LOST in Elmira, N. Y., the “American Sabbath.” So says The Defender, an Elmira journal. No reward is offered for its recovery. We quote:—
“Lost—the American Sabbath!
“Will the church bells of Elmira ring out this alarm? Such contempt for the day as the city reveals now would have been considered shocking not long ago. To tell truth, it is not now so openly manifested by the liquor people as by others. Not a Sunday goes by but that the cigar stores, the candy stores, the drug stores, the ice cream places, the fruit stands, and the soda fountains of Elmira are all in full blast, and doing more business than on any other day of the week.
“The liquor saloons have as good a right to hold open as these. It is unjust to the saloons to demand closed doors of them, and let these other places be wide open.
“The Law and Order League grows red in the face because a prostitute walks the streets, and insists that the police prohibit all that sort of thing; but we hear nothing of righteous anger because the Sabbath is desecrated by a hundred tradesmen with impunity; the majesty of the law is not invoked, in behalf of good morals and of tradesmen who respect the Sabbath sanctities.
“Lost—the American Sabbath!”
But all this growing business and pleasure on Sunday does not at all interfere with the Lord’s Sabbath—the seventh day. That is not lost. Ask any observer of that day, and he will tell you this is true. He will only be surprised that you should ask the question.
And here is an important truth that should be noted and kept in mind; the fact that in spite of all the work that is being done week after week on the “Sabbath of the Lord,” and the worldly pleasures to which so many people devote the day, this Sabbath is not being lost, is proof that it cannot be lost. And if it cannot be lost, it is plain that whoever will keep it cannot be lost, either. He will not be lost, to all eternity.
The “American Sabbath”—the first day of the week—is lost; so its own friends confess. And how many who were its adherents are lost with it? A Sabbath that can be lost itself has obviously no power to save a soul [435] from being lost. But why not choose that Sabbath which cannot be lost—“the seventh day [which] is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God”?