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THE 
 
 HENDERSONIAN TESTIMONY; 
 
 BEING 
 
 FIVE ESSAYS 
 BY WORKING MEN OF GLASGOW 
 
 f^jje autiantases of tfje Sa&liati[) to t^e 
 ins Classes. 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REY. ANDREW THOMSON, B. A., 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 A. FULLARTON & CO.: 
 
 EDINBURGH, LONDON, AND DUBLIN. 
 1849. 
 
EDINBURGH : 
 
 FCXLAHTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK, 
 
To JOHN HENDERSON, Esq. of Park, 
 
 THE TRUE FRIEND OF THE WORKING RIAN, 
 
 BECAUSE THE 
 
 ENLIGHTENED AND DEVOTED DEFENDER OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN SABBATH, 
 
 THESE ESSAYS, THE PRODUCTION OF WORKING MEN, 
 
 ARE RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 
 THEIR AUTHORS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS BY THE EDITOR, . vii 
 
 TRACES ON THE SANDS OF TIME, ... 1 
 
 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE, 49 
 
 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER VERSUS OUR POSTMAN, 81 
 
 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL, 131 
 
 THE QUEEN OF DAYS, 151 
 
H£C. APR 1881 
 
 THEOLOGICxtli^/ 
 
 IKTHODUCTOEY ADDEESS 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 We have no intention to introduce these essays by 
 another essay. They need no such artificial buttress. 
 They are the honest manly sentiments of hard-working 
 men on a matter which they justly feel to be of vital 
 interest to themselves and their class, expressed in 
 a manner which proves them to be men of reading 
 and reflection, and not unfrequently with an un- 
 adorned eloquence and natural beauty that mutt 
 always command respect, sometimes even admira- 
 tion. With this knowledge of their origin, and 
 estimate of their value, we may confidently trust 
 them as bearing in themselves their best letter of 
 commendation. We deem it a matter of justice to 
 the authors to say, that, in discharging our office as 
 Editor, we have confined ourselves almost entirely 
 to the work of abbreviation, and even this has been 
 sparingly indulged. The arguments, the illustra- 
 tions, and with very insignificant exceptions, the 
 words are entirely the authors' own; and in truth 
 any greater interference on our part would have 
 been equally presumptuous and unnecessary. It is 
 with singular propriety that they have inscribed 
 their volume to one whose name is so honourably 
 
VIU INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 associated with effort in the Sabbath cause, — a name 
 which seems destined to be written on that shining 
 roll which bears the imperishable names of a Thorn- 
 ton and a Howard. 
 
 Nothing has more forcibly struck us, in the pro- 
 gress of that great movement in defence of the Chris- 
 tian Sabbath of which the working men's prize essays 
 form so peculiar and powerful an element, than the 
 way in which the Divine Ruler of the universe, and 
 Lord of the Sabbath, often makes the assaults of men 
 against the truths and institutions of his word the 
 means of bringing out those truths and institutions 
 into greater prominence, and of greatly strengthening 
 their line of defence. A familiar instance of this is 
 to be found in the essay of Hume on miracles, which 
 drew forth the masterly reply of Campbell of Aberdeen, 
 and gave to the world a more full and distinct state- 
 ment of the argument, and exhibition of its strength, 
 than had ever previously been given. The same has 
 happened in reference to some of the fundamental 
 truths of Christianity, and is taking place at this very 
 hour in regard to the Lord's day. The attempts to 
 invade its sacredness that within the last few years 
 have been made on so wide a scale, and to excuse 
 the invasion by asserting its abolished or relaxed 
 authority, have drawn forth a host of vigorous de- 
 fenders. The whole question has been discussed 
 anew. Every sophism has been answered, every 
 subterfuge exposed. The Sabbath has been sur- 
 rounded with a new blaze of evidence. The doubt- 
 ing have been confirmed, the faint-hearted em- 
 boldened. The enemies of the Sabbath, becoming 
 conscious of their inability to maintain their ground 
 
BY THE EDITOR. IX 
 
 in the theological argument, satisfy themselves, for 
 the most part, with the Parthian mode of warfare, — 
 fling their feeble javelin and fly; while by those who 
 have been led by recent controversy anew to exa- 
 mine its claims, it is beheld stable, solemn, and 
 sublime, as that Sinai from whose hoary summits 
 it was republished, and blissful as that Eden amid 
 whose flowers and incense it was first given to man. 
 But while the modern agitation of the question 
 has thus contributed to restore, in the minds of my- 
 riads, decaying impressions of the permanent autho- 
 rity of the Sabbath, we do not think that we exag- 
 gerate in asserting, that the testimony of the working 
 men in the essays, of which those contained in this 
 volume are a part, have literally added a new chapter 
 to the illustration of the wisdom and benignity of 
 this hallowed institute. The pressure of toil upon 
 the industrial part of our pojDulation has given to 
 their testimony all the intensity and earnestness of a 
 dear-bought experience, while the modern facilities 
 of printing have given a voice to that testimony 
 which in other circumstances it could not have ac- 
 quired. First was heard the touching testimony of 
 that humble and honoured woman who wrote the 
 " Pearl of Days," then arose the manly voices of 
 the printer of Ipswich, the shoemaker of St. Boswells, 
 and the machinist of Dundee, and following them 
 more than a thousand others, representing tens of 
 thousands more from mine and field, from loom and 
 anvil, from foundry and factory, from soldier's barrack 
 and sailor's cabin, speaking their personal experience 
 of the priceless blessings which the Sabbath brought 
 them on its wings. What a rich store of fact and illus- 
 
X INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 tration have these men accimuilatcd in proof of the 
 adaptation of the Sabbath to the necessities of our 
 race! As affording, in addition to the nightly repose, 
 a weekly rest for the labouring man, in which to re- 
 cover his exhausted energies, as favourable to clean- 
 liness and order, propitious to health, and tending to 
 foster self-respect, — as affording to the families of 
 our poorer classes the principal opportunities for cul- 
 tivating the domestic affections, bringing together, 
 in countless instances, sisters and brothers whom the 
 stern demands of toil have separated during the week, 
 and giving to thousands of labouring men the only 
 opportunity of realizing the poet's dream, when 
 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, 
 An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil, — 
 
 as providing a day in which his intellect shall be re- 
 freshed, instructed, and elevated, in which virtue 
 shall acquire new strength, and be braced for new 
 trials, and the whole man's spiritual being brought 
 under the continuous influence of divine themes, 
 shall receive the invigoration and impulse of a new 
 life, — these are the points on which these essayists 
 have shed a flood of illustration and evidence. And 
 we cannot wonder that more than one of those who, 
 by their means principally, have been led to see the 
 divinely benignant adaptation of the Sabbath tom.an, 
 have in consequence been brought to believe in the 
 divinity of that religion of which it forms a part, and 
 that multitudes have, in the same way, been prompt- 
 ed for ever to abandon the idea of its being a mere 
 
BY THE EDITOR. XI 
 
 Jewish institute. They have said with themselves 
 — what though the Sabbath may have had peculiar 
 relations to the Jews, this does not in the least inter- 
 fere with its universal and perpetual relations to the 
 race — I should rather conclude that that which has 
 been demonstrated to be needed by all, and adapted 
 to all, is intended for all, just as the sun may have 
 special relations to our world, being appointed for 
 signs and for seasons, but at the same time intended 
 to shed warmth, and light, and joy, upon the whole 
 radiant circle of the planetary worlds. 
 
 It is one thing, however, to have made good a case 
 in the field of argument, or even in the court of con- 
 science, and another thing to have succeeded in re- 
 moving those practical abuses, or in effecting the 
 restoration of those violated rights to which our 
 argument has pointed. How long did slavery retain 
 its victims in bonds when on the grounds alike of 
 scripture, humanity, and justice, its high-handed 
 wickedness had been demonstrated! And so with 
 the cause of the Sabbath. While the first step to 
 success is establishing its claims on the ground alike 
 of divine authority and enlarged and benevolent 
 views of man's varied and complicated interests, 
 still we are persuaded that the already existing 
 abuses of its sanctity and rest are only to be re- 
 moved, and even its ultimate obliteration prevented, 
 by a long continued and well compacted popular re- 
 sistance to abounding selfishness and insidious ty- 
 ranny. And as it is evident that the enlightened 
 and religious working classes are destined to bear no 
 second part in the struggle, we shall be forgiven if 
 we employ the few remaining pages of this intro- 
 
XU INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 ductory paper in suggesting some hints for their 
 guidance. 
 
 1. We must beware of allowing the question to 
 be narrowed, as if it were one in which the men of 
 bodily labour and handicraft alone had a direct and 
 vital interest. The Sabbath comes burdened with 
 blessings to the door of the working man, but we 
 have failed to see it in the real majesty and magni- 
 tude of its claims, until we have recognised it as 
 meeting necessities wide as the human race. " It 
 was made for man," and is scarcely less the bene- 
 factor of the employer than of the employed. Think 
 of the barrister among the complicated cases which 
 tax his perspicacity and strain his subtlety to the 
 utmost, — or of the merchant amid all the perplexing 
 anxieties of modern commercial competition, when 
 even a change in the aspect of the clouds may seri- 
 ously derange his plans, and make those " rich argo- 
 sies" on whose return he had calculated, a worse 
 than profitless adventure, — and of the statesman 
 seeking in vain to reconcile contending interests, 
 to sway opposing factions, to control popular cur- 
 rents, and find his way through the tangled web 
 of foreign diplomacy, and apart altogether from 
 those higher blessings which the Sabbath lays at 
 their feet, what a boon does it confer upon them 
 in calling them to a solemn pause on the return of 
 every seventh day, and opening wide to them its 
 gates of mercy, afford a soothing calm for the over- 
 tasked intellect and the fevered brain. The testi- 
 mony of Wilberforce assures us that but for the 
 Sabbath, patriotism even in his case would have been 
 in danger of degenerating into the spirit of faction 
 
BY THE EDITOR. XIU 
 
 or ambition; and it was his deliberate judgment, that 
 had the Sabbath been honoured by the leading states- 
 men and politicians of his age, the spring of some of 
 the finest intellects would not have been broken, 
 some of the choicest spirits would have been saved 
 from the maniac's cell, nor would the humane and 
 noble-minded Romilly have fallen into a suicide's 
 grave. 
 
 2. And if it be thus necessary to guard againt un- 
 duly narrowing the argument, it is still more neces- 
 sary to beware of lowering it. It was a noble 
 achievement for the working-men of our country to 
 have demonstrated, as they have done by such an 
 array of evidence, the harmony of the Sabbath-law 
 with human nature and human necessity. But still, 
 if we would successfully vindicate our Sabbath-rest 
 from further encroachment, our grand security is in 
 fencing it round by a divine command, and holding 
 it to be not merely a salutary but a sacred thing, not 
 simply beneficial but inviolable. The conscience of 
 the nation yet quails before a divine command, and 
 he who has the Bible on his side, in a great social 
 contest, is stronger, in truth, than if he were sur- 
 rounded by armed hosts. Moral power, in a land 
 in which public opinion is the ultimate arbiter of 
 all controversies and the supreme legislator in all 
 practical changes, is the best security of final triumph. 
 Besides, if our defence of the Sabbath be based on 
 mere expediency or humanity, a thousand plausible 
 excuses are certain to be urged for partial relaxa- 
 tion and temporary concession, and the heavenly boon 
 shall thus pass from our hands by little and little. 
 Our security lies in intrenching ourselves behind a 
 
XIV INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 divine prohibition, in cherishing and circulating the 
 conviction that the Sabbath has not been placed by- 
 heaven among the marketable commodities, that not 
 one of its golden moments can either be sold or bar- 
 tered without sacrilege and crime, and that this divine 
 patrimony, like Naboth's little vineyard, cannot be 
 yielded to the bribes or the threatenings of heartless 
 cupidity or vindictive oppression. 
 
 3. But perhaps the influence from which the cause 
 of the Sabbath has most danger to apprehend, is that 
 which is put forth in so many insidious forms by our 
 mock philanthropists. They wish the working m.an 
 to have the Sabbath to himself, by all means, but then 
 it must be spent by him in railway-trains, in casinoes 
 and pleasure-gardens. It is gratifying to observe how 
 completely the respected authors of the accompanying 
 essays have seen through the hollow device, but still 
 it is dressed up in so many plausible shapes that its 
 real selfishness and utter delusiveness needs to be 
 again and again exposed. First, it is natural to ask 
 how those persons are so very free in disposing of 
 what is not their own. Their professed kindness 
 would seem much more disinterested were they only 
 a tenth part as liberal with what is theirs to bestow, 
 and costs them something in order to bestow it. Again, 
 would not their zeal for the comfort of the labourer 
 appear less pretended, were it more impartial ? How 
 strangely oblivious they are of the fact, that if bodily 
 pleasures are to be provided on Sabbath for working 
 men, others must labour to provide them ; and that if 
 you travel, the railway servant must toil, and become 
 in truth, for your indulgence, a very slave. And 
 how is the artisan insulted by all this assumed hu- 
 
BY THE EDITOR. XV 
 
 manity that never looks above his mere animal re- 
 creation? Is he to be toiled all the six days of the 
 week almost as a beast of burden, and on the seventh 
 to exchange bodily toil for mere bodily recreation ? 
 Hath not the working man thought and affection ? 
 Is not his noblest capacity, his first duty, his highest 
 privilege, that of intercourse with God ? Is he not 
 immortal, even as his master? Does not his Creator 
 and Father on this day bid him stand erect in all the 
 majesty of manhood, in all the humility of worship, 
 and, casting from him all the badges of labour, become 
 fully awake to all his higher aspirations and desti- 
 nies? But these men would virtually shut him out 
 from all this, and in the very act of doing so call 
 their mockery humanity. 
 
 But, in truth, even the plea of animal enjoyment 
 is utterly baseless and delusive. In a country like 
 this, it is impossible for the Sabbath to cease to be 
 regarded and upheld as a divine institution, and yet 
 to be retained as a holiday. The first period of high 
 commercial prosperity, when pressing and profitable 
 orders came crowding in from foreign markets, would 
 begin a system that would gradually bribe the plea- 
 sure-hunters into the factory and the workshop, and 
 the barriers of the Sabbath once broken down would 
 never be restored. Then the working man, whose 
 necessity or avarice had consented to the bargain, 
 would discover when it was too late, that he had 
 " sold his birth - right for a mess of pottage," and 
 would "find no place for change of mind in his mas- 
 ter, though he sought it carefully with tears." And 
 then where would be the intelligence of our working 
 men ? Where the social order of the kingdom, the 
 
XVI INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 stability of its great institutions, the permanence of 
 its throne? Ignorance would be followed by irre- 
 ligion, and irreligion by anarchy, ruin, and despair. 
 " The history of our country and of our working men 
 would resemble that of Samson. It would be a tra- 
 gedy in three acts. The first act would be the work- 
 ing man, like Samson, resting in the lap of sensual 
 pleasure. The second would present him grinding 
 at the wheel, and treading his monotonous round of 
 work, work, work, amid intellectual darkness and 
 moral night. And when once this was the case — 
 might not the third act of the gloomy tragedy be 
 expected soon to follow, and the working man be seen 
 seizing the pillars of the social edifice, and involving 
 himself and his oppressors in a common ruin ? " * 
 
 4. It would be a serious mistake, however, to 
 suppose that the Sabbath is only to be preserved in 
 this country by the circulation of argument, and the 
 creation and concentration of a great moral influence 
 on its side. We wish to impress it on the minds of 
 our working men, that one of the surest means of its 
 perpetuation and transmission is the maintenance of 
 its authority and benignant influence in our own 
 family circle. It is here, in truth, above all, that the 
 Sabbath is to be lost or won. Let the artisans of 
 Scotland and England " command their families, and 
 their children after them," and train them to hallow 
 the Sabbath still more from love than from fear, and 
 they may bid defiance to all those unfriendly influ- 
 
 * Address by the author at the Distribution of Prizes to 
 the Working Men in Exeter Hall, Dec. 27, 1848. Working 
 Men's Charter for January, 1849. 
 
BY THE EDITOR. XVU 
 
 ences that seem now gathering and darkening around 
 it. But in doing this, one aim must be steadily and 
 anxiously kept in view, — that namely of making our 
 children feel the Sabbath to be not so much a system 
 of restraint as a provision of kindness. It is not to 
 be denied that some parents have erred in this re- 
 spect, and by the imposition of a double round of 
 tasks and the repression of every sound of childish 
 gladness, have surrounded it with a gloom and re- 
 pulsiveness utterly alien from its true spirit. It has 
 been made to appear in some families like a dark 
 prison-house, instead of a quiet enclosure whose 
 fence was not iron bars, but a hedge intermingling 
 with itself the fragrant rose and clustering vine, as 
 if on that day the curse of labour was suspended, and 
 Eden yet threw open her shining gates to the fallen. 
 We would not dispense with the catechism on that 
 day, nor would we relax any needful restraints, but 
 we would make the tasks light, we would be far busier 
 with the heart than with the memory, and maintain 
 our Sabbath order and decorum by means of wisely 
 varied and suitable occupation, rather than by direct 
 command. While remembering that our Sabbath 
 is the same as was given in Eden, and in all its moral 
 requirements the same as was promulgated from Sinai, 
 we should remember also that our Sabbath has be- 
 come enriched and brightened as no Jewish Sabbath 
 ever was or could be, with associations of a Ke- 
 deemer's triumph, an accomplished redemption, and 
 joyful anticipations of a glorious heaven. On this 
 day which the Lord has made we are especially " to 
 be glad and rejoice," and our children should be 
 made to share in our holy jubilee. Why may not 
 
XVlll INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 the younger children, for example, be interested and 
 instructed by means of rude pictures of sacred sub- 
 jects? Why should not our Scottish families be edi- 
 fied and cheered, and the buoyant spirits of our 
 children find fit utterance with our own in that hymn- 
 singing which is so wisely and profitably practised in 
 the pious households of our English Methodists? How 
 many Sabbath evenings of thrilling enjoyment might 
 the reading of Bunyan s Pilgrim afi*ord to our family- 
 circles ? With how many delightful works of Chris- 
 tian biography and missionary enterprize is the 
 modern press teeming for our use? And then, what 
 a boundless store of hallowed interest and enjoyment 
 is there in the pages of God's own revelation read 
 aloud and commented on by an afiectionate father? 
 In short, we are anxious that the children of our 
 Christian families, when they are withdrawn from 
 the playground, should be made to feel that they are 
 only withdrawn in order that they may be intro- 
 duced to a higher class of enjoyments, and would 
 like to have it secured that, in the anticipation of 
 their Sabbaths, when their parent shall have time to 
 unbend to the prattlers at his knee, and to speak to 
 the rising branches of his family of heavenly themes, 
 they shall be brought to feel that they are looking 
 forward to the happiest day in all the seven. We 
 are persuaded, both from observation and experi- 
 ence, that this is practicable, and who can calculate 
 the importance of it when, in future days, the mem- 
 bers of our households are scattered over the world, 
 and can look back upon the Sabbath evenings of 
 their early home as the sunniest spots in life, when 
 human affection became hallowed by devotion, and 
 

 
 BY THE EDITOR. xix 
 
 their joy was almost too sacred for utterance, and 
 separated from us by half the globe they still bless 
 God that they were born in a land of Sabbaths? 
 
 We are persuaded that these hints, addressed in 
 the spirit of a most respectful affection to those 
 working men who have committed themselves with 
 willing and earnest heart to the defence and preser- 
 vation of the Sabbath-day, will be received by them 
 in the same spirit in which they have been written. 
 Esteemed brethren, is it not a worthy cause which you 
 have so energetically espoused? You are defending 
 that which has proved itself " the mound and bul- 
 wark" of our religion, — the guardian of domestic affec- 
 tion and family happiness. At this moment it stands 
 as the chief barrier between you and grinding bond- 
 age; and the question whether the Sabbath shall be 
 preserved in this country, really involves in it the 
 other question whether you and your children shall 
 be freemen or slaves. Oh ! remember that this in- 
 estimable institution may be far more easily retained 
 by you than recovered; and that, as in the dykes 
 of Holland, a few hands and timely vigilance could 
 keep out the inundation, the strength of millions 
 could not roll back the flood after it has broken in. 
 
 What encouragements you have to persevere ! 
 The resistance began with a few, and now the cause 
 is assuming the majesty and might of a great na- 
 tional movement. The nobility of our land, its 
 intelligence, its patriotism, are joining hand in hand 
 with its artisans and labourers, and discerning in 
 the Sabbath alike the shield of the poor man and 
 the buttress of the throne. 
 
 God is on your side. But remember that God 
 
XX INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 works by means; and that, in the preservation of 
 his Sabbath to Britain, he has plainly signified his 
 purpose to work by you. The constitution of your 
 country affords you liberty of speech, — your own 
 intelligence and virtue secure that you shall not 
 speak unheard. Speak out, then, with firm voice 
 and fearless heart, and thus " serve your own gen- 
 eration by the will of God." 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife ! 
 
 Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
 Act, — act in the living Present! 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead. 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footsteps on the sands of time ; 
 
 Footprints, that perhaps another. 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother. 
 
 Seeing shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing. 
 
 Learn to labour and to wait.* 
 
 A. T. 
 
 * Longfellow's ' Voices of the Night. 
 
^Tracesi on t!je Sanirs of STtme : 
 
 OR, 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 OX 
 
 THE TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 
 TO THE LABOURING CLASSES, 
 
 CONSEQUENT IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING ITS REST FROM 
 ALL THE ENCROACHMENTS OF LTJNECESSARY LABOUR. 
 
 By WILLIAM STEWART, Jun., 
 
 WAREHOUSEMAN, ANXFIELD POTTERY, GLASGOW. 
 '' THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." 
 
TRACES 0^ THE SANDS OF TIME. 
 
 Ever encircled by besieging wants, man is in no 
 small degree a creature of circumstances. Urged on 
 by necessity's imperative decree, he is impelled by 
 day, and oft by nigbt, to sustain a monotonous appli- 
 cation to the irksome and fatio:uino: tasks of useful- 
 ness. Indomitable perseverance is essential to the 
 ceaseless struggle. A lengthened pause would be 
 fatal to his precarious and contingent state of being; 
 and involve him in irreparable loss, and temporal 
 ruin. Life is one long, truceless conflict, full of 
 labour, pain, and weariness; yet reckoned of sufla- 
 cient importance, and so desirable, as to suggest 
 and justify the use of every available means to pro- 
 long the contest, and ward off to the utmost verge 
 of procrastination's delay, the final blow, which, 
 while it would decide the unequal struggle in favour 
 of his legion-foes, would provide for conquered but 
 immortal man a peaceful, friendly shelter, " where 
 the wicked cease to trouble, and the weary are at 
 rest." 
 
4 TRACES ON THE 
 
 In the natural order of things, labour is the heri- 
 tage and portion of the sons of men. Sinecures are 
 " few and far between," and form exceptions to the 
 rule. Comparatively, only a small number are born 
 above the necessity or condition of arduous toil. The 
 great mass being by birthright the heirs only of a 
 life-long course of enervating work, which, without 
 amelioration or improvement, they transmit to their 
 progeny as their sole bequest; from age to age, the 
 irrevocable penalty of original transgression is in- 
 flicted, and still we " eat our bread with the sweat 
 of the brow." 
 
 Such is the general experience of man, in all coun- 
 tries, and at all times; and were his prospects limited 
 to the dark and circumscribed visions of time, his 
 pleasures to the mocking echoes of terrestrial bliss, 
 and his hopes to the cheating mirage of this world's 
 " waste howling wilderness," amidst so much to damp, 
 discourage, and appal, he would indeed be of all 
 creatures the most miserable. But it is not so; even 
 the hardships of his lot may be rendered not only 
 tolerable, but tributary to his comfort, and the cause 
 of his weariness be transmuted to a source of delight. 
 Exhaustion and fatigue may supervene effort, but 
 they bless by supplying a keener relish for the nec- 
 tar of the antidote, and make more welcome and 
 delicious that " rest which to the labouring man is 
 sweet." That antidote is found in the Sabbath, 
 whose beneficent and considerate provisions are de- 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 5 
 
 signed and fitted to promote the highest interests of 
 man, by dignifying his nature, blessing his being, 
 and exalting him in the scale of physical, intellec- 
 tual, and moral existence. 
 
 The observance of the Sabbath is a subject of the 
 deepest importance to all classes and conditions of 
 men; but it especially commends itself to the work- 
 ing classes, as the well-appointed medium of incal- 
 culable and peculiar advantages, which, whether 
 regarded in their relation to mind or to matter, — to 
 the life which now is, or to the life which is to come, 
 — is alike deserving the reverence of our understand- 
 ing and the homage of our affections. 
 
 From "early dawn to dewy eve," during the other 
 six days of the week, the working man plies the 
 busy but monotonous drudgeries of his avocation, 
 with scarcely such a lengthened interval as admits 
 of even a hurried visit to his home, or, while there, 
 partaking of the frugal but delicious repast, to which 
 he is welcomed by an affectionate wife and doating 
 children. 
 
 From Monday morning till Saturday night he is 
 entangled in the meshes of the complicated and cor- 
 roding anxieties and cares of his condition, but is 
 cheered up and supported under and amidst them 
 all, by the pleasing expectation of a day's respite, 
 when his weary frame may rest and his toils awhile 
 be over. To him the Sabbath is indispensable ; — he 
 could not do without it. On that blessed day — 
 
6 TRACES ON THE 
 
 which he regards as the patrimony legitimately due 
 to the relation in which he stands to the common 
 Father of all — he breathes the air of freedom, of 
 which on other days he is virtually deprived by the 
 duties of a pining servitude, only rendered tolerable 
 by the certainty of an approaching and early season 
 of halcyon repose. And when that season of repose 
 — the Sabbath — comes, in its exalted and exalting 
 immunities, he rises from the low, grovelling, and 
 materializing pursuits of his secular calling, to a 
 higher, holier, purer region and relationship than 
 the world possesses; and in the consciousness of his 
 better destiny, and his contemplations on it, he offers 
 the sacrifice of a devoutly grateful heart to Him 
 whose compassionate concern has provided the Sab- 
 bath for man, and, with feelings of unutterable ex- 
 ultation, he exclaims — " This is the day that the 
 Lord has made, we will be glad and rejoice in it." 
 
 "The world is full of toil; 
 
 It bids the traveller roam : 
 It binds the labourer to the soil, 
 
 The student to his home. 
 The beasts of burden sigh, 
 
 O'erloaded and oppress'd. 
 The Sabbath lifts its banner higli, 
 
 And gives the weary rest." 
 
 In accordance with the avowed and understood ob- 
 ject of this Essay, and without intending the slightest 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 7 
 
 disparagement of what we are bound to esteem its 
 higher claims, we intend to give special prominence 
 to a few of the principal Temporal Advantages of the 
 Sabbath to the Working Classes^ — whom we, as fellow- 
 heirs of toil, most respectfully and earnestly invite 
 to a dispassionate and deliberate investigation of a 
 subject, which, to them — to us — is of surpassing 
 importance. 
 
 Let it not be said that this is a subject suitable 
 only for divines. We freely admit that it is a 
 suitable theme for them, and one which merits 
 the closest study and most zealous advocacy of 
 their highest powers ; and to their incomparably 
 superior abilities we would gladly, and with the 
 utmost confidence, leave the support of the cause, 
 were it not for a firm conviction that the class^to 
 which we belong is practically as well, if not better, 
 qualified to appreciate the value of the Sabbath as a 
 day of rest, in its relation to the physical necessities 
 of our nature. We are therefore within the limits 
 of the strictest propriety, in examining the merits of 
 a topic which is theoretically and practically " both 
 theirs and ours." 
 
 Fellow-workmen ! bend your thoughts to the con- 
 sideration of the advantages of the Sabbath in respect 
 of its sanatorial properties. The whole of the mem- 
 bers of the medical profession, although proverbially 
 known to difier in many things, in their opinion on 
 this interesting, — deeply interesting — question are 
 
8 TRACES ON THE 
 
 agreed; and unanimously declare the value of the 
 Sabbath in its restoring and preserving influences. 
 Before a committee of the House of Commons it was 
 stated by an eminent physician, Dr. Farr, that men 
 who observe the Sabbath day enjoy better health 
 than others; and the statement was based no less 
 on obvious physical principles than on an extensive 
 professional experience. 
 
 Artisans of all grades are liable (in common with 
 others) to the various diseases incident to our nature, 
 but it will not be a difficult matter to show that, in 
 addition to their ordinary liability, they are also 
 subject to many other disorders, that are, in some 
 way or another, superinduced by certain circum- 
 stances in their secular condition. A number of 
 causes present themselves at once to the reflecting 
 mind as tending to injure the health of the indus- 
 trious workman. It frequently happens that he is 
 necessitated to pursue his avocation in an atmosphere 
 much higher than is safe or suitable for health, and 
 yet it cannot be avoided. It is indispensable for 
 particular kinds of manufactures that the apartments 
 where they are carried on should be pervaded by 
 air heated to a very high temperature, to all the 
 inconveniences and debilitating effects of which, the 
 operative is, of necessity, exposed. We have known 
 workmen carrying on their exhausting operations in 
 an atmosphere occasionally as high as 120 degrees, 
 and not less on an average than 90. Such an expo- 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 9 
 
 sure naturally induces disease; and not only weakens 
 the powers of resistance to its inroads, but also par- 
 alyzes the powers of restoration. A healthful tone 
 of body cannot long be preserved under such unfa- 
 vourable circumstances; and although the conse- 
 quences may not be always immediately observable, 
 yet disease in its incipient state insidiously pro- 
 gresses, the eye loses its lustre, the cheek its rosy 
 hue; and pallid languor, and blanched dejection 
 supersede the elasticity and sprightliness of a well- 
 conditioned frame of mind and healthy vigour of body. 
 
 But in many cases the evils of an overheated 
 atmosphere are aggravated by the converse — a fre- 
 quent and sudden transition to the cold and comfort- 
 less frigidity of a cheerless home. And will it be 
 deemed astonishing that persons spending the day 
 in the enervating torrid zone of a factory or work- 
 shop, and removing to the freezing arctic regions 
 of a damp, dark habitation, are often attacked by 
 wasting sickness and disease? or can it be thought 
 strange that the disorders which attack them, prove 
 fatal to such an alarming extent as they do? 
 
 In other cases that also abound, there exist simi- 
 lar deteriorating tendencies, arising from an exces- 
 sive humidity of atmosphere, predisposing to various 
 distressing maladies, and seriously prejudicing the 
 general health. The want of proper ventilation 
 occasioning an insufficient supply of pure and whole- 
 some air is also a fruitful source of numerous varie 
 
10 TRACES ON THE 
 
 ties of disease. Nothing is more unfavourable to 
 health than an atmosphere exhausted of its oxygen 
 and loaded with carbon, wliich is always the case in 
 crowded workshops and factories, where the supply 
 of fresh air is inadequate for the number of persons 
 employed in the apartments, and, consequently, in- 
 sufficient to sustain a protracted healthy action of 
 the lungs. Sometimes in the absence of such causes 
 as we have named, others as dangerous in their 
 operation are found to exist, and produce effects 
 equally unsuited to the maintenance of a sound state 
 of health; as, for instance, in the case of such occu- 
 pations as are of a sedentary nature, — the want of 
 exercise, and the confinement to one position, and 
 that in many trades a very irksome one, forming a 
 painfully frequent source of sickness, disease, and 
 death. 
 
 Workmen are frequently exposed to the deleterious 
 effects of the most noxious vapours and particles of 
 baneful and offensive matter which, rising from the 
 materials in course of manufacture, are inhaled with 
 the air, and reaching the lungs, speedily sap the 
 foundations of the best and strongest constitutions, 
 and predispose to pulmonary and numerous other 
 chronic affections. It is often the case that to all 
 the blighting tendencies of the different occupations 
 of the poor is superadded a scanty supply of the 
 necessaries of life, rendering the liability to swift 
 and fatal disease proportionally great. 
 
SANDS OF TIME- 1 1 
 
 Thus, eyeiy department of industrial application 
 is pervaded, less or more, by the elements of predis- 
 position to disease. All are not equally exposed: 
 some are much more dangerously situated than 
 others; — but all, without exception of class, are sus- 
 ceptible of the injurious impressions on the physical 
 condition of the body that are the concomitants of 
 labour and energetic application. 
 
 The Sabbath is invaluable in its benign and heal- 
 ing influences. It sweetly soothes the anxious breast, 
 kindly gives the weary rest, and affords a suitable 
 opportunity for the invalid's use of such medicinal 
 preparations as are intended to invigorate the frame 
 without causing any interruption to his daily toil. 
 But the Sabbath is even more valuable in the cessa- 
 tion from all manner of work, and the consequent 
 rest which it provides, than in the favour it affords 
 to other means of healing. It exhilarates the sjjirits, 
 recruits the strength, renews the energies and re- 
 pairs the waste and wear of the week, restoring to 
 a state of equilibrium, and admirably regulating all 
 the various functions of the frame, and thus promot- 
 ing the important purposes of health and wellbeing. 
 Who that has ever been tired with his toil — who 
 that has ever been sick with anxiety — who that has 
 ever obeyed tue command " six days shalt thou la- 
 bour," but has experienced the priceless blessing of 
 the Sabbath, and felt that " time works won- 
 ders?" 
 
12 TRACES ON THE 
 
 Sauatorial reform is the topic of the day among 
 all classes. Various propositions have been from time 
 to time submitted, with the view of meeting the 
 existing and imjjerative necessities; but in none of 
 these has the observance of the Sabbath had its pro- 
 per place. Could the people but be got to believe 
 in the virtues that flow from its due and dutiful 
 observance, cleanliness would be better attended to, 
 disease and death would be checked in their depop- 
 ulating career, and health, vivacity, and cheerfulness 
 would be much more generally enjoyed. Cleanli- 
 ness is indispensable to the wellbeing of the body, 
 especially in the case of all such as are, by severe 
 exertion and the nature of their employment during 
 the week, subject to the inconveniences of an im- 
 peded and deranged state of the functions of respira- 
 tion and exhalation. The Sabbath is favourable to 
 the cultivation of an attention to the duties of clean- 
 liness, by affording a regularly recurring opportunity 
 for the ablutions requisite for the maintenance of a 
 healthy condition of the cutaneous surface; and is 
 also valuable in removing the body from the evil 
 influences that are generated in the crowded and 
 often ill-ventilated apartments (where manual labour 
 is carried on), by the animal effluvia, excessive heat, 
 pestilent vapours, and a variety of other deteriorat- 
 ing causes. It follows, therefore, that wherever the 
 Sabbath is observed as it ought to be, as a day of 
 rest, it exercises a purifying influence, the blessed 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 13 
 
 fruits of ^Yhich are health of body and temporal 
 comfort. 
 
 Observe further the importance of the Sabbath as 
 it promotes the interests of Longevity. 
 
 Life is a blessing prized by all, and overrated by 
 none. Its value is known intuitively. The untu- 
 tored savage stung by the venomous snake, quickly 
 applies the healing herb, with the medicinal proper- 
 ties of which he may have accidentally become 
 acquainted, and lives unscathed; while the civilized 
 patient commands the attendance of the physician, 
 and willingly, to live, submits to the regimen he 
 prescribes. " Skin for skin, yea all that a man 
 hath will he give for his life." If life in itself be 
 such a valuable blessing, whatever tends to its pre- 
 servation deserves our best attention; but it is fre- 
 quently the case that the treasures of science and 
 art are exhausted to supply the means of making it 
 invulnerable, and to kindle in the human breast a 
 vestal fire that neither time nor death will ever ex- 
 tinguish, while the plainest and most obvious princi- 
 ples of nature, adapted to the end, are practically 
 and systematically disregarded and contemned. 
 
 Men are vainly looking for miracles, and cease- 
 lessly enquiring, "Who will show us any good?" 
 They are courting the sword and rejecting the ex- 
 tended sceptre that bids them live. They hope to 
 enrich the lore of Materia Medica by the discovery 
 of some long-forgotten or undiscovered elixir of life, 
 
1 4 TRACES ON THE 
 
 but the object of their search is not to be found in 
 marvels or in miracles ; correctives are important in 
 their proper place, but prevention, we hold, is better 
 than cure; and therefore it is even more important 
 to ascertain what may prevent evil than to discover 
 what may cure it. 
 
 A piece of mechanism, though constructed on the 
 most scientific principles, and of the best materials, 
 would be found inadequate to a very lengthened 
 operation without constant attention ; and, even 
 under the most favourable circumstances, would 
 soon need to undergo the necessary repairs required 
 by the action it had sustained ; and if such would 
 be the case with a material machine, how much 
 more liable to injury may we suppose the delicate 
 and fragile human frame to be ! No model of skil- 
 ful design can compare with the body of man in the 
 fineness of its innumerable and complicated details, 
 and in the nicety with which its difierent functions 
 are harmoniously adjusted in their various relations, 
 so that instead of surprise being excited that our 
 nature is subject to injurious impressions from the 
 external circumstances and surrounding vicissitudes 
 to which it is exposed, it is rather matter of deep 
 astonishment that with all its auxiliaries and appli- 
 ances it wears so well as it does. 
 
 " Our life contains a thousand springs, 
 And dies if one be gone ; 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 15 
 
 Strange that a liarp of thousand strings 
 Should keep in tune so long." 
 
 It is unnecessary here to pause to inquire whether 
 the condition of toil represents a blessing or a curse? 
 It may suffice to admit that a certain amount of 
 exercise is essentially necessary for the wellbeiug of 
 the body; and that consequently, were the physical 
 energies exerted only in the measure of the healthful 
 exercise, their application would be of incalculable 
 advantage; the whole of the functions of animal life 
 being improved and preserved by the regular alter- 
 nation of rest and labour, repose and toil. But such 
 a state of things does not exist, and never can exist, 
 where labour is the means of livelihood, and the 
 source of income. It is not in such circumstances 
 a beneficial exercise, tending to the comfort of the 
 body and the lengthening of life, but it is an excess 
 of application that not only weakens and enfeebles 
 the system but actually shortens the brief and brit- 
 tle thread of life. 
 
 The comparative effects of seasonable and moder- 
 ate exercise, and excessive toil, as they affect the 
 vital principles of animal existence, are sufficiently 
 well known to supersede either a lengthened or crit- 
 ical examination of their modus operandi. 
 
 The baneful and blighting pressures of severe and 
 accustomed toil may be, and often are, gradual and 
 imperceptible, silent but insidious. They may 
 
16 TRACES ON THE 
 
 slowly, yet they do certainly prepare for and con- 
 duct to the regions of premature mortality, many 
 who, but for the circumstances of their condition, 
 might long have benefited with their presence and 
 usefulness " the land of the living." 
 
 The effect of excessive exertion in shortening life 
 is clearly apparent, not only in the subjects of human 
 physiology, but also in the nature of animal life, 
 subject to the same general and fundamental laws 
 and principles as the nature of man. As, for in- 
 stance, in the case of beasts of burden. It is a well 
 known fact that the horse lives a longer or shorter 
 time according to the kind and amount of work he 
 has to perform, and the fatigue he undergoes. " A 
 horse in a stage running only 5 miles at a time, and 
 then resting for a few hours, will last at least four 
 times longer than another horse of equal power which 
 runs 10 miles at a time."* A lady's palfrey also 
 will outlive by many years a horse constantly em- 
 ployed in the harness, even admitting that every 
 possible care is observed towards the one as well as 
 the other, — the difference of the one from the other 
 being ascribed solely to the difference in their re- 
 spective occupations. — The ass might be named as 
 also furnishing evidence of the impairing tendencies 
 of over-exertion, living in its natural state of un- 
 tamed and unoppressed wildness, a much longer time 
 
 * Chambers' * Information for the People.' 
 
SANDS OF TIME. l7 
 
 than it is known to do under tlie inflictions and 
 fatigues of its domesticated condition. But it most 
 seriously concerns us to look at the matter in its 
 daily bearing on our state and interests; and we 
 therefore summon attention to the facts that abide 
 in the circle of our own observation, and are to a 
 certain extent corroborated by a deeply impressed 
 personal experience. 
 
 Considerable attention has been bestowed on this 
 subject by some of the most eminent French statists, 
 whose observations have been principally made on 
 the masses of busy, densely-populated, but Sabbath- 
 less Paris; and therefore may be fairly taken as a 
 correct representation of the same subject in all other 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 " An interesting paper, published by M. Benoiston 
 de Chateauneuf, entitled ' On the Duration of Life 
 in the Hich and the Poor,' corroborates these views. 
 The author has made, on the one hand, an abstract 
 of the deaths of 1,600 persons of the highest rank, 
 among whom are 157 sovereigns and princes; on 
 the other hand, he has taken from the civil registers 
 of Paris the deaths of 2,000 persons in the 12th 
 arrondissement, which contains a population of work- 
 men of all kinds — ragmen, sweepers, delvers, day- 
 labourers, &c. — a class subjected to pain, anxiety, 
 and hard labour. Out of these materials he has 
 constructed a Table showing the percentage of mor- 
 tality among the two classes at diflferent ages ; and 
 
 B 
 
18 TRACES ON THE 
 
 lias added a column indicating the percentage among 
 the middle classes. He found that between 25 and 
 30 the deaths, per cent., were, among the rich, ; 
 among the common class, 1*41; among the poor, 
 2*22; — from 50 to 55, among the rich, 1-81 ; among 
 the common class, 2*68; among the poor, 2*58; — 
 from 75 to 80, among the rich, 8*09; among the 
 common class, 10'32; among the poor, 14"59. At 
 this last age the column showing the deaths among 
 the poor stops for want of materials ; they had all 
 died off."* "The same conclusion is indicated by 
 contrasting the annual mortality shown by the an- 
 nual average of deaths among the middle classes in 
 England who have insured their lives with the 
 Equitable Society, and the average (annual) among 
 the negro slaves; among the former it was only 1 
 in 81*5, from 1800 to 1820; whereas it has been 
 calculated that one negro slave dies annually out of 
 5 or 6."t 
 
 The proportion in which the poorer and labouring 
 portions of society sujQTer the afflictions of sickness 
 and mortality, in comparison with the affluent and 
 middle classes, is thus strikingly exhibited; and is 
 further confirmed by the testimony of another French 
 author, M. Villerne, who has ascertained that the 
 deaths in some poor arrondissements are just double 
 
 * Chambers' ' Information for the People.' 
 t Ibid. 
 
aANDS OF TIME. 19- 
 
 what they are in the rich. He states that, taking 
 the whole of the French population, human life is 
 protracted 12 J years among the wealthy beyond its 
 duration among the poor. 
 
 A distinguished member of the British senate,* in 
 speaking of the working people, in the House of 
 Commons, some time since, submitted the following 
 startling statements : " What," he asked, " was the 
 physical condition of these unfortunate people thus 
 collected together? Was it a satisfactory one? He 
 would not go into any lengthened details; but let 
 him simply ask the House to remember what had 
 been shown to be the comparative duration of life 
 in Manchester, for instance, and in the county of 
 Wilts, an agricultural district. In Wiltshire the 
 average duration of life was thirty-three years; in 
 Manchester it was only seventeen. He did not 
 mean to say that this difference in the duration of 
 human life sprung solely or mainly from the nature 
 of factory labour; but it clearly must arise from the 
 circumstances taken all together, under which that 
 labour was carried on in the great towns. Now, it 
 could not be doubted that the evils of the physical 
 condition were calculated to grow worse in every 
 succeeding generation. A people whose life was 
 reduced to one-half of the usual average of the la- 
 bouring class by no accident, no sudden disaster, no 
 
 * C. Buller, Esq., M. P. 
 
20 TRACES ON THE 
 
 chance epidemic, but by the constant action of cir- 
 cumstances unfavourable to health and longevity, 
 were not likely to propagate a vigorous and healthy 
 race." 
 
 From the evidence here adduced it must appear 
 obvious, that the disparity between the agricultural 
 and manufacturing classes of labourers is occasioned, 
 to a very considerable extent, by the difference -in 
 the amount of labour performed, — the deteriorating 
 influences of the laborious toils of the latter being 
 greatly increased by the unfavourable circumstances 
 with which, in all manufacturing districts they are 
 invariably, if not necessarily, associated. The same 
 authority, in the Speech already quoted, says: — 
 " Then with regard to agricultural labourers, they 
 certainly were not generally overworked. In other 
 respects they had much to complain of. They were too 
 often ill-paid, ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-lodged; but Nature 
 herself, the vicissitudes of night and day, prevented 
 a general excess of out- door labour. As for the hard 
 work in the harvest, who would complain if the long 
 hours of labour in the factory prevailed only during 
 two or three weeks of the year, when absolute ne- 
 cessity, arising from natural causes, required them, 
 and if the labourer were stimulated to a brief occa- 
 sional exertion by high pay, generous food, and the 
 custom of the country, which made harvest a period 
 of festivity as well as of labour in common." 
 
 On these grounds it is an easy matter to account 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 21 
 
 for the striking difterence between the two classes 
 specified, — the one having all the advantages of pure 
 air, temperate climate, equable atmosphere, variety 
 of motion, and only a modicum of labour sufficient 
 to supply the exercise necessary for the well-being 
 of the body, and the prolongation of life. The other 
 being subject to all the pestilent evils of impure and 
 noxious exhalations, tropical climate, variable tem- 
 perature, monotonous application, and such a pres- 
 sure of work as grinds the body to the earth, im- 
 pairs the health, and shortens the life, of the unfor- 
 tunate and overwrought victims of manufacturing 
 occupations. 
 
 At the risk of being thought tedious, we will here 
 quote another credible and respectable authority 
 upon the same subject. Lord Ashley, the indefati- 
 gable and untiring friend of the working classes, thus 
 expresses himself: " The ages above forty are seldom 
 found in this employment (Factory labour). Now, 
 during the great turn-out in 1831, from forty-two 
 mills, in Mosely, Aihton, and in other places in 
 Lancashire, out of 1,665 persons who joined in that 
 turn-out, there were, between forty-five and fifty 
 years of age, only 51. In 1832, it appeared, by 
 certain returns from mills in Harpur and Lanark, 
 that, out of 1,600 persons, there were, above the 
 age of forty-five, only 10 individuals. In 1839, the 
 returns from certain mills in Stockport and Man- 
 cliester, showed that the number of hands employed 
 
22 TRACES ON THE 
 
 in these mills was 22,094. Now, of all that im- 
 mense multitude, how many does the House think 
 were above the age of forty-five years ? Why, only 
 143 persons; and of these 16 were retained by spe- 
 cial favour, and one was doing boy's work." "I 
 hold in my hand," continued the Noble Lord, " a 
 letter from a person who went down to Bolton to 
 make returns for me, in which he states, ' I have 
 just seen fifty reduced spinners, two are more than 
 fifty years of age, the rest will not average forty 
 years of age. One man, T. E., worked for sixteen 
 years at Mr. O.'s mill; he is forty- three years of 
 age; he has frequently applied for work, but is in- 
 variably answered, he is too old.' In the year 1833 
 a letter was addressed to me by Mr. Ashworth, a 
 very considerable mill-owner in Lancashire, which 
 contains the following curious passage: * You will 
 next very naturally inquire about the old men, who 
 are said to die, or become unfit to work, when they 
 attain forty years of age, or soon after.' Mark the 
 phrase — old man^ at forty years of age. The same 
 evils exist in France and other countries where the 
 manufacturing system prevails. Dr. Villerm^ says: 
 * There are few cities where one meets with old peo- 
 ple employed in manufactories, it is found to be 
 more economical to pay younger men, though at a 
 higher rate.' The same acute observer having en- 
 larged on the evils of the Factory work, adds : ' In 
 examining men from twenty to twenty-one years of 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 23 
 
 age, I found them physically unfit for the military 
 service, in proportion as they came from the work- 
 ing classes of the factory (classe ouvriere de la 
 fabrique) at Amiens. 100 fit men required 193 
 conscripts from the middling class; 100 fit men re- 
 quired 343 conscripts from the working class.' Now, 
 let this condition of things be contrasted with the 
 condition of agricultural life; and let us see how 
 much longer is the duration of the working powers 
 in that class of labour. In June, 1841, on an estate 
 in Worcestershire, out of forty-two agricultural la- 
 bourers, there were, over forty-five years of age, 20. 
 Out of twenty-five on one in Lincolnshire, 11 ex- 
 ceeded forty years of age. At a place in Wales, 
 out of thirty-three labourers, 12 exceeded the age 
 of forty, and 7 were above sixty. At another estate 
 in Lincolnshire, out of sixty-two labourers, 32 ex- 
 ceeded forty-two years of age. At one in Scotland, 
 out of sixty labourers, 27 were over forty years of 
 age. Again, in England, out of thirty-nine labour- 
 ers, 29 exceeded forty years of age. On an estate 
 in the Isle of Wight, out of eighteen labourers, there 
 were found 10 exceeding forty years of age. On 
 another, out of seventeen, 7 were above forty years 
 of age. On another farm, out of fifteen labourers, 
 6 were over forty years of age; and on an aggregate 
 of farms in the neighbourhood, there were thirty 
 labourers, every one of them exceeding forty years 
 of ao^e ! So that the total shows that of 341 labour- 
 
24 TRACES ON THE 
 
 ers, 180 were above forty years of age. Contrast 
 the condition of these people with that of a multi- 
 tude of 22,000, of whom only 143 were above the 
 age of forty-five. There is yet another instance. 
 On an estate in Dorset, in 1844, out of 427 labour- 
 ers, 118 are above forty-five years of age. And 
 these men may go on much longer; for I can appeal 
 to honourable gentlemen on both sides of the House, 
 whether they have not known agricultural labourers, 
 at the ages of fifty, sixty, and seventy years, still 
 capable of working, and of earning wages."* 
 
 We have been minute, perhaps to a degree of pro- 
 lixity, in endeavouring to establish by the most in- 
 contestable evidence the proposition, that excessive 
 exertion abridges the duration of human life. And 
 who that has considered the facts adduced, as well as 
 the concurring testimony of all the members of the 
 medical profession, — who that has even in a cursory 
 manner observed the characteristics of severe exertion, 
 as identified with the sweating sons of commerce, — 
 who that himself has exhausted all his strength at 
 some description of manual labour, and sought at 
 night's approach the balmy solace of " Nature's sweet 
 restorer," — who but has been convinced, — convinced 
 alike by observation and a premonition in his own 
 experience, that the necessary consequence of undue 
 exertion, even in the pursuit of the means of life, is 
 
 * Lord Ashley. 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 25 
 
 a swift and fearful retribution in the destruction of 
 that which we are striving to attain? 
 
 As we turn from the gloomy picture we have 
 been studying with saddened feelings, we are led to 
 the contemplation of the Sabbath in its life-prolong- 
 ing aspect; — and we feel all the more competent to 
 appreciate its merciful and beneficent arrangements, 
 on account of the pernicious tendencies and mis- 
 chievous influences from which it is able and pro- 
 poses to preserve us. It is generally admitted that 
 labour, in the measure to which it is pursued in this 
 and all other manufacturing countries, diminis^.es 
 life about 50 per cent. The mean average duration 
 of life is 35 years; but of this calculation we must 
 remember one of the principal features, affecting the 
 result of the whole, is the disproportionate mortality 
 among infants and children of very tender years. 
 Probably the mean average duration of life, in per- 
 sons who arrive at maturity, is about 45 years. It 
 has already been shown that the average duration of 
 life, in the manufacturing population of Manchester, 
 is 17 years: this, it will be observed, is rather less 
 than the half of the mean average of life in the ag- 
 gregate. Let us examine this subject a little more 
 minutely, as important interests are involved in it, 
 and much of the value of the Sabbath is felt in its 
 relation to this department of our inquiry. 
 
 Assuming the accuracy of the hypothesis that 45 
 years represent the average duration of life in those 
 
26 TRACES ON THE 
 
 who arrive at man's estate, and that excessive toil 
 and its concomitant evils abridge life, in the work- 
 ing classes, to even the extent of a third, vrhich is 
 rather under than over the truth, then the working 
 man, on arriving at the age of 30, has undergone 
 the fatigues and carried the burden of 45 years; but 
 of this 30 years, it has further to be considered that 
 a considerable proportion of them, say also a third, 
 the first ten years, spent in the freedom and recrea- 
 tion of infancy and childhood, are exempt from the 
 mischievous causes of the decline that is induced in 
 after years, leaving only twenty years of actual ap- 
 plication ; twenty years, however, that represent the 
 labour and physical effects of 35: — the diminution 
 of life being in the proportion of 4 to 5; so that the 
 Sabbaths of 20 years, if desecrated by the same oc- 
 cupations as those that befit the other six days of 
 the week, would at the same ratio shorten the life 
 rather more than two years, or fully a fifteenth of 
 the entire jyeriod of human existence. 
 
 One of the most serious evils induced by over- 
 exertion, and one that tends to multiply the number 
 of the slain to such an extent as to merit special re- 
 mark, is the loss of appetite for food, and the crea- 
 tion of an appetite for spirituous liquors or other 
 stimulants. That this is a common feeling among a 
 large majority of the working classes is a fact that 
 is well known; — the nature of their employment, in 
 many cases, induces " an intolerable thirst; they can 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 27 
 
 drink, but not eat." Mr. Roberton, a celebrated 
 surgeon in Manchester, in a published Essay, says: 
 " I regard it as a misfortune for an operative to be 
 obliged to labour for so long hours at an exhausting 
 occupation, and often in an impure atmosphere. / 
 consider this circumstance as one of the chief causes of 
 the astounding inebriety of our iwpidation" 
 
 With such appalling facts before us, can we for a 
 moment doubt the divinity of the mission of the 
 Sabbath? What does it contemplate in regard to 
 the temporal condition of man? It contemplates the 
 restoration of his strength, the improvement of his 
 health, the increase of his comfort, and the lengthen- 
 ing of his life. It is a bulwark against oppression, 
 — a check upon the evils that create the " intolerable 
 thirst," — a succedaneum for all pernicious stimulants, 
 — and, in a word, it is the simplest, cheapest, and 
 best means for the amelioration of the condition of 
 the. working classes, and their elevation to a higher 
 degree of social comfort, general intelligence, and 
 honoured longevity. 
 
 The late Mr. Wilberforce was accustomed to ex- 
 press his profound sense of the divine goodness, in 
 the appointment of the Sabbath as a day of repose. 
 " I have often heard him assert," says one who was 
 favoured with his intimate acquaintance, "that he 
 never could have sustained the labour and stretch of 
 mind required in his early political life, if it had not 
 been for the rest of the Sabbath; and that he could 
 
28 TRACES ON THE 
 
 name several of his contemporaries in tlie vortex of 
 political cares, wliose minds had actually given way 
 under the stress of intellectual labour, so as to bring 
 on a premature death, or the still worse and more 
 dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, 
 humanly speakingly, miglit have been preserved in 
 health, if they would but have conscientiously ob- 
 served the Sabbath." 
 
 Sir Matthew Hale was also remarkable for his 
 observance of the Sabbath, esteeming it conducive 
 to the temporal, as well as to the spiritual welfare 
 of man, and we doubt not that similar testimony in 
 favour of the beneficent and life -prolonging proper- 
 ties of the Sabbath, would be found mingled with 
 sincere expressions of the highest gratitude, in the 
 lives of the humble but exemplary workmen, were 
 their history as fully and as frequently recorded. 
 It need not be inferred, from the absence of such 
 documentary evidence representing the appreciation 
 of the Sabbath by the lower classes, that they are 
 either unconscious of, or insensible to, its paramount 
 importance. If they speak not, it is not because 
 they do not feel. No, the Sabbath is experienced 
 to be a common benefaction, and it is valued by 
 none more highly than by those whose hands minis- 
 ter to their own necessities; and who respect and 
 obey the command which inculcates the remem- 
 brance of the Sabbath, in the keeping of which, with 
 the other commands, is great reward. 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 29 
 
 Having thus, we trust, satisfactorily shown, that 
 " length of days are in her right hand," we will now 
 endeavour to prove that " in her left the Sabbath 
 holds riches and honour ;" tliat so far from the rest 
 of the Sabbath being followed by the penalty of in- 
 dolence and idleness, men are actually bettered in 
 their circumstances by it, — that, instead of impover- 
 ishing, " it raaketh rich and addeth no sorrow." 
 
 Labour is the labourer's trading commodity, and 
 rises or falls in marketable value according to the 
 extent of the demand and the corresponding measure 
 of supply. A variety of circumstances have, within 
 the last century, induced a gradual impoverishing 
 depreciation in the value of manual labour in this 
 country. The great excess of labourers who have 
 attached themselves to the manufacturing interests, 
 the introduction of machinery, and the consequent 
 economising of time and labour, as well as the ad- 
 vance and proficiency of other countries, in the 
 staple manufactures of which as a nation we long 
 enjoyed an unrivalled monopoly, together with other 
 causes, have originated an almost ruinous spirit of 
 competition, that in an unworthy ambition to main- 
 tain supremacy of empire to which priority of occu- 
 pation is thought to have constituted a prescriptive 
 right, has compromised the comfort of the working 
 classes by an undue and inordinate reduction in the 
 price allowed for their labour, until wages, in all the 
 departments of manual industry, are far below a 
 
30 TEACES ON THE 
 
 remunerative figure, rendering it indispensable for 
 the purposes of even a meagre livelihood, to overtax 
 the strength, and compress into the unexpansive 
 moments of every hour the measure of effort that 
 should be assigned to twice the length of time. 
 Every nerve is strained and every energy over- 
 tasked to preserve the precarious means of existence, 
 which the maximum of exertion is barely sufficient 
 to retain. Still, however, the income derived from 
 the six days' work is proportionate to the necessi- 
 ties of seven. Admitting that the remuneration of 
 labour is so far dej)reciated as to be adequate only 
 to afford the means of a scanty sustenance, yet the 
 wants of the Sabbath are calculated in the weekly 
 income, and provided for in the same degree as the 
 other six days of the week. But what would be the 
 effect, in a pecuniary point of view, of dragging the 
 Sabbath into the vortex of secular engagements and 
 duties? Would we fare better in any temporal good 
 than we do? Would we be better fed, better clothed, 
 better lodged, or better conditioned than we are? 
 The following considerations may assist the unpreju- 
 diced and candid mind to a solution of the problem. 
 Assuming that a week of seven days would pro- 
 duce a day's work more than a week of six days ; 
 one of two evils must necessarily follow the adoption 
 of the long week system, either the number of work- 
 ers at present required to produce a supply equal to 
 the demand would be reduced to the extent of a 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 31 
 
 seventh of the entire class, thus throwing a great 
 many out of employment alto^^ether, and for ever; 
 or else, by keeping the whole in full operation, the 
 market would soon be glutted with a constantly 
 accumulating over-stock, until the supply would so 
 far exceed the demand as to cause stagnation and a 
 partial if not a general suspension of business, — a 
 state of matters that would only find its level and 
 improvement in a "tremendous reduction" in the 
 price of every kind of manufacture, — as goods that 
 are not needed are never bought unless at a great 
 sacrifice, so that while the consumer might reap a 
 temporary advantage, both the manufacturer and 
 the workman would sustain severe and irreparable 
 loss. But we take exception to the theory pro- 
 pounded by some, that a seven days' week would 
 produce seven days' work. Such a thing has never 
 been demonstrated, — we have no evidence to sup- 
 port it, but abundant proofs in opposition. Nature 
 uniformly refuses to sanction such a flagrant viola- 
 tion of its first and fundamental principles; and so 
 far from being profitable, it is always found that 
 the Sabbath is a bad bargain as a matter of mer- 
 chandise, and a ruinous speculation as a subject of 
 investment. 
 
 Experience proves that physical exhaustion de- 
 presses the mind, and induces a sluggish and 
 mechanical frame of mental feeling, inimical to 
 the cheerful and satisfactory discharge of the tasks 
 
32 TRACES ON THE 
 
 and duties of life. But the rest of the Sabbath in- 
 fuses new strength into the languishing system, and 
 lends fresh vigour to the clogged and drooping 
 spirits, and fits at once the body and the mind, 
 through its invigorating influences, for a greater 
 amount of active service than they would otherwise 
 be capable of. In support of this statement we 
 are prepared to lead proof, and proceed to call our 
 witnesses. A high and respectable authority, already 
 cited (Hon. C. BuUer), in the House of Commons a 
 few years since, stated as follows: — " There was one 
 curious fact which had been mentioned in private by 
 an honourable gentleman, who, by the way, voted 
 a^rainst him. It was a fact connected with factories 
 in Scotland ; and it was so well worthy of attention, 
 in its bearing upon the question before them, that 
 he felt it necessary to refer to it. The statement to 
 which he referred was, that for the first fortnight 
 after a period of rest and relaxation, the operatives 
 in those factories produced ten per cent, more than at 
 any other period of their employment." Here then is 
 a strong and striking proof of the utility of the Sab- 
 bath, and the profitableness of its rest. Mr. Sv/an, 
 Superintendent of Machinery to the South -Eastern 
 and Continental Steam-Packet Company, (than whom 
 none have had a better opportunity of examining the 
 subject in all the relations and interests it involves,) 
 in a Memorandum on the Sunday sailing of the steam- 
 packets, thus avers, " I beg to express my deep con- 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 33 
 
 victioii that a greater amount of active service could be 
 performed if the ships' crews could be insured their 
 Sabbath's rest, than ever will be realized by the best 
 possible arrangement without it; and this increased 
 amount of service would be performed at least as 
 efficiently, and certainly more heartily, than at pre- 
 sent. This is just equivalent to saying, that eight 
 boats could accomplish as much work in six days as 
 a greater number could in seven; and that is what 
 I mean to affirm. By not systematically depriving 
 men of the rest which the human constitution as per- 
 emptorily requires as the law of God demands, you 
 would be so much better served, that it would be 
 equivalent to getting another boat upon the station. 
 By exacting seven days labour you get less than six 
 days' worh I" 
 
 Here is an important statement, — a statement that 
 should never be forgotten, — a fact that challenges 
 contradiction ; hear it ye who haste to be rich, and 
 let its warning voice admonish your cupidity; hear it 
 ye Millionaires^ whose coffers are replenished with 
 the profits of overwrought bone and sinew, of health 
 destroyed, and life impaired; hear it, and as ye list 
 let your egregious folly in the secular appropriation 
 of the Sabbath be rebuked. " By exacting seven days' 
 labour you get less than six days' work!' 
 
 Further amplification here would be supereroga- 
 tion. We only ask, what is the gain of Sabbath 
 work ? Wherein do the working classes profit by 
 c 
 
34 TRACES ON THE 
 
 it? It has been demonstrated that to all classes it 
 involves a positive and serious loss; but the loss to 
 the working class is greater than that sustained by 
 all the others. Without gaining any thing, they 
 lose every thing, — time, wages, work, comfort, health, 
 life, all, all are forfeited. By working on the Sab- 
 bath day, according to calculations already made, 
 the life of the working man would be shortened at 
 least a fifteenth, while the brief sojourn of his pil- 
 grimage here would be embittered by the canker- 
 ing and corroding curse of ill health, penury, and 
 complicated wrongs. 
 
 As it is, of the working-classes the words of Hood 
 may well be used, as apposite and expressive; for 
 they 
 
 " Work, work, work, 
 From weary chime to chime ; 
 
 Work, work, work. 
 As prisoners work for crime." 
 
 But bad as their condition is, it would doubtless be 
 rendered tenfold worse, were it not for the Sab- 
 bath, which is upreared as a mighty bulwark to 
 withstand the unrighteous exaction of oppressive 
 servitude. 
 
 It is a common but egregious error to suppose 
 that the amount of work performed bears an exact 
 proportion to the period of time it occupies. No- 
 thing can be farther from the truth than this; but it 
 is doubtless to such an idea that the circumstance 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 35 
 
 may be ascribed, that in all the contiuental and 
 indeed European countries in which manufactures 
 are carried on to any great extent, the workmen are 
 even much more grievously oppressed and over- 
 wrought than we are in this country, while so far 
 from the results being proportionally in their favour, 
 they are quite the reverse; — they with long hours 
 are losers, — we with short hours arc gainers. " The 
 manufacturers of Great Britain surpass in extent 
 and variety those of any other country; and, from 
 the superior character of its machinery, the econo- 
 mising of time, and the refined skill of its workmen, 
 the manufactures are generally produced at a lower 
 rate and of better quality than in countries more 
 favourably situated with regard to the production 
 of raw materials." "^ 
 
 It is of importance that the fact be remembered, 
 that while thus, as a nation, we surpass in our 
 manufactures, both as to extent, variety, and qual- 
 ity, every other manufacturing country, the hours 
 of labour are less protracted here than in any other 
 operative community, — a circumstance that clearly 
 shows the inutility, even in a pecuniary point of 
 view, of exacting an undue measure of exertion from 
 those who are the producers. 
 
 The following details may be interesting, and will 
 serve to illustrate and confirm the foregoing re- 
 
 * Chambers' ' Information for the People.* 
 
36 TRACES ON THE 
 
 marks: — In the United States of America, factory 
 labourers work 78 hours a week, or 13 hours a day. 
 In France, they work 72 to 84 hours a week, or 
 from 12 to 14 hours a day. In Prussia, 72 to 90 
 hours a week, or from 12 to 15 hours a day. In 
 Switzerland, 78 to 84 hours a week, or from 13 to 
 14 hours a day. In Austria, 72 to 80 hours a 
 week, or from 12 to 13 hours 20 minutes a day. 
 In Saxony, 72 hours a week, or 12 hours a day. 
 In Baden, 84 hours a week, or 14 hours a day. In 
 Bonn, 94 hours a week, or 15 hours 40 minutes a 
 day. And in England, they work 69 hours a week, 
 or 11 hours 30 minutes a day, — being no less than 
 16 per cent, less than the time employed, in the 
 same kind of labour, in any of the continental or 
 transatlantic manufacturing countries. 
 
 From these facts it will appear evident that rest 
 produces a fitness for active and arduous duties, that 
 amply compensates for the interruption occasioned 
 by a periodical and regularly recurring season in 
 which labour is suspended. 
 
 Remark again the beneficial influence of the Sab- 
 bath in favour of the temporal comfort of the work- 
 ing portions of the community, in its support of all 
 the principles of a sound morality. 
 
 Will it be said by any that this has nothing to do 
 with the matter? We reply, it has every thing to 
 do with it. It is the Alpha and the Omega of the 
 whole system of social happiness and temporal well- 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 37 
 
 being. The immortal Burke, who could fully 
 estimate the positive and relative value of what- 
 ever could improve the condition of the people, 
 declared *' that religion is the basis of civil society, 
 and the source of all good and of all comfort." This 
 sentiment has been attested by the concurring evi- 
 dence of all classes and of all ages. Immorality 
 and a state of physical wellbeing are invariably 
 found in the inverse ratio. Wherever morality is 
 at a discount, temporal good will be found propor- 
 tionally low, whilst the outward and material im- 
 proves under the fostering and friendly guardianship 
 of an enlightened and ennobling morality. So that 
 whatever tends to consolidate the principles of vir- 
 tue and religion, in doing so tends also to strengthen 
 the foundation of " all good and of all comfort." 
 Freedom is an essential element in the prosperity 
 and happiness of any nation. Bondage, oppression, 
 and tyranny, and the distinctions they imply, are 
 inimical to every thing that is noble, great, and good, 
 and prevent that spirit of mutual confidence and 
 generous feeling which it is equally the interest of 
 sovereign and subject, employer and employed, to 
 promote. The serfdom of Russia has engendered in 
 the masses of its teeming population a spirit of pusil- 
 lanimity and crouching servility, that so generally 
 obtains as to form a striking feature in the national 
 character, — strengthening the iron rule of the Au- 
 tocrat, and fixing him more firmly on the detested 
 
38 TRACES ON THE 
 
 throne of despotism, whilst it rivets the fetters and 
 perpetuates the ignominious vassalage of his abject 
 serfs. 
 
 Liberty encourages and rewards an enlightened 
 pursuit of whatever is calculated to increase the 
 treasures of knowledge, enlarge the dominion of 
 science, improve the skill of art, and ameliorate the 
 condition of our species; so that labour, when di- 
 rected by an expanding judgment, is always followed 
 by a certain if not an adequate reward. Genius is 
 no prerogative of rank; no heir-loom of nobility. 
 It is not necessarily allied to the scions of wealth. 
 It descends not hereditarily from sire to son as titles 
 or estates. It is sometimes, and indeed not unfre- 
 quently, found in the keeping of those who own no 
 other heritage; but who, though poor, with such a 
 gift are peerless. To this fostering care which is 
 exercised over the interests of the humble but de- 
 serving artisans, may be ascribed the promotion and 
 elevation to the highest dignities and circles of men, 
 who, under different and less favourable circum- 
 stances, would have continued in the shade of their 
 native obscurity unknown and unappreciated. But 
 to the British nation has been reserved the high and 
 dignified prerogative to exhibit, on the most exten- 
 sive scale, to a wondering and admiring world, the 
 safety, success, and expediency of affording every 
 possible patronage to the skill, ingenuity, and in- 
 dustry of its working classes. " Knowledge is 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 39 
 
 power;" and the more we know, the better are we 
 iBtted for wielding the influence which we possess 
 for the accomplishment of the purposes of wisdom 
 and humanity. We repudiate the sentiment that 
 the pleasures of literature are suited only to the 
 middle or upper classes, and above the legitimate 
 sphere of those more humbly but not less honouiubly 
 born. We deprecate the thought of exciting the 
 slightest feeling of jealousy or rancour in the minds 
 of the respective classes that society is naturally and 
 properly composed of. None of the remarks we 
 have made have been made with such an unworthy 
 design. We only wish to incite the lower orders to 
 the pursuit of the greatest possible amount of excel- 
 lence and happiness attainable by them and by all. 
 It is too often found that mean though honest em- 
 ployments are associated with low and vitiated habits 
 and practices, — that humble but necessary avocations 
 are followed by ignorant and degraded characters. 
 But it is not unavoidably so. The meanest may 
 excel, and the humblest be honoured and honourable. 
 It is not the nature of a man's occupation that de- 
 grades him; but, if degraded, it is by himself that 
 his disgrace is insured. 
 
 Dr. Ritchie, the predecessor of Dr. Chalmers in 
 the Divinity Chair in Edinburgh, was accustomed 
 to say, " That a man's calling, if honest, however 
 lowly, never disgraced him; and that if he were a 
 chimney-sweep, he would always regard it as his 
 
40 TRACES ON THE 
 
 duty and privilege to attain the foremost place in 
 his business." 
 
 A proper attention to the claims of temperance is 
 also greatly conducive to the well-being of the oper- 
 ative population of our manufacturing and commer- 
 cial districts. Sottish and grovelling propensities 
 declare aggressive warfare against every principle of 
 social and physical comfort. Temperance tranquil- 
 lizes the mind, preserves the body, and increases the 
 income of the working man; so that it is good and 
 profitable for the attainment of every desirable and 
 useful purpose. 
 
 Freedom of speech is another grand element in 
 the social condition, which confers dignity and hon- 
 our on the poor as well as on the rich. We do not 
 mean by the term freedom, licentiousness; but wish 
 to be understood as defining the inalienable right of 
 all to give expression to their sentiments in a credit- 
 able and dignified manner, "none daring to make 
 them afraid." 
 
 In no other country is the voice of public opinion 
 regarded with so much respect as in our own; nor 
 is there any other power equally potent with that 
 which we exert in the freedom of expression. It is 
 the province of intellect, well-disciplined intellect, 
 to sway an influence superior to that which physical 
 force could ever boast; — not by menaces and threats, 
 — not by vituperation and vindictive declamation, — 
 not by discontent and clamour, — but by the firm. 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 41 
 
 respectful, and dispassionate tone in which we utter 
 our sentiments and claim our rights. 
 
 The freedom of the Press is another constituent in 
 the temporal and social happiness of the people, in 
 which the working classes participate to a great ex- 
 tent. That there are licentious and demoralizing 
 books and papers which pander to the vitiated taste 
 of the gross, the sensual and illiterate, whose very 
 existence is an abuse of the blessing that we laud, 
 we are bound to admit, and make the admission with 
 regret; but the tendencies of the great majority of 
 the works that daily issue from the teeming Press, 
 are favourable to the elevation of the diligent, self- 
 taught students of the mystic lore of literature. The 
 Press possesses an all but omnipotent energy in this 
 country; and, in the adaptation to the comprehen- 
 sion and circumstances of the lowest grades of society, 
 of its multifarious productions — books, tracts, news- 
 papers, &c. — it has done more for the general im- 
 provement of the realm than any other human in- 
 stitution. It is not so everywhere. In America — 
 that land of anomalies, inconsistencies, and para- 
 doxes — an editor cannot, dare not, urge the adop- 
 tion of any measure, however beneficial, if it en- 
 danger private interests, without provoking the 
 inflictions of Lynch -law retributions. In Russia, 
 Prussia, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, 
 Sweden, &c., the Press is subject to all the annoy- 
 ances and obstructions of an abominated espionage^ 
 
42 TRACES ON THE 
 
 and is so trammelled and gagged under a rigorous 
 and tyrannical regime^ as to be only a tool in the 
 hands of those who wield the power of governing. 
 
 But of all the sources of political and social ad- 
 vantage few, if any, surpass the code of British law. 
 This dispenses even-handed justice to all, without 
 respect of persons, and secures to the British subject 
 the priceless privileges of a constitution which, with 
 all its defects — and we freely concede the existence 
 of numerous defects — is great, glorious, and free. 
 That law, in perfect harmony with the liberty it 
 confers, interposes to prevent an undue exaction of 
 human strength ; and, when the voice of reason, 
 humanity, and religion is disregarded and contemned, 
 it thunders forth its veto, and vindicates the rights 
 and protects the interests of the industrious poor. 
 
 We could easily enlarge, but the limits of this 
 Essay forbid. Suffice it to say, that the Sabbath 
 exercises a direct, powerful, and salutary influence 
 over the entire empire of morality, and lends its suc- 
 cour and defence to all the enlightened institutions 
 which profess to minister to the bettering of the 
 masses. In proof of this we present a contrast, and 
 invite you to place in juxtaposition with the civil 
 and ecclesiastical, political and religious liberties and 
 blessings of our own fatherland, the state of social 
 depravation and mental debasement in other lands, 
 where the Sabbath is not observed, either as a day of 
 rest or for religious purposes. Look at France, with 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 43 
 
 its proud infidelity; at Spain, with its gross supersti- 
 tion; at Portugal, with its stolid indifference; at Italy, 
 with its bigotry; at Switzerland, with its intolerance; 
 at Russia, with its despotism. Look at these coun- 
 tries, and at others that might be named were it ne- 
 cessary to pursue the inquiry further, — look at these, 
 and study their inglorious and suffering condition, 
 not forgetting that by their own perversity they 
 have rejected all the benefits of the Sabbath, tempo- 
 ral and spiritual. Mark the contrast, and you will 
 not pause ere subscribing to the sentiment which we 
 unhesitatingly express, that to the Sabbath we are 
 indebted to a great extent for the temporal advan- 
 tages of all classes of society, and for the support 
 and vindication of whatsoever things are pure, 
 lovely, and of good report. 
 
 The rule of equity which renders " unto God the 
 things that are God's," and " unto man the things 
 that are man's," is recognised and enforced by the 
 Sabbath, whose claims are themselves based on the 
 strictest morality; and, consequently, possess in their 
 rectitude a guarantee for the certainty of the benefits 
 which it is fitted to confer. 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford, in his place in the House 
 of Lords, in speaking lately on the West Indian in- 
 terest, gave expression to sentiments honourable to 
 the hallowed name of Wilberforce. Some of his 
 remarks may appositely be given here, and are as fol- 
 low: — "I believe free labour is cheaper than slave 
 
44 TRACES ON THE 
 
 labour. I believe that Providence has so ordered 
 things that what is wrong cannot be really profita- 
 ble. But what is the measure of profit ? Is it the 
 greatest amount of money got in the shortest given 
 time, by the least given amount of labour? If that 
 is the true value of profit, we ought not to hold up 
 as crimes the acts of the pirate and the robber, who 
 by piracy and robbery make themselves suddenly 
 rich. But in the long run God sets his hand against 
 wrong doing, — not by such a suspension of ordinary 
 laws as would make 6 hours of a free-man produce 
 as much as 18 of the tasked slave, — but by filling 
 the heart with such terrors as those felt by the rich 
 Cuba planter, who trembles, knowing that his wealth 
 of to-day may be lost in an outbreak of his slaves 
 to-morrow, — by breaking down all the fabric of mo- 
 rality, peace, and happiness, which alone make life 
 dear and wealth worth having." 
 
 Let us ask if it be morally right to observe the 
 Sabbath? If it be admitted that such is the 
 case, then it must be a good and profitable thing, 
 even in an economical and pecuniary point of 
 view, to avail ourselves of its healing and restoring 
 properties. If its observance involve a moral wrong, 
 then it must be gainless and unprofitable, and should 
 be abandoned at once and for ever to the toils and 
 secular purposes of the other days. 
 
 What then is the conclusion of the whole matter? 
 Fellow- bondsmen in the yoke of toil, judge ye. Does 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 45 
 
 the Sabbath destroy health? No, it preserves it. 
 Does the Sabbath abridge life? No, it prolongs it. 
 Docs the Sabbath diminish temporal comforts? No, 
 it increases them. Does the Sabbath oppose the 
 principles of morality? No, it promotes them. 
 Then vre call upon you by every thing sacred and 
 solemn, — we implore you by every thing dear and 
 important, — we invoke you by every thing hallowed 
 and holy, to resist the base and sacrilegious attempt 
 that is now agitating the body politic to obliterate 
 the line of demarcation that distinguishes the Sab- 
 bath from the other days of the week. 
 
 Never were you called upon to undertake the 
 defence of a more important interest, — an interest 
 which you are honoured by defending; but one in 
 the behalf of which your honoured sires endured the 
 rigours of a tyrannical persecution, and for its sake 
 " they counted not their lives dear unto them." In 
 the reign of James the First, a book was published 
 by that monarch, and widely circulated, describing 
 the different games and amusing pastimes that 
 should properly succeed the services of the sanc- 
 tuary on the Sabbath. The Puritans withstood the 
 principles therein set forth ; and, in consequence, 
 became the objects of severe and unrelenting perse- 
 cution, — but continued unmoved notwithstanding, 
 faithfully resisting every thing that seemed to me- 
 nace that day which they regarded with reverence. 
 We are bound by every conceivable motive to pre- 
 
46 TRACES ON THE 
 
 serve inviolate the sacred trust committed to us. To 
 the unflinching steadfastness of our forefathers we 
 are undoubtedly indebted for the exemption from 
 worldly cares and toils which distinguishes the Scot- 
 tish Sabbath. We are bound in honour to transmit 
 it as free from mutilation to our posterity as it was 
 when we received it from our ancestry. Let us be 
 on our guard lest we be deceived and ensnared. The 
 question now is, as of old, not whether we are to 
 have a Sabbath or no, but whether the Sabbath is to 
 be regarded as a day of salutary rest and cessation 
 from toil, or as a day of pastime and pleasure ? 
 
 Such an unhallowed prostitution of the Sabbath, 
 as that implied in the latter, we fearlessly declare 
 a wicked and flagrant departure from the simplicity 
 of its design, and more calculated to injure the tem- 
 poral and spiritual condition of the working people, 
 than, even the erasure of its hours from the cycles of 
 time altogether. No Sabbath at all would be pre- 
 ferable to such a misnamed and misapplied day. 
 
 The pseudo -friends of the people and humanity, 
 professing the utmost regard for their wellbeing, 
 have endeavoured to excite their sympathy and en- 
 list their sufirages in support of the bold, the pre- 
 sumptuous endeavour to abrogate the Sabbath, to 
 blot it from the page of time, and rob the world 
 of the blessed breathings of that balm which com- 
 forts and restores the jaded, weary, toil-enduring 
 mortal. 
 
SANDS OF TIME. 47 
 
 It has been alleged that the working-men are 
 themselves in favour of such an alteration. We 
 deny it; they are better taught than to trample in 
 scorn on a boon, precious as the breath of life, and 
 priceless as the beams of hope. 
 
 Men and brethren ! you have in former times 
 triumphantly withstood the aggressor's usurpation; 
 and, when your civil and political liberties have 
 been infringed, you have successfully defended them. 
 A better gift is now at stake. You have its disposal 
 at your own command. No man can wrest it from 
 you, if you are faithful to its preservation. " Held 
 fast that which is good;" with all else part, but 
 relinquish not the Sabbath. Whatever else you 
 might possess, without it you would be poor indeed. 
 
 We appeal to you as husbands, fathers, patriots, 
 and citizens. We appeal to you in every relation 
 of life in behalf of the Sabbath; — in the behalf of 
 yourselves, hearken to the voice of our common na- 
 ture, — listen to the pleadings of humanity, — obey 
 the command of Him of whom the whole family in 
 heaven and earth is named, and " Remember the 
 Sabbath." 
 
OR, 
 
 THE TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 
 By JOSEPH KIRSOP, 
 
 IIATTEK, RONALD STRKET, GLASGOW. 
 " THE SAUBATII WAS MAOE FOR MAN." 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 The subject of the present inquiry is, TJie Teraporal 
 Advantages of the Sabbath^ considered in relation to 
 the Working -classes. This inquiry is important. 
 It is so in its own nature; and its importance is 
 increased by the fact that it has been somewhat 
 neglected. By all who believe the Christian reve- 
 lation, the efficacy and excellence of the Sabbath as 
 a religious institution cannot be doubted. They per- 
 ceive and rejoice in its sjjiritual advantages. Yet 
 to us it appears that even they frequently under- 
 rate, or rather partially neglect, the temporal ad- 
 vantages which the Sabbath confers. Yet these 
 advantages are at once numerous and important. 
 Enquiry will teach us that the Sabbath is a blessing 
 and a boon to man in his temporal condition; the 
 benevolence of God in its institution will become 
 apparent; we shall find evidence in the Sabbath in- 
 stitution that " he knows our frame and remembers 
 we are dust;" and the observant mind will perceive 
 the truth written in characters so large and legible 
 
52 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 that he who runs may read, " The Sabbath was made 
 for man." 
 
 What is the Sabbath? Oue day in seven, divinely 
 appointed, as a season in which to rest from labour 
 and engage in the worship of God. Regarding this 
 as a correct definition, we shall show what influence 
 such a day exerts on the health, social condition, 
 and present happiness of mankind. 
 
 Firsts — Consider the advantages of a weekly rest 
 from labour. It is but necessary to glance at the 
 condition of mankind, to appreciate these. When 
 Adam fell, the ground was cursed for his sake, and 
 he was told, that *' in the sweat of his face he should 
 eat bread." That curse still clings to the earth, and 
 that sentence remains unrepealed. To the masses, 
 arduous toil is a condition of existence. But the 
 benevolent Creator has graciously appointed a day, 
 on which the labourer rests from all his works as 
 God did from his. The Sabbath is a weekly jubilee; 
 an abrogation or suspension of the primal curse for 
 the seventh part of man's existence. 
 
 Then the wearied labourer enjoys repose, — the 
 toiled artisan recruits his exhausted strength, — the 
 servant is free from his master, and, in a restricted 
 sense, is the " Lord's free-man." With no weekly 
 rest, the labourer's lot would be cheerless. Had he 
 no regular cessation from toil, his life would be only a 
 bitter monotony of labour. It would be like a steep 
 and toilsome ascent with no resting-place, — like a 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 53 
 
 long lane without a winding; himself like a travel- 
 ler exposed to a sultry sun, with no hiding-place 
 from the heat, — like a mariner in a tempest, with 
 no harbour of refuge; he would be chained to his 
 task, like the galley-slave to his oar, or like Axion 
 condemned to turn for ever the weary wheel. But 
 the weekly rest relieves the monotony of labour, — 
 and by giving the workman release from toil, it 
 infuses new vigour into his system, puts fresh blood 
 into his veins, and 
 
 " Makes the faint one strong again." 
 
 To the sons of toil the Sabbath rest is like " the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 
 
 Ye who in pain have longed for ease, — ye who in 
 distress have sighed for relief, — ye who in desertion 
 or bereavement have wished for a friend; all your 
 conceptions of the desired objects are applicable to 
 the Sabbath rest, in the blessings it brings to the 
 toiling masses of humankind. 
 
 1. One great advantage of a weekly rest from 
 labour is the beneficial influence it exerts on health. 
 
 The man, or the nation, that observes the weekly 
 rest, will (when other things are equal) be more 
 healthy and long-lived than the man or nation that 
 neglects it. This is a well ascertained fact. With 
 no Sabbath, the constant and exhausting labours of 
 the workman would soon undermine his constitution, 
 — by the pressure of incessant muscular exertion his 
 
54 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 frame would become debilitated and enfeebled, pre- 
 mature old age would be the consequence, and the 
 approach of death itself would be accelerated. 
 
 It is a law of our physical constitution that rest 
 must succeed exertion. This organic law cannot be 
 broken with impunity. It is self-evident that con- 
 stant labour is opposed to the fundamental laws of 
 our being, and for this reason God has given us 
 
 " Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 
 
 By sleep, the body, wearied by labour, is refreshed 
 and revived, and its members enabled to resume their 
 wonted functions. No sane man questions the neces- 
 sity of rest in sleep; and it is an irresistible proof 
 of the advantages of the Sabbath, that it is shown 
 that a weekly rest is equally necessary and as truly 
 beneficial. " Man," says Dr. Gardner Spring, " can 
 no more labour a series of years without the Sab- 
 bath, than he can labour a series of days without 
 nocturnal repose." " The measure of weekly rest is 
 as wisely determined by the Author of our physical 
 constitution as is the measure of our diurnal rest." 
 The highest medical authorities haA^e attested the 
 truth of this view. Hundreds of competent judges 
 have testified the benign influence which a weekly 
 rest exerts upon health. " If there is one divine 
 institution which unites in it the welfare of man's 
 body with that of his soul, and which is an evidence 
 of the Threat Creator's care over our bodies as well as 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 55 
 
 our spirits, it is the command to rest on the Sabbath." 
 Such is the testimony of a talented writer, and uni- 
 versal experience proves this witness to be true. A 
 celebrated physician, in giving evidence on this sub- 
 ject, declared that " men of every class, who are 
 occupied six days in the week, would in the course 
 of life be gainers, by abstaining from labour on the 
 seventh." 
 
 Rev. A. Thomson remarks, "Let man be deprived 
 of the Sabbath, and health decays ere he has passed 
 through early manhood." Judge Blackstone says, 
 " It," the weekly rest, " enables the industrious 
 workman to pursue his occupation with health and 
 cheerfulness in the ensuing week." It is credibly 
 declared by many that the reason why numerous 
 men of genius have died early, is that in their multi- 
 plied mental labours, they neglected the weekly rest. 
 It is said of Weber the great composer, that he was 
 so conscious of the injurious effects of his incessant 
 toil, that he exclaimed, " Oh that I were a tailor, 
 that I might have my Sunday holiday!" 
 
 To these testimonies may be added those of work- 
 ing men. They feel the benefits of a day of rest, — 
 they have the "witness in themselves," and can give 
 the testimony of their own experience to the advan- 
 tages of the weekly rest. Doubtless there are hun- 
 dreds of the labouring class, in delicate or feeble 
 health, who are necessitated to labour for the " bread 
 that perisheth," and are enabled to continue at their 
 
56 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 employment, solely through the invigorating influence 
 of the weekly rest. Let the Sabbath be denied to such, 
 they will soon be altogether unfit to labour, and the 
 consequences to themselves and their families will be 
 painful and disastrous in the extreme. To such, the 
 Sabbath is " like a stream of water in a dry place, 
 a green spot in the desert, an oasis amid Arabian 
 sands." 
 
 Such, then, are the benefits of the Sabbath in re- 
 lation to health. 
 
 2. The Sabbath benefits the working man by ren- 
 dering his labours more productive. It is an axiom 
 in Political Economy, that " the greater the produc- 
 tiveness of labour, the better is it for the industrious 
 person and all his neighbours." The weekly rest, 
 then, benefits man by causing labour to be more pro- 
 ductive. Now, at first sight this may appear para- 
 doxical. It might be supposed that a man would 
 produce more by working seven days than six, and 
 that, if one-sixth be added to the working time, 
 the amount produced will be proportionally greater. 
 But competent authorities decide otherwise; and it 
 appears that idtimateli/ the workman would lose by 
 Sabbath working. The plain reason of this appears 
 to be — that since a feeble man cannot produce so 
 much as a strong man, and the certain consequence 
 of Sabbath labouring is the debilitation of the frame, 
 six days' labour thus becomes as productive or more 
 productive than seven. Sabbath labour thus be- 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 67 
 
 comes unprofitable, — worse than worthless. An ex- 
 cellent criterion for testing the truth of this, is found 
 in the case of France. At the period of the great 
 Revolution, the French rulers abolished the Sabbath, 
 and instituted a decade, or tenth-day holiday, in its 
 place : — a diminished production was the conse- 
 quence. If such was the result when, instead of one 
 day in seven, there was a rest every tenth day, the 
 diminution of produced labour would be still greater, 
 were the day of rest abolished altogether. — It is evi- 
 dent that physical constitutions are adapted for six 
 days' work weekly, and that an infraction of this 
 arrangement brings with it its own punishment in a 
 diminished production. 
 
 How wonderfully, how admirably the Sabbath 
 harmonizes with our physical constitution ! We 
 have seen how a day of rest ameliorates the condi- 
 tion of the workman, by giving him relaxation and 
 repose; how it ministers to his comfort and happi- 
 ness, by promoting his health ; and now we discover 
 that these benefits are not opposed by any disadvan- 
 tages. We might have expected that these blessings 
 would have cost him something, — that to purchase 
 them, he must relinquish some other advantage. But 
 the very reverse is the fact. The Sabbath not only 
 gives him health and relaxation " without money and 
 without price," it also increases his gains. It is thus a 
 double blessing; — like wisdom, it has "length of days 
 in the one hand," and "riches and honour in the other." 
 
58 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 Working on the Sabbath would add to the toil, but 
 not to the profit. The workman is providing more 
 eflfectually for his family by resting on the Sabbath, 
 than he would be by working. Like the children 
 of Israel who sought manna on the Sabbath and 
 were disappointed, so he who goes to seek bread by 
 working on the Sabbath will find none. 
 
 3. The Sabbath benefits the working man by ena- 
 bling him to taste the pleasures of home, and culti- 
 vate the domestic and social afiections. During the 
 week, he has little opportunity for this. When the 
 hours of labour and necessary repose are consumed, 
 he has little time left for domestic enjoyment. Early 
 in the morning he proceeds to his work, — if he 
 comes home at all during the day, it is to partake of 
 a hurried meal and be gone; in the evening, his ex- 
 hausted frame needs repose. He retires to rest; 
 again, he wakens, to begin his round of toil, which, 
 when in employment, would be almost unvaried but 
 for the Sabbath. On working days he is thus but 
 little with his family, — it is only on the Sabbath he 
 enjoys a day at home. And who that remembers 
 all that is treasured up in the little word Home, will 
 despise this as a trifling benefit ! 
 
 " Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day. 
 On other days the man of toil is doom'd 
 To eat his joyless bread, lonely; the gromid 
 Both seat and board; screen'd from the winter's cold, 
 And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree ; 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 59 
 
 But on this day, embosom'd in his home, 
 He shares the frugal meal with those he loves ; 
 With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy 
 Of giving thanks to God." 
 
 Sometimes it is the case that the members of a 
 family are separated during the week, — their respec- 
 tive places of employment being distant from one 
 another; it is only on the day of rest, or on the even- 
 ing preceding, that they meet and see each other in 
 the face. They spend the Sabbath happily together, 
 and again they sever for another week. Now, were 
 these families deprived of the day of rest, you would 
 rob them, of some of their sweetest pleasures, — plea- 
 sures pure and innocent in their nature, and elevat- 
 ing in their tendency. Sound moralists earnestly de- 
 precate the weakening of the family-tie, as this would 
 infallibly lessen human happiness, and open a flood- 
 gate of immorality. And when we consider that 
 the Sabbath gives the workman an opportunity to 
 taste the pleasures of " his own fireside," — brings 
 the scattered members of the family together, — 
 causing the domestic aflEiections to take root and 
 flourish, and thus strengthening the bonds which 
 unite families, — it will be readily admitted, that, 
 in this respect, the day of rest confers important 
 advantages on the working classes and on society 
 at large. 
 
 The day of rest is advantageous to the working 
 man, as it gives him an opportunity for the dis- 
 
60 THE WEKKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 cliarge of bis parental duties. It is the duty of the 
 working man, in common with all parents, to " train 
 up his children in the way they should go." The 
 influence of the parent on the future character of his 
 offspring is very great; — they may " have many in- 
 structors, but only one father." It is, therefore, of 
 great importance that the workman should — for the 
 discharge of bis important duties — have more time 
 than the precarious and uncertain intervals he can 
 snatch from bis labour. The day of rest affords an 
 excellent opportunity for this; and every workman, 
 who loves his family, and cares for their true inter- 
 ests, will appreciate this as an advantage to himself. 
 4. Another advantage of the weekly rest, is the 
 opportunity it affords for the exercise of the mental 
 faculties. We are told by a high authority, " Man 
 shall not live by bread alone;" — "For the soul to be 
 without knowledge it is not good." Man is a being 
 possessed of an intelligent nature. He has intellec- 
 tual faculties capable of indefinite expansion, which 
 it is his duty to cultivate. Unless he does this he 
 will not occupy the rank in creation for which God 
 designed him; and had he no weekly rest, the la- 
 bourer's time and thoughts would be so entirely en- 
 grossed, — his vocation would occupy so much of his 
 attention, that he would be in danger of forgetting 
 his mental nature, or losing it in his physical. The 
 weekly rest however averts this peril, — for " you 
 cannot consign to intellectual obscurity a nation that 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. (')] 
 
 is subjected to the illuminations of the Sabbath." 
 What is it that elevates a civilized above a barbarous 
 community? It is mental cultivation and improve- 
 ment; and the Sabbath, by giving opportunities for 
 this, tends to the elevation of the labouring classes 
 of the community. 
 
 5. The day of rest is a benefit to all mankind, as 
 it has a beneficial influence on general morality. 
 Nor do we mean here the Sabbath regarded as a 
 day for sacred worship, — we will consider that in its 
 proper place, — but simply as a day of rest we 
 believe the Sabbath has a powerfully beneficial in- 
 fluence on the morality of a people. 
 
 Without the Sabbath the intellectual character 
 would be lowered ; and a community sunk in igno- 
 rance cannot be elevated in morality. Ignorance is 
 the mother of crime; and whatever tends to create 
 intelligence, tends also to promote virtue. On the 
 other hand, " there is a close afiiuity between social 
 degradation and moral depravity." Were the la- 
 bouring man compelled to toil without intermission, 
 he would be lowered in the social scale, and this 
 would greatly tend to the depreciation of his char- 
 acter. Place a man in the condition of a brute, and 
 beyond all question he is in danger of showing his 
 animal propensities. Without the Sabbath, the la- 
 bourer would be in a position akin to slavery, — a 
 condition manifestly unfavourable to virtue. 
 
 How beneficent then is the institution of the dav of 
 
62 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 rest, — liow numerous its blessings, — how important 
 its advantages I It benefits man's health, increases 
 his gains, promotes his domestic happiness, raises 
 his intelligence and strengthens his virtue. These 
 certainly are invaluable temporal advantages. 
 
 Second^ — We come now to consider the second part 
 of our subject, — The advantages consequent on the di- 
 vine appointment of the Sabbath. But here we may 
 be met by the objection, — " There is now no divinely 
 appointed Sabbath ; it was a Mosaic institution, and 
 was annulled at the termination of the Jewish eco- 
 nomy." We are aware that this view is held and 
 urged by many, 
 
 " While sacred truth is trampled and distorted, 
 To give their creed the sanction of the sky." 
 
 It is, however, not the specific object of this Essay 
 to prove the divine authority of the Sabbath, or 
 answer these objections. This would be dissonant 
 equally with its design and limits. Besides, these 
 and similar objections have been so frequently and 
 triumphantly refuted, that we believe we are fully 
 warranted in assuming or asserting its continued and 
 undiminished obligation. 
 
 But to proceed. What advantages result from 
 the divine appointment of the day of rest ? The 
 great advantage is the greater security of its obser- 
 vance and perpetuation. The divine appointment 
 of the day invests it with a character of authority 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 63 
 
 and sanctity; and we behold it not merely as a day 
 necessary for man's well-being, but as a day conse- 
 crated and set apart by God himself. " Behold / 
 have given them the Sabbath." Thus the claims of 
 nature are associated with the claims of God, — the 
 labourer's right to the day is constituted divine, — 
 his charter of rest is signed by the King's own hand, 
 and sealed with his own signet; withholding or 
 annulling it is staijiped not only as unnatural or in- 
 humane, but as impiety and disobedience to the God 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Behold then the wisdom and love of the Sabbath 
 law. The day of rest being essential to man's tem- 
 poral well-being, God has not left this to be discov- 
 ered by the glimmering orb of human reason, and 
 granted or withheld according to the disposition of 
 the powerful, but has placed it on higher ground. 
 Its many advantages have been connected with his 
 own example and precept, enforced and secured by 
 his sovereign authority, — while to screen it from 
 violation, and warn encroaching man from tearing 
 down its sacred fence and profaning its holy ground, 
 the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai play around 
 it, while the trumpet sounds and the voice of words 
 is heard to exclaim, — " Cursed is every one that con- 
 tinueth not in all things that are written in the book 
 of the law to do them." The divine appointment of 
 the Sabbath, alone secures its observance. Say not 
 " the admission or rejection of its divine authority is 
 
64? THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 a matter of indifference," — with this the Sabbath 
 stands or falls. Tell us not that the reason and jus- 
 tice of mankind would still grant to the sons of toil 
 this portion of their time for the recruiting of their 
 bodily powers. Take away the divine sanction and 
 command from the Sabbath, and sooner or later it 
 would be numbered with the things that were; 
 
 '• And like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 Leave not a wreck behind*" 
 
 There is a sublimity and grandeur in the Sabbath rest, 
 when we thus regard it as the appointment of God. 
 It is delightful to think that it is God who suspends 
 the operations of worldly business, — that the noise 
 and bustle, and toil and trouble of merchandise and 
 manufacture are hushed and laid aside, obedient to 
 the high behest of heaven, that he may give solace 
 and relaxation to his creature man, and sweeten the 
 otherwise bitter lot of the " sons of handicraft and 
 hard labour." 
 
 The Sabbath was designed by infinite wisdom and 
 love, — it is built on the foundation of divine au- 
 thority; and the superstructure is human happiness. 
 Build it on a narrower basis, take away divine au- 
 thority from it, you remove the keystone of the 
 building, and the fabric would soon tremble, and 
 totter, and fall. There are so many earthward 
 tendencies in society, it would be drawn down, and 
 not one of its stones left upon another. It is only 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 65 
 
 when there is divine support underneath and around 
 it, that it remains steadfast and immoveable, rearing 
 its head to the heavens, of which it is an emblem 
 and an anticipation. 
 
 If we find that when the divine right of the poor 
 man to the Sabbath is conceded, even then it is 
 scarcely safe from infraction and invasion, and that 
 encroachments are frequently attempted on the la- 
 bourer's heritage, are we not warranted in the con- 
 clusion, that these attempts would be more frequent, 
 and these encroachments more easily effected, were 
 the divine authority of the Sabbath unasserted, or 
 universally denied ? 
 
 Already trade and commerce have appropriated 
 part of those hours which ought to be devoted to 
 relaxation, mental improvement, religious duties, or 
 physical repose; and were the Sabbath regarded 
 merely as an ecclesiastical or civil appointment, 
 cupidity and selfishness would soon burst asun- 
 der these feeble fetters, as Samson did the green 
 withes. In the divine appointment of the Sabbath 
 lies its great strength. Take away this, and the 
 labourer would soon be robbed of his golden day, — 
 left with no respite from toil, no rest from labour, — 
 it would be 
 
 " Work, work, work, 
 Till the brain would begin to swim ; 
 
 Work, work, work, 
 Till the eye was heavy and dim." 
 
66 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 Further, — experience justifies us in the assertion 
 that were the Sabbath abrogated as a divine appoint- 
 ment, workmen themselves would be instrumental in 
 its destruction. Some reckless of their best inter- 
 ests, others ignorant of the Sabbath's advantages, 
 or prompted by necessity and willing to sacrifice 
 the future to the present, would ofi*er their labour 
 on that day, and lavish their physical energies or 
 pour out their life on the altar of present gratifica- 
 tion or domestic necessity. Gradually, all would be 
 compelled to follow their example, until the weekly 
 rest, at first disturbed and broken, would finally be 
 lost altogether. 
 
 The preceding statements are not exaggerated or 
 visionary; that the recognition of the divine authority 
 of the Sabbath is essential to its preservation can be 
 demonstrated by facts. It is believed that the day 
 of rest was universally observed in the early ages of 
 the world, yet now, in many countries not enjoy- 
 ing the Christian revelation, there is no Sabbath. 
 Throughout India and China, for instance, no traces 
 of it can be found. As the knowledge of the true 
 God, which the early ages possessed, became cor- 
 rupted or extinct, the Sabbath also disappeared, — 
 proving that the existence of the Sabbath is bound 
 up in the knowledge and recognition of its Divine 
 requirement. For a familiar instance of this we 
 select France. The divine authority of the Sabbath, 
 is not scrupulously regarded there. What is the 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 67 
 
 consequence? In the words of an eye-witness we 
 describe it: — 
 
 " In France all the shops are open on Sunday, and 
 you see carpenters, smiths, and other artisans at 
 work. Indeed you see no difference betwixt Sun- 
 day and any other day, except that there is a little 
 more gaiety among the people! At Rouen, on Sun- 
 day, I remarked that a few of the shopkeepers kept 
 a single shutter on the middle of their windows, I 
 suppose by way of showing regard to the sacred 
 character of the day. On the Sundays many of the 
 markets are held. I saw the great square crowded 
 with country-women with their baskets, and each, 
 after disposing of her wares, went for a few minutes 
 into a neighbouring church, in which service was 
 going on as early as six o'clock. By this unhappy 
 prostration of the Sabbath, the French may be said 
 to have no regular cessation from labour. How 
 thankful may the poor man in this country be, that 
 he is insured by law one day of rest in the seven, 
 and it is sincerely to be hoped he may never be de- 
 prived of so valuable a boon." 
 
 To this benevolent wish all right-minded persons 
 will heartily respond. Amen! — and from this de- 
 scription of the French Sabbath, we take occasion to 
 exhibit to all who desire a Sabbath of longer dura- 
 tion than " a few minutes," and love a more real 
 observance of it than the idle mockery of placing 
 " a shutter on the middle of the window," the great 
 
68 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 importance and advantage of having the command 
 and authority of God for the observance and per- 
 petuation of the weekly rest. 
 
 Thirds — Having thus considered the advantages 
 of the Sabbath, regarding it as a day of rest and a 
 divinely appointed day, we shall now inquire, "What 
 are the temporal benefits of the Sabbath, regarded as 
 a day set apart for devotional purposes?" 
 
 Here, again, we may be met by objections; for 
 some concede that great advantages are consequent 
 on a weekly rest, but yet deny that any special 
 sanctity should attach to this day. To such cavil- 
 lers we can only reply, God, who made the laws, 
 is the best instructor in their mode of observance: 
 
 " lie is his own interpreter, 
 And he will make it plain.'' 
 
 When to a moral precept God affixes an explanation 
 of the manner in which it is to be obeyed, his way 
 undoubtedly will be the best. Thus Jehovah com- 
 manded that sin should be reproved; the teacher 
 sent from God could best explain the perfect and 
 wisest method of obeying this law, and thus he com- 
 mands, " If thy brother oflfend thee, go and tell him 
 his fault between him and thee alone." When pri- 
 vate prayer is enjoined, Jesus can best instruct us 
 how to perform this duty: " Thou, when thou pray- 
 est, enter into thy closet and shut thy door." Now, 
 is it not apparent that these instructions given by 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 69 
 
 the Son of God in reference to the manner of 
 obeying certain precepts, become integral parts of 
 those commands themselves; and the duties, and 
 the manner of obeying them, are equally obliga- 
 tory? 
 
 So with the Sabbath. If God has, with the insti- 
 tution of the Sabbath, revealed the proper method 
 of its observance; then, in order to obey God, and 
 receive the full benefits of the day of rest, it is as 
 necessary to follow the prescribed mode of observance, 
 as it is to regard the day. This we find he has done. 
 He not only enjoins us to " Remember the Sabbath 
 day," but commands us " to keep it holy." It fol- 
 lows, therefore, that the Sabbath is not merely a 
 day of rest, but indisputably and undeniably a day 
 for devotion. Now, there must be some very im- 
 portant reasons why this is the case. We are aware 
 that one great reason is, that man is a being destined 
 for an eternal existence beyond the grave; and the 
 appointment of a day for religious worship is no 
 doubt designed to awaken, cherish, and maintain 
 those impressions, convictions, and principles which 
 serve to make man " meet to be a partaker of the 
 inheritance of the saints in light." But yet, highly 
 important as this reason is, and powerful the in- 
 fluence which the holy keeping of the Sabbath is 
 designed to have on man in relation to his future 
 state; yet regarding man only in his earthly condi- 
 tion, several weighty reasons could be assigned for 
 
70 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 the observance of the Sabbath as a day of religious 
 worship. 
 
 One great advantage resulting from the observance 
 of the Sabbath, in God's own way, is, that by this 
 means rest is insured to all. By the proper obser- 
 vance of the day of rest, all equally share its bless- 
 ings, and receive its benefits. This could not be the 
 case were the Sabbath a day of mirth and recreation, 
 for then hundreds and thousands would be debarred 
 from their rest, to minister to their more fortunate 
 neighbours who were released from toil. And hence 
 we perceive how " cruel are the tender mercies" of 
 those, who, with vaunted benevolence, claim the 
 Sabbath to the workman for recreation and amuse- 
 ment. By the adoption of their views, many would 
 be compelled to sacrifice altogether their day of rest. 
 On days of lawful recreation, when the majority are 
 engaged in pleasure-seeking, numbers are more se- 
 verely toiled than on other days. And such would 
 be the inevitable result to them, were the Sabbath 
 employed in recreation. What brought others rest 
 would bring them toil, — when others were at liberty, 
 the chain would be bound more firmly around their 
 neck, — and the weekly blessing would be their weekly 
 curse. 
 
 Such is not the case, however, with the Sabbath; 
 — no one deprives his fellow of his right, all share 
 alike in its countless blessings. Behold the advan- 
 tage of this : — a day of rest is essential to man's 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 71 
 
 temporal well-being, and unerring wisdom has dic-- 
 tated the mode in which all may be 'cheered by the 
 enjoyment of its refreshing, invigorating, health- 
 giving hours. 
 
 Again: — morality is indispensable to human hap- 
 piness ; misery is the inevitable consequence of vice, 
 and therefore whatever tends to the advancement of 
 virtue must be advantageous to mankind. The Sab- 
 bath is such a means. Its constant and universal 
 success in producing national and individual moral- 
 ity, is so well known that it scarcely needs proof to 
 establish it. All experience demonstrates that the 
 observance of the Sabbath promotes those principles 
 of temperance, honesty, industry — in a word, reli- 
 gion, which are so essential to the well-being of 
 man. 
 
 The first step in crime is, frequently. Sabbath- 
 breaking. An eminent criminal judge attests that a 
 great proportion of the persons he tried for flagrant 
 crimes, began their downward course by Sabbath 
 desecration. On the other hand, it will be found 
 that those who j^roperly observe the Sabbath are the 
 most virtuous. This shows the connection between 
 Sabbath keeping and general morality, and Sabbath 
 breaking and crime. 
 
 If an employer required a servant in whom he 
 could place implicit confidence, from what class would 
 he select him ? — From those who habitually disregard 
 the sacred day? No: — he would seek one among 
 
72 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 the multitude "of those that keep holy day;" — so 
 deep, in the general mind, lies the impression that 
 Sabbath observance tends to promote probity, recti- 
 tude, and worth. And were we to inquire into its 
 national eflfects, we would learn that what is true of 
 individuals, is equally so of communities. A Sab- 
 bath-observing nation is always more happy, moral, 
 and industrious, than one which violates or neglects 
 the sacred day. History and observation prove this 
 position to be correct. A writer in an English 
 Magazine says, in reference to Scotland: "Eespect 
 to the Sabbath, and attendance on Divine worship, 
 had been formed more effectually into the habits of 
 the people, and a knowledge of the Scriptures had 
 been more extensively diffused. The consequence 
 had been, that whilst England presented a popula- 
 tion sunk in ignorance and vice, Scotland had exhi- 
 bited in her honourable moral story, a race intelligent, 
 industrious, observant of all the forms of religion, and 
 in no inconsiderable degree under its power." Here 
 we learn that Scotland — a Sabbath-observing nation 
 — was also, and in consequence, an industrious, in- 
 telligent, and religious country. If it has since fallen 
 in some degree from its high and lofty place among 
 the nations, we hesitate not to ascribe it to a weak- 
 ened deference for the Lord's day. And if such an 
 instance as this exhibits the connection between the 
 observance of the Sabbath and national virtue, many 
 instances of an opposite character could be adduced 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 73 
 
 to establish a connection between Sabbath desecra- 
 tion, and general ungodliness and vice. A clergy- 
 man, writing from Canada, remarks : — " Many and 
 sickening are the scenes witnessed here on the Sab- 
 bath. Hunting, racing, fishing, dancing, games of 
 almost every kind, may be witnessed here almost 
 every Lord's day." — " I need hardly add, for it is a 
 necessary consequence, that there is a vast deal of 
 general and reckless wickedness. The young, the 
 middle-aged, the hoary -headed, all contribute to 
 swell the torrent of unabashed iniquity, — they glory 
 in their shame." This example is but an index of 
 what would be the result of inquiry into the moral 
 condition of Sabbath-neglecting nations. 
 
 Nor is it from observation alone that we learn 
 the temporal advantages diffused by the Sabbath in 
 the promotion of universal industry, intelligence, 
 virtue. It must be so in the very nature of the 
 case. For a grand design of the Sabbath-institu- 
 tion is, -that man may be taught that he is a being 
 destined for immortality. It aims at the transfor- 
 mation of his mind and heart, that he may thus 
 be fitted to enjoy the sinless delights of a better 
 land. And when it is granted that the Sabbath is 
 admirably suited for an instrument to accomplish 
 this object, it must of necessity be advantageous 
 to man in his temporal condition; for the character, 
 principles, habits, and feelings which are indispen- 
 sable as a preparation for happiness in the eternal 
 
74 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 world, are tliose which alone can promote his present 
 happiness and temporal well-being. The day which 
 prepares him for a blessed eternity, fits him also for 
 happiness here. The real interests of time and eter- 
 nity are identical, — men may seek to sever them, 
 but " what God has joined man cannot put asunder." 
 That which is conducive to man's true happiness 
 here, will not be valueless when his life is produced 
 over the stream of death, and stretched out to in- 
 finity; and whatever promotes his prospective hap- 
 piness on the other side, cannot but be advantageous 
 on this side the stream. On earth as well as in 
 paradise, the flower of happiness grows from the 
 root of faith and righteousness. " The grace of God," 
 which the Sabbath is designed instrumentally to 
 communicate, " teaches men to live soberly, right- 
 eously, and godly in this present world;" — its object 
 is to produce godliness, which " is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the life that now is" as 
 well as " that which is to come." 
 
 It is but necessary to glance at the lessons divinely 
 appointed to be taught on the Sabbath, — those we 
 mean referring to the present life, — that we may be 
 convinced of their excellent tendency. What are 
 the personal and relative duties, on the fulfilment of 
 which depends the temporal well-being of man? 
 Industry is one; on the Sabbath we are enjoined to 
 " be diligent in business;" nay, we are told, that " he 
 that doth not work neither should he eat." Honesty 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 75 
 
 is another ; on tlie Sabbath we are forbidden " to 
 defraud one another," but commanded " to owe no 
 man any thing" but love. Temperance is another; 
 we learn on the Sabbath, to " add to our knowledge 
 temperance." Peacefulness is commanded, chastity 
 enjoined, masters are counselled to be kind, servants 
 to be faithful; parents to be affectionate, children to 
 be obedient; the rich are taught humility, the poor 
 learn contentment. All moral lessons calculated to 
 advance man's temporal interests, are taught on the 
 Sabbath; while the motives to obedience which are 
 he]<l out, are the most powerful possible, and conse- 
 quently the most operative; while, to sum up all, 
 we are commanded " whatsoever things are true, 
 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, 
 to think on these things." 
 
 Such are the practical lessons taught on the Sab- 
 bath; who can deny that these must advance man's 
 temporal happiness? — If it be objected that these 
 lessons can be learned without the Sabbath, we re- 
 ply, that although it is true these rules are drawn 
 from a book which may be consulted any day, ex- 
 perience justifies us in asserting that a particular 
 season must be set apart, if we desire moral lessons 
 to be weighed by the judgment and sink into the 
 heart; and we believe we may safely set our seal to 
 the remark of a religious writer: "Were no parti- 
 
76 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 cular day set apart for the purposes of devotion, our 
 knowledge of human nature authorizes us to say, that 
 virtue and religion would be either greatly debili- 
 tated, or finally lost from among mankind." 
 
 The Sabbath is indeed a universal benefit. 
 There are many excellent institutions which are but 
 partial in their operation, or restricted in their ap- 
 plication ; but God designs the Sabbath to be a 
 world-wide blessing, — to be diftusive, as air, light, 
 or heat. 
 
 Nor is it like those schemes, which, endeavour- 
 ing to secure " the greatest possible good to the 
 greatest possible number," diminish the advantages 
 or rights of the minority, — it benefits all, but harms 
 none. 
 
 It is a blessing to the rich, and a boon to the poor, 
 — the mental labourer should be grateful for it, as 
 truly as he whose labour is physical. Yet, while 
 this is eminently the case, we do not injure our po- 
 sition by asserting, that to the worlcing man the 
 Sabbath presents peculiar and incalculable advan- 
 tages. His arduous labours demand repose, — his 
 neglected mental faculties require to be brought into 
 action, — his long and frequent separation from his 
 family renders a day at home peculiarly desirable. 
 This may be said of the working man of all ages, 
 and is peculiarly true of the hard-wrought operative 
 of the present day. Now, the hours of labour are 
 in many cases severely protracted, and workmen are 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 77 
 
 closely confined to the workshop or manufactory: 
 and hence, when we discover that to all men in every 
 age, condition, or clime, the Sabbath is a boon and 
 a blessing, — how great a boon, how unspeakable a 
 blessing must it be to the labouring class of the pre- 
 sent day ! 
 
 To the philanthropist the Sabbath recommends it- 
 self, by abridging the toil, ameliorating the condition, 
 and promoting the comfort of humankind, — to the 
 moralist, by promoting individual and national mo- 
 rality, — to the workman, by granting him inesti- 
 mable advantages and priceless privileges. 
 
 What, then, is our duty to the Sabbath? — Is it 
 not to love, j^rotect, and defend it? 
 
 Fellow-w^orkmen ! — when the prisoner loves his 
 fetter, or the slave doats upon his chain, — when 
 friendship has no attractions, home no endearments, 
 — then may you lightly esteem the Sabbath or be 
 heedless of its destruction. But while you value 
 life and liberty, — while you love your families and 
 homes, — while you appreciate the blessing of health, 
 — while you seek for comfort and happiness, — so 
 long ought you to prize the Sabbath day, and guard 
 it from infringement. If the Sabbath confers pecu- 
 liar advantages upon us, our attachment to it should 
 be correspondingly strong, our zeal in its defence pro- 
 portionately ardent. Then let us guard our blessed 
 birthright. Do not suffer it to be tampered with. 
 Watch over it as the Persians did their sacred fire, — 
 
78 THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 
 
 guard it with all tlic eagerness of jealousy and with 
 all the solicitude of love. When danger menaces or 
 oppression would assail it, let us maintain our heaven- 
 given right, and assert our peaceful but firm deter- 
 mination, to brook no encroachment, and repel all 
 invasion, on that blessed day which we were early 
 taught to venerate as 
 
 " The best of all the seven." 
 
 Guided by a sincere and laudable desire to pro- 
 mote our own and our fellow-men's happiness, in a 
 spirit of dependence on the Lord of the Sabbath, let 
 us resolve to resist with vigour every attempt which 
 may be made to destroy or annul it. Nay more, — 
 if aggressions have already been made, let us inquire 
 if we cannot compel the aggressors to retrace their 
 steps. Let us do this, and the dangers w^iich threaten 
 our much-loved day will be averted, and the partial 
 gloom which hangs over it be dispersed. As time 
 rolls on, and week succeeds week, the first day will 
 still be consecrated to worship and repose, — the Sab- 
 bath will continue to bless the world, — until days 
 and weeks and months and years shall come to an 
 end, and the archangel " swear by Him that liveth 
 for ever and ever, that time itself shall be no 
 more." 
 
 The sun which sets on the last earthly Sabbath 
 shall set for ever, but a new Sabbath day shall dawn 
 
THE WEEKLY JUBILEE. 79 
 
 of which the earthly Sabbath is but a type, — the 
 Sun of righteousness shall arise and shine upon it, — 
 those beams shall never be obscured, — that Sun shall 
 never set, — the worship shall be unceasing, universal, 
 — and the heavenly Sabbath shall endure " long as 
 eternal af^res roll." 
 
Wje IXadtoag STrabcUcr b^rsus our postman: 
 
 A CONVERSATIONAL ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 
 By JAMES LEM0:N^ "The Glasgow Postman," 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the COTTAGE," OTHER POEMS, ETC., ETC. 
 
 " I look on the state of Sabbath observance, in any community, as the 
 thermometer of its rehgion ; and the loss of the Sabbath has invariably 
 proved the loss of Christianity wherever it has been discarded. We must 
 have a rule for this, as well as every Christian duty, and that is the Bible. 
 Arguments taken from expediency will be no better than a bower of reeds 
 against the i-ising tide. The law of God must be the only standard o(^p- 
 peaU We can no more connive at a little Sabbath-breakmg, than at a little 
 stealing or a little perjury." — Remarks by John Henderson, Esq. of Park, at 
 Stirling, 7th November, 1848. 
 
THE 
 
 RAILWAY TRAVELLER versus OUR POSTMAN. 
 
 It was a fine Sabbath morning in April 1848. The 
 fields were assuming the verdant hue of the season. 
 It was between the hours of five and six, and the 
 sun looked down as if approving of the hallowed 
 day. As I wandered along enjoying the tranquil 
 scene, I was about to exclaim with the poet — 
 
 " Hail, Sabbath ! tliee I hail, the poor man's day I" 
 
 when our postman crossed my path, and I hailed hiin 
 instead, by asking whither he was bound so early, at 
 the same time telling him that I was on my way to 
 London, and was just whiling away the time until 
 the train would start. 
 
 " And although I am on my way to the post- 
 office," said he, " you and I are intent on the same 
 errand." 
 
 " What is that f I inquired. 
 
 " The profanation of the Sabbath," said he; " with 
 
84 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 this difference, that you are wilfully burryiug to it, 
 with railway speed, while I am coerced by stern 
 necessity to follow the course of the poor workmen 
 who will be obliged to propel you to-day on your 
 career of Sabbath desecration." 
 
 " Oh ! I see you are one of those stand-still bigots, 
 who cannot march with the liberal spirit of the age." 
 
 *' You may call me, or miscsiW me, what you will," 
 said he; "but he who is governed by the spirit of 
 God's law is surely in advance of the age. If we 
 recognise God as the moral Governor of the world, 
 who takes cognisance of all our actions, how can we 
 consistently refuse to obey his laws, which confer a 
 blessing on the working man, as essential to his pros- 
 perity and independence as the protection afforded 
 by the law which says, ' Thou shalt not steal.' " 
 
 Railway Traveller. — " But if the greater portion 
 of the nation dispute the divine authority of these 
 commandments, or believe that they are abrogated, 
 or so modified that they are no longer binding, are 
 they to relinquish the liberty of refreshing their 
 bodies, and cherishing their minds, in any way they 
 may think proper to enjoy themselves, on the Sab- 
 bath day, simply because it is the opinion of the 
 minority?" 
 
 Postman. — "Wiiile I maintain that it is the duty of 
 every one to endeavour to keep the Sabbath as a day 
 of rest and sinless relaxation, I must admit that every 
 one is at liberty to exercise his judgment in the way 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 85 
 
 he thinks is most conducive to his own welfare and 
 that of the community; but on no account at the 
 expense of the flesh and sinews or the peace of his 
 fellow -men. However few that number may be, 
 their rights and liberties are as sacred to them as 
 those of the many.* Yet, while I deny the asser 
 tion that those opposed to secular labour on the Sab- 
 bath are in the minority, the history of Scotland will 
 bear me out in the affirmation, that it would be an 
 infringement of the laws and customs of our coun- 
 try, t and an outrage on the religious feelings of the 
 great majority of the people, were their religious 
 welfare as well as their social happiness prostrated 
 beneath the wheels of the steam Juggernaut." 
 
 R. T. — " I beg to differ from you on that point, as I 
 
 * " A rational, moral being cannot, without infinite wrong, 
 be converted into a mere instrument of others' gratification." 
 — W. E. Channing, LL.D., F.S.A., ^-c. Sfc. 
 
 t The Act passed in 1579, c. 70, enacts that "na handy 
 labouring or wirking be used on the Sonday." Or take another 
 Act, passed a hundi-ed years later, (1690, c. 25,) and we find 
 that it incorporates, as part of the common law of Scotland, 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith, which explains, with 
 regard to the Sabbath, that " this Sabbath is then kept holy 
 unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their 
 hearts, and ordering of their common aflfairs beforehand, do 
 not only observe a holy rest all the day from their own works, 
 words, and thoughts, about their worldly employments and 
 recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the pub- 
 lic and priviite exercises of his worship, and in the duties of 
 necessity and mercy." Both of these Acts were successfully 
 pleaded in the House of Lords as subsisting enactments, so 
 recently as 1837, in the case of Philips v. Innes. 
 
86 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 look upon the application of science to so many useful 
 purposes in tlie light of a new dispensation, sent to 
 strengthen the physical energies, elevate the morals, 
 and awaken the religious aspirations of the people, 
 by enabling them, in a devout manner, to contem- 
 plate the works of creation." 
 
 P. — " The fact, that the opulent (of this or any 
 other country), with all the appliances of wealth, 
 and the advantages of leisure time, to make pleasure 
 excursions, have never at any period risen to that 
 high scale of morals, with which materialists endea- 
 vour to intoxicate the minds of the people, is enough 
 to set at nought your argument. Again, we have 
 only to allude to the Sabbath-breaking nations on 
 the continent, for a farther exposure of the fallacy of 
 these sophisms. They, with all their ever-varying 
 ingenuity, in concocting schemes of sensual enjoy- 
 ment, in the shape of gardens and umbrageous 
 groves, through which the pure limpid waters war- 
 ble on their ^vay, — in concert with the feathered 
 songsters, which are as varied in their plumage as 
 the many richly-coloured fruits and blossoms among 
 which they sing and luxuriate, — while domesticated 
 quadrupeds, of a docile kind, sport at the feet of the 
 visitor, as he wanders beneath a canopy, more lovely 
 in its tints, more placid and serene in its general 
 aspect, than any summer sky we have ever witnessed 
 in this our northern hemisphere. Yet this garden 
 of paradise, which, according to your ideas, should 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMA?^. 87 
 
 elevate the soul and carry it in sublime thoughts 
 ' through nature up to nature's God/ has not the 
 salutary effects which you anticipate, but the very 
 reverse made even Byron stand aghast and exclaim, — 
 
 ' Strange— that where all is peace beside, 
 There passion riots in her pride ; 
 And lust and rapine wildly reign, 
 To darken o'er the fair domain. 
 It is, as though the fiends prevailed 
 Against the seraphs, they assailed. 
 And fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell 
 The freed inheritors of hell. 
 So soft the scene, so formed for joy, — 
 So curst the tyrants that destroy.' 
 
 Contrasted with this, the Sabbath comes out in 
 beautiful relief, proving to a demonstration, that no 
 invention of man can supersede the divine institu- 
 tion; and, moreover, if places such as these were 
 opened here for Sabbath recreation, others would be 
 enslaved to attend on the visitors." 
 
 Ji. T. — " What although ? It would be a labour 
 of pleasure." 
 
 P, — " Believe me, Sir, Sabbath secular labour, in 
 however trifling a degree, has a deteriorating influence 
 on both the moral and religious aspirations of the mind. 
 However well the principles of Christianity may be 
 grafted in the mind of him whose lot compels him 
 to labour on the Sabbath, he will feel as he pro- 
 gresses in his incessant servitude that a gradual 
 
88 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 quenching of the spirit will ensue, — and that which 
 was to him * a glory and a joy/ will dwindle as it 
 were into apathy; for the spirit of religion and 
 manual labour on the Sabbath day, are as incompati- 
 ble with each other as slavery is with the enlight- 
 ened mind, or as day and night labour is with the 
 natural life. ' Man shall not live by bread alone, 
 but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
 of God/ ' Man is of the earth, earthy, and naturally 
 prone to evil;' and if the light which he has derived 
 from on high, is not duly nurtured with the oil of 
 righteousness, reprobation will as certainly follow as 
 darkness follows the setting of the sun. I am the 
 more convinced of this, as it has been my lot to lan- 
 guish under its baleful influence for the last thirteen 
 years ; and I believe, if it were not that I am re- 
 leased from the unhallowed bondage every alternate 
 Sabbath, the remaining spark would long ere this 
 time have been extinguished, and both soul and body 
 perishing for lack of that rest and nurture, so neces- 
 sary in restoring their equilibrium, one day in seven." 
 
 R. T. — " Why do you remain in a situation so 
 much averse to the dictates of conscience?" 
 
 P. — " In answer to that, I beg to say that at no 
 very distant date our post-office was entirely free of 
 the evil complained of, until the citizens, one after 
 another, insidiously encroached upon us, and the 
 Sabbath, till our superiors bored by their impor- 
 tunities, conceded one man for Sabbath duty. Anon 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 89 
 
 the traffic increased; and finally the whole corps 
 were included. It is the demand that creates the 
 supply, whether for good or evil; and, although the 
 present incumbents were ceasing to answer the de- 
 mand, others would immediately fill their vacant 
 places, and the work of Sabbath desecration would 
 go on as formerly, while our families would be ex- 
 posed to want and woe, without in the least enhanc- 
 ing the movement against the evil in question. In 
 this manner, all other Sabbath traffic has, as it were, 
 stolen a march on the liberty of the poor man's day; 
 and, in like manner, stern necessity in a number of 
 cases precludes a sacrifice to principle, especially in 
 reference to those who are in possession of a helpless 
 offspring. Alas! Sir, we can do little in the way of 
 rescuing ourselves, but by crying aloud, like ship- 
 wrecked mariners, on our philanthropic brethren to 
 save us from our perilous situation and the avari- 
 cious wreckers that seek to aggrandise themselves at 
 the expense of our ruin." 
 
 E. T. — " Do you not think that you are engaged 
 in a work of necessity and mercy?" 
 
 F. — "Neither the post-office, the railway, the smelt- 
 ing-furnace, nor the malting business can urge with 
 anydegreeof propriety the necessity of Sabbath labour. 
 If London, the basis on which the pivot of European 
 business turns, can dispense with post-office labour 
 on Sabbath day, I do not see wherein the subordi- 
 nate cities can have any ground of argument for 
 
90 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 perpetuating the evil. Again, the telegraph cer- 
 tainly obviates the necessity of both post-office and 
 railway traffic on the day of rest. Yes, sir, the 
 social influence of this god-like agent for the trans- 
 mission of thought, is yet beyond calculation. Dis- 
 tance is all but annihilated. The human family are 
 as it were convened around one hearth, and can ask 
 for one another's welfare. In cases of life and death, 
 the tardy mail, though propelled by steam, is but 
 a trifling conveyance in such an hour. Formerly, 
 friends hung in sad suspense for the long wished for 
 intelligence. Now, a few minutes at the telegraph 
 brings a despatch to a message of inquiry, and doubts 
 and fears give way to certainty." 
 
 R. T. — " You are right, postman, I had indeed 
 overlooked that, and I at once acknowledge that the 
 telegraph entirely supersedes the special train in 
 cases of emergency." 
 
 P. — " Yes, instead of the law of Sabbatical 
 rest being abrogated, as some would infer, God is 
 providing us with extraordinary means, whereby 
 every one is enabled to enjoy all its advantages to 
 a greater extent than formerly. The Marquis of 
 Breadalbane, in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Candlish, 
 says, ' This new and wonderful application of science 
 which so greatly diminishes the effects of distance, 
 and thereby affords us so much more time for the 
 transaction of our w^orldly affiiirs, ought to be grate- 
 fully regarded by us, as additional means afforded 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 91 
 
 to mankind for the better observance of their reli- 
 gious obligations, and especially for the keeping 
 holj of the Sabbath day/ Yet with all these 
 appliances, men are seemingly becoming more ava- 
 ricious. When I was appointed letter-carrier in 
 the i)ost-office, Glasgow, in 1835, there were only six 
 London mails arrived per week. The cry was then, 
 if we had two London mails per day, we could easily 
 dispense with the Sabbath mail, and allow the offi- 
 cials of the post-office the freedom of the Sabbath. 
 We have not only two mails now per day, but, 
 by means of Rowland Hill's invention, the letter's 
 have increased nearly five-fold, the officials three- 
 fold; and, instead of letting us free on the hallowed 
 day, such is their cupidity that they have made our 
 labours more arduous, by calling for their letters in 
 greater numbers than formerly. About 1,000 per- 
 sons arc employed within the post-offices in Scot- 
 land;* and about three - fourths of this number 
 are employed on the Lord's day. Nearly 700 let- 
 ter-carriers are employed in the delivery of letters 
 from house to house; and probably three-fourths 
 of this number labour on the day of rest. About 
 500 riders and runners carry mails from office to 
 office and from town to town; and all of these pur- 
 sue their ordinary work on the Sabbath. Letter 
 
 * It is calculated that there are 20,000 employed on Sab- 
 bath throughout the empire. 
 
92 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 deliveries are made in about three- fourths of the 
 post-towns in Scotland on the Sabbath.* In Glasgow 
 itself, there are nearly a hundred individuals em- 
 ployed in the post-office; and every one of them, 
 with a very few exceptions, is engaged in the work 
 of Sabbath desecration, every alternate week, from 
 twelve o'clock on Saturday night (with a few inter- 
 vals) till twelve o'clock on Sabbath night; and all this 
 to satisfy the cravings of the avaricious capitalist, who 
 is so intent upon monopolizing the world to himself, 
 that he does not only sacrifice his own soul but that 
 of his neighbour, in his endeavours to accomplish it. 
 Yea, like the slave-holder, he saps the foundations 
 of the poor man's life, shortens its duration, and 
 diminishes its comforts, by demanding of him seven 
 days' labour for the amount of wages he was in the 
 habit of receiving for the labour of six days; while, 
 at the same time, he robs his little oflfspring of the pre- 
 cept and example so requisite in ' training them up in 
 the way they should go,' — thus entailing ' the iniqui- 
 ties of the fathers upon the children even to the third 
 and fourth generation.' We likewise maintain that 
 there is no necessity for continuing the iron-works 
 without intermission, since many of the iron-masters 
 in England and Wales have shown, by silencing the 
 blast and extinguishing the blaze, that the process 
 of smelting iron can be accomplished without en- 
 
 * Sabbath Alliance Committee, July 1848. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 93 
 
 croacliing on the Sabbath rest. The men of capital 
 in these districts are seemingly as prosperous in com- 
 mercial affairs, as those who are immersetl in the 
 turmoil and excitement of a seven days' traffic, while 
 the workmen are more healthy and comfortable. And 
 oh! if there is mercy in the case, Sir, it is surely in 
 the shutting up of these Sabbath-defying places of 
 desecration. If the cab-hirers, brewers, distillers, 
 publicans, and others, would follow the example of 
 these heavenly-minded few, what an advantage it 
 would be, in not only setting at liberty, but in res- 
 cuing thousands from the alcoholic hovels of degra- 
 dation, and restoring them to their families and the 
 capability of reflection at least one day in seven." 
 
 a. T. — " We are at one upon that subject, 
 postman. These and the traffic in liquors are a 
 greater barrier in the way of civilization and the 
 observance of the Sabbath, than either railway or 
 any other traffic, — inasmuch as their efiects are 
 more demoralizing, and as they employ a greater 
 number of hands. An esteemed friend of mine, an 
 officer of her Majesty's revenue, well able, from the 
 situation he has long held, to give accurate informa- 
 tion on the point, tells me, that the fact of the Sab- 
 bath rest being broken in the manufacture of our 
 intoxicating liquors is evident, from the circum- 
 stances connected with their preparation. Malt is 
 a substance which is extensively used in almost 
 the whole of our fermented and distilled drinks; 
 
94 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 and this substance cannot be made, without Sab- 
 bath working. The maltster cannot comply with 
 the command, ' Six days shalt thou labour and 
 do all thy work,' simply because the grain he is 
 operating upon requires much work every day ; 
 and no single operation can be rightly completed in 
 six days. The consequence is, that before a single 
 bushel of malt is made, the Sabbath has been broken 
 to complete it. The man, then, who is not prepared 
 to prove that it is a work of necessity or mercy to 
 destroy the food of men by making malt out of corn, 
 must stand convicted of encouraging Sabbath -break- 
 ing, if he drinks at all of those liquors. Another 
 way in which the Sabbath is broken in the making 
 of intoxicating liquors is, that they are all subjected 
 to a process of artificially excited fermentation, dur- 
 ing which they almost invariably require the atten- 
 dance of men ; and, as both in breweries and dis- 
 tilleries this process is continually going on, not 
 only every bushel of malt has the mark of the Sab- 
 bath-breaker on it, but also every glass of intoxicat- 
 ing liquor produced from this malt. 
 
 " In the United Kingdom there are upwards of 
 90,000 places licensed for making beer, besides 
 malt-houses and distilleries. Allowing the least 
 modicum of attendance to carry on the Sabbath 
 work, viz., one man to each, we have upwards 
 of one hundred thousand men working every Sab- 
 bath day in the production of intoxicating liquors. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 95 
 
 But this is not all, — in a statistical table at page 
 71 of the Temperance League Register, you will 
 see, at a glance, that five - eighths of the pub- 
 lic-houses are open on the Sabbath. There were 
 granted in 1848, 247,803 retail licenses, five-eighths 
 of which is 154,877; and supposing three persons 
 employed for each of these licences, which is cer- 
 tainly a moderate estimate, we have in the United 
 Kingdom 464,631 persons employed every Sabbath 
 in retailing intoxicating liquors, — in addition to the 
 100,000 estimated as being employed in the manu- 
 facture of the liquor. I myself, along with others, 
 took a survey of the public - houses in Glasgow 
 on the sacrament Sabbath evening, 29th October, 
 1847, and found open, for the sale of liquors, 1,097 
 houses. And we learn from Sheriff Allison, that in 
 these temples of iniquity thirty thousand votaries of 
 intemperance hold their weekly orgies in worship- 
 ping their liquid idol, from Saturday night till Mon- 
 day morning, with an energy and devotion surpassing 
 the fervour of our sacred religion." 
 
 P. — " It is truly appalling. Sir, and loudly calls 
 for immediate interference. And yet I am per- 
 suaded that we have only to apply our moral strength, 
 one and all of us, in the way of peaceful and enlight- 
 ened agitation, in order to create a bond of unity 
 between the people for the total extirpation of every 
 obstacle that may tend in the least to retard the 
 improvement of the mind, or in any way the eco- 
 
96 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 nomy of the Sabbath. But I beg you to bear in 
 mind tbat tlie Sabbatli railway traffic only requires 
 countenance and time to become a monster evil like 
 the Sabbath whisky trade, and although it is in its 
 infancy, to use a common parlance, it is the making 
 of a very bad old custom ; for taking an estimate 
 from the number stated to be employed every day, 
 in a return ordered by the House of Commons, dated 
 11th May, 1847, there are about 20,000 men em- 
 ployed for the purpose of railway travelling on the 
 Sabbath day in Great Britain and Ireland. And 
 by a calculation taken in 1848 they have increased 
 to 47,000.-^ But what o'clock is it ? the city bells 
 are silent at this hour on Sabbath morning, and my 
 rest is always interrupted on Saturday in watching 
 the time, lest I should be too late, and incur the 
 punishment inflicted for such a misdemeanour." 
 
 R. T. — " It is just half-past five," — looking at his 
 watch, 
 
 P. — " I find, that in my anxiety I have risen too 
 soon, and have an hour to spare yet, which I believe, 
 if you have time, could not be spent in a better 
 cause, than the one we are now discussing." 
 
 R, :r.— " Well, then, to proceed, I am still of the 
 opinion that Sabbath railway travelling is one of the 
 temporal advantages of the Sabbath." 
 
 P. — " In my opinion, it is taking an undue ad- 
 
 * Sabbath Alliance Committee, July 1848. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 97 
 
 vantage of the Sabbath ; but, waving all scriptural' 
 argument, I maintain that nothing can be advan- 
 tageous to the community, when any part of it, 
 however fractional it mai/ be, is constantly and. 
 innocently sacrificed to uphold the supposed ad- 
 vantage." 
 
 H. T. — " And what do you imagine the temporal 
 advantages of the Sabbath to be ? " 
 
 P. — " Its temporal advantages are more than I 
 have time to enumerate. But with your aid, we shall 
 while away the time by merely glancing at a few 
 of them. Have you not observed yourself, that there 
 is a purifying process commences with the cessation 
 of labour? when the deafening hum of the big city, 
 as if exhausted with its own bellowings, has sunk to 
 rest, — when its thousand factories have ceased to 
 vomit their pitchy smoke, and the tiara of thick 
 vapour that crowned her for the last six days is 
 doffed, as in honour of the pure Sabbath-sunbeam, 
 carrying light, life, and joy to many a fire-side. 
 Then ' the pale mechanic,' the high-priest of the 
 domestic altar, rejoices in the freedom of the hal- 
 lowed day that enables him to mingle with his family, 
 and minister to them of the goodness of the Creator. 
 On this day he has not only leisure to enjoy the 
 endearing associations of the fire-side, but even the 
 air that he breathes, the water that he drinks, has 
 undergone a process of refinement. Thus, by a pe- 
 culiar act of providence, the health and enjoyment 
 
 G 
 
'98 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 he is necessitated to go in search of on other days, 
 is on Sabbath lionveyed to his very threshold, lest 
 he might make it a reason of necessity for violating 
 the Lord's day." 
 
 H. T. — " I must acknowledge that you have stated 
 much that is true, if men would avail themselves of 
 the advantages of the Sabbath day in the manner 
 in which you have depicted them. But, alas! how 
 many of them misuse it for more nefarious purposes 
 than travelling by railway ? How many of them, 
 so soon as they receive the price of their week's 
 labour, retire to the spirit cellar, there to wallow in 
 the excess of drunkenness from Saturday night to 
 Monday morning? — setting at nought the sacred ties 
 of parental affection, while ' a weeping wife and help- 
 less offspring mourn' over a besotted father." 
 
 P. — " The picture is not overdrawn, Sir, it is too 
 true; but the public-house, you must keep in view, 
 is just another' part of the mighty machine that is set 
 a-going to rob the poor man of his birthright, and 
 although some have said that the railway would open 
 up an avenue whereby poor men would escape from 
 the prevailing evil of the present day, the amalgama- 
 tion of two evils will unquestionably make a greater 
 evil. But I could never see how one evil could cure 
 another. This is but a sterile argument for those 
 who would advocate Sabbath trains. They never 
 calculate upon the many sources of temptation that 
 lie in wait for the innocent and unsuspecting young 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 99 
 
 man, in those villages and rural districts into which 
 the railway-train has borne him, who, now that he is 
 free from parental control, and far from the eye that 
 keeps vigil over him during the week, and finds 
 himself in company with those who are yearning to 
 initiate him into the usages of dissipation, and find 
 him only a too easy prey. But we are losing sight 
 of our subject — the temporal advantages of the Sab- 
 bath." 
 
 R. T. — "Yes, I would like to know by what 
 process the waters can be purified on Sabbath more 
 than any other day, as you have asserted." 
 
 P. — "Yes, Sir, yon mighty river, the thorough- 
 fare of commerce, which bears on its breast the 
 elements of health in the refreshing breeze, while it 
 carries ofi" from the city the seeds of disease, also re- 
 joices in the purifying influences of the day of rest; 
 for its waters, that are on other days lashed into 
 commotion, have now subsided into a Sabbath calm, 
 and are seething themselves of the muddy consist- 
 ency stirred into action by the incessant turmoil oc- 
 casioned by the paddle-wheels of the steamer.* Of 
 what inestimable value is a day's rest, pure air, and 
 pure water, to him who is constantly immured in 
 smoke or confined air, — whose existence is constant 
 captivity !" 
 
 R. T. — " That is the very reason why I would 
 
 * This is reversed in the case of the Thames, London. 
 
100 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 hurl him away iuto tlie open country, where he 
 might enjoy these things in a greater ratio." 
 
 P. — " But you forget that, in so doing, you destroy 
 the very principles on which I base this philosophy. 
 Railways are so immediately connected with every 
 other means of traffic that, if you admit the one, you 
 cannot consistently refuse to give to the others the 
 same privilege. If steam-carriages run, steam-boats 
 will sail; there will be an increasing demand for 
 smaller vehicles at every station; more inns will be 
 required, and consequently more servants and porters; 
 — again, factories may open and take advantage of 
 the railway trucks in conveying their goods; — until 
 the Sabbath becomes merely nominal, and man only 
 cease to labour when, like the machinery he attends, 
 he is worn out. The Sabbath rest of nature will 
 also be outraged, in the silent waste as in the big 
 city. The smoke of the furnace will rise every- 
 where, blotting the fair face of heaven. The hoarse 
 voice of the safety-valve, and the yell of the steam- 
 whistle, accompanied with the deafening din of the 
 factory, will be heard to the total exclusion of * the 
 still small voice of praise;' while the same traffic 
 will incommode the serenity of our beautiful rivers, 
 and avert the design of Providence in setting apart 
 a day for the rest and purification of inanimate as 
 well as animated nature. 
 
 R. T. — " I must confess, Mr. Postman, that I can- 
 not agree with you in all the phases of your argu- 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 101 
 
 ment. For instance, the cessation of labour during 
 the night gives play to all the salutary operations 
 of nature you have mentioned." 
 
 P. — " You are right so far, Sir. God, in his mercy, 
 has thrown a fence around the night that man, in 
 many occupations, is prevented from encroaching on 
 its necessary silence — so well adapted for repose. 
 The functions of nature, to a certain extent, are sus- 
 pended, that he may rest more securely from his 
 mental and bodily cares. But the purifying opera- 
 tions I have referred to, in connection with the ad- 
 vantages of the Sabbath, cannot be accomplished in 
 absence of the vivifying influence of light: — 
 
 " 'Tis light expandeth every mind. 
 In every pulse it thrills ; 
 Light binds each part of nature's frame, 
 All heaving space it fills." 
 
 And I repeat, if light, air, and water were suffered 
 to be in abeyance to the divine law on the day of 
 rest, the results would be, morally and physically, 
 happier than some are ready to admit." 
 
 R. T. — " I must say. Sir Postman, your arguments, 
 though good in some things, are rather transcen- 
 dental in others." 
 
 P. — " Yet, where is the man that knows these 
 things, and is at liberty to do them, and lays him- 
 self down on Saturday night, 
 
 • Ho])ing the morn in ease and rest to spend,' 
 
102 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 but awakens refreshed with a longer rest than usual, 
 and, like nature, betakes himself to the purifying of 
 the outward man by cleansing himself with water, 
 that those little safety-valves, the pores, may per- 
 form with greater freedom the functions allotted 
 them, in throwing off the effluvia from the body, 
 thereby invigorating the mind and the nervous sys- 
 tem for another six days' campaign. But the im- 
 provement of the mind is perhaps the greatest tem- 
 poral advantage of the Sabbath. ' Knowledge is 
 power,' — wealth has bought it also; but were work- 
 ing men applying one day out of seven to the im- 
 provement of their minds, they would also improve 
 their circumstances, and in time rise above those 
 who would ride rough shod over their liberties. 
 Then would the sordid and avaricious sink to their 
 own level, while mind, like a spring bursting up 
 through every obstruction, would rise to its source, 
 the Fountain of all wisdom." 
 
 R. T. — " There are greater barriers in the way 
 of self-culture on the Sabbath day, than railway trav- 
 elling. You must bear in mind that the people 
 are so harassed in earning a competence for the sup- 
 port of their families, that even the morally inclined 
 have but little time or means to spare for intellectual 
 improvement." 
 
 P. — " Yes, and although, as you have stated, some 
 of them voluntarily sacrifice their birthright to their 
 appetite, that is no reason that we should rob any 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 103 
 
 part of them of their rest on the Sabbath day; and 
 if their means are scanty, the Sabbath school is one 
 of the happiest advantages of the day of rest. If 
 the Sabbath day is the poor man's day, the Sabbath 
 school is the poor man's scliool. There those who 
 are in most need of it, and least able to obtain it, 
 receive the inestimable gift of an early education; 
 while many, who might have dragged out an exist- 
 ence of crime, are brought to a rational way of think- 
 ing, and, in many an instance, are even the means of 
 reforming their dissolute parents. There the indus- 
 trious poor of every grade, rise to be useful members 
 of society. The hidden intellect of the crphan or 
 the neglected child is brought out and turned into 
 useful channels; while the mind, early awakened, 
 imbibes and generates active and elevated thoughts 
 of the Creator and the creation. ' Prevention is 
 better than cure;' and there the child, ere it has be- 
 come inured to vice, and while easily moulded to 
 virtue, by a timely operation is trained to habits of 
 honesty and kindly feeling. On this basis has risen 
 many a lofty structure of learning both sacred and 
 secular. The poor man's school is not only an ad- 
 vantage to the pupil but also to the tutor; — many, 
 whose knowledge being but very circumscribed, on 
 attaining to the position of a Sabbath school teacher, 
 have become so earnest in the cause of truth and 
 charity, that they have devoted all their leisure 
 hours to the acquisition of suitable information for 
 
104 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 their scholars, while imperceptibly they were laying 
 the foundation of their own eminence. I could point 
 to individuals who, struggling with poverty, by in- 
 domitable perseverance, have now become eminent 
 ministers of the gospel, — adorning the profession they 
 have espoused, since they themselves were pupils in 
 a Sabbath school. I cannot close this argument for 
 the temporal advantages of the Sabbath, without ad- 
 verting to those embodiments of angelic spirits, the 
 young women, who spend their Sabbaths in human- 
 izing the rising generation. To the orphan, and 
 those children whose parents are indifferent to the 
 yearnings of the infant mind, the female Sabbath 
 school teacher is a foster-mother; for they often find 
 in her what they sigh for in their own parents, an 
 object on which to lavish their fond affections. And 
 who can sympathize with a child's feelings so truly 
 and so happily as she? From the bosom of her 
 affections she pours out nourishment to its mind in 
 sympathetic persuasions, and the youthful mind 
 expands under her influence like the early buds of 
 spring opening to the vivifying rays of the sun. 
 Thus her pupils are stimulated, not driven; and her 
 motherly and kindly manner is not only effectual 
 in exciting them to perseverance now, but to a love 
 of religious and intellectual exercise for all time 
 coming." 
 
 R. T. — " It is an undeniable fact, that incalcu- 
 lable good has been accomj)lished by Sabbath school 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 105 
 
 tuition, especially in redeeming the fatherless and the 
 neglected. But in my opinion, our own firesides are 
 the proper seminaries for educating our children in 
 the precepts of religion. ' Who but parents,' says 
 the Rev. Mr. Alison, ' can know the various charac- 
 ters of their little children, and follow the progres- 
 sive opening of their minds, and adapt instruction to 
 their wants and capacities?' " 
 
 P. — "I am quite of the same mind with you in that 
 respect, Sir. There is no place like our own home- 
 steads, for training our children in the way in which 
 they should go. The family altar, in its unaffected 
 simplicity, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and 
 peculiar advantages of the Sabbath. There, on that 
 day, 
 
 'With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,' 
 
 that are precluded from enjoying religious fellowship 
 on other days. Even the father, who throughout 
 the week in many cases is doomed to eat his bread 
 alone, on this day, in the bosom of his family, finds 
 a retreat from the asperities of the week — a sweet 
 consolation, in a mutual interchange of affection and 
 sentiment with those who bear his image both in 
 mind and person, and the lowly dwelling is filled with 
 a halo of joy, radiating from every countenance, as 
 
 ' They round the ingle form a circle wide ;' 
 while 
 
 'The priest-like father reads the sacred page;' 
 
106 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 and after 
 
 ' Chaunting their artless notes in simple guise,' 
 
 he pours out his soul in prayer — 
 
 * That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
 Would, in the way his wisdom sees it best, 
 For them and for their little ones provide, 
 But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.' 
 
 Thus a lesson is laid down of practical godliness, 
 calculated to purify and enlighten the mind, — awaken 
 sublime thoughts of the majesty of God, his works 
 of creation, providence, mercy, and redeeming love. 
 Is there not something of the Divinity, the innocence 
 and happiness of paradise, in this? The family altar, 
 associated as it is with the Sabbath, enlivens our 
 sympathies, — endears our homes, — strengthens and 
 cultivates our affections, — and, when each is sepa- 
 rated to his respective lot in the world — whether 
 engrossed in the bustle of commercial prosperity, or 
 struggling with poverty in the lower grades of so- 
 ciety — it has a hallowed influence in preserving a 
 probity of character; for he who is in the habit of 
 joining in supplication to his Maker, when subjected 
 to worldly temptations, is generally found acting in 
 unison with his profession as a Christian. Morning 
 and evening worship are like beacon lights, to guide 
 lis from day to day, and from night to night, on our 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 107 
 
 voyage over the sea of life; and the Sabbath is a 
 haven of rest, where we imbibe a fresh supply of 
 that divine strength which enables us to buffet the 
 l>illows of sin, that intercept our way to the pro- 
 mised land. Even the memory of these hallowed 
 scenes of godliness, perpetuates a desire to seek in 
 the observance of the Sabbath those well-springs of 
 purest enjoyment, that gushed up to our young hearts 
 on our early Sabbaths, like a draught of holy comfort 
 conveyed by the Spirit of love. And we never hear 
 the Sabbath song rising in choral symphonies from 
 the dwellings of the people, but we are ready to 
 ejaculate — 
 
 ' If there is peace to be found in the world, 
 A heart that is humble might hope for it here.' 
 
 "Although the song of praise is heard less fre- 
 quently than formerly, the Sabbath, like a faithful 
 friend that was forsaken, has never in our adversity 
 deserted us, and the very fact that it is and has been 
 in much peril may enhance, but never can diminish 
 its value. It is a purchased blessing, — bought with 
 the blood of Heaven's own patriots, — who loved not 
 their lives unto the death, but nobly gave them- 
 selves a living sacrifice, that we might enjoy the 
 Sabbath-right to worship by our cottage hearths. 
 Many a rocky cairn, and isolated stone, and lonely 
 tree, yet stand like witnesses of their fidelity, point- 
 ing to the places 
 
108 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 ' Where faith and truth have often cast the die 
 For God, or freedom, or a bloody grave ;' 
 
 where often the song of praise the solitary place 
 made glad, and 
 
 ' The lyart veteran heard the word of God 
 By Cameron thunder'd, or by Renwick pour'd, 
 In gentle stream.' " 
 
 R. T. — " There is one virtue you have omitted in 
 your catalogue, postman." 
 
 i>._^" What is that, Sir?" 
 
 R. T. — " Humanity ! does the Sabbath not incul- 
 cate humanity?" 
 
 P. — " Yes, Sir, it is one of its noblest attributes." 
 
 R. T. — " And why do Sabbatarians employ cab- 
 men and horses to convey them to church on the 
 Sabbath?" 
 
 P. — " Just out of the same laxity of principle that 
 induces you to immure men in smoke and steam, for 
 the purpose of conveying you from the church on 
 the day of rest. It is the result of the hardness of 
 the heart unsubdued by the influences of divine grace. 
 Were men but imbibing ' the truth as it is in Jesus,' 
 it would at once convince them of their fallen nature, 
 the compassion of God in redeeming them, and or- 
 daining such a happy institution that not only they, 
 but their fellow-labourers in the brute creation, might 
 rest and rejoice in mute adoration of the univer- 
 sal jubilee. Every man of the least sensibility must 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 109 
 
 feel the beauty and utility of sucli an institution as 
 this; and must see, at the same time, the cruelty of 
 invading this most valuable privilege of the inferior 
 class of mankind, and breaking in on the sacred re- 
 pose which God himself has, in pity to their suffer- 
 ings, given to those that stand most in need of it. 
 It was a point in which it highly became the majesty 
 and the goodness of heaven itself to interpose. And 
 happy was it for the world that it did so; for had 
 man, unfeeling man, been left to himself, with no 
 other spur to compassion than natural instinct or 
 unassisted reason, there is but too much ground to 
 apprehend that he would have been deaf to the cries 
 of his labouring brethren, — would have harassed and 
 worn them out with incessant toil, — and when they 
 implored, by looks and signs of distress, some little 
 intermission, would perhaps have answered them in 
 the language of Pharaoh's taskmasters,* ' Ye are 
 idle, ye are idle; there shall not ought of your daily 
 tasks be diminished; let more work be laid upon 
 them that they may labour therein.' f If men would 
 consult together how to deal honestly and kindly 
 with each other, — how they might live in terms of 
 kindly communion, and not at the expense of each 
 other's welfare, — then would the son, the daughter, 
 the man-servant, the maid-servant, the cattle, and 
 the stranger rest according to the commandment. 
 
 * Porteous. t Exod. v. 9, 11, 17. 
 
] 10 THE RAILWAY THAVELLER 
 
 You who dwell in pleasant houses, and can rest 
 amid plenty every day, while you are happy your- 
 selves, have the divine gift of making others happy 
 also. By sympathizing with the working man, you 
 may prevent a multitude of crimes as well as Sab- 
 bath desecration; and what an enjoyment would it 
 be to live surrounded with the smiles, the good 
 wishes, the thankfulness of the working classes ! — to 
 feel that the riches you enjoy are not purchased by the 
 sufferings of others, but that they are the virtuous 
 awards of Providence, which you are ready to sacri- 
 fice in the cause of suffering humanity ! " 
 
 R. T. — " Keep to the subject, postman ; is not the 
 church itself, in one view, a temporal advantage of 
 the Sabbath likewise?" 
 
 P. — " Yes, Sir, I maintain that, if the Sabbath 
 school is the poor man's school, the church is the 
 poor man's alma mater^ where he finishes his edu- 
 cation for time and for eternity. There, perhaps, 
 to illustrate the subject of creation, the professor 
 finds it necessary to explore the regions of geology, 
 chemistry, and anatomy ; or, soaring up through 
 the immensity of space, he teaches us a lesson in 
 the sublime science of astronomy : — how from the 
 works of God science derived the first princij)les of 
 the arts, — how they have progressed to their pre- 
 sent excellence, and what science may yet accom- 
 plish, if men, like the systems which compose the 
 universe, would walk in accordance with God the 
 
VEliaUS OUR POSTMAN. Ill 
 
 moral governor's laws. It is the preacher's desire 
 to promote the social and domestic interests of the 
 people, as well as to improve their minds with useful 
 and appropriate knowledge ; and there he teaches 
 them lessons of purity, temperance, and industry, — 
 the proper method of rightly governing their own 
 house, — their duty as masters, in distributing justice 
 or benevolence, — as servants, in preserving an honest 
 integrity, — and, while magistrates are taught to be 
 ' a terror to evil-doers and a praise to those who do 
 well,' every one learns to live in subjection to those 
 whose duty it is to administer justice; there, the 
 over-laboured rest and are thankful, while the words 
 of the preacher come like a fresh spring to invigorate 
 the soul that is steeped in affliction, and those who 
 had differed in the course of the week are constrained 
 by the power of the word to embrace each other in 
 bonds of amity, while they return to their homes 
 better men and better women. There, the character 
 of the worldly-minded man is so nicely delineated, 
 the picture is so indelibly fixed on the mind that it 
 becomes a lamp to their feet in after life when com- 
 passed about by base and designing men; while, to 
 a certain extent, w^orldly distinctions are levelled, 
 inasmuch as the rich and the poor mingle, and are 
 brought up together at the feet of Gamaliel, while 
 associations are formed that are often of the utmost 
 advantage to the poor man when in quest of employ- 
 ment. There every one learns the distinguishing fea- 
 
112 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 tures of practical Christianity, — deep sympathy with 
 humankind, and a strong advocacy of human wants 
 and rights. There, whatever passion, avarice or 
 ambition, dictates, vanishes as they gather one day 
 in seven to worship the Creator, and throw a living 
 fence around their legitimate rights, in aiding each 
 other, in completing their education, as I have said, 
 for time and for eternity." 
 
 R. T. — " Your time is nearly up, postman." 
 
 p._" What o'clock is it?" 
 
 R. T. — " Fifteen minutes past six." 
 
 P. — "I have five minutes yet; and, ere I go, let me 
 impress upon you, that health and long life are bless- 
 ings involved in observing the Sabbath. It is the opin- 
 ion of physiologists that one day in seven is actually 
 necessary, to restore the balance of circulation, so as 
 to secure a long life. The overtasked labourer would 
 often sink beneath the yoke, did he not look forward 
 with a cheerful prospect to the day of rest; and, 
 when it does arrive, it is to him as a wellspring of 
 water in a desert place, he seats himself down in the' 
 shadow of the rock of ages, and acknowledges with 
 heartfelt gratitude the refreshing influence of the' 
 sacred day. I have read somewhere that the cul- 
 tivation of the mind also renovates the health of the 
 body, and that all should cultivate those tranquil 
 amiable feelings which generally accompany the rest 
 of the Sabbath, — which are always the safeguards of 
 health, and the necessary handmaids to happiness. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTiMAN. 113 
 
 Through tlie intimate connexion between the mind 
 and the body, the former must at all times, and to 
 an extent inconceivable by the thoughtless, influence 
 the latter; and, unless this inward principle be dis- 
 ciplined, purified, and enlightened, vainly must we 
 look for that harmony between the two so necessary 
 to human enjoyment. The healthy body must be 
 the result of the healthy mind. The Scriptures de- 
 clare that threescore and ten years is the period 
 of man's life, and the seventh part of that, which is 
 ten years, is allotted for the rest of his body and the 
 preparation of his mind for a higher existence, — so 
 that, if he is compelled to work on the Sabbath, he 
 is not only deprived of the happy results I have re- 
 ferred to, but, according to natural consequences, he 
 must lose ten years or more of the life appointed for 
 him, — thus entirely frustrating the designs of Pro- 
 vidence in the temporal advantages of the Sabbath. 
 Oh, my dear Sir, as you are a man of some status in 
 society, let me impress you with the great necessity 
 of using your utmost influence in restoring to the 
 over-wrought postman and others their legitimate 
 birthright, bequeathed to them by Almighty God, 
 but now in danger of being wrested from them for 
 ever, so that instead of resting to contemplate the 
 works of creation and redeeming love, they will be, 
 from day to day and from year to year, without 
 intermission, chained to incessant labour, while their 
 happiness here, and it may be hereafter, will be sacri- 
 
 H 
 
114 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 ficed to the pleasures and aggrandizement of the 
 opulent. You are a father, you have left a family 
 at home, your hearth will be lonely to-day, and as 
 you are wheeled away with reckless celerity, you 
 will doubtless think of your little family group, and 
 feel the ties of parental affection growing in strength 
 the farther you are removed from their centre of 
 attraction; — you will then acknowledge that the 
 Sabbath possesses many temporal advantages to the 
 poor man, who in many cases is debarred the plea- 
 sure of associating with his family on the Sabbath 
 day, while, at night, he arrives, cheerless and worn 
 out, glad to lay himself down in forgetfulness of his 
 slavery. It is many years since I became a public 
 servant, and the day that God set apart for me in 
 which to rejoice and be glad, has always returned 
 to me with weariness. I never leave my house on 
 that morning but with a sigh of regret, and a prayer 
 that God would hasten the happy time when 'all 
 shall know him from the rising to the setting of the 
 sun ;' — when 
 
 'Man's inhumanity to man' 
 
 would cease to make 
 
 * Countless thousands mourn ;' — 
 
 when the Sabbath would return to me and my in- 
 jured fellow -labourers, as it does to thousands of 
 my countrymen, — a day of emancipation from all 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 115 
 
 things secular, — a glorious jubilee, in which every 
 son of toil has a legal right to shake from his hands 
 the manacles of labour. Yet withal I bless God for 
 the hallowed day; although I may be deprived of 
 its advantages, I am conscious that many are yet 
 participating in a greater degree of all its benefits, 
 by resting from all their works, and by a loyal 
 observance of it, enjoying the ' liberty wherewith 
 the Creator has made them free.' But I must now 
 leave you, and trust, that, from the desecration you 
 will witness to-day, you will have ample evidence 
 of the great necessity of makiug the cause of the 
 postman, and all who are subjected to incessant toil, 
 YOUR cause, — still bearing in mind the words of Sir 
 Matthew Hale, that 
 
 * A Sabbath well speut 
 
 Brings a week of content, 
 And health for the toils of to-morrow; 
 
 But a Sabbath profaned, 
 
 Whate'er may be gain'd, 
 Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.' " 
 
 R. T. — " You must away, then, postman; I think 
 we have had a sermon this morning instead of a dis- 
 cussion." 
 
 P. — " Yes, Sir," (smiling as he retired,) " and ou 
 the Mount too." 
 
 I did not comprehend him at first; but, on second 
 thought, I recollected that the spot on which we held 
 
116 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 our conversation is known by the cognomen of Mount 
 Zion. The postman was passing from his residence 
 on Parliamentary Road, to the Post-office, Glassford- 
 street,* when I met him crossing the hill, on my 
 way to the Caledonian Railway depot, t The hour 
 soon arrived, — I took my seat, and was whisked 
 away, fleet as wind, leaving home and its associa- 
 tions far behind me, on the very day when I was in 
 the habit of renewing them for another week. I had 
 my compunctions, now that I was fairly engrossed 
 in the melee that took place at every station, — the 
 confused voices of stokers, cabmen, and porters, 
 mingling with the rattling wheels of cabs, and the 
 uproarious noise of steam. It was a fearful contrast 
 to the Sabbath, quiet I had been accustomed to since 
 my early days. On and on we whirled till Sabbath- 
 loving Scotland and her peaceful vales were ex- 
 changed for those of Old England, where, as we pro- 
 ceeded, the bustle of commerce increased, and the 
 Sabbath, almost entirely discarded in many places, 
 fled in dismay from among the worshippers of mam- 
 mon. Away and away we wheeled among the 
 workshops of Europe — the towns of England — till, 
 lo! I found myself at last in the metropolis of the 
 world — London — where I sojourned for a week, and 
 accompanied them in the observance of the Sabbath, 
 
 * Post-office, Glassford-street, Glasgow. 
 + The Caledonian Railway depot was then situated near 
 Parliamentary Road. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 117 
 
 which, like a theatrical exhibition, was only observed 
 by many during the performance, — at the close of 
 which they retired to their respective occupations, 
 or to spend the day ' in doing their own ways, and 
 finding their own pleasure.' Instead of the sacred 
 silence so dear to sabbatical nations on the day of 
 rest, an incessant din palls upon the ear; while the 
 temples of Bacchus emit their profane ditties, as if 
 in derision of everything sacred to religion and civili- 
 zation. The shops, in many places, are thrown open, 
 and the commonplace round of business goes on as 
 usual, with all its unwholesome smells and disagree- 
 able tendencies, incidental to the week day. Thus 
 amid innumerable human beings of every grade, and 
 the stunning noise arising from the hum of many 
 voices and the clattering of carriages, I visited the 
 moral degradation, the palaces and purlieus, the 
 splendour and the filth of London. Calling on a 
 friend in Moorgate-street, I mentioned to him how 
 my feelings were outraged in observing their in- 
 difierence to the rest of the Sabbath. 
 
 " I always argue against working on the Sabbath," 
 he replied, " even on the ground of temporal advan- 
 tage. But here ' our people are destroyed for lack 
 of knowledge;'— they have but a meagre idea of the 
 birthright of nations, — the charter wherewith they 
 are made free, to enjoy the temporal advantages of 
 the Sabbath. In many cases, they think it an ad- 
 vantage to be allowed to work on Sunday. Tell 
 
118 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 tliem they should not do it, they will answer, ' We 
 are poor, and must provide for our families, and God 
 will be better pleased when we do so than when we 
 are idle and leave them in want. Necessity has no 
 law, they say/ And this is uttered by men who 
 have six days' labour to support them, and no valid 
 reason to complain; yet, such is their ignorance and 
 love of gain, that they sacrifice all comfort with the 
 vague idea that they are obtaining more." 
 
 " But I always find that in those cases in which 
 Sunday is included in their labour for any length of 
 time, the system is exhausted; the bow always bent 
 loses its elasticity; and then they take stimulants 
 with the expectation of bringing their nerves to a 
 proper tension. Thus they become paralyzed, ema- 
 ciated in person, and more reduced in means than if 
 they had wrought the six days and rested the sev- 
 enth. It is a political as well as a moral right, Sir; 
 and any man who values his independence, will stand 
 against Sunday secular labour to the last. Every 
 Sunday spent in the drudgery of the shop enslaves 
 the man, shortens his life, lightens his purse, debases 
 his mind, and saps the foundation of every moral 
 principle." 
 
 R. T. — " You should know these things by expe- 
 rience, having the charge of men yourself." 
 
 Friend. — " Yes, Sir, and, for instance, I am ac- 
 quainted with another gentleman, who employs 
 six men. Having got an order for an extra job 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 319 
 
 to be completed in six weeks, instead of employing 
 another man, which the job required, to finish it 
 in the given time, he thought by causing the six 
 men to work on Sunday, it would be what they 
 called a chance to them, and make up some lost time, 
 which would be nothing worse for him. They 
 wrought four Sundays, became exhausted, and he 
 had to employ two men extra, for the last two weeks. 
 Thus, by not employing a man at the first, he was 
 a loser of three weeks' wages, and the men had 
 spent more on stimulants than they had gained by 
 the chance." 
 
 M. T. — " Yet such is their infatuation, that they 
 look with a jealous eye on those who are de- 
 fending the Sabbath rest, as if they were about to 
 rob them of a privilege, instead of securing their 
 moral and physical rights." 
 
 I had now resolved never to travel by railway 
 or any other conveyance on Sabbath again ; and 
 having stopped all night with my friend, he accom- 
 panied me on Monday morning to the railway depot, 
 and as we walked along we continued in conversa- 
 tion on the subject in question, till we arrived at the 
 station. 
 
 When I observed again, that I had been much 
 chagrined by the wholesale desecration of the Sab- 
 bath in London, and sighed for the fate of old Scot- 
 land, if these were the customs that were to be im- 
 ported to her with railway speed. 
 
120 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 " You must hope for better things," said he; " there 
 is a moral and divine fulcrum at work, which is 
 gradually raising the minds of men above the gro- 
 velling things of this world. Although time moves 
 quickly, God himself appears deliberate throughout 
 all his operations, accomplishing his ends as it were 
 by slow successive steps. But as sure as the seed 
 that is sown germinates, buds, and blossoms, will 
 those who are favoured as instruments in furthering 
 the principles of the universal economy of the Sab- 
 bath, ultimately find themselves surrounded by an 
 innumerable company of proselytes, that were im- 
 perceptibly gathering as they advanced in the good 
 cause. And if individuals can be reclaimed, so can 
 nations. Although a year is as a day, and a cen- 
 tury as a year, in the civilization of worlds ; yet, if 
 a nation can be civilized, so can a world on the same 
 principles." 
 
 This had the efiect of creating hopes of a happier 
 result, and, taking leave of my friend, I was now 
 on my way to Scotland; and looking back, I saw 
 the mighty city fast receding, wrapt in a cloak of 
 smoke. As it vanished in the distance, my thoughts 
 turned to Scotland, and the inclination she had at 
 present to imbibe the laxity of our Southern neigh- 
 bours. " Surely," said I to myself, " the people that, 
 like Joshua and his house, vowed to serve the Lord, 
 and sealed the obligation with the blood of their 
 martyrs, will never pander to the folly of the times. 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 121 
 
 No. As the heaving fires of earth throw up moun- 
 tain-barriers, and say to the billows, ' Thus far shalt 
 thou come, and no farther;' so the latent fires of 
 Scotland's sons shall awaken, while they rise in holy 
 anger, 
 
 * And stand as a wall round the treasure once given 
 To their fathers, the oracle seers then of heaven,' 
 
 and bid defiance to every encroachment, from what- 
 ever source it may arise, to sap the foundations of 
 the sacred institution of the Sabbath, whether in the 
 high-pressure engine of the railway, or the high- 
 pressure traffic in alcohol." With thoughts such as 
 these, in less than sixteen hours I was again in Glas- 
 gow, when I had an early visit from the postman, 
 asking half-a-dozen questions without waiting for 
 an answer. Without answering any of them di- 
 rectly, I said that I had seen enough to silence any 
 reasonable man, who was in the habit of lifting his 
 voice against the rest of the Sabbath. But I will 
 have no half measures, — nothing short of a full and 
 fair restitution of all classes from Sabbatical slavery, 
 — even to the hundred thousand men throughout the 
 empire, who, to the disgrace of our nation, are con- 
 stantly employed seven days in the week, producing 
 that which ruins three in every " twelve individuals 
 composing the United Kingdom." 
 
 P. — " I have some hopes yet of overcoming the 
 contaminating influence of English customs, when 
 
122 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 tliey have had such a salutary effect in bringing you 
 to this determination." 
 
 R. T. — " Do you not think, postman, that if the 
 churches were exercising their influence, it woukl 
 have a great effect in ameliorating the evil in ques- 
 tion ? " 
 
 P. — " Yes, Sir, I am a living witness of the fact that 
 this post-office traffic is not only perpetuated by the 
 members of the A^arious religious bodies, but by some 
 of the highest officials in these congregations; yet a 
 number of our letter-carriers have been debarred 
 from the communion-table, by the very men who are 
 perpetuating the evil they condemn in us, — viz. 
 giving out letters to them on the Sabbath day. One 
 of our letter-carriers, on being questioned by his pas- 
 tor respecting our Sabbath secular labour, answered 
 that he was led to believe that it M^as a work of 
 necessity, seeing that the members and office-bearers 
 were in the habit of calling for their letters as they 
 passed from church on Sabbath day. Debarring de- 
 linquents from ordinances is in strict accordance with 
 the rules of every rightly constituted church; but in 
 these cases, there is either a laxity of church-discipline, 
 or a want of discrimination, in discerning the chief 
 aggressor, the founder and perpetuator of the evil. It 
 cannot be entirely the post-office official; for he sighs 
 for the hour when he shall be released from his worse 
 than Egyptian bondage. If it is not he, it must 
 be his Christian brethren; and, if the church would 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 123 
 
 do her duty in bringing them to judgment, I am con- 
 vinced that it would mitigate, if not altogether an- 
 nihilate, this and a great many more systems of 
 Sabbath traffic. These inconsistencies have also the 
 effect of subduing the moral and religious energies 
 of him who is subjected to such unwarranted op- 
 pressions, — his high and holy aspirations are crushed 
 by the very individuals who are bound by the holy 
 ties of religion to cherish him in all his vicissitudes. 
 Yet, although we are left desolate and lonely with- 
 out the pale of the sanctuary, we do not demur at 
 any sect in thus endeavouring to keep their princi- 
 ples unspotted from the defections of a secularizing 
 generation. But we sigh for their sympathies, and 
 have looked long and anxiously for the time when 
 the various religious communities, to a man, would 
 espouse our cause, and nobly aid us in the struggle 
 to rescue ourselves from bondage. And we now hail 
 the present movement against Sabbath slavery as a 
 mighty instrument in the hand of Providence des- 
 tined to accomplish the freedom of all who, heavy 
 laden, mourn on Sabbath day. 'Out of the abun- 
 dance of the heart the mouth speaketh;' and if I 
 have spoken in strong language of the laxity of our 
 church -discipline, it is from a sure conviction of 
 the facts I have stated, and a high sense of the 
 necessity of something being speedily done for the 
 amelioration of the evil. My earnest wish is, that 
 a real and thorough investigation may be made into 
 
124 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 the causes engendering the grievance, and an entire 
 reformation be aimed at by the ministers and elders 
 of every denomination, — calling on themselves in 
 the first instance, and then on all their people, to 
 consider the state of their own souls before God, that 
 they may be led to take steps for the stirring up of 
 one another to care for the souls of others ; so that 
 every member of the Christian church may become 
 a missionary to the nations in abolishing this and 
 every other evil that strikes so directly at the root 
 of true holiness." 
 
 R. T. — " You are right, postman. There is little 
 hope of any movement till, like a tree, it takes root 
 in the common soil of the vineyard; or, in other 
 words, springs from the toiling millions; — then it 
 grows, and spreads its branches apace, embracing in 
 its covert the human family, — anon its top reaches 
 those in high places. Then, and not till then, it 
 is recognised as a goodly tree, — it blossoms and 
 brings forth fruit, which is acknowledged by all as 
 fair to look upon and pleasant to the taste." 
 
 P. — "Yes, Sir, and now that it is fast ap- 
 proximating to that eminence, the husbandman of 
 the nations would do well to attend to its culture, 
 for under the shadow of this vine i« his safety; let 
 him then throw a wall of defence around it, and thus 
 prevent ' the boar out of the wood from wasting it, 
 and the wild beast of the field from devouring it' — 
 ere the evil genius of the continent, in the shape of 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 125 
 
 antichrist and infidelity, overthrow the sacred insti- 
 tutions of the nations." 
 
 " I see," said he, (looking at the clock), " that my 
 time is nearly expired, but before I go, by way of 
 conclusion, allow me to throw out an ocular proof or 
 two in behoof of the temporal ^advantages of the 
 Sabbath. The Encyclopj3edia of Mental Philosophy 
 says : ' It will be seen from the history of modern 
 Europe, whether the human spirit docs not owe all 
 its civilization to the belief that it is connected by 
 an actual bond, with its Creator, — whether it did not 
 fall into bondage and confusion when it lost sight of 
 the facts by which that union is declared, — whether 
 any attempt to establish human society and human 
 life, upon any other basis than these facts, has not 
 ended in the degradation of both.' And we learn 
 from the history of the ancient Jews, that just in 
 proportion as they were obedient to the divine laws, 
 so was their prosperity. But when they neglected 
 it, adversity followed to their total ruin. And how- 
 ever it may be now slighted, says the author of the 
 Annals of Glasgow, it is a fact, that by strictly at- 
 tending to religious ordinances, Scotland in general 
 and Glasgow in particular, stands high in the esti- 
 mation of her neighbours; according as a father 
 found himself enabled to defend the religious tenets 
 lie had espoused, he felt an honest pride in contri- 
 buting to the information of his sons, and hence the 
 prayer, graved upon her escutcheon, ' Let Glasgow 
 
126 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 flourish by the preaching of the word,' has been 
 fully realized. To substantiate which, we have only 
 to glance at her unexampled progress in manufacture, 
 her literary institutions, and numerous places of 
 worship. If our attention to the laws of God has 
 been of such importance in advancing our commer- 
 cial prosperity, and in promoting our success in the 
 arts and sciences; if it is a fact, I say, that by the 
 blessing of God we have gained the eminence 
 
 * That makes us loved at home, rever'd abroad,' 
 
 would it not be absurd in us to undermine the fair 
 fabric that we have been centuries in building up?" 
 E. T. — " It would indeed be little short of insanity, yet 
 there are men among us, who professedly recognise the 
 Christian religion, as the rule of life, while they iden- 
 tify themselves with those who would erase from the 
 decalogue the beautiful commandment which includes 
 all others, ' Love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.' I would urge 
 upon these men to consider the spirit of the golden 
 rule, ' Do unto others as ye would that they should 
 do to you,' and I would then ask them, if they are 
 willing to change places with those whom they hold in 
 bondage on the Sabbath? If not, how can they ex- 
 culpate themselves from the moral degradation they 
 have entailed on those they have reduced to unmiti- 
 gated slavery?" 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 127 
 
 P. — "I know not, but men who can perpe- 
 tuate the scenes enacted at our post-office every 
 Sabbath, and yet retain the garb of religion, are 
 capable of all you have mentioned. There, at 
 mid-day or in the evening, when the churches are 
 dismissing, they crowd the place to suffocation, and 
 when the windows are opened for delivery of letters, 
 the rush becomes general, the melee commences, 
 women are fainting, children crying (whom, by the 
 way, I have seen lifted inside lest they should be 
 trampled to death), while the incessant hue and cry 
 of every one yelling out his name and addres.^, 
 creates such a confusion of tongues that none but 
 men accustomed to the mauy-mouthed-babel could 
 answer their demands. But I am delighted to see 
 that the Sabbath movements at present in operation 
 are striking at the root of the evil by declaiming 
 against post-office, railway, j^ublic house, and all kinds 
 of Sabbath traffic. It is the duty and interest of every 
 freeman and bondsman to cheer them on in the good 
 cause — the cause of God and the oppressed; yes, let 
 our hearts and our prayers be one with them, and, by 
 being faithful to ourselves, and trusting in the God 
 of the oppressed, Glasgow may yet flourish by the 
 preaching of the Word." 
 
 We now mutually agreed to meet on some future 
 day, when we would again have a conversation on 
 the matter, and as my friend retired, I inly breathed 
 a prayer, that as our conversation had commenced 
 
128 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER 
 
 on Mount Zion here, it might be the beginning of an 
 intercourse that would commence again on Zion's 
 holy hill, by the pure rivers of water that gladdens 
 the city of our God, where the weary cease from la- 
 bouring and rejoice in the rest of an eternal Sabbath. 
 
 First gift — bless'd of the Creator, 
 Statue of creative might, 
 Symbol of the peace of Eden, 
 Couch from which the weary laden 
 Kise, through Christ, to life and light. 
 
 Sabbath — dear to every creature 
 Be thy psalms and sacred bells ; 
 Though to us their sounds are gladness, 
 Yet a mingled sigh of sadness. 
 With their music upward swells. 
 
 Ay, full many a broken spii'it, 
 Thus its incense breathes on high, 
 Every Sabbath morn we Avaken, 
 Every holy tie is broken. 
 We must to our labour hie. 
 
 To the cab and to the engine, 
 To the forge and smelting blaze, 
 To the office, 'mong the letters, 
 Postmen too are held in fetters, 
 On the pearl of our days. 
 
 Through summer heat and stormy weather, 
 Every day, from year to year, 
 Penance we are surely dreeing, 
 Shall it end but with our being. 
 Shall it close but with our bier? 
 
VERSUS OUR POSTMAN. 129 
 
 What base crime have we committed, 
 That we're held in bondage still? 
 Sabbath brings rest to the felon, 
 While in chains we ever toil on, 
 'Gainst our own and Heaven's will. 
 
 From our cells of Sabbath durance, 
 To the church we see you wend, 
 While we envy you and languish. 
 Praying in our soul's sad anguish 
 Heaven would us freedom send. 
 
 From bush and brake, from church and cottage, 
 
 Mounts the song of Sabbath praise ; 
 
 But to us comes toil and trouble, 
 
 Tellings of the noisy rabble 
 
 Louder than on other days. ] 
 
 Jaded, sad, o'erwrought, and wearied. 
 If at night we close our eyes. 
 Oft the piercing, shrill steam whistle, 
 Roaring blast, or oflSce bustle 
 Startling wakes us in surprise. 
 
 Torn from every tie that gladdens 
 Every humble cottage hearth, 
 Home a garden grows unweeded. 
 Children, flowerets, that unheeded 
 Rise uncultured from their birth. 
 
 Why, ye sordid sons of mammon ! 
 Hew for brother man a tomb ? 
 Rob his children of the heaven 
 He could make one day in seven 
 Of his poor but happy home. 
 I 
 
130 THE RAILWAY TRAVELLER, ETC. 
 
 Know, ye worshippers of pleasure, 
 While in haste along the line, 
 Like a Juggernaut you're rolling, 
 In your carriage listless lolling, 
 Ye are crushing souls divine. 
 
2ri&e Summer of fi)t Soul: 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 
 TO THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 By WILLIAM LYLE, 
 
 POTTER. ANNFIELD POTTERY, GLASGOW. 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 When we first entertained the idea of writing this 
 Essay, it did not occur to us that there were so many 
 difficulties in the way of separating from each other 
 the spiritual and temporal advantages of mankind. 
 We did not sufficiently advert to the fact that, while 
 the Sabbath presented a bed of repose for our physical 
 weariness, it also supplied a summer of peace and re- 
 freshment for the troubled soul; and that these were 
 as inseparable as God and his divinity. Indeed so 
 closely and indissolubly hath the eternal Being in- 
 terwoven them together, that, in treating of the 
 beneficent tendencies of the Sabbath, we are almost 
 constrained to advance towards the conclusion of our 
 journey with one at our right hand and the other at 
 our left. The theme allotted to us, however, con- 
 fines us to the Sabbath in its temporal aspects ; 
 and in further finding instruction concerning this 
 matter, it is necessary that the subject be divided 
 into two distinct heads, — as, first. The Sabbath is a 
 temporal advantage^ inasmuch as it is a jjreventive 
 
134 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 to mental vice, and consequent physical indolence and 
 mischief. 
 
 There are difterent ways in whicli the Sabbath 
 may be said to act upon the minds of the human 
 family, — especially these : its compulsory and per- 
 suasiye obligations, or, more properly speaking, the 
 decorum demanded on that day by the existing laws 
 of our country, and the softening persuasive influence 
 of the day itself. The former of these being a phy- 
 sical power, can only act upon the physical evils 
 that come forward; while the latter takes effect upon 
 the mind, or on the body through the medium of 
 the mind. We have to do, first, with its persua- 
 sive influences. And how shall we speak of them, 
 — how shall we present them in their most fasci- 
 nating light? Most of us have seen a large and 
 populous city, with its high lanes and bye lanes, — 
 its dens of iniquity, and its homes of sin. Those 
 who have done so, will find it no difficult matter 
 to contrast its wild uproarious scenes with the quiet 
 dwellings and the homely music of the village, " far 
 remote." It is here, among the dwellings of the 
 poor, that the beauty of the Sabbath may be seen, 
 and the strength of its persuasive influence felt. It 
 is here, where almost every cottage holds a praying 
 family, that the Sabbath's periodical return comes 
 like a soothing balm upon the weary and the world- 
 worn. 
 
 It is summer, — glorious green-leaved summer, — 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 135 
 
 beams of the morning sunlight sleep on the dewy 
 hay, and on the straw-roofed cot. The dusty cart 
 is set on end within the shed, — the thrashing-jflail is 
 lying still, — and the noisy mill no more drowns the 
 guiltless melodies of Nature's rough-hewn sons. Al- 
 ready the white-wreathed smoke begins to curl up- 
 ward from a solitary chimney here and there, — 
 slowly the sun ascends his azure path, the bright 
 dew disappears, and the sweet flowers spread their 
 silken leaves, and look up, as if in gratitude, toward 
 their mighty Father. The morning is advanced, 
 and every chimney contributes its little to the dusky 
 cloud, — a hundred white hands are busy, the morn- 
 ing meal is being cooked, and preparations made to 
 seek the Lord within his holy house. Then, like 
 music in a dream, cometh across the silent fields the 
 sounds of the Sabbath bells, soft and solemn as the 
 breeze of Eden. Hark! are there not words of com- 
 fort and sweet persuasion in the measured sound? 
 And now, mark where the homely-clad and happy 
 villagers slowly wend their way to the house of 
 God! Do not the bells sing, "Come away?" and 
 doth not every motion of the worshippers beckon 
 the straying sinner from the haunts of iniquity ? Who 
 hath not experienced such feelings, and doing so, 
 hath not said within himself, " They almost persuade 
 me to become a Christian?" Again, over the broad 
 face of this our favoured land, how many thousand 
 ministers of God's word weekly pour forth their 
 
136 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 springs of living water, like fountains in the desert! 
 Then we have our Sabbath schools, like nurseries of 
 sweet fruit ripening unto salvation. 
 
 Herein, then, do we see the blessed Sabbath act- 
 ing largely as a preventive to mental vice. We 
 see the sons of labour roused from their sinful slum- 
 ber by the hearth, or their yet more sinful poring 
 over profane books, to seek the sanctuary. We see 
 hundreds of reckless youths, wiled from racing and 
 bird-nesting by the river-side to run the race of sal- 
 vation. Their work is now changed from robbing 
 orchards; they have learned to pluck the golden 
 fruit so full and free to all. 
 
 We have next to notice the manner in which it 
 may be said to act by compulsion. There are many 
 usages in our land, whose tendencies at the very 
 best render them rather questionable appendages to 
 society, which the Sabbath, supported by terrestrial 
 law, steps in and puts a stop to. Theatres, for in- 
 stance, and other places of popular amusement, useless 
 or worse than useless at any time, are by the laws 
 of our land ordained to close upon the Sabbath day. 
 Then there is the cessation of many of our lead- 
 ing traffics, that are broadly based upon principles 
 of sin and corruption. One of the chief may be 
 mentioned — the sale of spirituous liquors. To a cer- 
 tain extent their sale is limited on the seventh day, 
 particularly in Scotland: and it is matter for re- 
 joicing, that in many places our rulers have of late 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 1:37 
 
 seen it fit to be even more rigid in their restrictive 
 measures regarding this soul and body destroying 
 commerce on the Lord's day. When it is under- 
 stood that more than one-third of our annual revenue 
 is drawn from this source, and that it is not only a 
 negative evil, in as far as it destroys what might 
 conduce most materially to the temporal benefit of 
 man; but that it is a positive evil, in as far as it 
 creates a poison, delusive in its nature, and potent 
 in its eflfects, working out man's ruin here, and lay- 
 ing up for him a store of misery hereafter, when 
 this is understood, we say, the most wilfully blind 
 must at once acknowledge the drinking system to be 
 what a German writer has somewhere called it, 
 ' The curse of Britain.' Having found, then, in the 
 drinking customs of our land a power so baneful as 
 to aflfect the temporal weal of mankind, the applica- 
 tion is simple; any ordinance tending to the suppres- 
 sion of its effects must surely be reckoned a step in 
 the proper direction, in fact, an actual temporal 
 blessing. 
 
 While we aflarm that Britain is in advance of 
 every other country in her respect for the Sab- 
 bath, we are compelled to admit that England, espe- 
 cially in her seaport towns, is far in the back- 
 ground, when tried by the standard of a scriptural 
 rest. For example, in Liverpool the organ may be 
 heard at almost any hour, playing what they are 
 pleased to term sacred music. This is a practice 
 
138 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 which carries sin and absurdity on its very front. 
 How dreadfully ludicrous it is for a score or two 
 of human beings, to dream for an instant, while 
 half blinded by the fumes of gin and tobacco, of 
 raising their drunken voices in the praise of the 
 Almighty. Were we to seek for a reason why such 
 places as Liverpool are generally to be found in a 
 state of moral prostration and debasement, particu- 
 larly in the lower walks of life, the explanation 
 might readily be found in the fact that there is a 
 constant incoming and outgoing of sailors from al- 
 most every port under the sun, — men whose calling, 
 as it is at present conducted, incapacitates them, in 
 a great measure, from giving that attention to the 
 Sabbath which its sacred nature demands. It is not 
 always easy to decide what are works of necessity and 
 what are not, hence it is that we find men who are 
 accustomed to grope their way through life without 
 applying themselves much to thinking, gradually 
 losing sight of the line of demarcation between the 
 two, until they arrive at the conclusion most likely 
 to accord with their carnal desires, though it be at 
 the expense of right. So it is in many cases with 
 our poor sailors; little leisure for thought in this 
 work-a-day world, soon leaves them less inclination 
 for it, and the consequences are those we have at- 
 tempted to point out. 
 
 Here it may be seen we have an evil beyond the 
 reach of either persuasion or compulsion. Here we 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 139 
 
 have a daily influx of minds morally deranged, 
 which secretly sow their abominations equally be- 
 yond the reach of law and of Sabbath influences. 
 
 Again, the evils do not generally rest within the 
 sphere in which they are generated, but spread far 
 and wide, till they are met from the inland counties 
 by evils almost as pernicious as themselves; thus 
 making England, under the very eyes of her state- 
 supported church, a very nursery for crime and cor- 
 ruption. For a proof of how effectually the inland 
 districts lend their aid in the desecration of the 
 Lord's day, we have only to turn our attention to 
 the immense quantity of manual labour in request for 
 the keeping up of railway traflac, iron blasts, and an 
 endless et cetera of minor works, whose proprietors are 
 at no loss to find an excuse for their conduct, either in 
 the hackneyed word necessity, or in the equally abused 
 phrase philanthropy. But men should pause ere they 
 make use of such expressions to justify a procedure 
 so prolific of vice and ignorance in every form. 
 Look for a moment at the men, women, and children, 
 to be found in the vicinity of those iron blasts. 
 What are they abroad? What are they at home in 
 their social circles? Mere machines whose duty 
 seems to be one unvarying routine of sleep and 
 labour; with them there is no thought of providing 
 for the wants of the mind; they are denied the full 
 allotment of rest which God in his goodness intend- 
 ed for their bodies; and is it to be wondered at if 
 
140 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the field of their mind be neglected ? Many of them 
 have to work, or what is the same, have the liberty 
 of working if they choose, seven days in the week, 
 at a business which, working at the rate of six hours 
 six days in the week, would, in a short time, under- 
 mine men's constitution. Where then are the hours 
 for recreation of body ? Where the time for improv- 
 ing the mind? All sacrificed at the shrine of Mam- 
 mon. And it were well if the evil ended here; but 
 no, — feeling the want of natural spirit in the midst of 
 their unceasing toil, they have recourse to a false 
 stimulant which carries in its train a dark and fear- 
 ful catalogue of sin and misery. In such manner 
 they live, in such manner they die. Many of them 
 have never ojyened a Bible in their lives; in their 
 hearts the sun of the true Sabbath hath never shone; 
 they are told that their Sabbath day's work is the 
 work of necessity, and withheld, to a great extent, 
 from the light of Scripture, they believe it. This 
 then is the picture which England in many places 
 presents, and this is the picture that must still meet 
 the eye of God's people, wherever the Sabbath of 
 the Lord is neglected. 
 
 Secondly, The Sabbath is an incentive to virtue^ 
 and consequent industry. 
 
 Alexander the Great has said, " Nothing is so 
 base as a life of idleness, and nothing so princely as 
 a life of toil." Not less decided, and far more nu- 
 merous, are the condemnatory expressions made use 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 141 
 
 of by Solomon, his brother in royalty, and father 
 in wisdom. It cannot be said, however, that we re- 
 quire to look among the writings of the ancients for 
 a proof of this, when so much of our every day ex- 
 perience may be found to uphold the theory. One 
 glance at the physical constitution of man will in- 
 form us that, without a life of toil, the race would 
 soon become extinct. Like the machinery of a 
 clock, the body prospers only when in a state of 
 motion. Look at the rich and opulent of our land, 
 and this truth will become even more apparent. 
 Few of them are healthy and robust, either in body 
 or mind; for observe the unseen link is here, as in 
 every other instance, connecting body, soul, and 
 mind together. These are some of the results 
 brought about by indolence of habit, supported by, 
 and ministered to, by having a greater share than 
 others of this world's wealth, without attending to 
 the condition attached to it by God in the profaned 
 bowers of Eden, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt 
 thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground." 
 
 Extend now the sphere of our observation, and 
 let us take a survey of what industry has done for 
 mankind. The great and good of all ages, from our 
 blessed Saviour himself down to the philanthropist 
 of modern times, have come of parents who made it 
 their boast that they had toiled from their youth up. 
 One of the greatest generals the world ever saw, 
 deemed it no disgrace to leave the gilded traj)- 
 
142 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 pings in the court of his conquering country, and, 
 like the hapless bard of Coila, be happy in fol- 
 lowing the plough. Alfred the Great was only 
 at a loss how to measure his time so minutely as 
 not to lose a moment of the precious hours that 
 formed a chain between the time of his birth and 
 that which was to see him rendered back again 
 " dust to dust." There are ships upon the broad sea, 
 industry hath placed them there; fruits and flowers 
 spring in beauty from the earth ; but it is the cherish- 
 ing and cultivating hand of industry that brings 
 them forth. We have clothes to shield us from the 
 winter, the summer blesseth us with food. We have 
 churches wherein the word of God is preached, 
 morning, noon, and night. We have printing presses 
 whereby the word of the Lord can be spread over 
 all the earth; and what one of these is the fruit of 
 indolence? Knowledge and thought have been 
 breathed into words, making thoughtful men wise, 
 and careless men thoughtful, but these sprung not from 
 men who loved " to turn upon their beds," and to 
 " hide their hands in their bosoms." These blessed 
 benefits are all the offspring of industry, whose vital 
 constituents are minds properly regulated, time pro- 
 perly divided, and a bold yet holy reliance on the 
 promises of the Eternal. 
 
 Now mark in how much the Sabbath is con- 
 ducive to industry. The Sabbath may be consi- 
 dered as much a part of God's provision for man's 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 143 
 
 temponil well-being, as the distinction between day 
 and night. A love of change is a grand feature in 
 the character of man; it may be called part and 
 parcel of his existence. This spirit, then, having 
 been planted in man, it behoved the Creator of all 
 things so to order it that nature should minister to 
 his desires. How well he has done this we leave it 
 with those to show who have made Nature their 
 study in its widest sense, and confine ourselves to 
 the wisdom displayed in the division of time. Mark 
 with what precision day follows night, and winter 
 summer,' each with its characteristic features and 
 appertaining beauties. The night is meant for the 
 body's rest, the day is meant for toil, — and with 
 what kindly influence do the evening's dusky sha- 
 dows steal upon our Aveary eyelids, wooing them to 
 repose! — and then with what renovated vigour do 
 we meet the morning's bracing air! A new world, 
 as it were, to the body, to the mind a new hill to 
 climb, and cheered by the thought that we have the 
 top in view. 
 
 " Now herein is love." Fancy that our life were 
 one unchanging ever-working day, what sighing mo- 
 notony, what exhausted peevishness would be ours. 
 But God is wise — and more, God is merciful — he 
 knew, in his wisdom, what the body would need, 
 and in his mercy he provided for it. But has his 
 kindness ended here? The body will not live of it- 
 self; — what were the use of such a body without a 
 
144 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 soul? But he hath given it a soul, and he hath 
 given that soul a resting-time, and that resting-time 
 is the Sabbath-day. The Sabbath is to the soul 
 what night is more emphatically to the body, — a time 
 to look forward to, — a time to gather strength, that 
 it may the better meet the hardships of life. The 
 Sabbath is like an inn on the way to eternity, where 
 the weary traveller may rest awhile his mortal body 
 while he reinvigorates his spirit, till he is enabled to 
 set out anew toward the end filled with a lively 
 faith. Who shall tell us now that the Sabbath doth 
 not conduce to industry, and industry to the temporal 
 well-being of man ? Doth not the soul rest upon that 
 day as on a couch, or work a work that is to it better 
 than a rest? Then, through its connecting cord, 
 doth it not send its electric fire to the drooping mind 
 and the fagging body? and then do they not all 
 spring forward, the one to work the world's work 
 faithfully, and the other on its path of light to seek 
 the New Jerusalem. 
 
 The Sabbath is indeed a summer to the soul, — the 
 only day in which it can freely stray in the garden of 
 the Lord, and gather flowers and fruits to strew upon 
 its dreary path through the vale of sorrowing and 
 pain. And, oh ! how anxious is its righteous donor 
 that we should preserve it entire ! Hear what he has 
 said through his servant Moses : " To-morrow is the 
 rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord, bake that 
 which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 145 
 
 seethe, and all which remaineth over lay up for you 
 to be kept until the morning." To-morrow, he 
 might have said, belongs to the soul, — to-morrow it 
 must gather fruit for another and a better world. 
 
 But in the face of tbese, and many more passages 
 to the same effect, to be met within the book we all 
 profess to honour and obey, comes the railway specu- 
 lator, breathing a hollow philanthropy, and hinting 
 of his desire to see the working man possessed of a 
 few hours for recreation, — and those hours are to be 
 clipped from the Sabbath. What! are man's plea- 
 sures to be secured to him before the substance of 
 his life? are his luxuries to be made certain before 
 his necessities? or, question of questions, do either 
 of them come before the worship of God, and the 
 welfare of his immortal mind ? 
 
 Go out into the fields, ye weary ones! upon a 
 Sabbath morning. Suppose it June — " one of June's 
 brightest days" — inhale the perfume-laden zephyrs 
 as they climb the silver air from the green-lined 
 valleys where the roses grow. Look around upon 
 the waters as they glisten in the sunlight, like seas 
 of shining pearls. Hark the merry birds and the 
 droning bees, with whom every blink of sunshine is 
 a Sabbath, as they chaunt their hymns of praise to 
 Him who gave them life. Look upward to the gor- 
 geous skies, with their fleecy clouds like chariots of 
 snow sporting round the glorious majesty of the sun. 
 Think on Him whose robes are whiter than the 
 
146 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 clouds, and whose presence is brighter than a thou- 
 sand suns. Then carry yourselves back to the time 
 when all these were yet fresh from the Creator's 
 hand, — think of how that Creator blessed and sanc- 
 tified the seventh day, — think that even now, al- 
 though six thousand winters and as many summers 
 made glad the earth since its institution, still doth 
 the Sabbath spring from out the mists of ignorance 
 and error that the lapse of years and conflicting 
 opinions have thrown upon it, with some of its pris- 
 tine purity, — think that men, that potentates and 
 kings, have done their utmost to crush its bright 
 existence, and that still, Phoenix-like, it sinks in 
 one place but to rise in greater brilliancy elsewhere, 
 and that it will do so till the great theatre of the 
 earth be hallowed by one universal Sabbath. 
 
 After all, it is quite possible that there are men 
 who have never been able to discover the good 
 resulting from a septenary preaching of God's 
 word, — in the mending and propping up of mo- 
 rality's many -wheeled engine. To them we say, 
 If you can find no relation to those preachings in 
 the superior tone of British character, whether in- 
 dividually or in her cabinets, it would be much 
 better, instead of looking at what we are with them, 
 to fancy, if we can, what we would be without them. 
 Now, some will say this is hard to do. Nothing of 
 the kind; do it thus. Look at France, — as a nation 
 our equal, if not our superior, both as regards natural 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 147 
 
 gifts and geographical position ; yet at what time in 
 all her history, from the day she first claimed a place 
 among the nations up till the present, when she has 
 been once more shaken to her foundations, can she 
 be said to have been on a footing with Britain, either 
 in strength of character or in the proper application 
 of the gifts she receives? Every unprejudiced man 
 is compelled to answer, " Never." Again, take a 
 glance backward through the page of ancient history. 
 Look at Greece — the land of philosophy and art — 
 or her sister country, Rome — the home of science 
 and the depot of intelligence for all the world — when 
 her glory was yet green; yet to what did their ac- 
 quirements lead them? To rapine and war, — to the 
 worship of gods, imaginary deities, and idols of every 
 description. It was the triumph of their art to leave 
 all nations kingless but their own, — it was their 
 glory to see the subjection of other lands complete. 
 
 Here we see were nations, having rain and sun- 
 shine, wealth and science, yet where was their true 
 happiness? — where was their Sabbath, the food for 
 their never-dying souls? — where the calm resting 
 upon God, and God's mercy, which the observing of 
 that day is calculated to produce? Was it seen in 
 the factions, the hourly tumults of their state? Did 
 it appear in the death of Brutus, or the fall of Caesar ? 
 This is what nations have been that were without 
 the Sabbath and its attendant benefits, — this is what 
 they will be, — this is what they are. Witness the 
 
148 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 empires of China and Burmah, — the Japanese islands, 
 — and all the discovered globe where the Sabbath 
 hath not spread its benign influence. Mark hoyv, 
 as we near the shores of Britain, we seem entering 
 on a calm Is it for nothing that we see our native 
 land still a home of peace, amid the general wreck 
 of kingdoms and the fall of thrones ? Is it for 
 nothing, that, while the rest of the world is shaken 
 as a forest full of trees, Britain rises like a rock from 
 out the waves, strong in her weekly preachings, with 
 her holy Sabbaths unimpaired. 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to point out the evil 
 resulting from a neglect of the sacred uses of the 
 Lord's day, and in another place to point out the 
 benefits arising from a strict adherence to them. In 
 the course of our progress we have found, that al- 
 though in our native land the moral world may be 
 said to be on the move, and the Sabbath partially 
 kept, yet we are far behind in our march toward the 
 standard of a scriptural Sabbath. We have found, 
 that although we have one law for the suppression 
 of evil on the seventh day, we have another which 
 sanctions or winks at its desecration. If the law 
 says the theatre must be shut, it also says the bar- 
 racks must be open. If it commands that the house- 
 less poor must not seek to live by singing through 
 our streets on that day, it also says that the brazen 
 bands of war must then tune their battle notes. Oh, 
 Britain, Britain ! with all thy holiness, with all thy 
 
THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 149 
 
 Sabbath's purity, thou hast much to learn, — much 
 to change in thy legislative arrangements, — and, 
 alas ! many despised privileges to account for. Oh ! 
 when shall we see the soul-delighting day, when 
 not only shall the trumpet be mute on the holy 
 day of God, but, in the graphic language of Scrip- 
 ture, men shall 
 
 " Hang the trumpet in the hall, 
 And study war no more." 
 
 Oh ! thinking men of Britain ! Christians of Britain ! 
 this task is yours; — it is yours to say, and to see it 
 acted upon, "that war shall no longer stain the 
 annals of your name :" — and your weapons to accom- 
 plish this are, the Bible and the Sabbath. 
 
 Brother- labourers in the field of time! I im- 
 plore you to take heed and beware of every move- 
 ment tending to the infringement of your Sabbath 
 privileges. Many and motley are the garbs in which 
 its foes assail it, and sharp and subtle are the wea- 
 pons they use. Hearken not to the mill-owner and 
 the manufacturer when they tell you that part of 
 their works must be kept in motion on the Lord's 
 day, that the working man's ivages may not he curtailed. 
 Say unto them, — Hypocrites! the Lord shall bring 
 you into judgment. And say to the advocates for 
 railway travelling on the day of rest, — Go and be 
 generous with your own, — give not away, for the 
 benefit of the poor or the rich, that which belongeth 
 
150 THE SUMMER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 to the Lord. Listen to no glossing sophism; but 
 keep before the eyes of your understanding, " This 
 is the day which the Lord hath made." Already are 
 your hours of labour too many for your health and 
 peace of mind. Then, in mercy to yourselves and 
 in honour to your God, respect and defend the Sab- 
 bath. Look neither to the right nor to the left, 
 but press forward for the prize. 
 
 Sabbath defenders ! scorn may come 
 
 From profane and polluted lips, 
 But ne'er let scorn o'ercloud your home 
 
 With the gloom of its dark eclipse. 
 Think of the " rest " old Israel knew, 
 
 In the day of God's grace to man, 
 Holding it still a rest for you. 
 
 And a comfort through life's dark span. 
 Why should you fear what earth can do, 
 
 Though you stood in its direst ban? 
 
 Let each successive day spring up in the midst of 
 your weary lives like a well of water in the wilder- 
 ness, whereat the weary traveller may " rest " and 
 drink and be refreshed. Like a guide-post, pointing 
 your way to a peaceful eternity, — like a land-mark, 
 telling you of a shelter from the storms of fate, and 
 bidding you still " hope on," such let the Sabbath 
 be to you, — remembering that the Lord, who hath 
 never said and then forgotten to o?o, hath promised 
 to them who keep his laws on earth a resting-place 
 on high, and an unbroken Sabbath, while vast eter- 
 nity unfolds its tireless wings. 
 
OR, 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 OX 
 
 THE TE^IPORAL ADVA?(TAGES OF THE SABBATH 
 TO THE WORKING CLASSES, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 CONSEQUENT IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVESTG ITS REST FROM 
 ALL THE ENCROACHMENTS OF UNNECESSARY LABOUR. 
 
 By THOMAS GREGORY, 
 
 OPERAXrV^E MASON, GLASGOW. 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 Before entering upon the special work of this 
 Essay, we feel a strong desire to give vent to a few 
 scattered thoughts, having a rather general bearing 
 upon the subject. 
 
 Once upon a time, a number of poor villagers were 
 collected together in a cottage, listening to an in- 
 fatuated preacher, who had an inveterate hatred to 
 the moral law as a rule of life. In order to give 
 them an idea of how the law had fallen, he spread 
 out his handkerchief, and holding it by the corners, 
 said, " The law, my friends, has fallen down before 
 the believer like this handkerchief;" — then, letting 
 it go from his hands, it accidentally fell upon the 
 candles before him, and extinguished them; leaving 
 his whole audience in darkness. Perhaps he could 
 not have illustrated more clearly the moral darkness 
 that prevails among people and nations who throw 
 oflf all restraints of the moral law. 
 
 There is one commandment of that law, which, if 
 disregarded, will produce the same effect. By the 
 
154 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 highest authorities of our own land, the right ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath was at one time publicly 
 discouraged. The infamous edicts of James the 
 First of England and his son Charles, were scattered 
 over the people, telling them that the Sabbath had 
 fallen; — the napkin here too fell, and enveloped the 
 whole land in moral darkness. All know the bloody 
 tragedy that was enacted during the reign of the 
 Stuarts. — France has more than once publicly de- 
 clared that the Sabbath has fallen ; and as often that 
 nation has been enveloped in darkness. In the 
 course of ten dreadful years she experienced ten 
 revolutions and forms of government. Like a wild 
 maniac her hand was imbrued in her own blood, — 
 princes and nobles were put to death or banished, — 
 men, women, and children were massacred by thou- 
 sands at a time, — and millions of human beings 
 were destroyed in their own country. At the pre- 
 sent day she is in a state of delirium, and the re- 
 volutionary frenzy has already carried its victims to 
 the grave. — Single individuals, too, afford us the 
 same important lesson. A stone thrown into the 
 air is not more certainly followed by its fall, than 
 the national desecration of the Sabbath is followed 
 by the downfall of a nation's morality. This is no 
 theory, but a fact founded upon experiment. And 
 nations which are wise, will be content with the 
 experiment of others without trying it for them- 
 selves. The law of matter we all know from per- 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 155 
 
 sonal experience; but the test of the law of morals 
 is of a rather costly nature, for every stone thrown 
 up to heaven, falls on the head of him that sent it. 
 Those persons who have tried the experiment for 
 themselves, have often paid the cost of it beneath 
 the black gallows. 
 
 It is almost incredible, that men of understanding 
 in many things connected with the business of life, 
 should insinuate among the working people a loose- 
 ness of Sabbath observance, which is invariably the 
 sure prelude to looseness of morals, while the right 
 observance of it is the best guarantee of respect 
 to all the other commandments. Those who have 
 no respect for the first table of the law, might at 
 least value the Sabbath for its mighty influence on 
 the millions, in staying their hands from breaking 
 the eighth by appropriating the property of the rich, 
 and in keeping them from imbruing their hands in 
 the blood of their fellow-men. If there are any 
 who aflfirm that the Sabbath has no such influence 
 in deterring from crime, those who are living in 
 crime afford a tangible contradiction to them. They 
 hate the day with a perfect hatred, — to be bound 
 down to a peaceful observance of it, would be 
 to them like cutting off" a right hand or plucking 
 out a right eye. When Aristides, so remarkable 
 for his inviolable attachment to justice, was tried 
 at Athens, and condemned to banishment, a pea- 
 sant who could not write applied to him to put 
 
156 . THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 his name down for his banishment, being unac- 
 quainted with his person. " Has he done you any 
 wrong," said Aristides, " that you are for banishing 
 him in this manner?" " No," replied the country- 
 man, " I don't even know him ; but I am tired and 
 angry at hearing every one call him the Just." Those 
 who live in crime and vice are tired and angry at 
 the Sabbath, because "the commandment is holy, 
 just, and good;" — but those among us who are free 
 from crime, can bear testimony to the fact that 
 the Sabbath, with all its accompanying observances, 
 has a powerful influence in levelling the wild and 
 impetuous passions, alike dangerous to ourselves and 
 our fellow-men. It begets in us an elevation and 
 character, and makes us recoil at the degradation of 
 being punished by law. 
 
 There may be a half-conscientious few that are 
 somewhat staggered at finding such an array of 
 wealthy, smart speculators doubting the perpetual 
 obligation of the Sabbath. Finding them so cautious, 
 wise, and calculating in worldly matters, they readily 
 imagine that were the same minds brought to inves- 
 tigate such a simple question as the Sabbath, they 
 could not fail to hit very near the truth. Perhaps this 
 miracle of mind, in being able to comprehend diffi- 
 culties, and failing to comprehend simples, may be 
 capable of explanation. Every one knows that, if, 
 in the attainment of any object of desire, the mind 
 is allowed to fasten upon it with partiality and an 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 157 
 
 over-degree of fondness, a mist will be diffused over 
 other objects of equal and higher importance, so as 
 to conceal the claims they respectively have on our 
 attention. However bright the intellect may be 
 at its own favourite work, it will make but a poor 
 figure in every investigation that has the least 
 tendency to cross its favourite theory. Dr. King, 
 in his " Anecdotes of his own Times," speaking of 
 one who fixed his mind too much upon one ob- 
 ject, says, "The arguments of reason, philosophy, 
 or religion, will have little effect upon him. The 
 greatest endowments of the mind, the greatest abili- 
 ties in a profession, and even the quiet possession of 
 an immense treasure, will never prevail against ava- 
 rice." He also tells us of an old wealthy kinsman 
 of his own, who was wholly deprived of his sight, 
 and who agreed with an oculist that, if he was re- 
 stored to any degree of sight, he should have a re- 
 ward of sixty guineas. The experiment was effec- 
 tual, and the old man was enabled to read without 
 spectacles all the rest of his life. But in place of 
 being overjoyed at the good effects, he lamented the 
 loss which he had sustained, and contrived how he 
 might cheat the oculist. He pretended that he had 
 only a glimmering, and could see nothing perfectly; 
 and for that reason the bandage on his eyes was con- 
 tinued a month longer than the usual time. By this 
 means he obliged the oculist to compound the bar- 
 gain, and accept of twenty guineas. " A covetous 
 
158 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 man," says Dr. King, " thinks no method dishonest 
 which he may legally practise to save his money." 
 This may enable us to understand how ingenious 
 minds may at times fail to see plain and simple 
 truths. Here is one so bent upon the object of his 
 exclusive regard, that it not only prevents him from 
 seeing the rights of others, but shuts out from his 
 bodily eyes the light of day. Perhaps some may 
 imagine that those gentlemen, who can see no ac- 
 count of the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath in 
 the Bible, and no injustice in depriving the labour- 
 ing man of his day of rest, have drawn a somewhat 
 similar shade over their eyes. We by no means 
 check the thought; but submit the anecdote to each 
 and all for their own private reflections. 
 
 Others, again, are ranged against the divine au- 
 thority of the Sabbath, because they have found some 
 men of learning and clerical honours speaking lightly 
 of its claims. The arguments of such writers are 
 greedily grasped at by those who appear thankful 
 for arguments, ready-made to their hands, where- 
 with to oppose the advocates of the poor man's day. 
 Those who handle them seem not always quite sure 
 as to the soundness of them, for they often betray 
 their doubts by refusing to enter the field of argu- 
 ment. It gives the irreligious boldness, when they 
 find men having a religious name ranged on their 
 side. There are no errors more dangerous and wide- 
 spreading than those originated by men of learning 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 159 
 
 and influence, who have shown themselves wise and 
 far-seeing in other fields of thought. The very fact 
 of their having shown ingenuity of mind in one sub- 
 ject, is taken by many as a sufficient guarantee for 
 accuracy of judgment in whatever else the same 
 mind may employ itself. We find Dr. Paley oppos- 
 ing us — a learned name, and a learned parson too; 
 but our belief is not in the least disconcerted by find- 
 ing him in the opposite ranks. In all ages of the 
 Church, we find instances of the unlettered peasant 
 maintaining the cause of truth in the face of men in 
 clerical orders. " Get you gone, you young clown," 
 said a chafed monk who had been defeated in argu- 
 ment by a youth; " you are hardly out of your 
 leading strings, and do you presume to give your 
 opinion upon matters which have puzzled the most 
 learned divines?" 
 
 Dr. Paley would have us to believe that we are 
 indebted to God for only a few hours' rest on the 
 Sabbath, and for the larger portion of it to the wis- 
 dom of man. He says, " A cessation upon that day 
 from labour beyond the time of attendance upon pub- 
 lic worship, is not intimated in any portion of the 
 New Testament." Again he says, " The assembling 
 upon the first day of the week, for the purpose of 
 public worship and religious instruction, is a law of 
 Christianity of divine appointment; the resting on 
 that day from our employments longer than we are 
 detained from them by attendance upon these assem- 
 
160 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 blies, is to Christians an ordinance of human institu- 
 tion." The divine law, it appears, was imperfect; it 
 did not possess enough of forethought, and had to go 
 through a remodelling process in the courts of sage 
 man, and receive an amendment in the shape of an 
 addition ! The few hours in church were found to be 
 rather unprofitable, and not productive of the effects 
 which divinity had expected : hence imperfect man 
 had to make perfect what perfection itself had 
 failed to accomplish ! Paley has laboured hard to 
 establish his favourite theory; and it is not diffi- 
 cult to see that he seems more to be labouring in 
 search of arguments to support a preconceived opi- 
 nion, than searching for truth. Every working- 
 man who makes it a matter of conscience to attend 
 church, cannot but spurn from him the idea that the 
 small portion of time he is there, is the only part 
 that is free from the invasion of man. He feels that 
 the divine law would be utterly useless in effecting 
 the end for which it was appointed, were he to min- 
 gle amid the turmoil of the world before and after 
 he came from the house of prayer. He feels that 
 there would be nothing but mere outward show as 
 the consequence of such a sudden transition from the 
 cares of the world to the concerns of religion. In 
 place of having the mind abstracted from the world, 
 his whole frame would be jaded and agitated — his 
 mind, dull and listless and stupid, perfectly steeled 
 against all impression. And so long as that law of 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 161 
 
 nature exists by which the mind is incapable of 
 thought when the body is wearied and worn out 
 with toil, moral and spiritual advantage accruing 
 to the working man under such a fractional and 
 nominal Sabbath, would be an utter impossibility. 
 
 This fractional Sabbath would be quite the reli- 
 gion of gentlemen. Paley does not appear, from the 
 tenor of his earlier writings, to have had much con- 
 sciousness of the spirituality of religion; he seems 
 somewhat prone to reduce and accommodate the su- 
 preme obligations of religion to local circumstances. 
 Had he fully recognised its spirituality, he would 
 probably have taken different views of the Sab- 
 bath question. He would not have been such a 
 disturber of the " finny tribe," neither would the 
 fishing-tackle have engaged so much of his leisure 
 hours. We would not have seen the singular con- 
 trast in the small print of the gentleman with cleri- 
 cal-hat and fishing-rod in hand. From his biogra- 
 phy we learn that he had no scruples in attending 
 the play-house. He did not disdain the amusement 
 of the card -table, and was partial to a game at 
 whist. A companion of his amusements being some- 
 what at a loss for a right excuse to give for such 
 pastimes, remarked to him " that the only excuse for 
 their playing, was that it killed time." " The best 
 defence possible," replied he, "though time in the 
 end will kill us." Had Dr. Paley employed these 
 leisure hours in visiting the dwellings of the poor, 
 
 L 
 
1 62 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 he would have seen how much they required the 
 whole Sabbath to raise them from the low state of 
 morality which so extensively prevails among them. 
 
 PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 
 
 1. Man, as well as the inferior animals that he em- 
 ploys to assist him in obtaining the necessaries and 
 comforts of life, is so constituted that he cannot long 
 exert his physical power's tvithout short or momen- 
 tary intervals of cessation. This is true both of the 
 operations of body and mind, and there are few that 
 have not, in some measure, experienced the truth of 
 it. Nay, we have, in too many cases, the mind 
 unnerved by intense application, and the body shri- 
 velled and shrunken by excessive toil. Whether we 
 wander through the field or visit the workshop, 
 we find that the living machine that accumulates 
 the wealth of our country, cannot be compelled to 
 incessant toil without irreparable injury. The 
 ploughman, with measured step, slowly plods along 
 the new-turned soil, and guides with steady eye his 
 cautious horse; having reached the end of the long 
 furrow, he lets his plough fall to a side, on which 
 he leans, and gives a few minutes of rest to his 
 sweating and panting steed. The man who plies the 
 ponderous hammer at the forge, we find often in the 
 course of the day reclining on the bench, covered 
 with dust and sweat — his whole body agitated with 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 163 
 
 consuming toil, and sweat oozing from every pore. 
 The weaver, that so deftly plies his shuttle, throws 
 it aside, and rests his nimble hands. What these 
 momentary cessations are to a workman in the course 
 of a day, his Sabbaths are to hira in the course of 
 his day-of-iife. They are so many resting-places or 
 breathing -moments, in the course of his laborious 
 existence. The poor man is much the better of it; 
 and the world is served none the worse by allowing 
 him one day in seven to rest his weary limbs. Were 
 the world to wrest it from him, and compel him to 
 toil and moil through a life on which no Sabbath 
 would ever shine, it would release him the sooner 
 from its service, and drive him to another world to 
 appeal from tyranny to God. There are none who 
 can appreciate the Sabbath equal to the toil-worn 
 man. It possesses a charm to him which it denies 
 to his more fortunate fellow-man. Its highest bless- 
 ings are alike shared by the peer and the peasant; 
 but the one can extract from it an enjoyment which 
 to the other is but everyday fare. It is emphati- 
 cally the poor man's day; and no wonder although he 
 looks with a jealous eye on every symptom of the 
 times that threatens to deprive him of his invaluable 
 boon, conferred on him in a special manner by the 
 God of the rich and poor. He who would tear from 
 the sacred book that precious leaf which bears those 
 blessed words, " In it thou slialt not do any work," 
 must be ranked as the poor man's greatest foe — one 
 
164 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 who degrades him with the beasts of the field — one 
 who refuses to acknowledge him as an intelligent 
 being and an heir of immortality. Every working- 
 man knows how necessary the Sabbath is to recruit 
 his wearied frame. It is as necessary to him as the 
 food he daily eats. The one, like a slow poison, 
 might take a longer time to operate, but eventually 
 it would bring him to a premature grave. To those 
 who know nothing of what labour is, we shall state 
 the opinion of Dr. Farr in his evidence before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons. He says, " the 
 alternating of night with day is not more essential 
 for the well-being of the physical frame of man, than 
 is the cessation from labour one day in seven. In 
 fact, that the machinery of man, in one respect, re- 
 sembled that of an eight-day clock; he runs out if 
 not wound up regularly once a-week ; and the pro- 
 cess of winding up requires twenty-four hours for its 
 due completion. One day in seven, by the bounty 
 of Providence, is thrown in as a day of compensa- 
 tion, to perfect by its repose the animal system." 
 
 2. The advantages of the Sabbath as a day of 
 rest become endeared to us, when we reflect that 
 competition in trade extracts from the working classes 
 the very utmost of their j^hysical strength. Man is 
 his own, — it may be he can claim no other pro- 
 perty than himself. But this right which he has 
 of himself, is taken advantage of by many un- 
 principled task-masters. Competition is driven so 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 165 
 
 hard now-a-days, tliat the poor man has often to 
 make up, by hard labour, any loss connected with an 
 engagement or contract which an avaricious specu- 
 lator may throw himself into. This often exposes him 
 to worse usage than the inferior animals. The very 
 worst of men, for their own interest, will not over- 
 burden and over-work those animals that belong to 
 them, for they know well that the price at the mar- 
 ket will materially depend upon their sound condi- 
 tion. But the poor labourer has no such protection; 
 if his death is caused by over-work, it is not felt by 
 his oppressor as in the least injurious to his earth- 
 born interests. But the loss of his horse, would send 
 a blow quivering to his inmost soul. He labours his 
 horse as something connected with himself, giving it 
 proper intervals of rest, that he may be no loser by 
 it; he has some interest in the poor animal, and per- 
 sonal interest, in the heart of a gross worldling, will 
 produce kindness to others for his own sake. 
 
 We shall here give an extract from a treatise on 
 the means of ameliorating the condition of Artisans 
 in France, by M. Emile Beres, and we appeal to the 
 whole working-classes if it does not exactly apply 
 to our own land. " Employers are often guilty of 
 unpardonable carelessness with respect to the em- 
 ployed. To see their conduct one would suppose 
 that the men in their service were inert machines, or 
 else that they possessed the power of the Creator to 
 reconstruct broken limbs, to restore exhausted con- 
 
166 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 stitutions, or to give life to the dead. Here a dele- 
 terious atmosphere, which ought to be carefully puri- 
 fied, is imprudently allowed to be inhaled; there a 
 poison which ought to be handled with precaution, 
 is allowed to penetrate every pore. Further on, 
 as if man had wings, he is embarked on the most 
 fragile scaffolds. Again, he is inconsiderately left to 
 prosecute dangerous researches, which demand the 
 utmost care. It is not thus we should act, when the 
 health and life of human beings are in question. To 
 such neglects how many families owe their poverty 
 and misery." 
 
 Having thus taken a brief view of the aspect 
 of the working populace to which they could justly 
 subscribe, the mind naturally looks for protection 
 and sympathy away from man — all rights being 
 invaded to the very utmost. It endeavours to 
 discover some superior law or standard which per- 
 emptorily demands a fixed interval of rest and leisure 
 for the poor and oppressed, of which no one dare 
 deprive him without threats or punishment pending 
 over his head. Our day of toil is lengthened to such 
 an extent, that men in the prime of life wear a look 
 as if they had reached their grand climacteric. 
 And the great ones of the earth cannot afford to 
 release us sooner from our oppression, in case it 
 should interfere with some economical theory. Thus 
 driven from man, we find a Protector more powerful 
 than the greatest tyrant that ever trod on the rights 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 167 
 
 and liberties of the poor, — a Protector whose divine 
 mandate dare not be trampled upon with impunity. 
 And but for the fact tliat the sacred volume contains 
 an imperative command to observe the Sabbath as a 
 day of rest, the existence of the working population 
 would become one of never ending toil. Can less 
 than this be inferred from the many encroachments 
 that are now being made in the way of enticing 
 workmen to disregard the Sabbath as a day of ces- 
 sation from toil, in order to pander to the avarice 
 of speculators? 
 
 3. The advantage of the Sabbath as a day of rest 
 is strongly impressed upon our mind, by daily wit- 
 nessing many of our felloiv-worhnen the victims of ojj- 
 pressive labour. Oh, it is a heart-touching sight to 
 behold an industrious and honest tradesman, suffer- 
 ing, in the prime of life, from disease produced by 
 his employment, — the body racked with ponderous 
 weight, or the lungs stifled by the dust flying from 
 his tool. It is more touching still to behold him, 
 with wasted form and death-like countenance, take 
 his stand among his fellow-workmen at his place of 
 work. Nothing but dire necessity called him there 
 — a wife and children depending upon the produce 
 of his hands; — he will stretch himself to the very 
 utmost to provide for their wants, rather than see 
 them depending on the charity of others. We have 
 seen such cases, — men in living form displaying the 
 frame -work and the skeleton of life, plying the 
 
1 68 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 hammer. So anxious have they been to provide for 
 those depending upon them, that, over-rating their 
 own strength, and impelled by the noblest motives, 
 they would make an attempt at work, but in a few 
 minutes weakness compels them to give it up. Follow 
 such a one to his home, — on account of a protracted 
 illness, it has been long barely supplied with the com- 
 forts of life, and can afford him nothing but the coarsest 
 fare. He forgets himself, and looks only to his wife 
 and helpless children, who will soon be left to a cold 
 world, without a stay save the strong arm of heaven. 
 To be deprived of him as their support and daily 
 provider, — the thought crushes his spirit, and as the 
 last breath heaves his bosom, the glassy eye of death 
 is fixed on the weeping group. There could be many 
 such cases told in connection with almost every trade 
 and calling at the present day, of men who, either 
 by over-exertion or over-confinement in their re- 
 spective employments, have fallen in the very prime 
 of manhood. And if this takes place even when we 
 enjoy the Sabbath, how indefinitely multiplied would 
 human misery and mortality be were it blotted out 
 of the calendar of days! 
 
 Just let one who has been 25 years working at a 
 trade look along his past life, and endeavour to pick 
 out all the Sabbaths he has enjoyed during that pe- 
 riod. He will find that they amount to 1,300, or 
 more than 3^ years. This is no small amount of time, 
 more especially when we consider that it has all 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. ] 69 
 
 been at our own disposal, devoted to rest and leisure. 
 One can scarcely fail to see how much more advan- 
 tageous it is to have this amount of rest scattered at 
 regular intervals over our laborious lives, than to en- 
 joy them all at once. The regular return of the 
 Sabbath, is so peculiarly suited to us as workmen, 
 that we can scarce fail to see the hand of Infinite 
 Wisdom in its establishment. Each makes its peri- 
 odical visit single and alone, so that we are not to 
 enjoy more than one at a time, neither are we allowed 
 to labour two weeks, without a Sabbath forcing itself 
 in between them. The wisdom of this arrangement, 
 may be seen by any workman from his own personal 
 experience. Were he to deprive himself of any of 
 those intervals of rest in the course of a day, with 
 the view of getting it added to his leisure at the end 
 of the day, he finds himself injured by his impru- 
 dence, and unable to give the same energy and 
 strength to his next day's toil. 
 
 4. The advantage of the Sabbath as a day of rest, 
 is seen by the working man, when he considers the 
 unstationary nature of places of worl-. This is an in- 
 convenience little thought of by others. The place 
 of work to many is of so changing a nature that at 
 one time a workman may be employed at his own 
 door, and at another he may have to travel miles 
 every day, before he can reach his place of employ- 
 ment. With the exception of the Sabbath, he never 
 sees home in the broad lio:ht of day. Take the case 
 
1 70 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 of a labourer in the field. The first crowing of the 
 cock is his alarum-bell; it may be, as in many cases, 
 the poor man's chronometer. At that dark hour of 
 the morning which precedes the dawn, and ere a 
 single ray has emerged from the east, he leaves his 
 home when all the inmates are silent and wrapt in 
 sleep. He takes his supply of provisions that is to 
 serve him for the day, and wends his way, solitary 
 and alone, through the silence and blackness that 
 prevail all around. It may be in the dead of winter; 
 — and after labouring in the field for some hours, 
 exposed to a nipping frost- wind or drenching rain, 
 which so soaks his clothes as to make his very limbs 
 stiff and unwieldy, he seeks out a shelter from the 
 wild elements in the corner of a hedge; — or perhaps 
 a better is formed by the trunk of some neighbouring 
 tree. Here he stands cold and shivering, and with 
 dripping clothes unfolds the napkin from his cold 
 meal; and as the bleak wind sweeps across the plain, 
 and keeps up a melancholy sough among the branches 
 a- top, the poor cottar stands eating his crust of bread. 
 Never did fireless savage finish a colder repast. There 
 are other cases again of tradesmen who seldom know 
 the comforts of having a diet at home on their own 
 tables. The workshop is so distant, that to travel 
 to their own homes every meal hour would be a self- 
 imposed physical oppression. They are, therefore, 
 compelled to content themselves, as they best may, 
 with a rather scanty diet through the six working 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. l7l 
 
 days. The Sabbath, more kind than other days, 
 redresses the grievance, and makes a clean sweep 
 of all the hardships of the bygone week. On 
 this day the cottar and tradesman enjoy all the 
 comforts and pleasures which their homes can be- 
 stow. The cottar, in place of his cold stand be- 
 neath the tree, in the open field, sits dry and com- 
 fortable by his own fireside. In place of his cold 
 morsel of bread, which he fared on during the past 
 week, he enjoys as warm and substantial a diet as 
 his humble means will afford. The tradesman too, 
 exchanges the dusty workshop for his own home, 
 where he breathes a purer and more wholesome at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 There is another grievance which many a poor man 
 suffers in consequence of his work being far from 
 home. The distance is at times so great that he 
 cannot mingle with his family till the return of 
 the Sabbath. We have known some travel a dozen 
 miles on Saturday night, to embrace and fondle the 
 objects of their love and affection, and receive the 
 joyous welcome of their children full of merry glee. 
 Every parent possessed of a spark of that universal 
 principle — parental affection — is compelled to admit, 
 whatever may be his creed, that the Sabbath is his 
 friend, and that they who would endeavour to secure 
 the Sabbath inviolate to him, are acting the part of a 
 friend. It imparts to him a joy irrespective of his 
 belief, and affords to all an experimental knowledge 
 
172 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 of Him who bestowed that day of rest on a labour- 
 ing world. — Let it not be forgotten, however, that 
 the man of sanctified mind values this blessed peri- 
 odical return at a far higher rate, and from far nobler 
 motives, than the man who is merely actuated by 
 the promptings of natural affection. 
 
 5. We shall merely notice another advantage on 
 this head, namely, the effect which the Sabbath has on 
 personal and domestic cleanliness. It is often seen that 
 there is no step taken in that direction till the very 
 end of the week, both in houses and by individuals, and 
 those who have no great pretensions to that quality, 
 — which, as Dr. Johnson says, ought to be ranked 
 among the Christian graces, — are shamed into it by 
 their more decent and tidy neighbours. We venture 
 to say, that were the day of rest only returning once 
 a month, in too many cases, the thorough weekly 
 cleaning operations now practised, would be deferred 
 to monthly periods. Those among the working 
 classes who have no great respect for such a quality, 
 either on week day or Sabbath, may be induced to 
 make some amendment on their person by reading 
 the following: — Mr. Fairbairn, engineer, who has 
 upwards of 1,000 workmen employed in England, 
 in giving evidence on the influence of education on 
 the value of workmen, before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, says: " It is always an indica- 
 tion of looseness of moral conduct, to see a mechanic 
 in dirt or in his working clothes upon the Sabbath. 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 173 
 
 Thirty years' experience leads me to draw a very 
 unfavourable conclusion, as to the future usefulness 
 to me, and of success to himself, of any workman 
 whom I see in dirt on a Sunday." 
 
 INTELLECTUAL ADVANTAGES. 
 
 1st. Since our work impairs the mind, the rest of 
 one day in seven is of incalculable advantage to our 
 mental faculties. When on the eve of being released 
 from work, we have taken a review of the long day, 
 back to the early hour when we commenced in the 
 morning, and lamenting that so large a portion should 
 be necessary to procure a moderate degree of comfort 
 to the body, we have made up our mind to devote 
 the fraction of the day left us to the more distin- 
 guishing part of our nature. With this resolve we 
 have wended our way home, washed the dust from 
 our brow, and endeavoured to shake off all lassitude 
 from our frame. We sit down with book in hand, 
 and attempt to gather in our wandering faculties and 
 nerve the mind for thought. The body is agitated 
 with toil, and a few minutes' rest brings a drowsiness 
 over the whole frame. A dulness and stupidity 
 gathers on the mind, which baffles all power to 
 banish. Before such formidable opponents, our pre- 
 vious resolves are utterly powerless. They give up 
 the conflict, and dull insensibility reigns over both 
 mind and body, — the head sinks on the breast, the 
 
1 74 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 hand relaxes its hold, and we are startled from our 
 short slumber by the book tumbling on the floor. 
 Another and another resolve is formed, and the ex- 
 periment as often tried; but it will not do, the results 
 all end as at first. The book is again lifted from the 
 floor, thrown aside on the table, and the night given 
 up as one lost in our existence. At more favourable 
 times, we have experienced such a deadness and 
 want of energy, that much time was spent in getting 
 the mind into working trim, — the fugitive faculties 
 ever running from their posts, the mental vision 
 dim, and that important power of fixing the atten- 
 tion weak and feeble. All these trying circum- 
 stances evidently arise from over -bodily exertion, 
 and the want of sufficient exercise of the mental 
 faculties. So long as the union between mind and 
 body exists, the one cannot suff"er without injuring 
 and impairing its more valuable companion. The 
 one sympathizes with the other, and maintains a re- 
 ciprocity of aff'ection. Every season of rest and 
 repose to the body, is a cordial to the mind. And 
 here the Sabbath forces itself upon our notice, it 
 ever stands on the foreground of the poor man's 
 temporal advantages. Our past life is studded with 
 that sweet day of rest. 
 
 2. Another intellectual advantage of the Sabbath 
 is, that the nmid is under a process of cidtiire during 
 the right observance of that day. It is true that all 
 secular pursuits are to be abandoned during its sacred 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 1 75 
 
 hours. No works on art or science, should engage 
 our attention on that day. But there are other authors, 
 whose works are devoted to our moral and religious 
 improvement; and the intellectual faculties are under 
 a process of cultivation, when engaged with them. 
 Truth, either in a book of divinity or secular know- 
 ledge, is not to be seen with any clearness, without the 
 application of an attentive and recollective mind. If 
 we read an hour closely, here is an important lesson 
 in fixing the attention upon one subject. If we stop 
 and recall to our minds the ideas we have read, we 
 exercise our memory. If we compare what we hirve 
 read with the unerring standard of divine truth, here 
 is an exercise of the judgment. It is not, however, 
 the cultivation of these faculties that is our primary 
 object. They come in as handmaids to it. They 
 are the instruments, and require to be handled before 
 our end can be attained. The end we aim at is our 
 religious knowledge, and the cultivation of our minds 
 is the accompaniment; and no one who has the least 
 semblance of reason will deny the benefit of the ac- 
 companiment to the working-man as regards his 
 temporal advantage, whatever notion or opinion he 
 may possess as to the end. It may be said that God 
 demands the heart on that day. Very true; but he 
 also demands the exercise of the intellect — not a blind, 
 superstitious, ignorant homage, as if our creed was 
 handed down as an heirloom from distant ancestors, 
 and each and all taking it as it came, without making 
 
176 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 that belief the result of his own conviction. — Perhaps 
 some will say that they can see nothing in religion 
 which can exercise their minds every Sabbath. Those 
 who say so display their ignorance, and give a plain 
 proof that they have not thought much on the matter. 
 Men of the most profound wisdom and brilliant genius 
 that have ever adorned the human race have devoted 
 their whole lives to its study, and been regarded by 
 the world as its brightest ornaments. Here there is 
 found a leaf for all capacities — " milk for babes, and 
 strong meat for men." The ploughman may find on 
 its surface truths that need only to be read to be 
 understood, that elevate his whole soul and give to 
 him a noble standing-ground; and there is wisdom 
 of such depths as the brightest minds have failed 
 to penetrate. Many a workman must have observed 
 the facility with which he runs over the pages of a 
 book, when sitting in his quiet home on a Sabbath 
 evening. The mind follows the train of ideas, and 
 comprehends the drift of the subject — engaged, per- 
 haps, in an epistle of that unrivalled master of the 
 human heart who hath said, " Prove all things; hold 
 fast that which is good." 
 
 3. The moral and intellectual faculties are so 
 allied that there cannot be a full development of 
 the one without a corresponding development of the 
 other ; and as the object of the Sabbath is to advance 
 our moral nature, it has also a bearing on our intel- 
 lectual. That there are men who have risen to 
 
THE QUEEN OF DATS. ] 77 
 
 eminence in science and literature, that have by no 
 means been famed for their virtuous conduct, is no 
 proof against our proposition, unless it could be shown 
 that under moral and religious discipline they would 
 have made no further progress in their acquirements. 
 The mind clouded by passion cannot see the truth. 
 It is as darkness to the bodily eye, — or viewing an 
 object through stained glass, which deprives it of 
 its native colour. Passion hurls reason from the 
 throne; and rage and despotism are the result of the 
 wild usurpation. That which assists to keep the 
 mind calm and serene in the midst of those trials 
 and disappointments which are the lot of all, is an 
 auxiliary to the mind in the discovery of truth. 
 Every unhallowed passion throws a veil over the 
 face of truth, blunts the mental faculties, and is a 
 beam in the eye of the understanding. " Fed by a 
 heavenly stream, the lamp of genius would burn 
 with a brighter and always with a purer flame. Not 
 only would the arts and sciences, with all that adds 
 real embellishment to life, be studied with more 
 perseverance and ardour, for moral ends; but the 
 faculties would be so pure and unclouded, so unim- 
 peded by prejudice or animal passion, that percep- 
 tion would be more vivid, the memory more reten- 
 tive, and all the powers of the mind invigorated, and 
 its acquisitions consecrated to the highest purposes." 
 A mind suitably exercised on the Sabbath, gives to 
 each petty trial in life its proper place in the feel- 
 M 
 
1 78 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 ings, and, by a just comparison of temporal and eter- 
 nal things, maintains a dignified composure through 
 all the vicissitudes of life. These are advantages 
 which many of the working-classes have no relish 
 and no taste for — those who devote the day to inglo- 
 rious ease, or revelry. The scorpion, by a peculiar 
 process of its own, extracts poison from the same 
 flower from which the bee sucks its delicious honey. 
 There may be some, in the higher circles of life, 
 who can perceive no advantage in all this to the 
 working-man. They imagine that all that the work- 
 ing-man has to do is to keep himself from the gal- 
 lows and jail, and plod on his weary round of toil. 
 They can even sit in a railway - carriage, admire 
 the wonderful velocity at which they were speeding 
 on their journey, without ever the thought entering 
 their mind that the inventor of the steed of steam 
 was a working-mechanic. They avail themselves of 
 improvements, but never think upon their authors, 
 and their names they are incurious to learn. They 
 enjoy the comforts and conveniences, without know- 
 ing or caring for the difficulties that beset the hum- 
 ble discoverer. Of much the same sort of mind was 
 Dr. Paley, as may be seen from his " Reasons for 
 Contentment, addressed to the labouring part of 
 the British public." One of his remarks is, " The 
 wisest advice that can be given is, never to allow 
 our attention to dwell upon comparisons between our 
 own condition and that of others, but to keep it fixed 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. ^ 179 
 
 upon the duties and concerns of the condition itself. 
 But since every man has not this in his power; 
 since the minds of some men will be busy in con- 
 templating the advantages which they see others 
 possess; and since persons in laborious stations of 
 life are wont to view the higher ranks of society 
 with sentiments which not only tend to make them- 
 selves unhappy, but which are very different from 
 the truth; it may be an useful office to point out to 
 them some of those considerations which, if they will 
 turn their thoughts to the subject, they should en- 
 deavour to take fairly into account." One of these 
 considerations is, " To be without work is the fate 
 of the rich, and to repose from work the fortune of 
 the poor ;" and again, " Some of the necessitiis which 
 poverty imposes are not hardships but pleasures." 
 Again, " All the provision which a poor man's child 
 requires is contained in two words, industry and in- 
 nocence." 
 
 What do those of the working classes who are 
 so fond of Paley's opinion on the Sabbath ques- 
 tion, think of these sentiments ? Perhaps they 
 will like better the sentiments of Dr. Chalmers, 
 who wishes every man to have a Sabbath. He says, 
 in his " Christian and Civic Economy," " Rather 
 than, at the basis of society, we should have a heart- 
 less, profligate, and misthriven crew, on the brink of 
 starvation, and crouching under all the humiliations 
 of pauperism, we should vastly prefer an erect and 
 
180 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 sturdy, and withal well-paid and well -principled 
 peasantry, even though they should be occasionally 
 able to strike their tools and to incommode their 
 superiors by bringing industry to a stand." The 
 one is the advocate of the poor man, and wishes 
 every son of toil to have one whole day of rest in 
 seven, and withal well-paid. The other is the ad- 
 vocate of the rich, and tells the poor man he is 
 wholly at the mercy of the rich whenever he leaves 
 the church, and possesses what the wealthy never 
 enjoy, namely, the pleasures of poverty, and the for- 
 tune of resting his weary limbs after some ten or four- 
 teen hours' labour per day. 
 
 The advice which Paley has given by no means 
 tends t4#stimulate the virtuous efforts of youth to 
 better their condition, — it tends to confine us to our 
 toil, as if we were a distinct caste. It crushes the 
 noble rivalry among the sons of toil to better their 
 condition, — throws a chillness over the fire of genius, 
 — ties the poor man like the mill horse, always mov- 
 ing but never able to get beyond his hard beaten 
 track. Dr. Paley may have himself enjoyed com- 
 forts in the course of his life, that owed their origin 
 to men in humble life who had overleaped his cold 
 and chill advice, and dared to compare their poverty 
 with the wealth of others. Ingenious Watt! thy 
 first employment was by no means lucrative; but 
 thou oughtest never to have compared thy condition 
 with that of others, but confined thy fertile ingenuity 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 181 
 
 to sharping the points of compasses, and cutting and 
 figuring mathematical scales. And thou, Arkwright ! 
 thy ragged and tattered clothes bespeak thy poverty; 
 and the love of patent-rights which nursed thy ge- 
 nius thou oughtest to have repressed, and confined 
 thy attention to the duties of the barber s chair, — or 
 at least never to have overstepped the making of a 
 periwig. The abolition of the distaff and sj^iudle, — 
 the invention of the machinery that has immortal- 
 ized thy name, — should have been left to a scion of 
 some noble family; the respect and affluence to 
 which thou hast raised thyself is an infraction of 
 Paley's morality. And William Gifford too, a poor, 
 fatherless, ragged urchin — apprenticed to a shoe- 
 maker who was a severe and hard master to him — 
 ever held in his mind's eye the station of a neigh- 
 bouring schoolmaster at which he continually aimed 
 as the height of his ambition. Poverty-stricken 
 almost beyond belief, the embryo editor of the 
 "Quarterly Review" thus speaks of himself; " I had 
 not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one, 
 — pens, ink, and paper were as completely out of 
 my reach, as a crown and sceptre. I beat out thin 
 pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrote 
 my problems upon them with a blunted awl." It is 
 found, on examining a long list of names amounting 
 to 5,000, who have distinguished themselves in all 
 ages and in all countries — that a dozen belong to the 
 royal rank of kings, about one- sixth belong to the 
 
182 THE QUEEN OF DATS. 
 
 upper classes, two-sixths to the middle ranks, and 
 the remaining three -sixths, or one -half, have de- 
 scended from the trading or poorer classes. 
 
 This digression, we hope, will not be without its 
 use, — it will show, at least, that there is a fragment 
 of mind to be found among aproned mechanics, and 
 that, therefore, they are not totally incapable of ap- 
 preciating whatever may further their intellectual 
 improvement. And the fact, that some of the recent 
 inventions of men in humble life having efTected an 
 unprecedented progress in our manufactures and com- 
 merce, ought in justice to give the poorer classes a 
 claim on the symj)athies and protection of those 
 whom fortune has placed above them. Since one- 
 half of the mind of the nation proceeds from the 
 labouring and trading population, it would be in- 
 flicting a national injury to deprive the working 
 population of the rest of the Sabbath, so indispensably 
 necessary for the preservation of both body and 
 mind. The discovery of the properties of steam in 
 the hands of the chemist, and confined within the 
 walls of a laboratory, would have been of little 
 service to the community at large; it required the 
 mind and hands of a mechanician to render it so 
 extensively serviceable to mankind. 
 
 PECUNIARY ADVANTAGES. 
 
 "On the moment," says Dr. Chalmers in his ' Civic 
 Economy,' " that the working classes could afford 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 183 
 
 to live for a given period without labour, from that 
 moment the value of their services would rise in the 
 labour market." Again: "An overstocked market 
 is either prevented or more speedily relieved, simply 
 by so many of the workmen ceasing to work, or by 
 a great many working moderately." We should 
 like these remarks to be carefully considered by the 
 classes for whom they are intended. They proceed 
 from one, far-seeing, and possessed of much practical 
 knowledge connected with every-day life, and whose 
 fondest wish has ever been the physical and moral 
 elevation of the working populace of his country. 
 What a contrast do we see within the short period 
 of a year! Workmen employed all the round of 
 24 hours; the unnatural spectacle of thousands work- 
 ing by torch-lights at the hour of midnight; and all 
 on a' sudden the same thousands are incapable of pro- 
 curing an hour's employment, they are wandering 
 through our streets in crowds, and eke out to them- 
 selves a miserable subsistence. Had they closed the 
 labour of the day when the light of heaven went 
 down, and refused to pander to employers who were 
 basting to be rich, they would have conferred a boon 
 on themselves, and on the whole public. Had they 
 reserved their night-work, which was so unnatural, 
 to the present day to be equally divided among 
 them, they would now have the independence of 
 self- supporters, and free from the degradation of 
 pauperism. 
 
184 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 The hearings of the Sahhath on the wages of the 
 working classes, may not to some appear so clear 
 and tangible as the benefits derived from it as 
 a day of rest for the body. They may imagine 
 that at the end of their lives they must needs be 
 richer by working 3C5 days in the year, than only 
 working 313 days. Let us give the matter a 
 few turns in our mind, and this supposed benefit 
 will be transformed into a monster evil. Let us 
 imagine two nations respectively equal in their 
 resources, trade, and population, — speculative and 
 enterprising men possessed of capital are also equally 
 matched. A work of a rather extensive nature, is 
 on the eve of being commenced in each. The smart 
 speculators in the one country endeavour to convince 
 the working people what a mighty advantage it 
 would be to them were they to lay aside their 'Teli- 
 gious scruples, and betake themselves to a little work 
 on the Sabbath; and in order to make it take the 
 better, would refer them to Dr. Paley, who says, that 
 it is for the most part a mere human institution. It is 
 resolved that the experiment be tried, and workmen 
 agree to give their whole time to manual labour. 
 The other nation is too fully convinced of the 
 value of the Sabbath, both from its own experience 
 and the lesson afi'orded it from the experience of 
 others, to make such a dangerous experiment. The 
 one class we shall designate Helots, who are to have 
 no Sabbath, the other Freemen. Each work is sufii- 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 185 
 
 cient to employ 100 men. Let us notice the result 
 at the completion of the two operations on the trade 
 of each country. We visit each nation at the end 
 of 6 years from the time both works commenced. 
 The helots have just finished their work, and are all 
 sent adrift on the labour market. The freemen have 
 been working the same number of years, but the 
 Sabbaths which they have enjoyed during 6 years 
 have amounted to 1 of their working years, or six 
 times 52, which is equal to 312 days; hence they 
 have yet remaining a sufficient quantity of work to 
 employ 100 workmen for another year. When we 
 find such a result arising from a mere fraction of the 
 working population devoting the Sabbath to manual 
 labour, the mind can scarcely imagine the pernicious 
 result of a whole nation so employed. Apply the 
 axiom of Political Economy to these cases, that the 
 price of labour is regulated by the supply and de- 
 mand, which every workman knows by his own ex- 
 perience. In the one case, there is a supply of 100 
 men, which must lower the wages of those already 
 employed ; in the other, there is a demand for the 
 labour of 100 men, which promises them employ- 
 ment for a whole year. 
 
 There is another view we might take of the mat- 
 ter, to show the pernicious eflfects of working on the 
 Sabbath to the pecuniary interests of workmen. 
 Take some district, either in England or Scotland, 
 whose population is sufficient to maintain COO shoe- 
 
186 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 makers. They have a pretty regular employment, 
 and have no cause to complain of the remuneration 
 for their work; and there seems to be a fair sup- 
 ply of hands to accomplish the very necessary and 
 useful demands of the inhabitants. But, in a reck- 
 less and unreflecting moment, they become the dupes 
 of crafty and designing men, who induce them to 
 devote the Sabbath to labour. When the day of 
 rest comes round, each shoemaker is engaged at his 
 trade, and performs a regular day's work; and the 
 whole craft in the district has made an immense pro- 
 gress in finishing the work of the population. Each 
 master finds his supply of orders more speedily exe- 
 cuted. It is clear that the amount of work per- 
 formed on one Sabbath by six men, is equal to that 
 which would employ one man six days. In a work- 
 shop then that has just work enough, and no more, 
 to employ six journeymen, the introduction of the 
 Sabbath as a day of work would have the same effect 
 in deranging the harmony of supply and demand as 
 the taking on an additional hand; and throughout 
 the whole trade, the pernicious system would have 
 the same eff'ect as an over-supply of labour amount- 
 ing to one for every six employed, or 100 to the 
 whole district. We know well with what a jealous 
 eye these new-comers would be looked upon by the 
 old residenters of the trade. They would be re- 
 garded, no doubt, as interlopers, who came to take 
 the bread out of their mouths. The most illiterate 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 187 
 
 among tliem, would be the most inveterate against 
 the strangers. There would soon be a mustering of 
 the craft to induce them to leave for some more fa- 
 vourable locality; and a subscription would be set on 
 foot to hasten their speedy flight and get them out 
 of sight as soon as possible. They know well, that, 
 by the application of such a number of hands, the 
 current wages would be immediately lowered — some 
 of the unemployed being compelled by necessity to 
 offer their services at any value the masters might 
 think fit to give; and in all trades, there are em- 
 ployers ever ready to take advantage of such cir- 
 cumstances. We have shown that the introduc- 
 tion of the Sabbath as a work-day is identically the 
 same as an influx of superfluous hands. There is 
 this difference, however, that in the one case they 
 were anxiously endeavouring to prevent others from 
 committing an injury which, in the other case, they 
 committed upon themselves : like what we hear of 
 the maniac, who boldly acts in self-defence when 
 threatened by another, while with his own hands he 
 is the means of his own destruction. Here, too, 
 we find those tradesmen committing a far greater 
 wrong upon themselves than that which was threat- 
 ened by others; in the one case they have the day 
 of rest with a reduction of wages, — in the other, no 
 Sabbath-rest, and less wages to boot. 
 
 The more we think of the rest of one day in 
 seven, the more are we convinced of its beneficial 
 
188 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 effects uiDon the wages of workmen. Trade-unions, 
 contrasted with it, dwindle into their own littleness. 
 The Sabbath may be regarded as a national union, 
 belonging to no particular trade, but throwing its 
 protective wings over all employments of every 
 name. It needs no monthly or weekly subscrip- 
 tions to keep it in existence. It employs more hands 
 at work, gives us better wages, and one day of rest 
 at the end of every six days' work. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING THE SABBATH FROM 
 ALL ENCROACHMENTS OF UNNECESSARY LABOUR. 
 
 1. This is forced upon our notice when we com- 
 pare the Sabbaths of the present day ivith those that 
 once existed in our land. 
 
 The historian reminds us of the peaceful Sabbaths 
 of our forefathers. The poet, too, has made them the 
 theme of his song, and clothed them in all the charms 
 of poetry, appealing to the feelings of the heart, that 
 their degenerate children might weep for their de- 
 parted glory. Had Graham e lived at the present day, 
 and described the aspect of our Sabbath, he would 
 not havejndulged in such a continuous strain of ad- 
 miration. Here and there we would have found him 
 lamenting the loud noise of traffic that ever and anon 
 grates upon our ear. Had he heard the roar of en- 
 gines and the roll of wheels breaking the peaceful 
 Sabbath of many a hamlet, we would not now read 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 189 
 
 of " Peace o'er yon village broods — all, all around is 
 quietness." When we reflect upon thousands of our 
 fellow - workmen who have been deprived within 
 these few years of their Sabbath-rest, who once en- 
 joyed the privileges of that day along with ourselves 
 — and reflect also on the peaceful Sabbaths which 
 once so happily prevailed in our land, the boast and 
 the honour of our people and the admiration of all 
 the nations of the earth, which infused into the 
 minds of our peasantry and artisans that high-toned 
 principle of integrity and stern adherence to truth 
 which made the name of Scotsman a passport into 
 any nation — one is naturally led to ask, amid such re- 
 flections, Shall this downward course in violating the 
 day of rest be permitted to proceed further on in its 
 march to trench on the inalienable rights of the work- 
 ing population ? If those who have no regard for the 
 Sabbath, and for the welfare of those whom fortune 
 has placed under them, are allowed, without let or 
 hindrance, to give full play to their cruel and wanton 
 caprice, will no other workmen be dragged out from 
 their quiet retreat and peaceful homes on the hal- 
 lowed day? These are questions which every work- 
 ing-man would do well to consider, if he has any 
 regard for his own welfare and those depending upon 
 him. A true answer might be found in our own 
 breast, and in our own land, without going to an- 
 other nation for facts to assist us in our conclusion. 
 The downward course of an individual in morals, if 
 
190 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 uncliecked by external circumstances, always entails 
 some awful calamity upon its devoted victim. We 
 find the nation making rapid progress, and ever get- 
 ting more and more distant from the point of virtue 
 than when it first started ; and he who knows the 
 law of morals — ever stern and invariably true — can- 
 not fail to see that, unless checked, Sabbath-desecra- 
 tion will at length assume a strength that will enslave 
 the poor labourer and be subversive of the present 
 state of society. " The first step costs," says the 
 Spanish proverb. The encroachments on the Sab- 
 bath should have been repressed in the bud. The 
 cupidity of reckless speculators having once tasted 
 of Sabbath-gains, others, as unprincipled, long to be 
 at the same employment. 
 
 2. The importance of preserving the Sabbath 
 from all encroachments comes out in a very strong 
 light when we consider the enslaved condition of worh- 
 men in those nations from whose iveek the Sahhath has 
 almost been obliterated. 
 
 This is the most powerful proof we can have of the 
 danger of slight encroachments; and we should be 
 the more alarmed when we find our own nation 
 gradually approaching to the likeness of one whose 
 working population have no protection from their 
 taskmasters' depriving them of the rest of one day 
 in seven. Men of all trades are subjected, like serfs, 
 to perpetual toil. What is to prevent another na- 
 tion from being so degraded ? What guarantee have 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 191 
 
 our labouring population that their rights will not be 
 so wrung from them? Nothing that the labouring 
 classes can do singly by themselves, can avert the 
 calamity; for we often witness the many failures 
 they suffer in demanding their rights from single 
 taskmasters. For workmen to maintain an indiffer- 
 ence as to whether the Sabbath question will prosper 
 or fail, manifest a lamentable want of reflection; in 
 refusing to take advantage of the lesson arising from 
 the painful experience of others, for the guidance of 
 their own conduct, or else an ignorance of the real 
 condition in which workmen are subjected to in 
 France. There, the blacksmith is seen working at 
 his anvil, and the mason mounting the gangway to 
 the scaffold, after his meals on the Sabbath, — the 
 shoemaker sits at his stool, and the tailor is bent 
 over his work, without a day he can really claim 
 as his own. When we think of thousands that have 
 been called into employment on this day, in our own 
 land, who formerly enjoyed the sacred rest, we na- 
 turally ask, what next class of operatives shall be 
 called into requisition, if this state of things be not 
 averted? Judging from the past we may say, what- 
 ever class can be most easily gained over by the 
 votaries of gold to serve their ends, and for whose 
 enslavement they can invent some wretched sophistry 
 to gain the sanction of the public, and put a gloss 
 over their injustice. 
 
 Let us briefly state a few facts to show the degraded 
 
192 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 couditiou of the working population in France. A 
 recent traveller who made a tour through France, gives 
 us lamentable information relative to the degraded 
 condition of artisans in that country. His accounts 
 are indeed valuable to every reflecting mind, and 
 serve as beacons to scare us from a similar fate. 
 *' On Sabbath morning," he says, " before breakfast 
 I took a stroll through the upper part of the town — • 
 Moulins — I heard an anvil ringing from the strokes 
 of a hammer; upon looking into the shop, I saw the 
 smith and his daughter, a girl of about seventeen or 
 eighteen, both busily engaged in forging a bar of 
 iron." Again, he says, " In Paris there were very 
 extensive buildings going on in the Garden of Mar- 
 beuf, behind the house we lived in, and the whole 
 workmen employed were as regularly at work upon 
 Sundays, from morning till night, as on other days 
 of the week." In the Scottish Christian Herald 
 for August, 1841, we find another testimony to 
 the same effect, and — what is of more importance to 
 our present object — it shows the cause which creates 
 much of Sabbath work, and which has already de- 
 prived thousands of our own countrymen of their 
 birthright. To working men of all trades it sounds 
 with a loud warning to resist every public sanction 
 to Sabbath desecration, with the view of affording 
 pleasure or recreation; and those who are enjoying 
 pleasure trips or other amusements at the expense of 
 others will see by it, that they in turn may be com- 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 193 
 
 pelled to work to afford pleasure to some other party. 
 " The whole week's preparations," says the writer, 
 "are made for the Sunday in the following manner: 
 — Some get up a pleasure party for the theatre, or 
 ball, in winter, or for an excursion into the country 
 in summer j the more wise (according to the wisdom 
 of the world), set aside the day to do some particular 
 thing. For instance, the shopkeeper sells and buys 
 on week days, and devotes the Sunday to arrange his 
 accounts; in a word, anything not required to be 
 done day by day, is reserved for the Sunday, such 
 as concluding a bargain of importance, or to execute 
 a^ work requiring particular care, putting the shop 
 or warehouse to rights, repairing machines, <fec., <fec. 
 Consequently, to some the Sunday brings with it so 
 much to do, that it is not a day to be desired by 
 them; as for instance, the tailors, shoemakers, and 
 all persons who prepare articles of dress and orna- 
 ment, are fully occupied on the Sunday morning to 
 supply the things ordered during the week for Sun- 
 day evening's entertainment." It would take no 
 small degree of argument to convince many of our 
 working population, that if the reins of pleasure 
 were let loose on the Sabbath it would militate 
 against their liberty, widen and deepen the chasm 
 that subsists between them and the higher orders of 
 society, and produce a system of far greater ine- 
 quality than they ever yet experienced. Were 
 they but fully convinced of this fact, there would be 
 
194 THE QUEEN OF DATS. 
 
 a firm and sturdy opposition given to all the seduc- 
 tive proposals that are at present held out to them, 
 and those who come forward and use their influence 
 to hide the cloven foot of avarice, would be com- 
 pelled to skulk back with shame and disgrace at the 
 indignant and unanimous opposition of the whole 
 working populace. Such a conviction would be a 
 powerful auxiliary to the attempt made to regain our 
 peaceful Sabbaths, to expose the naked intentions of 
 our would-be friends, and shame them into a due re- 
 gard for the best interests of their fellow-men. From 
 these extracts, it is indeed difficult to conceive how 
 any of our working classes could be so blind to their 
 own interest; but the only process of conviction to 
 some seems to be that of painful feeling and self-ex- 
 perience. 
 
 3. We shall here endeavour to show the import- 
 ance to the working man of preserving the Sabbath 
 from all public amusements and recreations. Let us 
 imagine that not only railways are in full operation 
 on the Sabbath all over the land; but that all the re- 
 creations and pleasures which the mind of man can 
 invent, are publicly allowed. Museums are opened, 
 exhibiting their fascinating interiors, with all their 
 numberless curiosities, and as the crowd pours in 
 and out from morning till night, the poor door-keeper 
 stands in the lobby unheeded and unpitied, fixed to 
 his station the live long day, — picture-galleries are 
 open, — balls, in the evening, are also introduced, 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 195 
 
 and become the favourite resort of the light-headed 
 and light-hearted, and, in short, every advantage 
 taken of the declaration of James First of England, 
 which was published in 1618, and caused to be read 
 in all the churches. It begins as follows : — " That for 
 his good people's recreations, his Majesty's pleasure 
 was that after the end of divine service, they should 
 not be disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any law- 
 ful recreations, such as dancing, either of men or wo- 
 men, archery for man, leaping, vaulting, or any such 
 harmless recreations, &c." Were this published at 
 the present day, the votaries of pleasure, of all 
 classes, would be satisfied to their heart's content; 
 and those of our working population would be ex- 
 tolling it as the very perfection of liberty and equa- 
 lity, who are at present complaining of the inter- 
 ference of the advocates of the Sabbath, by endea- 
 vouring to withhold from them a pleasure excursion. 
 But the actual realization and possession of the 
 change will be rather a grievous matter to many 
 who little think of it. Take the case of a tailor or 
 shoemaker, who is in the habit of takino: his reo:u- 
 lar trip on the Sabbath, and enjoying what he calls 
 liberty. He pays his fare to those who keep up a 
 system of oppressing others, who happen to have a 
 different employment from that of making a coat or 
 a pair of trousers. He sits down in the carriage, 
 dressed in his Sabbath attire, he joins his jovial com- 
 panions in denouncing the Sabbath Alliance as a 
 
196 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 combination to deprive the poor man of liberty and 
 freedom. He demands liberty to the poor man as 
 well as the rich, and shows to the world that his 
 liberty extends no farther than himself. He can 
 witness the engineer and stoker, in their working 
 clothes, covered with oil and blackened with smoke, 
 engaged at their dirty work, without a single sigh 
 of sympathy or compassion rising in his breast. He 
 is loud for liberty, and yet uses all his influence to 
 oppress others. He becomes a tool in the hand of 
 the oppressor to be used against his brother-labourer. 
 He is loud about the rich grinding the faces of the 
 poor, when his own is subjected to the grinding 
 stone; but to enjoy a little pleasure, he scruples not 
 to lend the rich a hand at the grinding of others of 
 his fellow- workmen. But there is a day coming 
 when our friend shall find himself in a position some- 
 what similar to that of the poor stoker. We have 
 supposed, that under this new system, pleasures of 
 all kinds are introduced; and why not give those 
 in high life suitable pleasures as well as the lower 
 classes ? The ball in the evening — taking our fashions 
 from Paris — would be the resort of our dashing no- 
 bility. We shall soon find work for the tailor, who 
 cannot reasonably refuse to do the same work for 
 others that the engineer and stoker have done to him. 
 A week has come and gone, and he is sitting on the 
 Saturday night musing over the delightful prospect 
 of to-morrow's pleasure trip, when, lo! he is inter- 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 197 
 
 rupted by his master, who brings to him a piece of 
 work which must be finished by to-morrow night for 
 some public entertainment. With a very serious air, 
 he reminds his master that to-morrow is the Sabbath. 
 He is told in reply that there is no strict observance 
 of the Sabbath now, — that some must work that 
 others may enjoy pleasure, — and, to put an end to 
 all argumentation, " you must either do the work or 
 leave my employment." The man having no reli- 
 gious scruples, his choice is soon made, — and next 
 morning finds him within the walls of the workshop, 
 — no green fields or beautiful landscapes spread out 
 before him, not so much as a walk to church, which 
 he used to think so little of before this pleasure 
 mania became so prevalent. It may well be sup- 
 posed that the poor tailor will spend a rather lonely 
 day, — this being the first-fruits to him of the public 
 licence of Sabbath desecration, and that he will have 
 a deep grudge against those who consult their plea- 
 sure at the expense of his confinement. 
 
 If he is something of a reasoner, he will naturally 
 fall into the following soliloquy. Last Sabbath I 
 enjoyed myself among a number of thoughtless and 
 giddy companions, who cared nothing for those en- 
 gaged in transporting us along the railway; and after 
 we were landed far away from the smoke of the 
 town, we sauntered among woods and green fields all 
 day, while the stoker and engineer confined to the 
 melting heat of the furnace, had to speed on with 
 
198 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 another pleasure party. I must charge myself with 
 cruelty in thus countenancing the oppression of others. 
 This public licence of pleasure, in place of producing 
 an equality, makes the inequality of the rich and poor 
 far greater than before. If the balls were put down, 
 I would then be at liberty. If railway travelling 
 were put down, the engineer and stoker, with all the 
 other labourers employed at railway traffic, would 
 also be at liheHy. If museums and picture-galleries 
 were shut, door-keepers and other attendants would 
 also be at liberty. If the mails were not carried on 
 the Sabbath — which might well be dispensed with 
 when we consider the velocity of travelling by steam 
 — 15,000 Post-office clerks would also be at liberty. 
 The best means of promoting an equality, is to make 
 a suspension of all public recreations and amuse- 
 ments; for they cannot exist without some work, 
 and when that is required the poor man is deprived 
 of his Sabbath. 
 
 Such would naturally be the cogitations of one who 
 had formerly enjoyed his Sabbaths, and was now 
 deprived of them under the supposed circumstances. 
 The working population ought to guard against all 
 publicly recognised recreations or amusements; for 
 if once work begin for these, it will open a flood- 
 gate for the admission of all the other trades. If it 
 is no violation of the Sabbath for men to be em- 
 ployed in railway traffic for the pleasure of others, 
 or the tailor or shoemaker in preparing articles of 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 199 
 
 wear for public entertainment, there can be no vio- 
 lation of it in the merchant's being confined behind 
 his desk, in the blacksmith plying his hammer, or 
 the mason carrying up his wall. The best preserva- 
 tive of the Sabbath from work is to keep down all 
 Sabbath desecration, — to maintain it in all its purity; 
 — this will give impartial liberty to all, — so that 
 none shall enjoy their pleasure at the expense of 
 another. 
 
 We could never tell, and the mind cannot con- 
 ceive, all the advantages which the labouring man 
 derives from his Sabbath day. It might assist him in 
 the work, however, were he to endeavour to picture 
 in his imagination his forlorn condition, if deprived 
 of that unspeakable boon. Oh, it crushes the mind 
 even to think of it. The mind starts back from the 
 fearful gloom, — the world appears shrouded in dark- 
 ness enlivened by no sun. His bygone path through 
 life seems bright and cheerful, — his future, a dark 
 interminable vista, stretching on and on, and narrow- 
 ing till it is lost in perfect blackness. The mind has 
 caught a glimpse of light through the thick gloom, 
 on which it rests with pleasing melancholy. It is 
 the dark and noisome grave, which is transformed 
 into the brightest spectacle in such a world. What 
 delight could there be to live in a world where 
 the sun of our day of rest would ever shine on toil- 
 worn man, — no day of peaceful thought to shine 
 upon his brow, — but live 
 
200 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 " To sink into a timeless grave, 
 And feel that I was born ; 
 And lived and toiled for nothing, save 
 To suffer and to mourn." 
 
 The Sabbath and its duties have a most powerful 
 influence in forming the basis of that character which 
 has raised men in humble life to a respectable and 
 affluent station in society. There are many of our 
 respectable tradesmen who can bear testimony to the 
 truth of this ; and men of all creeds will allow, that 
 a good character has a powerful influence in advanc- 
 ing one in the world. The poor man s character is 
 his fortune, — he enters life without money in his 
 pocket, and without a single person to patronize him, 
 his prosperity wholly depends upon himself. Those of 
 whom Cowley says that they " are great from being 
 born," may plunge into vice and dissolute habits, and 
 yet retain a living for themselves and families. But 
 the poor man's industry and habits are all that he 
 has to depend upon for procuring a subsistence; and 
 there are so many for every employment now, that 
 the least flaw in the character would deprive him of 
 his situation. Hence everything that promotes his 
 sound moral character, tends also to promote his tem- 
 poral advantage. A young lad left his father's house 
 and entered, for the first time, on the troubled sea 
 of life, he was put as an apprentice to a mechanic in 
 a large establishment, where there were men of the 
 most dissolute habits and of all creeds. Being the 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 201 
 
 youngest apprentice, he bad to become tbe servant 
 of servants, and obey some of the most unprincipled 
 of men. Strong drink was much in use among them, 
 and he had often to procure it, or expose himself to 
 the curses of brutal men. These habits of drinking, 
 however, he carefully avoided, and was on that ac- 
 count exposed to the ridicule of all in the workshop, 
 which made him often retire and weep in secret. 
 His apprentice -companions are all in drunkards' 
 graves, and he is now a sober, respectable, and afflu- 
 ent member of society. The fruits of that moral 
 training which he received in his early years, were so 
 fixed in his mind that he became steeled against all 
 temptation. The basis of his character was laid in 
 the home and hearth of a pious parent, who carefully 
 watched and trained the opening mind in the due 
 exercise of Sabbath duties, infused into his mind the 
 high-toned morality of the Sacred Book,^ — enjoined 
 him to walk in the paths of virtue, to beware of the 
 seductive pleasures of the seducer, and withdraw 
 from all evil companions, — and closed all his advice 
 with this heart-appeal, " I have done the duty of a 
 parent; and if you come to ruin, your blood be upon 
 your own head." 
 
 Those of the working classes who maintain in- 
 difference on the Sabbath movement, and who allow 
 themselves, by their very deeds, to be held up to the 
 world as an excuse for oppression, tyranny, and ava- 
 
202 THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 
 
 rice, we would entreat, with the most heartfelt earnest- 
 ness, to make the case of their never-resting, and ever- 
 toiling companions their own. Do not wantonly and 
 cruelly give the least countenance to a system that 
 requires a single man to labour seven days in the 
 week. I know that you value the rest of the Sabbath 
 yourselves, — ^your very limbs feel gladness in the 
 uninterrupted repose, — and you would look with a 
 stern eye in the countenance of the man who would 
 dare to command, or even to hint a return to your 
 daily employment; — to put off that Sabbath dress, 
 — go quick to home, — put on your every-day attire, 
 — appear at your place of work, — and handle your 
 implements of toil. Do not consult your own plea- 
 sure at the expense of your yoke-fellows. Many 
 of them have hearts sighing, bleeding, groaning to 
 enjoy the same liberty and freedom which you your- 
 selves possess; — and let the world see that you can 
 feel for your kind, and extend to them the solace of 
 your sympathy. Consult also your own interest; 
 but do not sacrifice for present pleasure ultimate 
 good. See the danger that threatens yourselves, 
 by the increase of Sabbath labour that is spreading 
 over the land. See the approach of our common 
 foe. Shake off apathy at such an hour. Join heart 
 in heart, and hand in hand, — permit not the monster 
 evil to gain a single inch more of vantage-ground. 
 Be convinced, my fellow- workmen, that if Sabbath- 
 
THE QUEEN OF DAYS. 203 
 
 labour is allowed to progress as it has been doing 
 without let or hinderance, the upshot of the whole 
 will be — a nation without a Sabbath, and a working 
 populace without a day of rest. 
 
 EDrXBURGH : 
 FCLLARTON AXD MACXAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK.