The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-09-15
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE
Doster, Mich, Sept. 7, 1911

| read an article in your paper a
few days since, by some correspond
ent, on making Sunday observance
obligatory. 1t is strange how some
few special pleaders for sectarian
tenets fail utterly to appreciate the
trend of public sentiment. 1t is as
vain to attempt to re-establish the
old blue law" Sunday as to try
again to legally recognize witchcraft.
To rest or recreate one day in sew
en-, or six, or eight, may or may not
to whatever extent it may be an in
herent need, its observance or nom
observance may properly be CLASH
fed among the moralities.
That Sunday observance is moral
because of the fiat of omnipotence is
no longer believed by any thinking
man who has reputation to lose for
accurate mental processes.
That Mosaic cosmogony that pre-
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5000 years has long ago been explod-
ed, and has absolutely no standing
at all wherever modern science is in
possession of the field. The reason
advanced by the clergy that man
should rest one literal day. in seven
is that God rested one literal day af-
ter making the world in six other lit
eral days. No educated man believes
this now. They say the days meant
ages or epochs, and modern man
proves his disbelief by running street
cars and steam cars and newspapers
on Sunday.
No legitimate excuse can be offered
for running street cars or any other
cars on Sunday that could not with
exactly equal propriety be urged in
favor of Sunday baseball.
Human convenience is not the or
thodox criterion. That criterion was
necessity, and if convenience be ad-
mitted as an excuse, then all amuse-
ments must be admitted.
We all get into ruts. To my mind,
the man who spends six days out in
the fields, ought to spend one day
among the refining influences of lit
erature, music and art, but also
think that it is the moral duty of the
man who spends six days under a
roof to take his family, lunch and fish
pole and take to the woods on the
seventh
So far as l can see, affairs are
prosperous in the north. Crops are
good and the weather, most of the
time, has been ideal We had few
very hot days after we arrived, but it
only lasted a little while, and it has
been remarkably cool ever since.
am sitting by fire in the crate while
writing this.
But, after all, long to get back to
Florida. My old lake has become
summer resort, the banks lined with
cottages and the water churned into
foam by over forty motor boats. To
catch a fish is a rare event, to be
heralded by trumpets and recorded
in the county archives.
l much fear that my hard-earned
laurels will be wrested from me, and
| may have to take up politics to get
fame if Henry and Louis don't quit
fishing
I do hope that you may see your
way clear to get into the race for
governor. Anything l can do with
voice or pen to help on to that end
l would be glad to do.
Nothing is more absurd than the
idea that to be good public servant
one must be a lawyer. A knowledge
of the limitations of law in securing
good conduct is far better as official
equipment than technical legal expe-
rience. What we need is the thought
full students of social and economic
conditions.
Give my regards to all the friends
in Ocala, and Mrs. w. wishes to be
remembered to yourself and family.
Very truly yours,