The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-02-08
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
Live and let live"
This is the slogan of the modern
day
1t is the ideal of Christianity.
And the text of the humanitarian.
Everybody can't be made to toe the
same line.
To hit the identical chalk mark. :,
To be trimmed and pared anC
pruned and nodded into the same
shape.
Men and women differ.
Tastes are various.
Conditions shift.
Traditions vanish.
And ideals evolve.
In a series of interviews with wei
known men published in the Pallad
ium's news columns a day or SO since
with regard to the bill on Sunday
amusements now pending in the Leg1s
lature, one man was quoted as saying
81 do not believe in legislation based
on the Mosaic law"
That seems to sum the thing up, tc
concentrate it to a head, to express
it's essence.
We are living under the dispense
tion of Christ, not that of the Ole
Testament.
Under inter-related Christian activ
tiles.
Not those puritanic traditions thai
by the founders of a portion of the
country.
The social complexion of the nation
has changed.
1t has had absorbed into its fabric
a thousand diverse racial and nationa
strains.
And has evolved into a type vastly
different from those severe, rock
4 ribbed Puritans who stepped off the
Mayflower and symbolized Plymouth
Rock
The Puritans were a dour set.
Anyone who dared to have any mi
tiative of thought, to vary from theil
social or religious standard, was
burned at the stake, thrown into g
dungeon and sent to ex-communica
ton.
Coming to this land for an opportu
nifty to practice their religion in free
dom and without interference, they
imposed upon their fellows the very
prosecutions that caused them to fly
their original environ.
So they took to cutting off Quakers
ears and banishing Baptists to Rhode
Island.
In turn the Quakers threw into out
err darkness anyone who wore a col
lar on his coat.
And the Baptists denied heaven
of the Quakers unless they took the
water route.
These things are so much of the
past nowadays as to evoke a smile
merely.
federation has become the rule.
And charity for the other fellow the
custom. %~-
We have passed the place where we
think it is wicked to enjoy ourselves
naturally and normally on Sunday.
Where we have doubts as to wheth
er or not a hot dinner is not taking us
perditionward.
AS Mr.. Hayward said-'it is be
coming hard to longer withstand the
pressure against the Puritan Sab
bath"
No one cares for the imposition OF
the continental Sunday.
Which is very much like any other
day.
But recognition that a day of leis
ure should be devoted to those so
cial activities most congenial to the
individual taste is becoming more anG
more prevalent.
The existence of Sunday concerts
proves this.
In all cities and in the smaller met
ropolitan communities you will fine
them.
Their local popularity is attested by
the thousands that crowd the Chau
tauqua grounds every year on the Sun
day afternoons. many of whom are
drawn thither by the musical attrac
tions, of the programs.
Concerts made up of varying voca
and instrumental media.
And of the other thousands who
flock to the Glen to listen to the free
concerts given by the Richmond City
Band, under the patronage of the mu
nicipality.
The Chautauqua concerts are, o.
course, a paid entertainment
And the city and the Y. M. C.. A
share equally in the profits.
This is as it should be-
This column thinks this phase O.
the Chautauqua's activities an inter
esting and applauded one
1t furnishes entertainment to {
great mass Of persons who dom
know what to do on Sunday.
For the average individual is some
what embarrassed with his enforce,
weekly leisure.