The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1918-10-01
HEART TO
WYTy Ant TAI TC
aEAN / ] ALNS
By Oscar Godfrey Klinger.
|. The Sunday Closing Question.
II. The Humanitarian Point Of View

From the legal viewpoint obedience
to law seems to be a primal principle
of self-government and the Sunday
closing law should not be made an
exception. 1t should either be en-
forced or repealed without further
delay that it may not breed a dan
gerous disrespect for all legislation.
There is another angle from which
Sunday closing seems equally i'm
portant, namely, the need of hui
mainly for stated periods of rest This
need cannot, in the writer's opinion,
be too strongly emphasized, partic-
ularly in these days which are trying
out the manhood and womanhood Of
the world.
Even before the great war, life
had become a muscle-breaking, nerve
racking onrush Of incessant activity.
Business was so organized that the
dollar starting on its journey from
the mint to the Golfers of the few in
Wall street could be seized as it
passed and held only by the most
strenuous effort. Business had be-
come universal tyranny and only
the closest vigilance enabled a man
to keep what he could accumulate.
Recreation, in the main, had become
dissipation and to tone up exhausted
nerves recourse. was had to artificial
stimulation with its deadly results
among men and women alike Fash
ion demanded fortune to keep up
with her absurd vagaries. Homes
were mortgaged and lost because an
automobile was deemed necessary to
keep up with the crowd. The Sab
bath brought relief from the routine
of the office, but was used as day
of negotiations. The churches were
never crowded, but the highways
were, and the speed of the automo-
biles correspondent to the tenseness
of the nerves of the drivers. The
result was that the United States
was fast becoming a nation of neu-
rasthenics. 1t was a rude awaken
ing to be told by the examiners that
one-third Of our young men were
unfit for the army.
Such result was inevitable. The
human body is a machine, the most
perfect, the most wonderful machine
ever created. 1t is not made of steel
or adamant, but of living cells which
seek to repair the waste as fast as it
occurs. But there is limit to what
these microscopic cells can do. When
care is taken to give them chance
they will keep a body hale for a hun
dred years, but when they are over
taken the waste is bound to outrun
the repair and the body is old at as.
What the body needs above all else
is stated periods of rest in which work
is laid aside and play comes into ac-
ton. In the experience of the ages
one day in seven has been found to
be the most advantageous proportion.
Not only was the seventh day pre-
scribed by the Creator in His DEGREES
from Sinai but in some way the peo-
Piles who were not of Israel had
learned the same truth. A seventh
Eday Sabbath was rigidly enforced
among the BabyloniAns and Assy-
rians; cessation from business of ev-
cry kind, from changing of clothing,
from cooking, from every form of
work was required--even the physi-
clan could not enter the sick room
on that day! And this law was en-
1
acted and enforced about the time
that Abraham was born. The an
clients must have discovered by ex-
Fperience the great fact that neither
animals nor men can be at their best
unless they have absolute relaxation
from work one day in seven.
What was decreeG by the Voice
on Sinai and discovered by olden ma
tons still in the twilight of a true
civilization, must continue to have
significance for US of the twentieth
century. Dare we run contrary to
the experience of mllleniums and risk
great hurt? Is it true that we are
money-mad? We have been guilty Of
making the means of living the end
of life. We have looked on this life
as made up of material things
wealth, fine homes, fast automobiles,
food and drink. But what of the
larger values-literature, art, music,
the snnl and Cnaq unnr n;tif,,l the