The Savannah morning news., 1904-06-13
SUNDAY BASEBALL
AND THUNDERBOLT
DISCUSSED BY DR.. JORDAN.
'REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY
TO KEEP 1T HoLY'' HIS THEME.

Declared That Ball Playing on Sab
bath Would Drive Many Away
from Grounds Permanently.
Preachers should BE Commended
Rather Than Censured, He Said.
Applying his text locally, Rev. DIR.
John d. Jordan at the First Baptist
Church took occasion last night to crit
icise Sunday baseball and the present
way of spending Sunday at Thunder
bolt. His theme was, Remember the
Sabbath to keep it holy"
"A Jew is expected to keep the Jew
ish Sabbath, Christian is expected to
keep the Christian Sabbath, a heather
is expected to keep neither, and he that
keepeth neither tendeth very rapidly
toward heathenism," said DIR. Jordan.
"A few more generations of his kind
and the work would be accomplished.
1T is not strictly from a religious
standpoint that 1 plead for Sabbath
keeping. What is not best from re-
ligious standpoint is not best from a
physical, mental, moral or patriotic
standpoint. Health, strength, skill and
endurance physically inhere in those
bodies that have their Sabbath of rest.
Not Party of "BIack Laws"
while we should not belong to the
party of the blue laws neither should
we become a party of black laws
For my Sabbath's rest to be clean and
free it must not necessitate labor, toll
and burden upon others, nor contribute
to the violation of law, nor enrich
those who are willing to be lawless for
gain.
Careful and impartial observation
has convinced me that those who pro-
vide Sunday entertainment and recrea-
ton for the tired and laboring classes
are public benefactors for revenue
only. 1t is the munifcence of Simon
Magus and the hospitality of the spider
to the fly.
THE ordinary places and manner of
Sabbath dissertation tend greatly to
break down the moral backbone and
weaken the moral stamina of commun-
titles and individuals.
Sunday Baseball.
LAS to professional baseball we have
had none on Sunday, and presume we
shall not have any. To begin that
would be to drive large per cent. of
the best element of people from the
dishonor the management and force
them to meet the issues of the law.
Let US expect high and honorable
dealing in the future as we have had
in the past. Let us also pray that our
city sister, Jacksonville, may soon be
able to wash her hands of her disgrace
in this respect.
"Why should we take any special in
terest in Thunderbolt? 1t is a part of
our community, a part of our parish,
especially on Sunday. Many of US have
members living there. If for no other
reason the reputation of our county and
state should appeal to our corporations.
is it not a pity that necessity re-
quires the ministers so often to call
attention to the laws violation? Are
Inundated? We deserve sympathy and
succor rather than censure and criti-
cism.
II plead for this community-rny
adopted communicate which your ia
theirs and mothers lived and died, soil
sacred to many by thousand memo
ries, the community in which many of
you, with your children, will live and
die. When law is turned into lawless-
ness, when life is sold for gain, when
religion becomes egotistic and not al
truistic, when the golden rule of David
Harum has taken the place of the
Golden Rule of the Bible, when error
dons the garments of truth and vice
the garments of virtue, when the
chariot wheels of Israel seem to drag
in the ground and the chariots of Pha-
roah travel with electric speed, when
all this and more is true, is it not time
for Gods ministers to plead the cause
of God and the cause of the peOnle ~