The members of the American Sabbath Union remind one of the Scribes and Pharisees, who brought unto Jesus a woman taken in adultery and said unto him: “Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou?” Jesus, totally disregarding Mosaic law, said unto them: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” So we can apply these words of Jesus to “the Sunday agitators”—as law breakers—and say unto them, he that is not breaking any of Moses’ laws among you, let him first cast a stone at the managers of the World’s Fair.
When Jesus came bringing the light of the new covenant, he showed how unimportant was this question, for we cannot find in the New Testament where he ever recommended anyone to keep the Sabbath day holy. On the contrary, he and his disciples were accused of breaking the Sabbath by the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees.
“The poor we have always with us,” and to alleviate as much as possible the misery of the less fortunate is one of the noblest missions of life. From dark, dust-begrimed habitations of a hot city comes a cry whose burden is “Fresh Air.” So throw wide open the gates of the World’s Fair on Sundays, that the wage worker may find rest and enjoyment; for the rich can rest when they please—the poor must take recreation when they can. Sectism is blinding humanity and turning them from the old pathway to Jesus, the Son of God, who came to save man from his sins. This “one day worship” is not enough, for God claims our services each and every day, as every day is given us by Him. God certainly must be jealous of nations to-day serving Satan six days in the week and then worshipping Sunday (Constantine’s law) or Saturday (Moses’ law) instead of Him. For their Sunday worship is mostly vain show and pomp, fashioned as a crowd bedecked for a theatrical performance, all of which is forbidden in the Bible (1 Tim. ii. 9-11), which they profess to follow.
TURNING TOWARDS NIRVANA.
BY E. A. ROSS.
It needs no very long stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and honeycombed with pessimism. You need go but a little way beyond the table d’hote and the guide book to feel the chill of despondency. Without taking into account this new mood, it is vain to try to understand the latest in art, music, fiction, poetry, thought, politics. The one word “despair” is the key that opens up the meaning of Ibsen’s dramas, and Tolstoi’s ethics, of Zola’s novels, and Carmen Sylva’s poems, of Bourget’s romances, and Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal. It is the spiritual bond that connects Wagner’s operas with Turgenieff’s novels, Amiel’s journal with Marie Bashkirtseff’s diary. Naturalism in fiction, “decadence” in poetry, realism in art, tragedy in music, scepticism in religion, cynicism in politics, and pessimism in philosophy, all spring from the same root. They are the means by which the age records its feelings of disillusionment.
The broad basis of the sadness of Europe to-day is keen political disappointment. Forty years ago everybody hailed the policy of free trade, peace, and international exhibitions as ushering in the era