ntioned by the pulpit
as harmful to Sunday is not an objection necessarily based on the
harmfulness of the things themselves, but upon the fact that these
things are repetitions of the working day, and so are distracting to the
observance of the Sunday as a day of rest and worship, undisturbed by
the things that have already for six days crowded the thought of men.
Let me illustrate.

"Take for example the case of the Sunday paper, as it pours into Milton
every Sunday morning on the special newspaper train. Now, there may not
be anything in the contents of the Sunday papers that is any worse than
can be found in any weekday edition. Granted, for the sake of the
illustration, that the matter found in the Sunday paper is just like
that in the Saturday issue--politics, locals, fashion, personals,
dramatic and sporting news, literary articles by well-known writers, a
serial story, police record, crime, accident, fatality, etc., anywhere
from twenty to forty pages--an amount of reading matter that will take
the average man a whole forenoon to read. I say, granted all this vast
quantity of material is harmless in itself to moral life, yet here is
the reason why it seems to me Christ would, as I am doing now, advise
this church and the people of Milton to avoid reading the Sunday paper,
because it forces upon the thought of the community the very same things
which have been crowding in upon it all the week, and in doing this
necessarily distracts the man, and makes the elevation of his spiritual
nature exceedingly doubtful or difficult. I defy any preacher in this
town to make much impression on the average man who has come to church
saturated through and through with forty pages of Sunday newspaper; that
is, supposing the man who has read that much is in a frame of mind to go
to church. But that is not the point. It is not a question of press
versus pulpit. The press and the pulpit are units of our modern life
which ought to work hand in hand. And the mere matter of church
attendance might not count, if it was a question with the average man
whether he would go to church and hear a dull sermon or stay at home and
read an interesting newspaper. That is not the point. The point is
whether the day of rest and worship shall be like every other day;
whether we shall let our minds go right on as they have been going, to
the choking up of avenues of spiritual growth and religious service. Is
it right for us to allow in Milton the oc