JACK-IN-THE-BOX by W. N. Glenn

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 39.

"JACK-IN-THE-BOX."

By W. N. Glenn

BY W. N. GLENN.

WE have reached a point in the matter of foisting Sunday observance upon an unsuspecting public where Sunday looms up in almost everything that is presented in the way of reform. Whatever the pretense in the organization of modern reform, especially if the churches participate, at some stage of the movement the Sunday issue is sure to be sprung. It has become a kind of "Jack-in-the-box," ready on all occasions to be sprung the moment some enthusiast chooses to "press the button."

A marked illustration of this principle recently occurred in this city. A movement was set on foot which had for its object the calling of a Temperance Congress, and all the churches and temperance and religious societies in the county were invited to send delegates. A meeting was held and an executive committee appointed. At a subsequent meeting, at the request of some new delegates the acting chairman explained the object of the organization. In substance he stated that the object was to unite all the temperance forces in the county in a combined effort against the liquor traffic, and to call a Congress in which every phase of the question might be presented and discussed. Another gentleman, a leading spirit in the movement, also presented the subject in the same light. Up to this time there had been no intimation that the movement contemplated other action than a purely temperance or anti-liquor work.

Notwithstanding this quite general conception of the situation, almost the first business, after some ordinary routine matters had been disposed of, was to spring the Sunday "Jack-in-the-box." The executive committee being called upon for a report, the secretary stated that owing to a press of other matters the committee had not found time to take any definite action in regard to the work of the organization; but they had voted an indorsement of certain resolutions of the Christian Endeavor Society calling for the Sunday closing of the proposed Midwinter Fair in San Francisco. Then the question of indorsing the action of the executive committee was brought before the meeting. Although even the secretary of the organization and two or three ministers stated that they did not like to vote on resolutions which they had not read (and there was not a copy at hand), the matter was by the majority deemed of too much importance to be allowed to go over till another meeting.

It was suggested by one delegate, and conceded by several others, that the subject of the resolutions was not within the scope of the object of the organization, and therefore not proper matter for consideration; but it was argued that Sunday observance and the temperance cause are so intimately connected as to be practically inseparable. Action was so strongly urged that some who were really opposed to the indorsement, on the ground of its irrelevancy to the ostensible purpose of the organization, seemed to feel the necessity of going with the majority lest they might appear as being opposed to the closing of the Midwinter Fair.

And thus it is that this counterfeit institution is held ready by its votaries to be impertinently thrust into the front rank of every reform movement, as though the acknowledgment of its sacredness were the end of all reform, as though Christianity were summed up in Sunday observance.

Oakland, Cal.