The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1909-03-12
A GRAND PLEA FOR THE OLD
SUNDAY

A few more years and the charging !
of traffic will have stormed /
the ancient battlements of the sacred |
city, and the steady stream of gain
seekers will flow on, unimpeded By its
barrier. Already the beer gardens,
the dance halls, the baseball and foot
ball teams, the railroads and the
drive right through its
hallowed precincts. Already the busy
contractor in the great city makes
the hammers ring while the church
bells chime. Well, / am an old-fash-
toned man-simple in some things,
reckon, God knows l am little fitted
to sermonize, but l am not ashamed to
say that / feel a profound reverence
for that old land-mark-the Sabbath
day. To see it go down under the
hurrying feet of mere selfish money
hunters would, in my eyes, be a far
reaching calamity. This is said IN no
spirit of narrow sectarianism. Far
from it. But / believe a periodical
rest day is so very needful to the
world: so true an economy of time,
of energy, of strength; so moral and
elevating in all its tendencies, that
mere religion entirely removed from
the debate. I would. as a law-maker,
vote to compel a weekly hating Of
the human hOrdes.
I have read somewhere that in
crossing the plains, in the emigrant
days. the teams which halted for
Sunday always caught up with, and
then passed. those which had trav-
eled on without the halt / do not
doubt that such would be the case in
any similar test. The French repub,
lie. in its general reforms, undertook
TO eliminate the seventh day Sabbath
and to make every tenth day the Sun
day. instead Historians tell us that
the attempt was a failure; that men
and beasts wore away under the
heightened strain. and that France
had to return TO the old seventh day
rest.
In this country we have heartless.
tireless. pitiless race for wealth such
as the world never saw before. The
great lines of duty are becoming dim.
The grand ideas of moral responsible
ity are fading away. The sublime
conception of life as a -rusteeship of
noble powers, aspirations and OppOr-
tunities. is battling for its very exist
ence. Every year this maddening
rush for money this insane get
there" push for success, regardless OF
methods. see us drawing nearer TO
the fatal brink over which so many
nations have gone down in ruin.
Whenever We lose entirely the belief
i'm human accountability TO eternal
powers; whenever We are possessed
utterly by the creed that life ends at
the grave. and that therefore we must
"eat. drink and be merry'-then, in
deed. we are doomed. Money will be
the God we worship. The basest pas
sions of our animal nature will assert
supreme authority over thought and
speech and act. From January to
January there will be the rush, the
roar, the march the deadly combat,
the shout Of onset, the cry of the
wounded, the cheers of these relent-
less civilized savages whose only
care, purpose, effort, religion, is to
get money. In this mad saturnalia,
so very destructive to the better at
tributes of manhood, the catchwords
of the procession will be precisely the
| same as those under which the old
Pagan nations went headlong to per-
dition, money and woman and wine. -
Strike Sunday out of the habits and
thoughts and reverence of men, and
we will have lost a priceless heirloom
of the past whose value we did not
| know until il was gone. l confess to
an instructive respect for the time
honored halting day of our people
not necessarily the day of starchy
dressing. idle gossip. sermonizng, for
malitics or gloom. That's as may be
every man being his own Judge OF
his duty. Least of all do I mean the
day of come 10 stay" visiting. The
only men I ever MAIN and murder,
with malice aforethought tboth eX-
press or impied). are all-day Sabbath
visitors
Meaning none of these. | yet love
the day of rest, quiet and reflection.
With folded hands, one can stop and
think. There's no thought that rivals
are passing while We pause They
are halting too. There is time TO
loOE hack r1nOn rhp ROAD oIraa1V fro y.