704 



(iLEANlN(iS IN BKE CLLTLKK 



Nov. 1 



life enough left to grab hold of a rope. I 

 do not know whether it taught him a lesson 

 or not. So many awful accidents have 

 happened on Sunday that ihe daily pa- 

 ]>rrs have made comments. They did 

 not suggest that it was the ivrong thing to 

 do. They only said it seems queer that 

 there should be such an array of fatalities 

 and strange accidents to be chronicled every 

 Monday morning. Now, then, for our words 

 of truth and soberness, as Paul expressed it. 



With the number of Christian people there 

 now are (sprinkled like "salt") all over the 

 land, it would seem as though anybody, 

 whatever his belief, should have some scruple 

 about shocking the feelings of the best class 

 of people in the world, if nothing more. Out 

 of respect to the ministers, good men and 

 women, especially the old mothers in Israel, 

 any sober and sane man should reflect a lit- 

 tle about disturbing the peace and quietness 

 of the ordinary sabbath. Shouldn't every 

 saJie and sober man also consider the words 

 of our text^-" Remember the sabbath day 

 to keep it holy " ? Is there any one who has 

 never heard these words, and who does not 

 know when Sunday comes? When I was 

 in Cuba I met a class of peoi)le, or whole 

 neighborhoods, who had never been told or 

 else had forgotten when Sunday came. Of 

 course, they were excusable; and when they 

 came to buy honey of us on Sunday morn- 

 ing, and had their pitchers and pieces of 

 money, I recommended to our boys letting 

 them have the honey as it was impossible 

 (as they did not speak our language) to ex- 

 plain to them ivhy honey was sold only on 

 certain days, or perhaps, rather, why it was 

 not sold on one certain day. 



Now, there is a reason why more disasters 

 happen on Sunday than on any other day. 

 In fact, there is a reason for every thing in 

 (iod's holy word if you will study it. The 

 man or woman, boy or girl, who has no re- 

 spect at all for the feelings of Christians, 

 and who has no regard for God's holy com- 

 mand — such a one is not a proper person to 

 be trusted where life and dealh are at stake. 

 The employees on our street-cars object to 

 Sunday work. They would avoid it if they 

 could. They are often tired out because of 

 overwork, arid are more likely to forget, and 

 make mistakes. 



Within a few miles of Medina is a very 

 pretty lake. During the past forty or fifty 

 years several people have lost their lives in 

 that lake — especially young people, and it 

 has almost alivays happened on Sunday. 

 A young girl, in spite of her parents' pro- 

 tests, went to that lake on Sunday with a 

 crowd of reckless boys and girls. In the 

 same reckless way she went out riding in a 

 boat with several young men. I think one 

 of them had been drinking. She fell out 

 and was allowed to drown when the boat 

 was upset; but the manly (?) young men all 

 got ashore by some means or other. It was 

 her reckless disregard for the advice of older 

 friends, and a disregard, also, for (Jod's com- 

 mands, that ca vised her to lose her life. 

 When this matter of Sunday sport came up 



in our town some time ago the pastor of our 

 church remonstrated with a man who was 

 running a billiard-hall. In answer to his 

 kind and respectful suggestions, the fellow 



replied, "I would not give a d for your 



Sunday." Now, would such a man, espe- 

 cially one who would not scruple to answer 

 a minister of the gospel in this way — would 

 such a one, I say, be a safe pilot for an auto- 

 mobile, electric car, or a flying-machine? 

 This man Ely seems to have been the only 

 one of about a dozen who was willing to start 

 out on Sunday afternoon on this trip of fly- 

 ing from Chicago to New York. He had 

 plenty of time to put his machine in the 

 most i:)erfect trim, for they had been wait- 

 ing all the week for favorable weather; but 

 before he had flown even nine miles there 

 was something the matter with his carburet- 

 or. He came down and got it fixed, and 

 got up in the air again; but just as he left 

 the ground one of the rubber-tired wheels 

 for starting and stopping caught an obstruc- 

 tion and was torn off. After several more 

 delays he got started again, and then some- 

 thing else hapi^ened. In fact, by some 

 strange fatuity — that is, so some people 

 said — "bad luck" seemed to follow him. 

 By the way, I just saw a suggestion in some 

 of the papers, that, if you want to secure 

 good luck, you should always go half way 

 or more to meet it. Folks who start out on 

 such enterprises on Sunday are certainly 

 not going "half way " to meet good luck. 



Please do not understand me that I would 

 cut off all work or business on Sunday, 

 .lesus told the Pharisees, who were criticis- 

 ing him, that when an ass or an ox or a 

 sheep fell into a pit or well on the sabbath 

 day it was right and proper to help it out, 

 even on that day, as they did. And if a 

 hurricane w^ere to tear down fences so that 

 stock get into the corn, by all means turn 

 out, men, women, and children, and save 

 the stock and the corn. Sometimes it is a 

 little difficult to decide just how far we 

 should go in our efforts to save property on 

 Sunday. I have had some experience in 

 my busy life in doing things on Sunday, 

 not because they really had to be done, but 

 because I wanted to do them. Our friend 

 Christian, in Pilgrim's Progress, got out of 

 the straight and narrow path once on a time. 

 He received several warnings, but failed to 

 heed them. Finally he saw flashes of fire 

 flaming from a great rock over his head. 

 He told "Goodwill " that he was afraid the 

 fire might fall on his head and kill him if 

 he went any further that way. Dear friends, 

 /have seen the fire of God's wrath, as I 

 verily believe, flash out from the great cliff 

 above my head. I came back, however, and 

 sought tiie straight and narrow path once 

 more, asking God to forgive me. These re- 

 minders of God's displeasure, when we de- 

 liberately break his laws, I think come to 

 all of us. 



In our last text we are told that the Lr>rd 

 took off the chariot wheels belonging to the 

 Egyptians. '1 he poor fellows had been for- 

 bidden repeatedly to interfere with the Isra- 



