When Dr. Charles J. Young, pastor of the Church of the Puritans, New
York, was waited upon by a lady reporter of a secular journal, for a
snappy article on the subject of Sunday newspapers, this is what she
got:
“As a matter of fact,” said Dr. Young, “I actually believe in
the Ten Commandments as divine enactments, and this is how I
feel about it: Suppose you invite me as a friend to dine at
your house and I accept. You would make special preparation
for my coming. It is woman’s way to give her best where she
gives her confidence and friendship. So there you have a rich
repast all ready against my coming. Now imagine my stopping at
a street corner on the way to your home and gorging myself from
the peanut-stand of the noble Roman who deals out his wares to
all who come without a care of the consequences; I ask this
common-sense question: What condition would I be in to enjoy
your luscious viands, and what kind of courtesy or appreciation
would this be for all your kindness in preparing for me? Well,
my friend, you see the application of this without my making
it. There across the street stands the house of the dearest
Friend I have ever had. One day out of seven He invites me there
to meet with Him and to commune with Him and to receive from
Him such supply as He has especially provided and adapted to
my hungry, needy, immortal soul. I ask again, is it consistent
with a spiritual worship, is it conducive to a devotional
mind, is it either courteous to God or just to myself, if on
the morning of that sacred day I fill my thoughts with the
secularities, the commercialisms, the gossips, the scandal, the
general excrescences of every-day rough-and-tumble life in this
mammon-loving age?
“My interviewer was silent for a surprizing length of time.
Maybe I was wrong, but I fancied she looked up from the floor
with a moistened eye and said in a quivering voice: ‘I have
never thought of this view of the matter before, and I confess
I am able now to see but one fair answer to your question: It
can not be.’”--_Sunday-school Illustrator._
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