone into the
softness of Latitudinanrianism until char
acter is weakened? Men are made strong
by grasping and solving hard problems,
morally strong by doing right, as well as
by the exercise of faith. Do the men who
have grown up under European Sabbath
dissertation have the same sense of duty, I
the same robustness of character, the same
high religious convictions? The test of
the best is the product turned out. Men
reared under latitudiarian observance
have more of outward graces and cour-
tesies, but do they possess the oak-like
quality that meets the storm and endures
like men reared under the old fashioned l,
ideas of the Sabbath?
We do not wish to go back to the times
told about in the life of Archbishop Whit |
gift, who died in 1904. His biography says:
1T was preached in Oxfordshire that to |
do any work on the Sabbath was as great
a sin as to kill or to commit adultery. 1t |
was preached in Somersetshire that to |
throw a bowl on the Sabbath day was as |
great sin to commit murder. 1t was |
preached in Norfolk that to make a feast |!
or wedding dinner on that day was as
great sin as for father to take a knife |
and cut his sons throat. 1t was preached |
in Suffolk chat to ring more bells than one |
on the Lords Day to call the people to |
church, was as great a sin as to do an |
act of murder"
What is needed in America to-day-and |
Vitally-is not a return to the Puritanical |
idea of Sunday, when man was forbid |
den to kiss his wife and childrens lives |
We're made hard and sad Such concep- |
ton of the Sabbath is not the Bible idea |
1t tended to drive children away from !
such dolorous and long faced religion.
What is needed is such observance as was
generally found in the South twenty years
ago, and is found in many portions of it
still, thanks to the feeling among our
people that impels them to cling to "thc
ancient landmarks which the fathers have
set Sunday in such homes was not for
bidding. 1t was cheerful happy, uplift-
ing. There was recognition that it was
Gods day and was not to be profaned
by the ordinary avocations or amuse-
ments. 1t was held to be a day when chill
dren should be instructed in the Bible.
should read good books, should find a
higher source of pleasure than upon the
other six days. Wise parents directed the
instruction of their children, while not
denying to them such recreation as was
wholesome and full of pleasure. 1t is
return to the Bible observance of the
Sabbath that is needed to-day in all the
country, but less in the villages and rural
districts of North Carolina than in any
other portion of the Republic 1t is not
needed at all in this section Of Moore
county, for the spirit of proper observ-I