till to-morrow. The most exciting political question cannot prevail on the parliament of England to continue its functions; and even the hungry creditor must be content until the sacred day has passed, before he can claim payment of his bill or serve his writ. It is true that certain trades are practised on this day, and that much inconsistency and inconvenience arise in connection with this singular arrangement; but there it is, a startling, conspicuous fact in this nineteenth century of grace: the exceptions to it prove the rule, and the parties who are excepted, reasonably groan under their burden, and feel that a wrong is inflicted upon them. Whatever may be the deep reasons for this sabbatic interruption of all ordinary business, the economic result on the grand scale is, that every hard-working man obtains an additional day's wage. If the Sunday were abolished, he and his masters might work the seven days through, and receive no higher remuneration than before. The practical result is, that the working life of every sober man is prolonged, his ability for service increased, his wits sharpened, and his health promoted by the period of relaxation and rest. So thoroughly is this understood, that those who look merely on the material aspects of the question do not hesitate to regard the Sunday as every Englishman's boon, and as a conventional right of such value and importance, that it must not be trifled with. Almost all are ready to allow that we owe so much of our manly independence, of our reflective common sense, of our self-education, of our vigorous life, to the action and influences of the Sunday,-that it would be a treason, a folly incalculable, to destroy so venerable a custom. Yes, verily, to say nothing of conscience, of God's law, or of Christ's love, it would be an unspeakable madness, and a great and wicked injustice to rob the Englishman of his day of rest. There is at least one day in seven, when the roar of the tidal swell of human toil is hushed; when man is not the creature of others, nor their slave; when his time cannot be claimed by another, when his free-will has freer scope, when he may remember, and does reflect who and what he is, and what he was sent into this world to accomplish. There is one day in the week, when the unseen and the everlasting can at least come from their hiding-places, and draw aside the veils which otherwise hang so heavy and dusky over their awful countenances; and when the voices of truth, and righteousness, and solace, can be poured into deafened, but not unwilling ears. To rob you of your Sunday, would rob you of what is most valuable and essential to your physical, intellectual, moral, and religious life. Now the observance of the first day of the week is the birth of a deep religious principle. It arose out of no mere customs of society, no mere love of idleness, no economical purpose, no deep understanding of the intellectual and physical benefits it would confer. It was not an arbitrary arrangement of our rulers, nor any study of physiology which conferred this rest upon us. The legislature may do much now in preserving it for us, that is, by letting it alone, but the legislature did not create it. The law of it lies much deeper down in our nature than our puritan, or catholic, or heathen ancestors;-the inspiration of it is not the clock of St. Stephen's, nor the wisdom of Downing-street. It has arisen out of a deep conviction of Divine authority, a strong persuasion of godly' men, a profound faith in unseen realities, a love of God and of man, and the hope of everlasting life. Religion has been the basis, the mother, the nurse of the English day of rest. It has sprung out of deep convictions of the sacredness of life, the holiness of law, the certainty of judgment, and the prospect of heaven. We owe much of its present form to the earnest reverence for God's revelation, the strong religious convictions, the intense love of freedom, and the vigour of spiritual life which characterized those who were bent on reforming the Church in England. We hold it now as a portion of a glorious inheritance which has been bequeathed to us. It savours of earnest days and harassed nights, of Smithfield fires and Oxford martyrdoms, of pilgrim fathers and bloody assizes, of days and of men, that, in spite of every mistake and every reverse, are acknowledged by all to have given deep roots to our national greatness, and both flowers and fruitage to its spreading branches. The English Sunday will not be preserved without the continued operation of this religious principle. The love of money will be stronger than the love of rest. Competition can wage successful battles with anything short of conscience; God knows that it often avails to conquer this. But religious convictions are stronger, more widely spread, more deeply penetrating than any notions of conventional right, than any laws of a shallow expediency. If you try, if the nation tries, if a few noisy talkers try, to found the sanctity of the sabbath on the advantages of recreation, rational or irrational,-there will be very soon an end of its sacredness altogether. Let Sunday become the day on which ordinary travelling for recreation takes place,—and it will occupy tens of thousands of hands, who will find that day, as many do on the continent of Europe, the hardest and most laborious of the seven. Let recreation and amusement be the main reasons upon which you ask for the preservation of this day of rest, and you will have it invaded at every point. Let us be distinctly forewarned, that if the great use of a Sunday is a holiday; if we have no deeper reason than the relaxation of our physical energies; no other attraction than that which music, or fresh air, or public amusement, may afford; we are destroying the great safeguard of the day, we are running in danger of being robbed altogether of a sacred and invaluable right. To reduce our English Sunday to the level of a continental or pleasure-taking Sunday, would be to deprive the people of England of their birthright, to hand labour, more than ever, over into the power of capital, and to open the door along which all kinds of toil must, as in other countries, infallibly follow. England would be tenfold worse off than any Roman Catholic country is, under such a calamity. In these countries there is a decided compensation for the loss, inasmuch as there are about twenty Saints'-days, or other days, that are kept with a sanctity far surpassing that of the continental sabbath, and of which we Englishmen know nothing. There are works of necessity, of charity, of mercy; there are works which are a balance of inconveniences, and which are allowed by conscience as a choice of evils there are certain persons who are, unfortunately, made to work on Sunday, in consequence of the religious spirit, the desire for worship on the part of others; but this evil has its limits, and is constantly correcting itself. It behoves all Christians to make as little demand as possible upon the persons whom they employ, or whose services they need,— and to remember that this day belongs to each man, woman, and child, for himself, or herself, and that the method in which they employ it is a matter between them and God. : In the name of your own rights, by reason of your own need, out of regard to the obvious necessities of the case, and in view of the experience of all Europe, beware how you trifle with the conscience, the religious spirit, the Christian consecration, the holy safe |