The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-09-01
OId-Fashioned Sabbath OBJ
servance in Moore.
STIMULUS TOPATRIOTlSM
The Editor Goes 10 Church in the Country and
Writes of the impressions Made
Upon Him by His
Visit.
Editorial Correspondence

long ago q 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and it had been replaced by the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 nave 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
n0Crnu fro M rum StTOnO' 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
physically by hard work, mentally 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
desecration have the same sense of duty,
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
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 a sin to commit murder. 1t was
preached in Norfolk that to make a feast
or a wedding dinner on that day was as
great a sin as for a 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 tC
church, was as great a sin as to do an
act of murder"
What is needed In America to-day-anC
vitally-is, not d return to the Puritanica
idea of Sunday, when a man was forbid
den to kiss his wife and children's hve>
were made hard and sad. Such a 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 ound IN the South twenty years
ago, and Is found IN many portions of i
still, thanks to the feeling among oul
people that impels them to cling to 'thC
ancient landmarks which the fathers have
set Sunday in such homes was not for
bidding. It was cheerful happy, uplift
Jnp There was a recognition that IL wa
Gods day and was not to be ~profanet
by the ordinary avocations or amuse
ments. 1t was held to be a day when chill
dren should be instructed in the Bible
higher source of pleasure than upon tn,
other six days. Wise parents directed tn,
instruction Of their children, while no
denying to them such recreation as wa;
wholesome and full of pleasure. It is
return to the Bible observance of tn
Sabbath that is needed today in all tn
country, but less in the villages and rura
districts Of North Carolina than in an,
other portion of the Republic. It is no
needed at all In this section Of Moor
county, for the spirit of proper observ
ance Of the Sabbath prcdominates her
now as always.
1t was my good fortune Oh Sunday /
attend services at Jackson Springs churc'
an old fashioned Kirk" founded her
by Scotch Presbyterians three quarter
of a century ago. In 1921, on the high hi
opposite ,-e famous, health-giving Jack
son Springs, this church was built. Tn
church was the outcome of the settlemen
made by those seeking health from tn
Spring, then noted locally for its health
restoring properties, for, ever in thos
days as now indigestion cursed a larg