The true philosophy of religion invariably teaches that we act wisely when we conform to the requirements of Sabbatic rest from toil. Such conformity is simply the recognition of a beneficent natural law.
In 1909 Mr. Selfridge, of Chicago, established a great American store in London. It immediately became a great popular success. Speaking to an interviewer, Mr. Selfridge said: “I am a business man, and not a preacher, but still I feel strongly that fair dealing is not only right, but wise—to put it on the lowest ground. If you treat people fairly, you will be fairly treated by them in return, and somehow or another the religious method of carrying on business has not failed in the case of Marshall Field. I will give you one curious instance of this. Our house never advertises in the Sunday papers, with the extraordinary result that we prospered in direct consequence. Many warned us that we were holding to a suicidal policy, for in America Sunday papers are the chief means of publicity. Our method turned out most effective, because it forced itself upon the notice of every woman in the United States that Marshall Field & Co. did not advertise on Sunday, and that fact was a great advertisement in itself. But who—out of a religious tract—would ever have dreamed of such a topsyturvy result?” (Text.)
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SABBATH, PROFITABLE
Egerton Young gives this testimony about Sabbath-keeping by the Indians of British Columbia:
When our mission was established, all the missionaries went in for the observance of the Sabbath day. At once there was opposition from the Hudson Bay Company. They argued, “Our summer is short, the people have to work in a hurry, and to lose one day in seven will be a terrible loss to us, and you missionaries must get out of the country if you are going to interfere with our business.” There was downright persecution for years, but there is none now, for it was found that the brigades of Indians who traveled only six days, and quietly rested on the Sabbath, made the journey of perhaps fifteen hundred miles, without a single exception, in less time, and came back in better health, than those who traveled without observing the Sabbath.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
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SABBATH, REGARD FOR
Rev. Egerton R. Young, a missionary among the Canadian Indians, tells the following: