The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-20
CHURCH FAILS
 TO CHECK REAL SUNDAY DANGER
Rev. John P. Peters Ar raigns It for Raising False Sunday Observance Issues Should Shake Itself from Unholy Alliance, with
 Wealth and Property


 munity that are rotten, it is we'll to look to the church to see if there. are not things there that are rotten also.
 We are in condition in this coun- try where many strong men are seiz- ing each what he may for himself, with or without law, massing enor- nous fortunes, grasping huge areas of lands, forests, mines, controlling the lines of transportation. We have bloated fortunes. an immense power amassed in the hands of a relatively few, and the enormous majority living on the verge of want.
 'The voice and the wish of the men of large means is potent in the man agement of the affairs of the church, because we need money. We must have it for cathedrals, churches, par ish houses missions, and all those activities which cannot be conducted without money. Therefore money speaks powerfully in the management of the affairs of the church. To a very considerable extent the Church finds itself allied with the money in- terests. Precisely in proportion as this is the case has the Church been alienated from the laboring masses"
 This was the warning note sounded by the Rev. John P. Peters, rector of St. Michaers Episcopal Church of New York, in an address delivered in Len OK before the Spring meeting of the convocation of Western Massachusetts. The address was made before pastors of churches, not before laymen. Dr.. Peters object in making it was to show where the church is weak.
 'I find" says pr. Peters, that there is a tendency on the part of the ChY1r.n i,, 1nol 1sx ffarc to attack them from a certain confes- sional or theoretical, rather than from a real and fundamental standpoint.
 ''To illustrate my point let us take the Sunday or Sabbath question. Much is said in the pulpits about the in- creasing laxity of Sunday observance. Societies have been formed to pre- and from these appeals are continually made to the churches to protest against legislation permitting Sunday baseball or to demand of Mayors and police officers enforcement of the Sum day laws as they affect amusements.
 T say that many of these appeals are essentially wrong. I remem Der the protest which was raised twenty years ago by the Church in New York against the opening of the museums on Sunday. I do not believe that such a protest would be raised to-day. New ertheless. the appeals to which I have referred are not infrequently based on the same false principle which lay behind that protest.
 'It is not however, with the charac- ter of these protests and appeals that I now wish to deal, but with a some- what different matter.
 There has been within the last quarter of a century vast increase in the amount of Sunday labor. At the in, oatt toai i1xy eft VI and town and throughout most of the country districts street and trolley cars, ferries, and every other mode of conveyance run on Sunday precisely as in other days. In general this is true also of the railroads. There is an increasing number of factories and industrial concerns all over the seven days in the week.
 ''The Pittsburg survey revealed to the country at large-or so much of it as opened it's eyes and ears to see and heaf-extraordinary and painful industrial conditions
 ''This survey revealed men working twelve hours a day seven days in the week in order to secure what was in many cases not a proper living wage.
 Now here is the invasion of Sunday which is dangerous, which is immo- ral in the highest degree. which the Church ought to have prevented, against which the. Church should be laundering to-day.
 Ut passed almost unnoticed.
 ''Why ?''
 Because to so large an extent the Church was out of touch with the great working masses who are partic- ularly affected by such violation Of Sunday.
 For these violations the men in the af ,a ahI xrrhn UIUnC are in the pews of the churches are largely responsible. The Directors and stockholders of great industrial transportation and public service cor porations have been screwtng up the speed to a higher and higher point in the attempt to turn over capital more rapidly--to make more money in a shorter time.
 ''The Church has told these men and women that on Sunday they ought not to go to the theatre, that they ougt not to give dinner parties, or play bridge, or play golf. It has not told them that in damning the souls of all possibility of mental and splrl- tual growth by these unnatural con- ditions of labor they have been damn- ing their own souls.
 '"These industrial furnaces cannot be put out. They must run on Sun- day; the lOSS created Dy eXtlHS SuisililS them would be too great. The people must travel on Sunday. Street cars and the like cannot be done away with
 But this is what can be done, and that is precisely what the Church should have been demanding: that those men who have to keep the blast furnaces running on Sunday, that the men who form the crews of cars that rI1O on Sunday and others like them, should have another day of rest in the week; that no man should be called upon to labor more than six days in week.
 But sometimes you will find work men themselves objecting to interfer- ence in this matter, you will hear it said that the Workmen wish to work on Sunday because they earn more money by doing so. Unfortunately, in too many instances-the steel indus tries in Pittsburg, for example-the men can Smake ends meet only by working seven days in the week. Their only objection to interference is the fear that their opportunity for a living wage may be taken from them. In well-organized unions as, for instance, in the building trades in New York City, and in most parts of the country, there is prohibition of Sunday work except in cases of necessity. and a provision for a larger rate of pay in those cases.
 ''The Sunday question is really part nf hipCer olleafjon-the oIaSfi0n of