Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-10-26
Mr.. ROOSEVELTFOR
CHURCH-C()ING HABIT
Says Mental Vacancy Chsracterizes
Those Who Stay Home.
NEED TONING UP.
No Excuse Excuses People For Stay
ing Away From Church Al
Sunday Worship


Colonel Roosevelt has contributed
to the October number OF The Ladies
Home Journal an article entitled
shall We DO Away With the
Church," which has made an impress
sion both on Church people and those
who are not Church people. Speaking
Of the value and duty OF attending
services, Mr.. Roosevelt says:
For all those whose lives are led
on a plane above the grimmest and
barest struggle for existence church
attendance and church work of some
kind mean both the cultivation Of the
habit Of feeling some responsibility
for others and the sense of braeed
moral strength which prevents a re-
taxation OF ones fibre.
He Merely Dawdles.
THE household in which Sunday is
treated merely as a day for easy self
indulgence does not on that day offer
an attractive spectacle. Nor in such
household is what occurs on that
day. healthy stimulus toward right
living for the children In such q
household the master of the house
generally rises late. That is all right
if his staying in bed means rest for
him without meaning added work for
somebody else But, having risen. he
merely dawdles half-dressed. smokes
and reads the Sunday papers, lounges
around the place if nothing more at
tractive offers itself, and finally goes
off to the club or other lounging
place.
THE mistress Of the household
meanwhile, if like her spouse, stays
in bed, too, with the Sunday paper,
or with a cheap magazine or cheap
novel; then also lounges around the
house before fully dressing, and final
~ visits or receives visits from some
other women who also regard slip
shod absence of effort as the proper
characteristic of the day
"The case is not bettered if the
heads Of the family possess more en-
ergy but use it merely for their own
selfish enjoyment. as, for instance,
if they habitually spend the entire day
in the motor, or take part in some
form of dress parade, or visit brightly
lighted restaurants.
Need TOning Up.
SIN ordinary cases, as regards most
men and women, the performance of
their duties to the Church, to them
selves and to others,on Sunday. repre-
sents merely such 'toning up Of their
system as viii enable them to profit
more by rest and amusement during
the remainder of the day Sundays
differ from other holidays-among
other ways-in the fact that there are
ffty-two Of them every year, The
proper conduct for other holidays may
be treated in itself as an exception
For Sunday it must be treated as a
rule-a rule properly subject to ex-
ceptions, and perhaps to numerous
exceptions-but rule, nevertheless.
Therefore, on Sunday go to church.
Tesl know all the excuses. / know
that one can worship the Creator and
dedicate oneself to good living in a
grove of trees, or by running brook,
or in ones own house, just as well as
in church. But / also know that as a
matter of cold fact the average man
does not thus worship or thus dedi-
cate himself. If he stays away from
church he does not spend his time in
good works or in lofty meditation
He looks over the colored supplement
of the newspaper; he yawns; and he
finally seeks relief from the mental
vacuity of isolation by going where
the combined mental vacuity of many
partially relieves the mental vacuity
Of each particular individual