"SNYDER" ON SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 3431, 19 February 1874, Page 3

"SNYDER" ON SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

I turn to the excursionists by railway train. I see them flocking thither by hundreds. Men with their children, men with their wives, qienwilh thpir sweethearts, andmen solus. Do I think these men desecrate tjie Sabbath ? Do I thiqk tfyat these, if they debarred fr ip travelling a few miles on a railway, wquld go to church ? indeed, I think nothing of the kind, for I am sure they would not. The men would probably be lounging ab.out in close rooms, unwashed and in frowsy i-hirta - the women reading yellowcovered novels, or at idle gossip. Don’t I know that these men have been confined all through the long work-day hours of the week in store and shop and office and work-room ? I he women have plied their needle in the clothing establishments, or have toiled at the wash-tub or the ironing- table, or in household drudgery. Who am I that I should pronounce them to be committing a grave offence ? Men crave for relaxation, and the change can only come on the Sunday to most of them. Of course I don’t pretend to so much theology as to say that because p.ople wouldn’t go to church that is a reason they may go railway travelling. But this I say, that, admitting ."■usan Jane does giggle and behave somewhat lightly by the side of her foolish young lover in a railway carriage, would she lie any better anywhere else ? I think I have seen giggling and shy looks and surreptitious squeezing of hands carried on in other places than railway carriages. Again, I know that all the people in the train are making holiday at the expense of those who have none, that the pleasure-seekers may have theirs. But are theto not compensated by relief in some other way by their employers ? Here am 1, a humble member of the Fourth Estate ; what man is he, be he clergyman or layman, who does notread his newspaper on a Monday morning ? Does he ever give it a thought that I and scores of others must work duri.ig a portion of the Sunday, that he may iead ihe tittle-tattle of the day—the offences, accidents, casualties, editorials, and the like? Do I grumble 2 Not a bit of it. Advanced civilization must have a newspaper on a Monday, and the master printer says to do this men must work on a Sunday. And men have to work where perhaps they would very much rather riot work, but then there is some sort of compensation in the fact that they do as little on the Sunday as possible, and crowd all the work they are able into Saturday. Matters are so arranged that not a man or a boy but can go to church or chapel three times a day if he so chouses ; but whether they do this or do railway travelling, it’s not for me to ask. I suppose the railway serIyants are compensated in some way or other; if not, they are very foolish to stand it, that’s all I can say; but I do not think

either clergy or laity will be able to prevent people excursioning on Sunday. If there be a majority in the Legislature against Sunday trains running, they will cease to run until there comes to be a majority in favor pf their running, when they will run, and that’s all about it. An Act of Parliament will never alter men’s opinions or change their convictions. Legislation is as powerless to to make a good man bad as it is to make a bad man good. If those clergymen who are so earnest in the cause of •• abbath observance would condescend to accept a little advice from so humble a person as myself, I would say to them this : “Teach your flocks to lead pure, holy, and religious lives from the hour they wake up on Monday morning to the hour they retire to rest on Satmday night. If you can, by your preachings, your exhortations, and the example of your own lives, lead them into such straight paths, I think you may very safely leave them to deal with the Sabbath-day as they may think most meet. Depend on it, whether they go hy a railway train, or attend church, or stay at home, so long as they have done what is right on every day of the six days of the week, they will not abuse Sunday.” I do sometimes think—but then 1 know what I think does not count for much—that compressing all our religion into the Sabbathday, and forgetting all other days, is not quite thetnmg— not what it ought to be, you know, as I take it.