The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-22


i cannot say that | am what
you would call pleased over the way
things are going on in this country now
adays Quite on the contrary
| had carried to him the news that
New York had followed the example of
Ohio by passing a law to permit towns
and cities to vote for themselves on the
question of having or not having sun
day baseball and that other states were
threatening to do the same thing. also
had told him that certain clergymen OF
more or less prominence were coming Out
openly in advocacy of opening saloons
under certain restrictions during certain
hours on Sundays, and that so far no at
tempts to lynch them to the nearest tele-
graph pole had been made by the ultra
religious of their respective communities
l had told the Reverend Cotton Mather
these things as he was seated IN MS
library surrounded by such favorlte works
of his as the Blue Laws, and the Salem
Cook Book, With Twenty Ways OF Serv-
ing Witches and l shall never 1orget
the expression on his noble and acid fea-
lures as he listened. 1t seemed to me
he actually emitted a pale blue haze OF
Indignation like the heat waves that are
thrown off by gas stove. Then 1t was
that he uttered the remark which nave
already quoted.
1T doesn't seem possible, ne SAID,
that people can be coming to believe
that they have the right actually to gov
ern themselves instead of following the
grand old system of letting few others
do 1t for theml 1t doesn't seem possible
that considerably less than three centuries
from the time when we banished Roger
Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson into the
bowling wilderness for daring to have
opinions of their own, the country could
begin to show signs, in spots, of believing
that possibly mans conscience may be
his own private property after all and not
something that ought to be taken in
charge and regulated for him by his
neighbor, like a borrowed watch 1t
grieves and distresses me to see signs of
such an awakening. 1t makes me long
for our good old Puritanical withdrawing
days when everybody was not only his
brothers keeper but stayed on the job
q hours a day.
I'VE started this country out with the
right idea," said the Reverend Mather.
Wed come here to have religious free
dom and we were determined to have 1t
If we had to hang everybody who dis
agreed with US. And we did hang quite
a few of them from time to time, In addi-
ton to touching off witches and extermi-
mating Indians and minor details of
similar nature. We were busy putting our
system into effect from the hour when the
Pilgrim Fathers landed on this stern and
hide-bound coast and conferred undying
fame upon the messy boulder for which
the Plymouth hen and the Plymouth Rock
nj ~ plu,an1lfh
poem are all named. No sooner had they
offered up a prayer of thanksgiving for
deliverance from persecution than they
set the innocent Children gathering up
dry wood in case anybody should flush
witch and then proceeded to evolve a
plan of theology which made person
long for the other world as an escape
from this one. 1t suited me and all the
rest of our sect from the ground up. 1t
was carved out of the f1inty granite and
the rocky hills and the frowning winter
skies of our land and the sunshine and
green grasses of old New England had
neither part nor parcel in it. 1t was the
kind of theology that would numb an
eager soul at 80 yards and kill it cold
stone dead at 80 A smile had no more
place in it than a collar button has in
pie.
"And. as I say. it suited me in every
essential. l could revel in its gloom and
glory in it's iron discipline. 1t suited the
country, too, seemingly, for along with
the New England boiled dinner, the New
England conscience, the New England
Goldfish ball and the New England fight
ing spirit, our children and. our chill
dren's children carried it into every part
of the republic except portions of Texas
and Kentucky Time softened some of
its flinty edges and knobby corners, so
that the populace, speaking generally,
might unbend a few lengths on week
days: but come Sunday, and from Maine
to California and from the lakes to the
gulf, the people might safely be counted
upon to start in to remembering along
about breakfast time that the founders
Of the nation had been a race of men
who counted laughter as a crime and
happiness as a wilful misdemeanor that
should be punished by fine or imprison-
ment or both. and from then on until
bedtime, the Day of Rest would be al
most as Joyous as a pauper funeral dur
ing a January thaw. All, me. l can
shut NV eyes now and see the Sabbath
AZ II has always been in this country
of ours-deadly duh and DULY dead"
Not wanting to interrupt, l didn't say
ANYTHING, but l might have told the late
clergyman that l. too, could shut my
ewes y
of a Sunday as l had known it once,
when the birds and the bees and the
trees kept right on being natural and
normal and happy and only the thinking
animals such as human beings refrained
from doing these simple, pleasant things
that brought joy and health on the other
six days of the week, but were so dam
gercus and sinful and manifestly i'm
proper on the seventh. | had picture
og 1<xrf Gu, daxr
in a country town when he must not
run, but walk-rupning being his regu-
lar and ordained gait--mustn't yell or
vhooD or turn cartwheels, or go up in
the stable loft and tumble In the hay;
mustn't tie a tin can to the terminal
facilities of a stray dog; mustn't go in
swimming; in short, mustn't do anything
that a growing boy would naturally pre-
fer to do; but must sit up straight and
not fidget about and not scratch himself
no matter how many separate and dis
tinct sections of his anatomy might be
mutely clamoring for such attentions
| remember that he always itched more
on Sundays than common-but must pay
silent attention to what his elders said
because 1t was Sunday and they pro-
posed to make him rest II they had tc
kill him doing 1t. There weren't ever
any comic supplements or cut-out pic
lures to offer him temporary relief and
II there had been he wouldn't have beer
allowed to amuse himself with them. He
could go TO church and come home again
and he could read book suitable fol
SUnday-the Sunday schools used to give
that kind away for premiums to the best
scholars-and as a mark of special favor
he could sit with the family album
which weighed eight nounds-on his lar
until his legs went to sleep studying the
photographs of Uncle Abner wearing his
annual collar and Aunt Mile starring
bo, pavv cot Of StOra teeth that made bor