944 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



tire should burst or a wheel break down.* 

 Had it not been for the danger of the thing 

 I could have enjoyed somewhat seeing the 

 automobile come right up toward me and 

 pass close by at a speed of more than a mile 

 a minute. It is a fearful sight to behold, 

 and there is something grand about it to see 

 what human brain and muscle have accom- 

 plished. I admired the skill and courage of 

 Earl Keiser and others. I remember think- 

 ing at the time that none of these great 

 races, so far as I had heard, had ever been 

 made on Sunday; but a few days afterward 

 the papers were chronicling a bad accident 

 at the St. Louis exposition. Barney Old- 

 field, becoming blinded by the dust of his ri- 

 val, ran into a fence, and killed two men. 

 None of the papers, and none of the automo- 

 bile journals (we take six) mentioned that 

 it happened on Sunday; but the way in 

 which the date was given made me remark 

 to Mrs. Root, "There, I'm afraid this race 

 was made on Sunday. ' ' 



' ' But it could not have happened on the 

 exposition grounds, husband, because they 

 have never been opened on Sunday." 



A little further along I found that the 

 races were on the track outside of the ex- 

 position grounds; but reference to the calen- 

 dar showed I was right. It was a Sunday 

 race. I felt glad to learn that Mr. Oldfield 

 declared then and there that he would nev- 

 ermore take part in any race. I should have 

 been better pleased had he declared to the 

 crowd that he would never again race on 

 Sunday. You may think I am going a little 

 to extremes; but while I dictate I learn that 

 Barney has already reconsidered his decision, 

 and has been induced to continue in the 

 racing business. Of course, some of you 

 will call me superstitious because I think 

 there would have been less danger of death 

 had this race been on a week day. Well, 

 here is one fact I can give you. Of course, 

 an investigation was made as to whether 

 Mr. Oldfield was in any way to blame for 

 the deaths. He was exonerated, I believe, 

 on several grounds. One was that one of 

 the men who was killed had been told re- 

 peatedly by the police to get back of the 

 rope, but he disobeyed orders, and this diso- 

 bedience caused his death. Well, now, is it 

 not true that the man who has no scruple 

 about going to such a place on Sunday would 

 be more liable to disobey the police? He 

 has broken God's law, and it is but a little 

 step to go further and break the laws of 

 the land or of the presiding officer. Break- 

 ing God's law paves the way for disregard- 

 ing man's law, and disobedience brings 

 death. To make it shorter, "the wages of 

 sin is death. ' ' Our text puts it in another way 

 that makes it a little broader and more com- 

 prehensive. 



Our great dailies, as I have suggested, are 



* Right before our eyes, one of the cars in that race, 

 while going- almost if not quite a mile a minute, burst a 

 wheel, making a turn, and the whole thing went into the 

 fence, wreclted. Nobody happened to be near the fence 

 on that part of the grounds, and the rider escaped al- 

 most miraculously, comparatively unhurt. 



giving US some big lifts in the way of tem- 

 perance editorials. May God be praised for 

 these vehement exhortations. But why are 

 these papers so silent about Sunday desecra- 

 tion? I wonder if Christian people general- 

 ly are not getting a little loose in regard to 

 this matter. Do they really believe that 

 their example may be the means of bringing 

 about accident and death, or, worse still, 

 the ruin of both body and soul? In a recent 

 terrible accident on Sunday, the fact was 

 brought forth that the engineer in charge of 

 the train had been on duty for 26 hours. 

 Very likely they paid extra for overtime. 

 They were making a lot of money, and could 

 afford to pay a man handsomely for over- 

 tasking brain, muscle, and nerves, and with 

 the result I have given. I wonder if that 

 beautiful text would not come in well here: 

 "With what measure ye mete withal it shall 

 be measured to you again." I have before 

 mentioned the fact that the American people 

 all over the world have seemed to think that 

 automobiles are immune to our Sunday laws ; 

 and it is suggested quite frequently, and I 

 do not know but sometimes from the pulpit, 

 that the old order of things is passing away, 

 and that different conditions of things now 

 call for different ways of Sabbath obser- 

 vance. Our pastor asked the question at 

 our Saturday-afternoon prayer-meeting a 

 few weeks ago whether it is the proper 

 thing for a minister of the gospel to use the 

 electric cars to meet his appointments on 

 Sunday. I believe the general decision was 

 that a man who preaches had better get to 

 his appointments in some other way; for his 

 presence on the car would certainly encour- 

 age others whose consciences might other- 

 wise trouble them. They could say to them- 

 selves, if not out loud, "Why, our pastor 

 rides on Sunday on the cars, and why 

 shouldn't we?" Well, I believe I can say 

 our pastor does not ride on the Sunday cars. 

 He refused to take an appointment where 

 Sunday travel would be almost a necessity. 

 I think, however, he told us we should be a 

 little carefnl about being too severe in decid- 

 ing what other people should do. He men- 

 tioned quite a prominent divine who, he 

 said, had to his knowledge preached during 

 the day in Oberlin and in the evening in 

 Cleveland. The distance is about 40 miles. 

 He said he did not know how he managed to 

 get to his Cleveland appointment. It would 

 be too far to drive a horse, and the Sunday 

 cars, either steam or electric, would seem to 

 be the only way to make it. Now, I may be 

 making a mistake; but my opinion is that 

 the pastor had better preach less, or nearer 

 home, than to encourage this kind of Sun- 

 day travel. Such a trip might induce the 

 railroad men to say, "Why, even your min- 

 isters are dependant on our Sunday cars to 

 meet their appointments.* Besides going to 



*While I dictate, it occurs to me that a near relative of 

 mine attends church every Sunday by means of the elec- 

 tric cars. In fact, she could not well get there other- 

 wise — at least a great part of the time. It may be a 

 question as to how many use the cars to go to church 

 compared with those who go to some place directly an- 

 tagonistic to our churches and Sunday-schools. 



