the country the encroachments of the
money-makers have been steady. Performances of all kinds are permitted,
theaters run either openly or with thinly veiled programs, saloons are
open to those who know where the proper entrances are, and many forms of
business and labor are carried on seven days in the week. The Jews
claimed that it was a hardship to have to close on Sunday, when their
religious observances came on Saturday, with result that a good many
manage to keep shops and factories open all the year around. Pleas of
necessity have been put forward where contractors desired to push jobs
and profits. Sunday excursions are universal, and in order to gain their
Sunday pleasure-outings several millions of people of all races keep
several other millions hard at work on the day of rest. All places are
crowded on Sunday except the churches. Go among the foreign elements in
the city and you would never know it was Sunday. Holiday has supplanted
holy-day. Observe the trolley-cars or subway or elevated trains on
Sunday and you will see nine foreigners out of every ten persons. Go
into the suburbs and you will find springing up in out-of-the-way
places, where land can be secured cheap, little recreation parks, with
games and dancing platforms; and here there will be throngs of Italians
and other foreigners all day.

[Sidenote: Loss of the American Sunday]

Let us be just in this matter. The loss of the American Sunday is
undoubtedly due in great measure to immigration; due in part to the
weakness and dereliction of American professing Christians who have
surrendered to the foreign elements and fallen in with their ideas
instead of maintaining public worship and insisting upon respect for law
at least. Let the blame fall where it belongs, and let the Church
members recreant to duty take their share. When the sea threatened
Holland her resolute people built the dykes and maintained them;
American Christians have failed to stop the leaks in the church dykes,
and we have had a Sunday submergence in consequence. The effect of it
upon our national development is already evident and is most disastrous
to our highest interests. Sabbath-breaking and progress-making never go
together. Sunday work and pleasure combined form the peril alike of the
American workingman and of Christian civilization.

[Sidenote: General Deterioration]

Along with this inflow of alien ideas in religion goes a lowered
morality and a lower tone generally