h;i<-3 Sunday d ¦ • • tper.
'sonby

Dr. Burr ell,

Colle

jiate Church. Met? York .(1395")

"J ' gCvethefe Booki
W^^e^auadiag ef a. College, uithtf GotbKyV

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THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
A SERMON PREACHED BY DR. BURRELL IN THE COLLEGIATE
CHURCH, FIFTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-NINTH STREET.
" Take us the foxes, the Httle foxes, that spoil the vines."
— Song of Solomon, ii. 1,
The prevalent, growing ominous sin of our time is
Sabbath desecration. As a rule, Christian people mean
to do right in this matter as in other things, but, for
want of reflection, they oftentimes lend their influence
the wrong way.
The head and front of the offending, is the Sunday
newspaper. It is said that when burglars go prowling
about at night they take with them a clever boy to
climb over the transoms and open the door. The
Sunday newspaper is the tuppenny door-opener for the
larger forms of Sabbath desecration. Because I thus
believe, I have seven or eight things to say about it.
1. The Sunday newspaper is unnecessary; and, if un
necessary, it ought not to be. It originated in the time
of our civil war. Previously there were only two papers
in the world that printed Sunday editions, the New
York Herald and the Alta California. It was not
strange that when our fathers and brothers were at the
front and battles were being fought, we crowded about
the telegraph offices and eagerly scanned the bulletins.
Then when "extras" were issued on the Sabbath, as
on other days, giving the heart-breaking lists of dead
and wounded, we felt justified in getting them. Thus
the wedge was entered by consideration, of both mercy

2 THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
and necessity. But not by the wildest stretch of the im
agination can the Sunday newspaper be regarded as a
work of either necessity or mercy in these piping times
of peace. 2. It is unlawful. In many of our commonwealths it
is under a legal ban. In New York, however, the laws
have been so adjusted as to allow it. But, inasmuch as
the Supreme Court has repeatedly decided that the moral
law is an organic part of our national Constitution, it
may be affirmed without hesitation that this, as well as
other forms of Sabbath desecration, is a distinct viola
tion of the fundamental principles of the republic. The
" sign " of God's covenant with Israel was the Sabbath.
As a Christian nation we also are in covenant with God
and cannot with impunity disregard His law.
3. The Sunday newspaper is disreputable. It is wont
to present its own claims as " a great educator." This
is amusing. If tlie claim were true it would still not
excuse the offense. Our public schools are generally
thought to be educational ; but that does not constitute
an argument for opening them on Sunday. These news
papers, however, are not an educating influence. Let
me read a tabulated statement of the contents of a
recent Sunday issue of several leading newspapers — the
New York Tribune, Times, Herald, Sun, Press, World,
Journal and News :
Murders and Assaults  12 columns.
Adulteries  7
Thefts, etc  24,
Total of crime  43 "
Sporting  81
Theatrical  44
Gossip and Fashion  77 "
Sensational  42 "
Fiction  99
Unclean Personals  8
Total of gossip (mostly disreputable). 351 "

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
Foreign News  47 columns.
Political News  113
Other Miscellaneous News  92
Editorial  39
Specials  199
Art and Literature  24
Religious  S1^

Total (chiefly) news and politics. 517%

Grand Total  91H4
The amount of religion in a Sunday newspaper is like
Gratiauo's "Two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of
chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when
you have them they are not worth the search."
But to be more specific, here is a brief summary of
the headlines in one of these Sunday papers:
Gossip of Court. — An Alleged Dramatic Shark. — Em
bezzlement. — A Sudden Death.— The Buzzard Gang. — A
Tennessee Man in the Toils. — A Woman Burned to Death.
— Vagrants. — Smuggled Goods. — A Bogus Divorce Suit.
— An Eloping Husband. — A Mock Marriage Scandal. —
A Chained and Beaten Wife. — Bride Arrested. — Defalca
tion. — Forgery. — A Stockholder Disappears. — Small-pox
in Brooklyn. — Convicted of Assaulting Miss Emerson. —
Mine Explosion. — Murder. — Cattle Plague. — Strangled
His Wife.— Shot His Brother.— Robbed.— Killed.— Cuban
Bandits. — Deadly Canned Fruit. — Trapeze Performer's
Fall. — Abhorrent Scenes in a Tropical Cemetery. — Fail
ures. — Deadly Oleomargarine. — Gone Down at Sea. — Pa
cific Express Robbery. — Three Wives Living. — Suicide. —
Violently Insane. — Murder Trial. — Dynamiters. — Row
dies. — He Pulled a Revolver and Threatened to Shoot Her
if She did not Marry Him. — Desperate Murderer Arrested.
— Witness Saw Clara and Traphagen in a Compromis
ing Position. — Gossip for Ladies at the Sunday Break
fast Table. — Snubbed. — Disgrace. — An Illegitimate Child.
— A Glove Fight. — Elegant Baltimore Girl for a Mistress.
—Defaulting Teller.— Good Gracious .'—Too Thin!— Blew

4- THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
Out His Brains With a Pistol.— The Waistlcss Dress —
The Bite of an Epileptic— Brooklyn Tax Dodgers.
I say, therefore, the Sunday paper is disreputable. I
have been told by a leading editor that it is the custom
to set apart during the week all the salacious items for
enlargement in the Sunday edition. It is the common
sewer of all our social life, the cesspool of all shames and
scandals and unmentionable things.
4. It robs an army of employes of their needed rest.
It is estimated that since the introduction of the Sunday
newspaper not less than 150,000 compositors and press
men and others are kept at work seven days in the week,
365 days in the year. A reporter was asked, not long
since, " Do you have one-seventh of your time for rest ?"
"No," said he, "nor one-seventy-seventh. We have no
time, regularly given, that we can call our own."
It is sometimes said that it is the Monday paper that
makes the Sunday work. That is a miserable evasion.
If there were no Sunday issue, the preparation of the
Monday number, excepting the telegraphic items, would
fall on Saturday and its publication on Monday morning.
Nor must it be overlooked that hundreds and thous
ands of newsboys are calling their wares on Sunday in
our streets. That is their business now ; and they are
getting their business education for the future. To
whistle up a boy and buy a newspaper for a nickel seems
a matter of slight consequence. But follow it out. A
Christian man in the real estate business would not think
for a moment of selling a corner lot on the Lord's day.
But to the newsboy the sale of his paper is relatively a
matter of equal consequence, and as co-partners in the
transaction, we are doing our part to train him for
larger methods of Sabbath breaking in after life.
5. It invades the Sabbath rest of a great multitude
of business men. As a people we are desperately ab
sorbed in money-getting. Our national malady is
" nervous debility." Our vital forces are under constant

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER. 5
strain. A man with his brain in a whirl, his nerves
twitching, his temper in a fever, his sleep disturbed, goes
to a physician for relief. A sea voyage is prescribed.
Why? Not because of any remedial virtue in sea air, but,
once on the ocean, the world is shut out. The buzz of the
stock ticker is unheard. Wars and revolutions may
occur, but they are nothing to him. The "news "no
longer frets him. If he could know what was going on
in the busy world he would be as eager and perturbed as
ever; but out yonder, with the infinite skies above and
the boundless deep below, he has nothing to do but rest.
That is precisely what God meant the Sabbath to be, an
ocean voyage for the soul, a season of rest between two
continents of secular toil and pleasure. We have, there
fore, no right to drag the world into our lives, as we do
by means of the newspaper, on this divine day.
6. It breaks up the home life. Time was when in
Christian families the. members gathered at the family
altar to worship ; and after that came the reading of
good books and the religious press. There was room in
those days for missionary magazines ; children found
time to read their Sunday-school books. But how is it
now ? The head of the family reads his Sunday paper,
and the boys and girls are waiting covetously for him to
get through with it. God and heaven are crowded out.
The fable of the Arab has come true. The thrusting in
of the camel's nose has been followed by the thrusting
out of the owner from the tent. The Sunday newspaper
is responsible for the downfall of many a family altar
and the breaking up of the sanctity of many a Christian
home. 7. It un£ts for the sanctuary. It is difficult to see
how a man can come from the perusal of the Sunday
newspaper to sing, without hypocrisy —
This is the day the Lord hath made,
He calls the hours His own :
Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,
And praise surround the throne.

6 THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
Or how he can repeat the Lord's Prayer: "Thy
kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is m
heaven ; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil," while his mind is full of the abominations of his
"blanket sheet."
One day in seven is not too much for an immortal
man to set apart for s,acred rest and meditation. If
there is a God who hates sin ; if there is a hereafter, and
this life is preparatory for it, we need that portion of
time for setting ourselves right with Heaven. If the
adversary is ever tugging at our souls and craftily
scheming to trip us up, then I submit it was a gracious
act of God to set apart one day in seven, wherein we
might climb to the mountain-top and think about eter
nal truths, breathe the pure air and be alone a little
while with Him. But if a man has no Sabbaths, if he
allows the world to confiscate them, he must expect his
spiritual nature to be dwarfed and shrivelled. His soul
in its prison will cry in vain, like Sterne's starling, " I
can't get out ! I can't get out ! "
8. It enfeebles the conscience. This is not a little sin,
for it leads on to endless issues. Time was when a man
closed his shop on Saturday night, stopped his business
and went home. How is it now after twenty-five years
of the Sunday newspaper ? He closes his shop on Sat
urday night and puts an advertisement in the Sunday
newspaper. He flatters himself that he is resting from
toil. Ono! He is doing a booming business all through
the holy day. Half a million heralds are going up and
down the streets, telling in flaming headlines what bar
gains he has to offer on the morrow. His business goes
right on.
The conscience of Christian people generally has been
enfeebled and debauched in this way. I can remember
when there was entire unanimity among Christians as
to Sabbath desecration of every sort ; but we have
grown accustomed to it.

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER. 7
'" Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen."
That was the way we looked at it twenty-five years
ago. " Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
That is the condition of things today. We think we
are growing liberal. We are simply getting loose. We
are afraid of being called precisions and Puritans. But
better be precisions than Parisians in this matter ; far
better be Puritans than profligates.
They tell us the Sunday newspaper has come to stay.
Suppose it has. That is no reason why it should stay in
our homes or in our hands. Sin has come to stay; so
have yellow fever and cholera; but that is no reason
why you should contract or foster them. In God's good
time He will wipe them all out of existence as a maid
shakes a napkin or wipes a platter clean. Meanwhile it
is for us to be true to our consciences.
I have tried to reason with you as thoughtful men ;
I have tried to show the evil and why you should put it
from you. Of one thing be assured, we cannot live with
out Sabbath rest. The promise of Isaiah is as true to
day as when it was first spoken : (Is. lviii. 13) "If thou
turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy
pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight,
holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure,
nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight
thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon
the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heri
tage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it."

THE
Woman's National Sabbath Alliance
Organized February 7, 1895.
auxiliary to the american sabbath union,
HEADQUARTERS, 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

At the Sixth Anniversary of the American Sabbath
Union, held in New York City, December, 1894, a special
meeting of women residing in New York and vicinity
was called to consider the present-day aspects of the
Sabbath question, especially in relation to the home,
good citizenship, and to Christian progress in the na
tion. Over one hundred women, well known in philan
thropic and religious circles, were present on that
occasion. At the close of the meeting a Committee was
appointed to co-operate with the American Sabbath
Union in its national work.
This Committee, after due deliberation, finally deter
mined to invite representatives of the various denom
inations to a Conference upon" this subject. At this
Conference, held February 7, 1895, it was the opinion of
all present that the time had come for the women of
America to unite in more definite and organized efforts
for the preservation of the Lord's Day. As preliminary
to a national movement in this direction, an Address to
the Women of America and a Constitution of the Wo
man's National Sabbath Alliance was adopted.

Literature may be obtained by addressing The Woman's
National Sabbath Alliance, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York.
Copies of this pamphlet can be had upon application to the
Woman's National Sabbath Alliance, 156 Fifth Avenue, New
York. Frtfcsents per copy ; or three-dollarsper hundred.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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