1900 



GI.EANINGS IN BEK CUIvTURE. 



739 



If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from 

 doiug thy pleasure on my holy day. — ISA. 58 : 13. 



The whole sentence from which I take my 

 text comprises two long verses ; therefore I do 

 not take the space to give the whole of it. It 

 is a promise to those who strive to keep the 

 sabbath as a holy day, and who refrain from 

 making it a day of selfish gratification and 

 avoid yielding to selfish impulses and prompt- 

 ings. It has many times been a question with 

 me as to what I should or should not do on 

 God's holy day. The question I have recent- 

 ly mentioned so often, "What would Jesus 

 do? " has frequently come up. Jesus did not 

 leave any cast-iron rules for us in regard to 

 the manner in which we should spend Sun- 

 day ; in fact, he had more to say in the way of 

 rebuke for the foolish ideas and traditions the 

 Pharisees had laid down than he had in tell- 

 ing us exactly what we ought to do. 



L/ast Sunday, Aug. 26, in consequence of a 

 train being a good deal behind time I found 

 myself on Saturday night, very near midnight, 

 in the great city of Toledo. I was so tired I 

 inquired for the nearest hotel. In the morn- 

 ing I found the First Congregational church, 

 something over a mile away. Directions were 

 given me how to find it by taking the street- 

 cars ; but one of my first efforts on Sunday is 

 to avoid doing any thing that requires other 

 people to work, or prevents them from having 

 a rest one day in seven. As I had plenty of 

 time I enjoyed walking to the church. There 

 I learned there were no exercises earlier than 

 the sermon, at half-past ten. The church is 

 located in the midst of a busy street, and an 

 inscription on a great stone that constitutes a 

 part of the tower informs us that the first 

 church was built in 1844. It was enlarged in 

 1856; burned down in 1861, rebuilt in 1862, 

 and taken down and rebuilt in 1877. 



As there was considerable time before the 

 services began, it was something of a question 

 as to what I should do. I have acquaintances 

 in Toledo, but I did not like the idea of visit- 

 ing on Sunday, especial!}' when it required 

 the aid of street-cars. I have formed no cast- 

 iron rules about patronizing Sunday trains or 

 cars ; but I always avoid them when I can. I 

 have recently read considerable in the papers 

 about wickedness in Toledo. I have seen 

 some very severe censures in regard to Mayor 

 Jones and the way he lets saloons run rampant, 

 nights and Sundays. My conscience did not 

 trouble me when I decided I would look the 

 ciLy over and see how it looked Sunday morn- 

 ing. I am pleased to tell you I was surprised 

 to see every thing so orderly and quiet. I did 

 not succeed in finding any saloun that seemed 

 to be open and doing business. Every thing 

 seemed to be quiet and peaceable. Perhaps 

 the bad element had not got up ; but I rejoice 

 to know there is a time in the early morning 

 hours on Sunday when such a city is compar- 

 atively still. There were many signs at the 



entrances to the saloons and beer-gardens, in- 

 dicating a bad state of morals ; but there 

 seemed to be no sort of hvj/ic going on at that 

 hour. I did witness one sight that gave me a 

 great deal of pain, that I am going to mention 

 further on. 



I believe I was the first person to enter the 

 church after the doors were opened. The jan- 

 itor was very pleasant and obliging, and seem- 

 ed to show a true Christian spirit toward a 

 stranger. When the worshipers began to come 

 in, one of them very courteously offered me 

 the use of a fan, as the day was very warm ; 

 another one handed me a Sunday-school quar- 

 terly, and they were certainly model people, 

 w/iai there were of them. We had a grand 

 sermon, btit there were not more than two or 

 three dozen people present, and the church 

 would hold a thousand, without the least dif- 

 ficulty. The minister spoke of a certain city 

 of olden time that was walled in, and the peo- 

 ple of it had no intercourse with other nations, 

 it died of stagnation, and became an easy 

 prey to its enemies. He said God did not in- 

 tend we should live hermit lives, but that it 

 was our duty to be about among the people 

 of the world, to know what was going on at 

 home and abroad, and to be one of the peo- 

 ple. We may be /;/ the world and in touch 

 with it, but not o/" the world. Jesus prayed 

 that his little band of followers, after his de- 

 parture, should not be taken out of the world, 

 but that they should be kept from the evil. 

 It was in line with my impressions of the 

 morning, and my conscience told me I was 

 doing right to look over the great city, not 

 from idle curiosity, and not to see its beauti- 

 ful buildings and other structures, but to look 

 over humanity with a loving interest and anx- 

 iety for its truest spiritual welfare. 



After church we had Sunday-school. I had 

 studied my lesson well in the quarterly that 

 was loaned me, and thought that perhaps, as 

 it was vacation time, I might be asked to take 

 charge of a class. Some of the teachers, per- 

 haps, would be absent. Now, do not think, 

 when I tell you what I saw, that I am doing 

 it to find fault or to make out that the world 

 is going to the bad. I do not believe such is 

 the case ; but I do fear that grave evils con- 

 front us. I do not think there were over two 

 dozen people present, all told, at Sunday- 

 school. By way of young people there were 

 two boys in their teens and two little girls 

 that might belong to the infant class. The 

 Sunday-school room was a beautiful place, 

 with ail modern appliances, class rooms with 

 most comfortable seats, large windows for ven- 

 tilation, plenty of blackboards, and pictures 

 and charts in colors, but nobody to make use 

 of them. The superintendent finally said we 

 would all get together around his stand, and 

 have a general review of the lesson. I do not 

 wish to criticise, but it seemed to me the little 

 gathering laughed it off, too much as only a 

 piece of pleasantry, that nobody had cotne to 

 Sunday-school. In his talk there was no rec- 

 ognition or word of encouragement for the 

 two or three children who had come when 

 everybody else stayed away. I came pretty 

 near saying " stayed' at home," biit I think 



