The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1914-07-31
FORUM OF THE PEOPLE.
PROPER OBSERVANCE OF THE
SABBATH.
Editor News:


Editor News:
| have read, with a good deal of in
terest, the various articles that have !
appeared recently in your valuable pa
per regarding the Sabbath question,
and take the liberty of penning few |
paragraphs anent this important sub
ject |
Although from time to time we hear
vociferous utterances against our So
called Sunday "bue-laws," it is an
incontrovertible fact that our great
republic owes its pre-eminence among
the nations principally to the open
Bible, which is the bulwark of our
national liberties, and to the Christian
Sabbath, which has happily been de-
fined as 1.-The keystone of the arch OF
Christianity" 1t is not mere coin
cidence that England and the United
States, the two countries where the
Sabbath is most respected, and most
strictly observed, rank highest in civil
lization, in influence, and in prosperity.
The Continental Sabbath, which some
are clamoring for, means a lower
standard of morality, and no day OF
est at all for the average laboring man.
The Sabbath, it should be remem-
bered, is a divine institution, having
been given to man, not on Mt Sinai,
but at the end of Creation, at the very
beginning of human history, and is
two-fold in it's design. First, it is in
tended as a day of rest; secondly, as
day of worship The need of the
Sabbath is stamped upon mans physl-
cal as we'll as upon his spiritual ma
ture The physical man has been COM
pared to a clock so constructed as to
run six days. 1t runs down at the end
of the week, and needs to be rewound,
so to speak, and the Sabbath rightly
observed, winds up the physical ma
chine again, and sets it going. Sir
Robert Peel, one of Englands greatest
1Illllt MlHlSItl ., olNt Suib III SPNuhiHo
of the Sabbath: 81 never knew man
to escape failure in body or mind who
worked seven days in the week." When
the illustrious VIM. E. Gladstone was
asked to speak into monograph that
the record might be made for use
fifty years hence, this was his mes
sage: 81 owe my life and vigor
through a long and busy life to the
Sabbath day with its blessed surcease
of toll" 1t has been demonstrated
time and again that men and animals
can do more work and better work by
laboring six days and resting on the
Sabbath, than by laboring a shorter
number of hours every day in the
week.
According to the teaching of the
Holy Scriptures, upon which our civil
Sabbath law is based, the only works
permissible on the Sabbath are Works
of mercy, and works of necessity
Alas, however, hundreds of church
members rather than put themselves
to little extra trouble, rather than
practice little self-denial are willing
to cut the butcher and the ice-man
and the soda-fountain clerk out of the
Sabbath altogether or nearly so. What
sort of piety is it that thus disregards
the sacred rights of others who are
just as dear to God as we? If ice
cream and soda water and cigars are
necessities on the Sabbath, why should
not the grocer and the fruit dealer
also have the privilege, for few hours
at least, of selling melons, and oranges,
and bananas, and other perishable
eatables?
Many people plead that Sunday is
the only day they have for recreation,
hence they want license to do as they
please, even at the expense Of the
sacred rights of others. Says the de-
voice of pleasure 1.-THE Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath" So be it. But what is mans