Newspaper Page Text
Atlanta Ministers Would Create Sunday
Ice Famine in Poor Districts.
Citizens of Savannah and of the State* of Heor
ltia, the special dispatch from Atlanta quoted below,
and which was printed in this city on Tuesday morn
ing, is not a hoax perpetrated in order to make*
tlie Atlanta Ministers* Association appear ridiculous.
It is straight news matter and a faithful chronicle
apparently of what is occurring up at tin* Capital
Citv.
«
Read the following paragraph, then rub your
eyes and read it again. remembering tin* while that
the date is not April Ist :
“Atlanta. June 1. —The Evangelical Ministers'
Association of Atlanta at their we(*kly meet in it today
inaugurated a movement looking to tin* stopping of
the sab* of ice on Sunday, on the ground that it
was a luxury and that there was no necessity for it.
Ministers stated that they had no difficulty in pro
curing on Saturday all tin* ice they needed to carry
them over Sunday, and they thought everybody else
should do likewise.
Ice not a necessity in tln* cramped tenement quar
ters of a Southern city in midsummer!
The thousands of families too poor to afford a
refrigerator or ice box commodious enough to carry
over two days’ supply must go without.
It is all too true, the declaration of the Minis
ters' Association that ice is “a luxury"—to many
hard-working poor people; a luxury to be indulged
in but once a week, unless sickness occur.
Now the ministers will remove the onee-a-week
temptation to extravagant living held out by the
perambulating ice wagon or push-cart to tin* dwel
lers in the little workingmen's cottages, tin* crowded
tenement houses, tin* sweltering hovels, where
vitiated air is the rule and cooling breezes a rarer
luxury than ice.
The little child of tin* poor family falling ill of
fever on the Sabbath Day, in tin* humble home where
ice is not even a onee-a-week incident, shall wait
until Monday for tin* cooling drink or application
because, forsooth, the father is not blest with the
comfortable income of the Atlanta minister.
Yes, ice is a luxury, an epicurism to lx* reveled
in by the three or four thousand dollar-a-year
preacher, and a wanton indulgence to be piously
placed beyond the reach of the dollar-a-dav laborer
or fifty cents per diem seamstress, for the Sunday
dinner table, lest he or six* acquire aristocratic ten
dencies and grow up their children in an atmosphere
promotive of longing for the good things of life
which only tlit* favored of Hod should aspire to.
“Become a bank president, a captain of industry
or an opulent minister of tin* gospel," says in effect
the Atlanta Evangelical Ministers’ Association, “or
THE REASON
else preserve a humility in keeping with your lowly
station in life, and let your tongues broil and your
little ones’ throats parch on the Sabbath Day in
righteous penance for the dastardly crime of being
poor.
“ Bo content with tlx* only two things necessary
to tlx* lift* of the uon-ministerial seeker for tlx*
Truth, namely, bread and water the latter in every
instance to bo taken in tlx* unfrapped state. Refrain,
ye uncapitalized servants of tlx* Master, from dese
cration of tlx* Sabbath Day through wasting your
substance in riotous living an unholy condition
certain to follow in the wake of the iniquitous ex
travagance of a. nickel cake of ice on tlx* Lord’s
Day."
What affliction of tlx* mind is responsible for
this latest absurdity atrocity would perhaps lx* the
better word—on tlx* part of the Atlanta Evangelical
Ministers’ Association } . “Mental aberration." “in
anition" or “assininity" would seem too flattering
figures of speech to fit tin* occasion.
It is a curious but peculiarly apt coincidence
that tin* same issue of tlx* newspapers which carried
the report of the Atlanta ministers' action on tlx*
Sunday ice question also printed a Pittsburg dis
patch giving the estimate in which a great many
ministers are held by tlx* Rev. “Billie" Sunday.
Mr. Sunday used to lx* a great baseball player in
tlx* big league, and is now a noted evangelist. With
the “hammer" he goes after pulpit hypocrisy now
with tlx* same vim, vigor and effectiveness that he
used to employ in finding the horsehide sphere with
the willow bat. Hear him, and you will conclude
that Rev. Mr. Sunday had heard from Atlanta be
fore going upon tlx* platform at Pittsburg on Mon
day last.
The evangelist spoke on “Why Some Ministers
Fail." He said that many of the ministers of the
present day were “fudge-eating mollycoddles, who
were continually springing bum bull-con to their
congregations." He asserted that few ministers of
today are anything but stiffs, salary quacks, willing
to accept social distinction and that many of them
are qualified candidates for the “funny" house.
Cent inning, he said :
“Some of you ministers an* controlled by riches
and not by the Bible. Many of you art* grafters,
pure and simple. You know this too. There are
some of you preaching today that should bo carry
ing the hod.
“I am not an osteopath. I am a surgeon and
my line is to cut out the abscess in the side of the
church.
Mr. Sunday’s remarks were delivered in flit* pres
ence of a large assemblage of ministers.
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