Evening journal., 1911-10-19
A sPECIoUs ARGUMENT.


The Defender of June-July pub
fishes an editorial ON Physiological
Reasons for the Weekly Rest Day."
and associates with the article DR..
Haerler's Chart, in which it is as
sumed that Sunday rest is essential
TO mankind for the preservation OF
physical health. This Is one of the
excuses put forward for the enact
ment of civil laws compelling the OBJ
servance Of Sunday. II is a fact sup
ported by available evidence that for
the most part this discovery has
been made by some OF the clergy fav-
oring compulsory Sunday observance.
But the claim that physicians and
scientists generally endorse this po-
sition is not sustained by the record.
In the light OF history. the Defend
er's position on the question amounts
to nothing more nor less than assump-
tion. II goes without saying that the
number OF people in this world who
have kept Sunday regularly as a day
Of rest, is Comparatively small. The
weekly rest-day is found mostly con-
fined to those lands where the people
profess Christianity. In heather
lands weekly rest is not observed. and
it never has been known among the
heather nations of past times. And
yet it is on record that in point OF
physical perfection, the heather com
pare favorably with the people of So
called Christian nations.
A bit of more recent history from
the pen OF Bishop Andrews, Of the
Methodist Church. who has visited
Hbfpo rrf1I he of fnfaracf
"In China they have no septennial
division of time, no weekly rest-day,
merely. annual festivals They work
right along all the time, with no day
of rest as such; yet they live TO a
very advanced age This fact has
led one of the most careful thinkers
who has ever been sent as mis-
siOnary TO China, 10 raise the serious
question whether the great purpose Of
the Sabbath is not for worship and
communion with the other world"
We are not contending that Sabbath
observance does not bring physical as
we'll as spiritual benefit, but we do
maintain, that to make physiological
reasons basis for compulsory Sun
day observance. is unwarranted. The
Bible tells us of such men as Goliath
Of Gath, Og king of Bashan, and the
Anakim, concerning whom the ten
spies reported. I'VE were in their
eyes as grasshoppers." The ancient
Greeks furnished some of the most
noted men in point Of physical per-
fection, and yet they had no weekly
rest-day. Neither did the cOnquering
armies Of Rome follow the practice Of
observing a weekday rest
To refer to the Defender again, we
find in that issue an article by the
Rev. Wilbur +. Crafts, on the sub
ject of Sunday play, in which he says,
among other things:
I'VE are indeed becoming a child
nation like Spain. with half of it's
time devoted to saints days and holi-
days. II most of our people were not
so much on the street and In places
OF amusement in their leisure hours,
and had the time TO read something
of history. they would recognize an
alarming likeness between our pres
ent situation and those days before
the fall of the Roman Empire, when
the common cry of the people was
bread and games To an unprece-
dented degree, Americans are busy
with money-malxing by day and pleas
ure-making by night, and If the
pleasures We're not i'm themselves de-
grading they would degrade by theiI
very excess"
It seems TO us that Mr.. Crafts II
this language points out the real
difficulty with the mass Of humanity
today AS he puts it, dissipation
threatens the people Continuous
pleasure-making at night. (which is
the divinely ordained time for ply
sical rest, is the thing to be deprecat-
ed And if we are to argue in be
half Of rest periods made necessary
by the effects of dissipation carried
on at night. when we should be rest
ing physically, it would require more
than one weekly restday to offse
sufficiently the trouble.
II should be remembered in passing
that the eight-hour working day. th'
half-holiday on Saturday, and thI
early closing Of stores, are cominl
TO be generally observed; and, takel
in Connection with DR.. Crafts Saints
days and holidays" II would seen
4, superfluous to compel the people b.
d civil law to rest on Sunday
But the motive behind cOmpulsOr,
Sunday observance by civil law is q
subserve religious rather than ply
siological reasons. DR.. Crafts himsel
being the judge, and we are safe il
. concluding that the argument pu