"But suppose you say the saloons are beyond your power. That does not release you from doing what is in your power, easily, to prevent this day from being trampled under foot and made like every other day in its scramble after money and pleasure. Who own these fruit stands and cigar stores and meat markets, and who patronize them? Is it not true that church members encourage all these places by purchasing of them on the Lord's Day? I have been told by one of these fruit dealers with whom I have talked lately that among his best customers on Sunday are some of the most respected members of this church. It has also been told me that in the summer time the heaviest patronage of the Sunday ice-cream business is from the church members of Milton. Of what value is it that we place on our ordinance rules forbidding the sale of these things covered by the law? How far are we responsible by our example for encouraging the breaking of the day on the part of those who would find it unprofitable to keep their business going if we did not purchase of them on this day? "It is possible there are very many persons here in this house this morning who are ready to exclaim: 'This is intolerable bigotry and puritanical narrowness! This is not the attitude Christ would take on this question. He was too large-minded. He was too far advanced in thought to make the day to mean anything of that sort.' "But let us consider what is meant by the Sunday of our modern life as Christ would view it. There is no disputing the fact that the age is material, mercantile, money-making. For six eager, rushing days it is absorbed in the pursuit of money or fame or pleasure. Then God strikes the note of his silence in among the clashing sounds of earth's Babel and calls mankind to make a day unlike the other days. It is his merciful thoughtfulness for the race which has created this special day for men. Is it too much to ask that on this one day men think of something else besides politics, stocks, business, amusement? Is God grudging the man the pleasure of life when here He gives the man six days for labor and then asks for only one day specially set apart for him? The objection to very many things commonly mentioned 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.