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About Pacific Christian messenger. (Monmouth, Or.) 1877-1881 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1881)
» l CIFIC CHRISTIAN MESSENGER, FRIDAY, OCT. 28, 1881 Shall we Exchange our American that it is utterly tingedly anti pro his mighty angels and risen saints, Sabbath for a German Sunday ? fane, degrading'to the people, and so to Abolish every organization of trans destructive to our Republic. It gressors, and establish his everlasting directly assails and abolishes the. kingdom of love, and righteousness, worship of Qod, so far a» its attend and peace on earth. Men educated in This proposal has not only been ants are concerned ; and it degrades these try ths cannot become slaves of made, but is actually on a large scale the thousands engaged in ministering despots, but have ever been free. cat ried into practice in our city every to the pleasures and vices of the On the other hand, let the working Sabbath. The makers of liquor and revelers into seven-day drudges, desti people spend their Sabbaths and their the makers of music combine their tute of manhood and character. The wages in revelry, and return on Mon energies, and barrels of beer and brass Sabbath, God's day of rest and wor day to the toile of the week as bands unite to promote the worship ship, for the elevation of the people, ignorant of their rights and as unfit of Bacchus and to disturb the worship is thus perverted into Satan's Sabbath for their duties as they were, and let . -fi of God in all our suburbs during the of sensuality, drunkenness and lewd- their lives be spent ip alternate . day ; and as night begins to throw her ness. . ' • * . drudgery and revelry, and they be veil over the face of blushing heaven, • • * * come the dupes of demaj^gues, who the gas-lights reveal to the reporters That high mcual character, which flatter their pride, and abuse their glimpse» of shameful indecencies is the truest and most endearing ignorance, and make them the tools of which would not be tolerated for an glory of nations, bears a dose connec their factious designs. Party strife hour in Paris or Vienna. This is the tion and relationship with the culti speedily becomes enraged to blood specimen of the German and French vation of religion and the observance shedding, and the republic becomes a Sunday revelry ¡»resented to us in of the Sabbath. Where the Sabbath Mexico of perpetual revolutions; exchange .for our American Sabbath. is spènt as a day ofhevelry, the hard until wearied of tire strife, and long We are thus absolved from the duty working classes a~» deprived of their ing for peace, the people cast them of arguing theweakness of music* to only opportunity of worship aàd in selves at the feet af any military control the passions of mankind, or of struction, and speedily degenerate dictator able to protect them from the demonstrating by historic examples into mere animals, ignorant of God, drunken mob. that its sweetest strains have as often and acknowledging no restraints of • • * • enlivened the orgies of Bacchus as conscience—»the dangerous classes of The only considerable free State in * w • • solemnized the worship of God; and European cities. The middle and Eureptf to-day is Britain—the only that music is just whatever men make higher classes also, seduced by these nation where the voice of the people of it. a blessing or a curse. We have spectacles from the house of God, lose controls the action of the government, seen here how it is prostituted by the. the habit of worship, and infidelity and where the government is ad drunkard-makers as a barmaid to sell and atheism grow -rankly over the ministered with some measure of re their beer and by harlots to attract ruined people. Justice * McLean, of gard for the welfare of the people, their customers. liVe^cannot separate the Suprepie Court, stated an histor and where'the genera! prosperity and this disgraceful re?eirx*^pto. its' com», ical truth which admits of no excep industry rest on so broad a basis as ponent parts *• it is all opS' combined tions when^he said, “ When there is to give promise of stability The partnership in vice. Tijo beer bemftd- no Christian Sabbath there is no northern extremity "of Great Britain, dles tWifiaBigvknd the Sabbath re Christian morality ; and without this distinguished by a more rigorous velers »at once insult God, disturb free gbvernment can not be long eliinato, a less productive soil, and a their ^umghbors and degrade them maintained/’ more scanty ,population than the ' selves. southern, has distinguished itself be Sabbath observance is closely con What do the Americanpeople yond all the rest of the world for the nected with morality. The statistics think of the German Sunday r The intelligence and enterprise of ijs sons. of public morals show that the Sab very first impression this exhibition The names of Mackenzie and Fiazier bath-breaking countries are most makes upon every’beholder is, that it mark the rivers of our continent, licentious, and the Sabbath-keepnfj is at variance with the existing insti while Livingstone has explored the countries the most moral. tution’s of this country, that it is hitherto inaccessible interior of Africa; . * • • ♦ foreign and anti-American. and wherever a steam engine propel- A people assembling from Sabbatfi Our American jabbatu is the most a mill or an ocean steamship, the to Sabbath in the sanctuary to learn distinctive social institution of our name of James Watt is commemorated the lofty lessons of their relation to Republic: the day for the public as one of Scotland’s benefactors to the God of heaven as their common education of our people in their duties the civilized world. And Scotland Father, and of the equal obligation of to God and each other; a day re has been distinguished above all na his law u|>on all ranks and degrees of garded as sacred for that purpose by tions for its sacred Sabbaths. Amidst u»en, and, by this knowledge of the the foundeil£of our commonwealth, by the overthrow of kingdoms, and th& truth, made free from the bondage of ;______f.he laws q£^our -States; by the de wreck of nationalities, England brave the fear of man, ean not be indefinite cisions of our Courts, aud by the pro ly defied the despot who thought/" to ' ly held in slavery.. With a true in clamations and examples of our Chief enslave the- youth of Europe by the stinct, the despot, King James, pub Magistrates. It is a national institu conscription of France, and tho lished his “ Book of Sports,” com tion. believed to be essential to the slaughter of three million of the manding feneing, archery, games, and pernjanence of our republican liber people of Europe. By her indomitable dances on the Sabbath, well knowing ties. We are now asked to remove energy and wise counsels, no less .that could he succeed in debauching the fence of sacred* authority which than by '.’•«t resources of her in the people of England and Scotland has so long protected it, and to lend dustrious people, Britain succeeded in into French revelry, be would have no, our aid to a number of foreigners, who combining the powers of Europe, and trouble in keeping them under French propose to erect over its ruins a delivering mankind from Napoleon- despotism. The English and Scottish temple of pleasure, such as the despot» ism on the field of Waterloo; and people rejected tho despot and his of EurSpe erect for their slaves, she has since been regarded as one of Sunday sports, and asserted their where they may drink and dance, and tbe orbiters of the destiny of the Sabbath and their liberty, while forget the chains which bind them in world. Need I tell you that» this France and Germany retain their helpless slavery. England is a Sabbath-keeping na Sunday festivals, their standing The Sabbath is the oldest of our tion ? Count de Montalembert de armies, their spies, their passports, American institutions. The planting clares his astonishment at beholding and Bismarck. of this free Republic wa3 preceded by all the vast machinery of England's The connection of the Sabbath with commerce—her docks and ware an act of homage to the Sabbath and to the God of the Sabbath, which can liberty is fundamental. Ignorance houses, and shops and streets—ceas never be forgotten by the people of and vice among the people are the ing from labor on the Sunday, as tho conditions for the existence of despot most remarkable phenomenon which America. • ♦ , ♦ * ism; intelligence and morality are the the Continental traveler witnesses, indispensable conditions of liberty. and traces the superior prosperity and In every one of the United States, save Louisiana, founded by French But popular intelligence demands peacefulness of England to the habits Papists, the Sabbath has been recog education; not merely the ability to of order and religion thus engendered. ♦ «f • * nized as a day of sacred rest. While write, but the time and inclination to no compulsory religious duties arc read and write something useful and It is unnecessary to dilate on the • prescribed, the laws forbid common elevating. The Sabbath* is the work prosperity of our own land, sufficient labor and noisy revelry on that day, ingman's only school-day. All the ly attested by the resort of hundreds as infringing the public peace and week he must toil for his daily bread of thousands, of the people of Europe right to rest guaranteed to man and and that of his children. At night he and Asia to our shores; nor on the beast of our Creator. The laws of is too wearied to read or study serious moral and political influence of this the State forbid all common , labor in ■ subjects. The blessed Sabbath brings young republic, which makes the running steamboats and railroads, him time to think on the most eleva heart of the. oppressed of every clime selling liquor and refreshments, and ting themes—the universal father exult at the sight of the American all that noisy revelry of bands and hood of God and brotherhood of man; flag, and which has exalted the processions, disturbing worshipping the equality of all merx before God; jninisters of American commerce, even assemblies, which „form prominent the universal obligation of God's in the most remote cities of Asia, into features of Sabbath revelry. The moral law alike in prict and peasant; protectors and deliverers of the vic constitutionality of the Sabbath law the common salvation of all mankind tims of tyranny. But there is in this has been again and again tested in the through Christ; that judgment seat of an argument of great importance, to Supreme Courts of the various States, God, wjio is ho respecter of persons, assert emphatically the religious and affirmed through a Jong train of before which master and servant, ruler character of our country, as the na decisions. The Sabbath is an Ameri and subject, must soon appear to give tural and historical basis of; our na an account of the deeds done in the tion’s greatness, and her respeect for can institution. and the comipg of our Lord the Sabbath, as both the expression of But our principal objection to Jesu.« the clouds of heaven, with American religion and the grand in inauguration of Sunday revelry KBOM * 9KBMOS St TBB MV. riTTIBBOS, O.D., ur.BBOVIU.VX, CAU.VUIU. MM w