Character

    Did it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thing to set one day apart as "holy?"

    If you are a writer and a beautiful thought comes to you, you never hesitate because it is Sunday, but you write it down.  

    If you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid and clear, you make haste to materialize it ere the vision fades.

    If you are a musician, you sing a song, or play it on the piano, that it may be etched upon your memory—and for the joy of it.

    But if you are a cabinet-maker, you may make a design, but you will have to halt before you make the table, if the day happens to be the "Lord's Day"; and if you are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer, for fear of conscience or the police. All of which is an admission that we regard manual labor as a sort of necessary evil, and must be done only at certain times and places.

The orthodox reason for abstinence from all manual labor on Sunday is that "God made the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh He rested," therefore, man, created in the image of his Maker, should hold this day sacred. How it can be possible for a supreme, omnipotent and all-powerful being without "body, parts or passions" to become wearied thru physical exertion is a question that is as yet unanswered.

    The idea of serving God on Sunday and then forgetting Him all the week is a fallacy. Salvation being free, what we place in the Offering plate is an honorarium for Deity or his agent. A priest would never speak at banquets for pay, but he would accept the honorarium that in some mysterious manner is left on the mantel. 

Sunday, with its immunity from work, was devised for workers who got out of all the work they could during the week.

    Does God cease work one day in seven, or is the work that He does on Sunday especially different from that which He performs on Tuesday? The Saturday half-holiday is not "sacred"—the Sunday holiday is, and we have laws to punish those who "violate" it. No man can violate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play. Only running water is pure, and stagnant nature of any sort is dangerous—a breeding-place for disease.

    Character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what we are. Do you suppose our Good Lord cares on what day of the week we perform our work duties? Is it possible that perhaps we might be a little better off if we choose to spend a little time every day in prayer and communion with our Creator?