The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-10-09

/ sorti Men and women, tired from work
now. are turning this Saturday night into
the hardest kind of work They are dis
spating for pleasures sake. To the non
| churchgoer, as a rule Saturday night Is
only too often a time for free indu-
| gence of every desire that is bad.
| Sunday morning is here. Where do
| we now find most of the non-chureh-
| goers? Again crowding our railroad
trains and cars; pienios. ball games, out
| Ing parties, where the breweries and the
| wine sellers get their biggest revenues
The beautiful picture of the family Bible
| which we used to study as a boy have
| given place to the silly pictorials Of the
| Sunday newspaper. Everywhere on the
| Sabbath sin simply runs riot. In many
| cities even the saloons and play houses
are full. Instead of the quiet family
group going to the village church. now
almost every country road near an ada
cent city has its yelling rioters half
| drunk or entirely debauched who are off
for a day of sin. Do you mean to tell
me, sensible man. that the modern way
| of spending the Sabbath is as profitable
| as a day of rest and communion with
| God as were the Sabbath days our fore
| fathers observed?
Observance of the Lords Day.
The rigid Observance of Gods day as
| important foundation stone of the church
of Jesus Christ. Without 1t no true gos-
| pei conservation can exist | know that
| In some homes the lines were too tight
| ~ drawn and In them the Lords day
| was gloomy and was a WEAKNESS to the
| children. Henry Ward Beecher. the
| brilliant pastor of Plymouth church, used
] to give a humorous description of such
| Sabbaths. He described his brother and
| himself watching the sun go down over
| the western hills In his boyhood Sun
day was observed from the setting of the
sun Saturday to the setting of the sun
| Sunday. No sooner would the sun sink
| over the western hills than these two
| boys would let out a great YELL crying:
| "Hurrah, hurrahl Sundays over. Now
| for some fun" But. though the Puritanc
Sabbath was sometimes very angular In
the rigid observance. l claim that Sab
| bath had ten chances to where the mod
ern Sabbath has one of producing such
family as Lyman Beecher developed.
I protest. in the second place, against
the iconocasm which would eliminate
from our lives the divine principle of
concern for the welfare OF others. Pro-
fame iconoclastic hands have been un-
dermining the foundation stones of our
sacred Sabbath. Aye, these enemies of
God have been doing more; they have
been sneering and ridiculing the beauti-
full parable of the good Samaritan They
have been declaring that a mans neigh
Dor belongs not to the family which lives
next door to him. The only neighbor who
has claims he would recognize is the
wife or child who lives within the four
walls of his own house. He has been as
sorting that a mans chief duty in life
is to himself and his own.
"Can any good come out of such
NAZARETH" | once read of great con-
queror invading a country of the far
east. One day he entered a temple where
stood an idol so beautiful that not one
of his followers was willing to destroy
It, With an oath. the conqueror said,
"If you Will not obey my commands, I
will destroy 1t myself" He lifted his
battleax As he raised himself IN his
strrups-for he had ridden his horse into
the temple-with a mighty blow he scat
tered the idol into a thousand pieces.
| Then, to his followers surprise, he re-
vealed the fact that the inside of the
idol was not q vacuum. 1t had been
filled with thousands upon thousands of
golden coins, which as lava bed burst
from the broken statue and rolled to the
! feet of the western iconoclast The Icon
oclast who destroys the beautiful image
of charity and benevolence may think
| that he too will be able to grasp the
| wealth which 1t pours forth on the needy
and the suffering, but he will be dis
| appointed The economy which refuses
| to give help to those who need proves
a canker to prosperity, and those who
withhold their charity come to poverty.
The command is that he who loves God
loves his brother also, and the converse
is true that he who does not love his
brothers proves that he does not love
his God
The Golden Rule with our ancestors
tbpO-
ry. Where are you going tonight,
mother?" the father often asked. you
look tired You ought not to be going
out tonight" II know it, she would
say, but | must go. Our neighbor IS
very sick am afraid she will not get
we'll They have sent for me to come
and spend the night with her. ! have
fixed everything for breakfast. II do
not get back In time in the morning, you
can get along somehow"
The dantiest delicacies ever cooked in
the mothers stove were not for the
growing boys, with healthy. vigorous APP
petites. They were for the poor. con-
sumptlve young girl who used to sit day
after day upon the neighbours veranda in
the noon sun, smiling at us as we
trudged away to school. MY, how we
cast longing eyes at those jellles! We
then at times almost wished we could
be sick, at least for a little while, to get
a taste of them And how warm and
comfortable the mittens looked which
mother knitted for the poor children liv-
ing over the Hill And when the farmer
who lived down in the valley was pros
trated with typhoid fever and lay for
months. lowering between life and death.
don't you remember how your father and
the neighbors took turns proving his
fields and sowing his grain and getting
in his harvests? They say that that sick
man was once a strong athlete. How
ever that may be. when upon his sick
bed he heard what his neghbors had
done and how they had kept the wolf
of hunger from his door he cried Ike
little child. He became just such a
sick man as Ralph Conner depicted in
one of his baclSwoods tales.
Then the funerals of our fathers and
| forefathers. They never allowed
| neighbor to be buried like dog or a
| friendless pauper as sometimes we do.
No. They literally practiced the gospel
rule: ut Is better to go to the house of
mourning than to the house Of feast
ing" When their neighbors wept. they
went When their neighbors were low
| cred into their open graves, they them
| selves held the ropes that gently let
| down the coffins Was not their way
| better than our Wayne live and
breathe only for self. Was not the
| Christian helping hand our forefathers
! extended to the troubled ones In their
midst better than the Icy stare with
| which we regard our neighbors? We
| erumbIe in street car because we have
to wait for two minutes while funeral
procession. vending It's way to the Gem
| eterv. is holding us at a crossing. The
| Golden Rule which our forefathers prac-
] +foad ebould never be allowed to slip out