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[The Rev. E. S. Porter]

About This Item

  • Title: [The Rev. E. S. Porter]
  • Date: 16 March 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01451
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 16 March 1857: 3. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Samantha Gilmore Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[The Rev. E. S. Porter]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01451.xml (TEI)
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The Rev. E. S. Porter, we are informed, delivered a sermon yesterday evening on Sabbath desecration, having especial regard to the proposed running the R. R. Cars on Sundays. He treated the subject with his usual ability, trying the origin of the Sabbath back to the creation of man, enlarging on its subsequent ratification on Mount Sinai, and the change from the seventh day of the week to the first in honor of the Savior's resurrection. Not having been present, we are unable to give a detailed report, but we understand he attributed the feeling in favor of Sunday cars, and the growing laxity among many classes of the observance of the institution, to the infidel tone of many of the publications of the day, and especially the Sunday papers. To show that his censures on this species of literature were merited, he read an extract from a Sunday paper (we could not learn which) that a friend had handed to him. In reading it, he actually held it by a pair of tongs (obtained from the vestry, we believe,) to express his disgust in having to handle such an article; and observed that he would have to wash out the pocket in which he had carried it, to cleanse it from the pollution of such a contact! What do our Sunday contemporaries think of this?

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