/, 
 
 If 
 
 ^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^^ 
 
 Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 BV 110 .Y68 1849 c.l 
 Younger, John, 1786?- 
 The light of the week 
 
I 
 
A^^S'Ar^^ 
 
eSntier tfie patronage of Ijn fHajestg, anH ^M.'^. "prince Albert. 
 WORKING MEN'S ESSAYS ON THE SABBATH. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK; 
 
 fmpntEl SlhnEtngrH nf tlj^ lithtatlj, 
 
 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THE "WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 JOHN'TOUNGER. 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 
 
 fflSaitf) lEitflrabinga ig (Bcorge Pftasom. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 DAVID R0B?:RTS0N, GLASGOW'. 
 MDCCCXLIX. 
 
'IT >, 
 
 PRIHCBTOIT '^ 
 
 A©d)(y)|B)D©ATO®INl M®TrB©g. 
 
 circumstances out of which this Essay origi- 
 nated were as follows : — Towards the close of 
 the year 1S47, a Christian gentleman, lamenting the 
 fearful increase of Sabbath desecration by railway, 
 steamboat, and other travelling facilities — deeply im- 
 pressed with the intimate connection between the pre- 
 servation of the Sabbath and national morality, pros- 
 perity, and order, and being couTinced that many fal- 
 lacies were propagated by those who, for their own 
 profit, deprived the poor man of one of God's best gifts, 
 the Sabbath, and then placed the responsibility of this 
 robbery upon the poor man's shoulders, by declaring 
 that they took the day from him for the benefit of 
 himself or his fellow-workmen— determined to appeal 
 to the Working Classes themselves, and 'obtain from 
 them an unbiassed and impartial verdict upon this mo- 
 mentous subject. For this purpose he offered three 
 Prizes, of £25, £15, and £lO, for the three best Essays 
 upon " Tlie Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath to 
 the Labouring Classes, and the consequent importance 
 of preserving its rest from all the encroachments of un- 
 
Yl ADJUDICATION NOTICE. 
 
 necessary labour." In the short space of about three 
 months, 1045 Essays were received. 
 
 After a patient investigation of this vast mass of 
 MSS., whicli occupied from the close of March to the 
 close of December, 1848, we have awarded the three 
 principal Prizes as foUows : — 
 
 First Prize, £25.— To John A. Quinton, Printer, 
 
 Ipswich. 
 Second Prize, £15.~To John Younger, Shoemaker, 
 
 St. BosweU's Green, Roxburghsliire. 
 Third Prize, £10. — To David Earquliar, Machinist, 
 
 Dundee. 
 
 In making this award, we are constrained to throw 
 ourselves upon the candid consideration of the com- 
 petitors and the public. We have endeavoured to dis- 
 charge our trust as in the sight of God, and we believe 
 that we have selected the three best Essays. But we 
 cannot court a rigid and formal criticism ; nor dare we 
 presume to anticipate that our judgment will be uni- 
 versally unimpeached. Those who are inclined to test 
 its accuracy by some formal and preconceived model, 
 will probably be disappointed with our decision ; for 
 the three principal Prizes are widely dissimilar in their 
 structure, and may be said to represent three distinct 
 orders of mind. 
 
 AVe feel these remarks the more necessary because it 
 has been our privilege to obtain for the movement the 
 patronage of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen and 
 
ADJUDICATION NOTICE. Vll 
 
 His Royal Highness Prince Albert ; His Royal Highness 
 having contributed ten additional Prizes of £5 each, and 
 the British public having already given upwards of 
 seventy more. While these and other encouraging cir- 
 cumstances have greatly cheered us in our labour, they 
 have drawn additional attention to our award, and ren- 
 dered comparison and criticism much more easy and 
 probable. 
 
 "We cannot conclude this brief notice without express- 
 ing a hops that such further measures will be arranged 
 as shall aAvaken an enlarged sympathy with the object 
 throughout the British empire, and shall ensure the 
 ultimate preservation of the entire of these valuable 
 and interesting MSS. 
 
 ALEXANDER SWAN, -v 
 
 ROBERT KETTLE, \ Adjddicatobs. 
 
 DANIEL FRANCIS OAKET, i 
 
 ILontion, Drr. 15^5. 
 
 1^* The Supplemental Prize JEssat/s are publishing in 
 'The Working IMan's Charter." 
 
3iitrniiuttinn< 
 
 HE account of the author's life, 
 from his own pen, prefixed to 
 the following Essay, will ren- 
 der altogether unnecessary any state- 
 ment of ours respecting him. Our 
 duty, therefore, simply resolves itself into 
 that of satisfying the reader, that the writer 
 of the Essay is in the rank and circum- 
 stances of life that he represents himself 
 to be, and which render his testimony so 
 valuable, as speaking the sentiments, and 
 pleading on behalf, of that most valuable 
 class of the community, the working men 
 of the nation. In a letter recently received 
 from him, he makes the following observa- 
 tion, which is equally true and charac- 
 teristic, not only of himself, but of all 
 
 c3 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 others of his class, and of those generally 
 who are engaged in sedentary or solitary 
 occupations. " I write best at my work. 
 The more warm I get soling shoes, the 
 more mind I can bring up to a subject." 
 In thus contemplating our friend employed 
 in his customary work, and at the same time 
 occupying his mind in reflecting upon men 
 and morals, or the wants and the rights of 
 his kind, we can not but picture to our- 
 selves a position at once the most honour- 
 able and ennobling to man ; nor can we fail 
 to go back in our thoughts to the times 
 of apostolical simplicity, when the Great 
 Teacher of the Gentiles wrought daily at 
 his trade, being by occupation a tent maker. 
 
 A common friend of our author and of 
 Mr. Swan, one of the adjudicators, Mr. 
 David Thomson, of Warwick Street, Bel- 
 grave Square, London, having heard of 
 the success of his old townsman, wrote, at 
 the time of the Adjudication, the following 
 remarks in a note to Mr. Swan, which 
 will be most satisfactory in proof of our 
 author's position in life. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 " I have just learned Avith mucli pleasure 
 that you have awarded the Second Prize 
 for the Sabbath Essays to John Younger, 
 who is one of my very oldest acquaintances, 
 and has made many a pair of tacheted shoes 
 for me when a very small chap." 
 
 In addition to the foregoing testimony, 
 we have the pleasure of adding that of the 
 parochial minister in Scotland where our 
 author resides, and who thus kindly con- 
 tributes his also. 
 
 
 Deaii Sir, 
 
 I have had the pleasure to see your last 
 letter to Mr. John Younger, Shoemaker in 
 St. Boswell's, and it gratifies me not a little 
 to be able to say, that he is a particularly 
 intelligent, well-informed, and upright person ;• 
 most generous and benevolent in his dispo- 
 sition ; an honest icorldng shoemaker; and that 
 all who know intimately his studious habits, 
 and the talent with which he writes on any 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 subject which secures his attention, must be- 
 lieve him to be the bona fide author of the 
 Second Prize Essay on the temporal advan- 
 tages of the Sabbath. I myself entertain no 
 
 doubt on the matter. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Yours, &c., 
 Rt. Somerville. 
 
 We must not conclude this introduction 
 without thus publicly acknowledging, and 
 tendering our thanks for, the interest in 
 our author, which the Rev. Dr. Buist, of 
 St. Andrew's, the last year's Moderator of 
 the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland, was pleased to take in this Essay 
 and its writer, when requested to obtain 
 information respecting him, and to prepare 
 a sketch of his life. Our author himself 
 having supplied what was desired, it became 
 unnecessary to trouble the Moderator 
 further. For his ready willingness, how- 
 ever, to assist us, we beg to offer him our 
 most respectful thanks; and at the same 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 time to assure him^ that the kind interest 
 he manifested has afforded a very natural 
 and peculiar gratification to the author 
 himself, who is a member of the Church 
 over the Assembly of which the Moderator 
 has been honoured to preside. 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 lEnsiam, ©ion, 
 
 JHardj 3lst, 1849. 
 
i^OLOGl 
 
 lltitrli nf tijt Siitlint's lift. 
 
 ^ || compliance with the request made to me, I 
 have here drawn up an outline of my life, 
 as briefly as possible. I beg, however, to state 
 previously that, about fifteen years ago, I took 
 a notion to write out, at hours of leisure, a 
 something for the pur230se of describing prin- 
 cipally the character of our working classes ; 
 how we really subsist, think, feel, and act, in 
 our most circumscribed circumstances, in com- 
 parison with the way we have so often been 
 represented in the novels of late years, as well 
 as for the purpose of showing how an individual 
 mind will strike out its fibres, like an indigenous 
 plant, in endeavour to extract from the elements 
 around a nourishment congenial to the principle 
 of its existence. This T endeavoured to illus- 
 trate by drawing a literal autobiograjDhy through 
 the whole, as a cord upon which to string up 
 my observations. In that autobiography I have 
 
18 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 dwelt particularly upon the expansion of the 
 mind in youth, illustrating the influence of 
 casual example in the way it affected myself. I 
 have got the length of half my present age, 
 the time at which we are said to be fairly 
 '* settled in life." 
 
 I was the child of honest parents, the youngest 
 of a family of six ; was bom at Longnewton 
 (now nearly a deserted village), in the parish of 
 Ancrum, Roxburghshire, on the 5th of July, 
 1785. William Younger, my father, had been 
 born in London, and brought down here when 
 his mother died ; thus taking the contrary direc- 
 tion of Whittington, and so he fared in his 
 fortune. He was a temperate and steady work- 
 ing man, of an excellent frame of body, that 
 lasted him to the age of ninety-four, and of a 
 quiet, unassuming, cheerful spirit. 
 
 Jean Henderson, my mother, was a rather 
 superior woman as regards perception of mind, 
 integrity, and all the finer sympathies of our 
 nature. I was the only living boy of the family, 
 and I think I may truly say the child of many 
 prayers, and of some hope. 
 
 The days of childhood and early youth which, 
 according to his proper view, the wisest of men 
 justly denominated vanity, may not be worthy of 
 remark, further than as they tend to show the 
 
19 
 
 native force of the mind, and to explain and ac- 
 count for the casual direction given to its original 
 impulse, on which seems to depend so many of 
 the issues of our future life. But there may be 
 a pleasure to a mind jaded and harassed amidst 
 the toils and trammels of life, to throw back an 
 occasional glance of reflection over the sunny 
 hours and flowery fields of our simplest delights, 
 when the opening roses of life were enjoyed in 
 their freshness, their prickles yet undiscovered. 
 And of all else that we meet with in this world, 
 of sound and sympathy, what can touch our ear 
 with half the pleasure which that simple air 
 evokes, by which we were sung asleep in our 
 cradle, recalling a glow of associations — the 
 earliest endearments of a fond mother's ardent 
 caress, the clambering over her lap, with fresh 
 little hands grasping her neck in the full vigour 
 of our whole heart's love } Yes, what a review 
 is it back through the shadows of long inter- 
 vening years, to trace from memory the sun- 
 shine on the inner walls of the cottage of our 
 youth ? the moths journeying on the window 
 panes ! the twitter of the swallow under the 
 eaves, and the chitter of the sparrow in the 
 thatch ! the green grassy knoll where first we 
 culled gowans, crawflower, and wild clover ! the 
 very spots and freckle of the eggs in the first 
 
 c2 
 
20 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 bird's nest we discovered in our earliest rambles ! 
 the varied tinges of the small pebbles picked up 
 by the pathway sides as washed out of the earth 
 by the summer spate! and then the rowans and 
 other berries ! and of all other starts of sudden 
 joy, that of our little hearts at the sound of our 
 first penny whistle. And, oh ! our tiny wan- 
 derings, when astray amidst scented bean fields, 
 we have anticipated the wild bee by untimeously 
 rifling much sweet blossom ; meanwhile, a~miss- 
 ing by our guardian, every probable spot, parti- 
 cularly those of danger, are eagerly searched, 
 till hope is beginning to die away in flickering 
 shadows over the palpitating heart of the anxious 
 parent, when lo, the fluttering butterfly, uncon- 
 sciously tempting the wicked pursuit, leads the 
 little adventurer happily again forth into open 
 discovery. 
 
 These are all worth a remembrance and much 
 more. And who can slightingly forget the 
 lovely visions w^hich took fairy forms in the 
 vivid imagination of youth, at that sensitive age 
 when even inanimate objects appeared to the 
 eye like Ezekiel's wheels, instinct with the 
 moving spirit of life I Who does not regret 
 when these visions are chased away by the 
 stubborn realities of cold calculating experience? 
 The light of information with all its blessings 
 
author's life. 21 
 
 of wisdom brings nothing equivalent to the loss 
 of the " silver spoon" ever to be found at the 
 end of the rainbow. And, oh, the freshness of 
 the green heart ; age that steals it away has no 
 equivalent to bestow ; the leaves and flowers of 
 youth seemed to breathe and to feel ; in child- 
 hood I have conversed with them as with sweet 
 little sisters, and so I yet believe that they do 
 breathe and feel, though imperceptibly to the 
 callous senses and purblind philosophy of age. 
 Yes, and the appearance of that pretty bush of 
 sives, shooting up their pod heads into blossom 
 and seed, beside which, an arm child, I was first 
 laid down to sprawl on the grass, has left the 
 shadow of its life and hues on my memory, still 
 unobliterated by all the sad impressions of sixty 
 intervening years' experience of life. I love 
 its kind still, and can lie down beside them 
 here, but cannot array them in the colours of 
 my former imagination, nor return in retrospect 
 into the fancy of the first feeling. And then 
 that first red polyanthus, a flower to be loved 
 indeed; the planting and watering of it, with a 
 flock of little neighbours assembled all in gaze, 
 like Indians worshipping the sun, and with va- 
 rious expression of admiration. What a queen 
 was little Betty who could say, " it is mine in 
 gift." The charm of these recollections lies in 
 
22 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 their naturalness to the heart ! no amassment of 
 wealth can give such delight to the eje of man- 
 hood, because the pleasure lies more in the 
 simple susceptibility of the mind, than in the 
 greatness and glory of the acquisition. 
 
 No proprietor, since Noah's flood, of the 
 barony in which I was born has ever had half 
 the pleasure in his appropriation of the soil, that 
 I have had, a child tumbling about amongst its 
 grass and willows. My scholastic education was 
 limited, our distance being above three miles of 
 bad roads from the parish school : we had a 
 teacher on a small scale in our village, an old 
 man, for whose memory I still feel a decided 
 veneration ; he was so kind to us children, and 
 kept us in awe, and in heart to learn, more 
 through love than fear, and but for this I could 
 not have profited by his instruction, coercion 
 being my natural antipathy. I was kept in willing 
 attendance at this school occasionally from the 
 age of five till nine, from which, deducting 
 broken time through ague, measles, smallpox, 
 autumn vacations, and other intervening hin- 
 drances, there might be left fully two years of 
 school attendance ; in which time I acquired 
 education enough to read and con parts of 
 Scripture and Church of Scotland Catechisms, 
 our only school books, with the addition of a 
 
author's life. 23 
 
 small manual, called Mason's Spelling Book, for 
 syllabic pronunciation. 
 
 Through the course of this school time, and 
 years after, I believe I was the most busily- 
 employed individual in our parish; no stop or 
 stay till sheer fatigue, or sleep, arrested progress. 
 Twenty ^;/oys carrying on at once, all affairs of 
 moment, besides having always a hand in the 
 school-green games, alternating each other as' 
 weather permitted or fancy suggested. I had 
 also jobs of my own private inventions to attend 
 to, and to get carried forward, either to fruition 
 or failure, of experiment. Of athletics I was 
 fond as others, but had an aversion to quarrel- 
 ling and a disgust at fighting (more common 
 among country boys then than now) ; indeed, I 
 have shammed the coward to escape it, and that 
 is much to say, when sensible of being able for 
 my antagonist. It was a natural aversion over 
 and above the philosophy which I felt as intui- 
 tive that no satisfaction, no good could come of 
 it. But with all this, I got often in fault, when 
 above even the pleasure of being approved of 
 by my mother, was the pleasure of confessing 
 freely when wrong, in which case the reprimand 
 was so affecting, bringing out such new explana- 
 tions of right and wrong, which of all instruction 
 was to me the most interesting. And then the 
 
24 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 pardon so aiFectionately expressed, uj)on the seri- 
 ous promise of new obedience ; it was like a dis- 
 tillation of heavenly cordials in an earthly cup. 
 The motherly affection is a strong feeling even 
 in animal nature, but who shall estimate the 
 true feelings of a sensitive mother, whose mind 
 is awake to the whole " scene of man," and who 
 sees that she is nursing up her tender child to 
 be cast upon the world, liable, as exposed, to all 
 the gusts of passion, as well as to the casualties 
 and cold charities of life. The solitude comes 
 to be so intense as to make that mother stand in 
 the position of the most interesting spectacle on 
 earth. You may walk heroes and conquerors 
 through triumphal arches, and j)lace their statues 
 on pyramids ; but what scene of concern is that 
 for celestials to look down upon, in comparison 
 with that of the anxious eye of the watchful 
 mother guarding day and night to prevent her 
 son's folly, by advice or entreaty? often the 
 entreaty of tears, warm enough to melt anything 
 less obdurate than the heart of hardened perver- 
 sity. Fancy the holiness of such regard, the 
 intensity of its anxiety, and the satisfaction when 
 the object of its mission is attained. 
 
 There is only another care that can exceed 
 this, the Eternal Wisdom calling to the sons of 
 men, which proceeds in the direct line of a 
 
author's life. 25 
 
 Christian mother's love. But in youth I was so 
 much a piece and part of my mother, that I 
 even took a boyish pride in disappointing her 
 fears. 
 
 This was the most interesting time of my 
 father's family, when we were all together, yet 
 unbroken up, and in as far as the pinch of 
 pecuniary circumstances is not taken into ac- 
 count, we were indeed a happy family; happy 
 as regarded the order and the moral feeling of 
 all its relations. 
 
 My sisters were girls of the best disposition, 
 sprightly as larks, considerate, feeling, and kind. 
 Our mother could not so properly be said to 
 rule as to lead us, and that with an ease and 
 mildness of demeanour which put the idea of dis- 
 obedience out of countenance. Our father as- 
 sumed no apparent position of command, his 
 presence was sufficient ; the simple neglect of 
 his notice in approval was correction enough to 
 every little heart of us for any common breach 
 of decorum, and his smile the most peculiarly 
 incitive to the obedience of love. Correction 
 was a something understood to have an exist- 
 ence about the house, but, like the bogles of 
 those days, never so seen as that its real 
 features could be specifically identified. No 
 couple perhaps ever lived more in the exercise 
 
 do 
 
26 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 of the Christian faith and morality, who made 
 less show of it ; its doctrines and precepts were 
 understood, believed, and decided on once for 
 all, the life formed on the principles, and the 
 conduct regulated by its spirit ; even the family 
 worship, performed more as a privileged action 
 of the natural will, than as from an acquired 
 belief. It was a pious duty proceeding from a 
 principle clearly understood and modestly ex- 
 pressed. My father seemed rather to discounte- 
 nance those who made a blaze of profession, but 
 he was a person who made less noise in ninety- 
 four years than some will do in as many days. 
 I have hardly observed the same degree of 
 perception, of dignity, and simplicity of manner 
 combined in any one character. 
 
 At the age of nine I had got tied about me 
 a lambskin apron, and was set doM'n to learn my 
 father's craft of a shoemaker, my mother mean- 
 time contriving how she should get me to school 
 again by~and-by, to learn arithmetic, &c., when 
 their circumstances, as she had hoped, should 
 take some favourable turn. 
 
 Along with his village shoemaking, my father 
 had rented one of the village farms of those 
 days, fourteen acres, from which at this period 
 of my life he was ejected, along with others of 
 the same class ; ten or twelve of these farms 
 
author's life. 21 
 
 being thrown together under a new system of 
 husbandry, two-thirds of the village thrown 
 down, the rest left for housings to the la- 
 bourers on the new-formed farms. Much distress 
 here occurred, but above all was my distress 
 when my poor mother fell down of palsy, and 
 after ten days' illness died, at the age of forty- 
 eight. This was the first great stroke on my 
 youth, for though still in the care of my father, 
 and three dear sisters left me, I yet felt a 
 desolation of heart, which cannot be described 
 in a paragraph ; but however acute such grief, 
 the young spirit, buoyant and flexible, cannot 
 long retain the sad impression. 
 
 We struggled on in a cot-house in the village 
 about two years more, when we had to leave it, 
 as several others had done before us. We then 
 removed a short distance, to EUiston ; in this, the 
 adjoining parish, where Mr. Tulloh the pro- 
 prietor let my father a cottage, beside his black- 
 smith and joiner's shops, finding him a useful 
 man as a shoemaker in the vicinity. This was 
 in the year 1798, the year previous to the wet 
 season which perished the crops, and brought 
 the famine, since designated by the name of 
 " the dear years," when meal, then our staple 
 of living, was five times its present price. From 
 having been previously reduced in circum- 
 
28 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 stances, we were worse off than our neighbours ; 
 then was I literally a starveling, little left but 
 spirit, yet still a walking spirit, nearly light 
 enough to fly. 
 
 In these times I resorted to one of my early 
 pursuits, flew to the Ayle water and fished for 
 trout, as much for my dinner as for amusement, 
 and hence, became the proficient in that art for 
 which I have since been so noted, not only 
 amongst our Tweed anglers, but over the 
 country, and this fame was the more increased 
 by a Practical Treatise on River Angling, drawn 
 up from my own experience to please a friend, 
 and accidentally published nine years ago. 
 
 During this time I was acquiring a philosophy, 
 a purely natural philosophy in my case, which 
 set me above, or below, regarding current 
 fashions, which I was not enabled to follow. I 
 could get no Camperdown waistcoats, then the 
 rage of the young bucks of that day ; but was 
 obliged to play the fox and the grapes with such 
 things as dress, till reasoning on these matters, 
 I began to conceive that grandeur lay more in 
 the mind than in outward forms of adventitious 
 acquisition. And so that the skin was got 
 modestly covered, I regarded not appearance, 
 nor slunk back because I could not trim out 
 like some of my neighbours. I went even to 
 
author's life. 29 
 
 church, at two miles distance, in whatever garb 
 I might happen to get invested. I also dis- 
 covered where one of the first Sabbath evening 
 schools was taken up in a neighbouring parish, 
 that of Bowden, and made some juvenile ac- 
 quaintance there, a remnant of which is lasting 
 in friendship to this hour. At this school I 
 acquired, through the summer, a considerable 
 quantity of more Bible education, which still 
 remains, like a bright sun spot, reflecting the 
 holy feelings of youth on the rusted surface of 
 the memory of years. 
 
 I may here take the opportunity of declaring 
 that the richest portion of my life's enjoyment, 
 not excepting even the ardent and tender loves 
 of youth and early manhood, was my scripture 
 readings of these years. I delighted then to 
 dwell on the portions that I had formerly read 
 to my mother, or such as I thought would have 
 delighted her, supposing that her spirit might 
 be still overlooking me, I had hardly then 
 seen other books, nor knew that many others 
 existed. 
 
 The historical part of the Bible seemed of too 
 great a weight for my mind, I could make 
 nothing of it above plain relation of incidents. 
 But the poetry, the wise sayings, and the splen- 
 dour of the whole, particularly of the book of 
 
30 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 Job, the descriptions of Isaiah, the wailings of 
 Jeremiah, the wisdom of the Proverbs and 
 Ecclesiastes, the music of the Psalms, the 
 convincing power of the word and doctrine of 
 the Redeemer, his incomparable parables, the 
 eloquence of Paul with the other apostles, 
 and over all the sublimity of the Revelations, 
 " And he showed me a pure river of water of 
 life, clear as crystal, &c.," raised my young heart 
 into a frame of admiration and mental enjoy- 
 ment, so far above all earthly concernments, that 
 in the fervour of these devotions of sentiment, 
 on a sunny Sabbath morning, I could have con- 
 ceived myself as a feather in an angel's wing, 
 journeying, like Shakspeare's poet's eye, " from 
 heaven to earth, from earth to heaven." 
 
 Thus was poetry excited in my youthful mind ; 
 the power of its expression yet ungained, and 
 then to appearance in my circumstances un- 
 attainable. I had thousands of conceptions to 
 which I wished to give expression, but had no 
 language in which to embody them, and indeed 
 as few acquaintance to whom they would have 
 been intelligible. I may remark, however, that 
 I think I felt that spirit of poetry always in my 
 mind, as an original spark in my being, which 
 required only the breath of the ancient prophets 
 to blow into a flame. That flame might have 
 
author's life. 31 
 
 consumed the envelopment in time, had I not 
 by-and-by, with help of a dictionary, mastered 
 language enough to give it vent in prose, 
 and even occasional verse. It was this that set 
 me a writing, and in search of language, for I 
 had not then seen " Thomson's Seasons," my 
 first book of modern poetry. And, indeed, I 
 would have been inclined to have written much 
 poetry, had I been favoured with the early 
 means of finding expression equal to my taste, 
 but that a- wanting, I have through diffidence, 
 together with the daily distraction of attention 
 to the necessary concerns of life, been led to 
 keep the expression of it comparatively limited. 
 
 Some fifteen years ago, having conceived ideas 
 about much that I could not find expressed in 
 such authors as had fallen in my way, I at- 
 tempted to give them vent in a pretty long 
 poem, a first canto of which 1 was foolish enough 
 to publish, under the title of " Thoughts as they 
 Rise;'' but this fell, as might have been ex- 
 pected from a country press, nearly as dead as 
 a stone, though I supposed, and still do think, 
 that there were several good verses in it. The 
 few short poems I have preserved, written on 
 various subjects, would not make up what might 
 be called a volume ; they fall more properly into 
 place as dispersed throughout the fore-men- 
 
32 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 tioned autobiograpliy ; and, indeed, I have felt 
 afraid of risking credit on the publication of 
 poems, finding from experience that they take 
 no hold on the mind sufficient to secure a stand- 
 ing to their existence, unless they be excellent, 
 quite above mediocrity, and that is what only a 
 few of the highest minds have attained to. 
 
 The two " dear years" were a natural famine, 
 the two that followed became to us the famine 
 of reduced circumstances ; in which time, had it 
 not been for the kindness of the Elliston family, 
 particularly of Mrs. Tulloh, mother of the pre- 
 sent proprietor, a lady of superior taste and 
 motherly feeling, who never failed to contrive 
 errands to bring me to the house, where the 
 servants were directed to give victuals, I believe 
 I might have literally starved. The memory 
 of the good is always embalm^ed in some bosom 
 — as her memory is in mine. 
 
 At Whitsuntide, 1802, my father removed 
 with us to this, St. Boswell's, the parish village, 
 where from diligence and better times his cir- 
 cumstances soon became improved; when, still 
 in the vigour of life he contracted a second 
 marriage, not supposing that we would leave his 
 house till we should go out individually, as we 
 might see a settlement in life. But my sisters, 
 become women in the prime, could not agree 
 
author's life. 33 
 
 to the idea of continuing under a new mother. 
 One of them kept my father's house, the others 
 were out at farmers' service ; when on a day we 
 all four met by appointment, went down to 
 Tweedside, where, after a full consultation, it 
 was decided that I should purchase some second- 
 hand furniture, for the payment of which they 
 would club their year's wages, and lease a cot- 
 tage, in which one or other of them should reside 
 with me, whilst two should keep out at service ; 
 that I should Avork journeyman for my father, 
 bringing the work into my own house, till I 
 should see how I might begin the world on my 
 own footing, when my father could get on with 
 a journeyman in my stead. In this arrangement 
 it was agreed that, whoever of us should marry, 
 should walk out, leaving the mutual furniture 
 to the last remaining. 
 
 This agreement was religiously observed, and 
 much more than all — as has been all our other 
 family dealings to the last. My father was, 
 happily, enabled to do afterwards for himself and 
 his wife, having no further family. My youngest 
 sister and I were the only two of the four who 
 married, and have, for seven years past, been the 
 only survivors of the family. 
 
 I do not know that it may be in place here to 
 relate how, as one of three hundred thousand, I 
 
34 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 became a local volunteer at the age of eighteen, 
 in the time of Bonaparte's threatened invasion, 
 in the year 1803; how, on the 31st of January, 
 1804, I run with musket on shoulder ten miles 
 to head-quarters, on the false alarm, by the 
 beacons being lighted up all over the Scottish 
 border, — continued a volunteer five years, often 
 very hard drilled, and when broken up, joined 
 the Local Militia for five years more ; did this 
 to prevent the necessity of serving in the regular 
 militia, for which I had then been drawn, and 
 to which I felt a decided aversion, and no means 
 of providing a substitute, sixty pounds being 
 then a common bounty for a substitute, while I 
 could not by any possibility have raised sixty 
 shillings on earth. My natural aversion to be- 
 coming a soldier in earnest was increased from 
 entertaining a strong idea of the particular re- 
 sponsibility of a family dependence on me, from 
 which I could not bear the idea of even seeming 
 to flinch. At the age of twenty-five I married 
 Agnes Riddle, two years younger than myself; 
 this occurred after the death of her good honest 
 father, who had, from our first coming to the 
 village, regarded me as one of his own family, 
 (she had previously lost her mother too,) and 
 now was left alone in her father's rented cottage 
 in the village, with its furniture and small effects 
 
author's life. 35 
 
 bequeathed to her, which gave me a decided 
 advantage to commence a beginning for our- 
 selves. Her three brothers were all then dis- 
 persed amidst the wars over the continent, and 
 so lost for the time being. They have all since 
 been found, and all lost again on earth, save the 
 eldest, Robert, who is still alive in London, the 
 same kind helping friend that he ever has been 
 since our first very early acquaintance. 
 
 I am still in the same village, where I have 
 been tugging on daily since at my shoemaking, 
 and occasionally fish-fly dressing, in circum- 
 stances occasionally a little better or Avorse, 
 through a vast of casual occurrences which 
 cannot be detailed here, generally pretty hard 
 to contend with. But having been blest with 
 nerve and muscle hitherto, and certainly pretty 
 full in what phrenologists might call the organ 
 of hope, inheriting a spirit not to be subdued by 
 mere appearances, I have got on wonderfully, 
 and am yet left in the blessing of general good 
 health and vigour at the age of sixty- three. I 
 have my good wife still spared to comfort me, 
 and to be comforted after having been joined 
 above thirty seven-years. 
 
 Of eleven children we have only the three 
 first born alive, two daughters and a son, all 
 married, and from whom have arisen to us 
 
S6 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 twelve grand- children, all loved little ones, in 
 present health and good liking. 
 
 I have had a feeling of deep interest in four 
 generations; first, in my father's pecuniary straits 
 in the time of my youth ; next, in my sisters' 
 concernments; again, in our children's; and now, 
 " life's cares are comforts," my little grandees 
 are as interesting, and claim as much attention 
 as any of the preceding. I see it would be 
 the same should I be spared to the age of Me- 
 thuselah. 
 
 My life has in other respects been too mo- 
 notonous to present many points so decidedly 
 striking as to make an abstract of the whole 
 sufficiently interesting. It is otherwise in detail, 
 where a concurrence of incidents, trifling or 
 common in themselves, get warped together, 
 making up scenes which, taken in a collective 
 point of view, give matter for amusing and in- 
 structive description. 
 
 Having had a good deal of acquaintance and 
 a consequent correspondence through the last 
 thirty years, where a quantity of thought came 
 to be disposed of relative to passing events, and 
 expressive of casual feelings in a variety of 
 circumstances, I took a notion of preserving 
 copies of these letters, till they have accumulated 
 volumes, which are now a curiosity to myself to 
 
author's life. 37 
 
 at least ; as besides recalling the memory of old 
 friendslii23S, they have become a kind of free 
 history of the past state of mind and matters in 
 the locality, under various degrees of interest 
 and excitement. 
 
 My view in observing these matters here is 
 more particularly to take this opportunity to 
 account for, or to make excuse for, one in my 
 circumstances having attempted to write at all, 
 that taste, agreeably to the opinion of many, 
 lying out of the line of a working man's occu- 
 pation. Indeed, I have often been censured 
 for it by neighbours, even by some professing 
 themselves scholars, as if I were taking undue 
 indulgence from the bondage of circumstances, 
 or intruding as a poacher upon the manor of 
 their appropriation. But I have conceived that 
 it was more rational at least to indulge in this 
 taste, even as an amusement, than to trifle 
 through hours of bodily relaxation in a manner 
 in Vvdiich mind could hardly be said to have any 
 acknowledgment as a quality in our constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Under these impressions it may be supposed 
 W'hat must have been my feelings when I saw 
 the advertisement of the prizes oflfered by Mr. 
 Henderson for Essays on the Sabbath, to be 
 written by strictly working men. Here was a 
 
38 SKETCH OF THE 
 
 new thing on earth, from which a new era 
 in the course of human affairs may be des- 
 tined to take its date. " The man and the hour 
 have come ! " In all past ages when were we 
 working classes ever before invited to write ? 
 and then, think of the grandeur of the first 
 subject ! 
 
 I had conceived a high opinion of many of my 
 brethren — my younger brethren; I knew there 
 was much mind amongst them, and good dis- 
 position too ! And was not even sorry to think 
 that I might stand low in the competition, in 
 consequence of the late improved modes and 
 means of education, compared with those of my 
 youth. I am much gratified, however, that my 
 own diligence in self-improvement has been so 
 appreciated, and so generously rewarded. 
 
 If I might here presume to drop a passing 
 word of advice to those of my own class, judg- 
 ing from my own experience, I would say, teach 
 — learn — all we possibly can, of whatever relates 
 to the cultivation of our mind, the immortal part 
 of our nature. The earlier we begin in life the 
 better! but never too old to make some useful 
 improvement for time or for eternity — to do 
 some good. We may live through a long life 
 without knowing what we are capable of — never 
 weighing our own powers, — qualities which too 
 
author's life. 39 
 
 often lie dormant in the constitution of our mind, 
 like gold ore in the soil of California ; indeed a 
 far more precious treasure. It is a pity to think 
 that we may perish without being aware of our 
 possession — without having discovered the point 
 in which we may be individually calculated to 
 excel. 
 
 Were we industrious to cultivate the powers 
 of our minds, we might attain to an excellence 
 beyond our conception, which would enable us 
 to appreciate more highly -svhat our Maker has 
 set forth for the exercise of these powers in his 
 wonderful works of creation, of providence , and 
 of redemption. 
 
 ~;^^^(^^< 
 
 
Rest, and be thankful." 
 While I breathe I hope.' 
 
€ljt ligijt nf tljt Ixmt 
 
 X no attribute of liis divi- 
 nity is the Supreme Go- 
 vernor of the Universe 
 more conspicuous than in the wisdom of his 
 institution of the Sabbath as a day of 7'est. 
 
 The power to sow the immensity of the 
 fiekis of space with innumerable worhls. 
 
 b2 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 flaming forth tlie reflected glory of their 
 Creator, is not even more striking than is 
 the moral grandeur of the institution of the 
 Sabbath, as indicative of the prevailing care 
 of the everlasting Father of the spirits of 
 all flesh. 
 
 Christianity is not more essential to the 
 salvation of the human race, than the Sab- 
 bath duly sanctified is to the support of 
 Christian principles in the world. Hence 
 the infinity of the wisdom of the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 Though the appointment of the Sabbath 
 was not made nor required until the sixth 
 day had brought in the date of man on 
 the earth, yet its introduction for his bene- 
 fit was in perfect accordance with the whole 
 order of creation, disturbing nothing of 
 previous arrangement. The earth had be- 
 gun to revolve in her orbit to give the 
 seasons, and on her poles, producing the 
 agreeable vicissitude of day and night ! 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 The ocean had ebbed and flowed ! The 
 winds had stormed and cahned, in alternate 
 motion and rest. Leviathan had sported 
 himself in the brine, and again resting his 
 bulk on the deep, slept with the moon- 
 beam on the stilled waters. The lion and 
 the bull had ranged the forest and roamed 
 the meadow, and anon sought the den 
 and the shade for repose. From the poly- 
 pus in the sea-cavern, to the eagle on 
 the mountain- cliff, and the lark hymning 
 his Creator's praise on the morning sun- 
 beam, all felt and knew theii* seasons of 
 alternate action and rest. But for man 
 something of a higher character was neces- 
 sary, and was graciously provided! Al- 
 though with his other earthmates in the 
 animal part of his constitution his bodily 
 powers, exhausted by the fatigue of the 
 day, might have been resuscitated by the 
 rest and sleep of the night, this was not 
 yet sufficient for the higher characteristics 
 
6 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 of his peculiar organization and final des- 
 tination. 
 
 He was consequently provided for, agree- 
 ably to the superior conformation of his 
 essential being. One day of seven was 
 then set apart, and, by the highest possible 
 example, consecrated, to the end of time, 
 in which man might, throughout his gene- 
 rations, the more particularly rejoice in his 
 existence, and in his favoured relation to 
 Divinity ; in which he should, for that 
 weekly-recurring day, forego his other con- 
 cerns in life, and join in the hymns of 
 the higher creation, singing " Glory to 
 God in the highest, and on earth peace^ 
 goodwill toward men ! " 
 
 This appointment of the Sabbath is as 
 everlastingly fixed as the physical ordin- 
 ances of nature, regular as the revolutions 
 of the earth, from the date of man to the 
 consummation of his being in the eternal 
 state. When lost amidst the barbarism of 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 a nation, or the perversity of an age, it 
 has always been restored, as requisite to 
 the well-being of him for whom it was or- 
 dained. When lost to the Israelites amongst 
 their enslavers in Egypt, they were eman- 
 cipated by Almighty power, that they 
 might, amongst other blessings, enjoy their 
 Sabbath, even in the wilderness. When 
 abrogated in a former French revolution, 
 the Sabbath was not lost in France ! Root- 
 ed in the spiritual part of man's life, it 
 could not be lost ; but only fell, as in 
 Egypt, under a nominal suppression. And 
 the visible plagues of Almighty God, as in 
 Egypt, fell heavily upon the sacrilegious 
 perpetrators of that daring outrage. The 
 wicked may occasionally prevail against his 
 fellow, but in vain man strives with his 
 Maker. God had even then in France 
 reserved his faithful millions, who would 
 not give up that heavenly endowment, and 
 who may therefore yet enjoy it, to the 
 
8 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 spiritual satisfaction of themselves and of 
 their children. 
 
 It has never been altogether lost sight 
 of amidst even the flood-tides of national 
 iniquity ! And shall it be lost here in 
 our distinguished Isle ; in even our '' moral 
 and religious Scotland?" — Can its fertiliz- 
 ing influence be carried from our land on 
 the wings of steam, or its spiritual essence 
 pass off on the conducting wires of elec- 
 tricity ? No ! — let us hold fast our inte- 
 grity, in duly aj^preciating the value of the 
 heavenly boon ! the precious treasure ! — 
 the world did not give it, the world cannot 
 take it away ! it is itself an element, a 
 spiritual element ! — It is a silken cord, 
 flung out from the eternal sanctuary of 
 Divine love amidst the rolling tides of the 
 world's time, to link social spirits in the 
 bands of heavenly amity, and gradually 
 draw the sanctity of earth into the glorious 
 circle of the eternal Sabbath. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 In writing princiimlly on the temporal 
 advantages of the Sabbath we must be ad- 
 mitted, so far at least, to couple the spi- 
 ritual advantages along with the temporal, 
 as they are found to stand in mutual con- 
 nection — a connection as close perhaps as 
 that of the soul and the body. And it is 
 difficult to suppose the separate operations 
 of either apart. 
 
 The temporal benefits, great as they cer- 
 tainly are, stand yet only in a secondary 
 relation, as a grand means to a glorious 
 end, the emblem, or beginning of the order 
 of heaven on earth ! And in this connec- 
 tion, so far at least, we believe we shall 
 best succeed in the consideration of them, 
 though the temporal advantages of the 
 Sabbath to the human race, and particu- 
 larly to the working classes, is our more 
 immediate object of illustration in the pre- 
 sent Essay. 
 
 If then, in the ordering of this world, 
 
 B 5 
 
10 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 the Almighty had left it to the sagacity of 
 the human mind to discover the propriety 
 of constituting such an observance for the 
 general good, is it likely that, with our 
 present powers, we should have devised 
 it ? Might human philosophy possibly have 
 made such a discovery ? Might a penetra- 
 tion equal to the task of " untwisting all the 
 shining robe of day," and ascertaining the 
 nature of light itself? Might the power of 
 extracting the essence of the lightning, and 
 directing its electric energy, making it the 
 agent of man's necessary communications, 
 the messenger of friendly greetings at im- 
 mense distances; or, might the human sa- 
 gacity that perceived the necessity of there 
 being another then unknown planet, be- 
 longing to the family of our solar system, 
 and directed the human eye to make the 
 sublime discovery amidst the immensity of 
 space ? — Might perception equal to these 
 discoveries, and much more, not have, by 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 11 
 
 anxious search, or by casual incident, found 
 out, that the institution of one whole day 
 in seven, for the world's rest, would be 
 the greatest of all the blessings of life ? — 
 We are led to doubt it. 
 
 When we duly consider the adaptation 
 of the institution of the Sabbath to the 
 comfort of mankind generally, and parti- 
 cularly to the working classes in civilized 
 life (for savage life is out of our question, 
 lying beyond the limits of our application), 
 we are led to conclude, without further 
 proof than a simple deduction from com- 
 mon reason, that the appointment has pro- 
 ceeded direct from Divine Wisdom ! 
 
 To have foreseen its advantages down 
 through all the grades of society, for the 
 thousands of years past and to come, while 
 the habits and customs of men were not 
 fully developed, was coeval only with the 
 wisdom of Him who formed the hand to 
 write, and the mind to supply the idea. 
 
12 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 indeed, only a part of the same prescience. 
 Hence our conviction of the truth of the 
 history of the original appointment, 
 
 God has left much in human economy, 
 as well as in the material universe, upon 
 which the powers of man are calculated to 
 operate, and to reduce to order for his 
 own service. But amidst the many inven- 
 tions left free to the exercise of human 
 ingenuity to discover and bring into action 
 and use, that of the appointment of the 
 Sabbath has not been left to his discre- 
 tion ; for if man had been qualified to 
 have conceived the utility of such an in- 
 stitution, he might not have been able to 
 have brought it out in legislation, or in 
 opposition to casual legislation. Neither 
 is it likely that in council men should 
 have agreed about the extent of the week. 
 As for instance, an indolent man, who is 
 unwilling to labour but from sheer neces- 
 sity, and considers the Sabbath merely as 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 13 
 
 a holiday in which he may lounge about 
 in lazy recreation, might have voted every 
 alternate day a Sabbath, or two Sabbaths in 
 the week. This would have been a perver- 
 sion of the very nature of such an institu- 
 tion, as, in place of its then becoming the 
 means of the impro^vement of our moral 
 and intellectual nature, it wo^ld have had 
 the contrary effect, by thus encouraging a 
 relaxed habit of body, in which the ener- 
 ofies of the mind would have sunk into a 
 listless apathy ; — become dissipated — un- 
 able to grapple with a sublime idea. And 
 in such case, indeed, encouragement would 
 have been given to the contraction of low 
 unworthy habits. 
 
 On the other hand, the avarice of the 
 mere worldling would have voted the extent 
 of the week to double the true fixed term, 
 that he might have the less interruption 
 in his favourite pursuit in life, " to buy and 
 sell and get gain." 
 
14 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 This would, as much as in the other case, 
 have defeated the true purpose by impeding 
 the proper benefit. And it is likely that, 
 but for the undeniable divinity of the 
 positive commandment, an overruling ma- 
 jority of mankind would, in any age or 
 nation, have waywardly resisted the insti- 
 tution, under any form or limit of week 
 whatever. 
 
 This the Eternal Wisdom having fore- 
 seen has set at rest by a positive enactment, 
 which stands in the first table of his laws 
 to man, and whoever may gainsay it do so 
 at their own individual risk, seeing that 
 no nation may legislate directly against the 
 Divine ordinance without incurring the 
 stigma, as well as the consequences, of a 
 barbarity incompatible with the other com- 
 mon usages of civilized life. 
 
 But the wisdom of the appointment of 
 the Sabbath is best seen when we consider 
 its indispensable utility to all classes of 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 15 
 
 human beings, as well as to the creatures 
 domesticated into the service of man, for 
 whom their Maker has also expressed a 
 providential care, as well as for " the lilies 
 of the field." 
 
 In all occupation, mental or physical, 
 from the duties of kings and governors, 
 down through all grades of society, to the 
 most menial office in life, the seventh day's 
 cessation is found a necessary and blissful 
 relaxation to the stretched or hioh-wrought 
 faculties of mind and body. 
 
 To princes and lawgivers of the people, 
 the Sabbath comes with a supreme claim 
 on the obedience of their souls ! for that 
 " one day in seven " are they required to 
 take rest, holy and reverential rest, from 
 the exercise of the functions delegated to 
 their trust, as vicegerents of the supreme 
 Lawgiver. By this rest they are also ena- 
 bled to recruit the energies of their mind, 
 as well as to listen, learn, and adore that 
 
16 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 Power which gives being, and that "Wisdom 
 which promulgates the general law of life 
 to all generations. 
 
 To men of law and business, with all 
 the various sons of desk and ledger, the 
 seventh recurring day brings a legal respite 
 of labour, when they may possess their souls 
 in the quiet of the blessed day's relief, or 
 fill up the vacant hours by going to a 
 higher office, to gain instruction, in listen- 
 ing to the witnesses and advocates stating 
 and pleading the cause of eternal truth, in 
 a case in which the interests of the human 
 race stand at issue, and the Judge is indeed 
 supreme. 
 
 To the philosopher, who may be loath 
 to suspend his eager pursuit in investiga- 
 tion of his abstruse problem, the Aurora 
 of the weekly-recurring Sabbath brings in 
 a calm monitor, — the whisper of the Sab- 
 bath Angel's love, " I come on the blissful 
 morning's wing, to relax your anxious mind 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 17 
 
 from the tedium of intense study, to refresh 
 your soul again with the delightful truths 
 that extend beyond the orbs of space, 
 and the marked cycles of ' Time's eternal 
 sphere,' when the holy soul shall be en- 
 raptured with a free access to the eternal 
 Fountain of all blissful knowledge." 
 
 To a class considerable in most countries, 
 those who may have acquired the means of 
 subsistence by some previous provision, and 
 who are therefore of no necessary occupa- 
 tion — no physical or mental exertion being 
 requisite on their part for the sustenance 
 of life, or the increase of fortune, whose 
 every day may be accounted a holiday in 
 as far as they do not find any work to 
 do from necessity, but who yet may sit en- 
 thralled in the bondage of a mind ill at 
 ease, for the mere want of something upon 
 which to employ their powers — those fa- 
 culties are ready to become listless, peevish, 
 or imbecile, from lack of exercise or argu- 
 
18 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 ment. To this class generally the Sabbath 
 must come most welcome, as a day of ob- 
 servance of some peculiar duty, of " the 
 one thing needful," where the mind will 
 be led into exercise of the most interest- 
 ing and sublime description, and left to 
 ruminate in anticipation of the eternal Sab- 
 bath, where rest shall be rest indeed ; not 
 the mere vacuity of exemption from the 
 secular cares and stirring vanities of life, 
 but rest from the tedium of every-day 
 thought, in which the spirit shall be re- 
 freshed, and left free to expatiate on the 
 boundless expansion of eternal love in the 
 regions of immortality ! 
 
 But whatever it be to other classes, to 
 the working population of this country, 
 who are more than half of our twenty- 
 eight millions, the Sabbath comes, indeed, 
 the blissful day of rest. 
 
 From our fields, down through all the 
 various mill-factories, to forge, stall and 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 19 
 
 joinery, our labourers and artizans, weary 
 with the continued assiduity of six days* 
 unremitting attention, or more severe ex- 
 ertion of nerve and muscle, are glad of 
 the due release of " one whole day in 
 seven " from their irksome tasks. Upon 
 these, embrowned with weather, or be- 
 grimed with smoke, the holy rest of the 
 Sabbath morning falls like the moisture of 
 heaven upon parched vegetation — lik-^ the 
 kiss of sympathy on the cheek of distress. 
 The most rough and unthinking amongst 
 us find, and acknowledge, the Sabbath to 
 be the kindly interference of heaven with 
 the stern conditions of our lot in the scale 
 of humanity; consequently, the wilful or 
 wanton desecration of that day, though it 
 may occasionally occur in accidental in- 
 stances, is yet in these instances deplored 
 and by no means sanctioned in our ac- 
 knowledgments, any more than in the true 
 feelings of our hearts. 
 
20 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 Take a country workman, — a shoemaker, 
 for instance, either as master, journeyman, 
 or apprentice, — the nature of his occupa- 
 tion ahnost precludes the possibility of sta- 
 ted hours of labour and rest. Under the 
 best hands the work is like most other 
 hand-work, tedious and laborious in its 
 character, requiring long hours to make a 
 necessary living, where a necessary living 
 can at all be produced from it. Even 
 "Hesperus, that brings us all good things, 
 — rest to the weary," ushers in only gas 
 or candlelight, under which house-crafts 
 must be pursued, through something like 
 half the night eked to the day, and this 
 by the daily recurring necessity of dili- 
 gence. 
 
 And to the sons of more easy circum- 
 stances, it is perhaps not generally known, 
 how often the hour of twelve on the 
 Saturday night alarms the poor workman 
 at his task, from which he then desists. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 21 
 
 at risk of whatever loss to himself or dis- 
 appointment to his customer may ensue 
 from his unfinished job. This he docs 
 out of holy zeal for the twenty-four hours 
 of the Sabbath, sanctified in his mind by 
 the custom of his fathers, as well as in due 
 reverence to the supreme dictate of the 
 ever-binding commandment. 
 
 With our Scotch commonalty it is not 
 the hours of divine service alone that are 
 held sacred as the holy Sabbath. Our 
 Maker has in mercy given us the whole 
 day for rest, as well as for a clear oppor- 
 tunity to cultivate our mind, and feel after 
 our connection with heaven. We must not 
 have our chief blessings curtailed, nor can 
 we in nature afford it. Our Sabbath is 
 the twenty-four hours from the stroke of 
 twelve on Saturday night till the same 
 date that brings in the Monday morning. 
 And however we may casually spend, or 
 mis-spend some portion of such time, still 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 the sanctity of that time Kes on our heart 
 like balm on a wound, acknowledged heal- 
 ing and holy. 
 
 But to the working man the Sabbath 
 brings an inheritance to which his re- 
 prieve from bodily toil is a matter of 
 only secondary consideration. It brings 
 a stated opportunity for the cultivation of 
 his best family affections, as well as for the 
 improvement of his own mind, as under 
 the convenience of the day's respite from 
 secular concerns, the mind is let free from 
 the arbitrary toils of common drudgery 
 into the true liberty of life, like a bird 
 escaped from the confinement of a cage to 
 rejoice among its native branches ; or like 
 a plant laid open to the sun, the sympa- 
 thies of his soul are drawn out and fostered 
 into blossom and fruit, through the benign 
 influences of the Sun of Righteousness. 
 These influences come more particularly 
 home to the soul on every recurrence of 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 2S 
 
 the Sabbath morning. On that day, more 
 statedly than on other days, the man re- 
 collects that he is an intelligent crea- 
 ture, placed in this vale of trial by the 
 great Creator and Governor of the uni- 
 verse ; that in this nursery of eternal being 
 he is a plant to be reared by the fostering 
 care of Divine love, and nurtured into fit- 
 ness for timely transplantation into the gar- 
 den of the everlasting paradise ! 
 
 On this day, then, he glories in the 
 blissful opportunity of traversing over the 
 broad field of mental life, in company with 
 the spirits of the inspired seers of old, the 
 Prophets and the Apostles, as well as of 
 the still more blessed 0?ie. He delights to 
 sweep the strings of Israel's sacred harp 
 with the rapt Isaiah, and to lament over 
 the defaults of his people in the plaintive 
 strains of Jeremiah, him who also had the 
 evils of his age, the backslidings of his 
 people to mourn for and contend with. 
 
24 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 and the consequent grief of a good heart, 
 — which grief was as intense " as the grief 
 of those who mourn for a first-born, or as 
 that of a man for the wife of his youth." 
 Or on still more precious ground he may 
 take his stand at the foot of the Cross, 
 beside the beloved disciple, .and endeavour 
 to participate in his feelings, under the 
 last look and injunction of such a Friend, 
 in such circumstances : " Woman, behold 
 thy son !" and son, "behold thy mother!" 
 — thence nursing up the sympathies of his 
 soul to all the holy charities of life ! 
 
 The man who is serious in life, has 
 through the Sabbath the benefit of this 
 study, in his private capacity, as well as 
 of what the religious and civil usages of 
 society have ordered and provided for his 
 further tuition in religious knowledge and 
 moral discipline, through the explanation 
 of the Word of Life, the preaching of the 
 gospel, and instruction in righteousness. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 25 
 
 There may be individuals amongst us 
 who might take their casual afternoon walk 
 in the fields, and moralize on the great 
 Creator's works, to even religious advan- 
 tage. Studious in contemplating the fitness 
 of things, from the rude formations of rock 
 and gravel to the bloom of flowers, and 
 the adaptation of the human mind to the 
 enjoyment of the beautiful images they 
 present, they might catch casual inspira- 
 tion from the poetry of Nature as it stands 
 in relation to the poetry of the human 
 heart ! But however intelligible the silent 
 expressions of outward nature niciy be to 
 individual minds, to the mass of society 
 these studies are not so interesting as to 
 supersede the imperious necessity of gospel 
 preaching. It is but the highly-gifted, or 
 the fanciful, who can take " sermons from 
 stones, and good from everything." The 
 gospel of the Kedeemer, well explained 
 by its ministers, is more immediately to 
 
26 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 the point, and more adapted to the main 
 piirpose of useful instruction and general 
 comprehension. 
 
 There is no walk that a working man 
 can take on the surface of his native earth, 
 like a walk to his place of worship. Here 
 the harassments — the toils and anxieties of 
 his every-day life, appear as if cleared away 
 before his footfall. Here he feels more 
 certainly than at other times the true dig- 
 nity of his own existence and ultimate 
 destination ! and he feels this through a 
 humility of heart, congenial to the true 
 relish of that feeling. 
 
 Sight- seeing is all very well, and follow- 
 ed in its proper time and place, is agreeable 
 and innocent; and the virtue of an inge- 
 nious mind will incline to take any proper 
 opportunity of seeing and considering every 
 grand object, whether of Nature or Art, 
 in order to make some appreciation of the 
 true character of things. But even with 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 this most laudable view, sight-hunting is 
 by no means good or proper as a Sabbath 
 recreation : and no quotation is more gene- 
 rally misapplied, than that of individuals 
 who wish to keep up appearances of ge- 
 neral propriety of conduct, and yet to follow 
 out their own inclination in such tastes, 
 quote the patriarch Isaac's quiet meditative 
 walk in his own fields, in support of their 
 false hypothesis. They might as well quote 
 the act of the Angel in rolling the stone 
 from the door of the Sepulchre on the 
 Sabbath morning of the first resurrection, 
 to sanction the absurdity of rolling stones 
 from the top of a hill on the Sabbath day, 
 for the silly pleasure of seeing them re- 
 bound on the valley below. 
 
 In the quiet habits of country life we 
 will find few men who have passed tlirough 
 youth into age, who may not have some 
 little folly to regret; and we will venture 
 to say that any sensible man of sixty will 
 
 c2 
 
2S THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 not coolly assert, that the recollection of 
 even transient Sabbath wanderings brings 
 any comfortable reflection to his mind, 
 while it assuredly causes many a serious 
 regret for what, at the least, was mis- spent 
 time. And the same man will agree with 
 us in considering that those most precious 
 hours of our human life thus thrown away 
 as a thing of nought, while obligations of 
 eternal consequence were hanging on our 
 account of time, is matter of most serious 
 reflection. 
 
 Let it not be understood, however, in 
 this proscription of long journeys for what 
 should be week-day business or party 
 excursions, that we mean to confine our- 
 selves in dingy gloom throughout the 
 blessed day. Many of us, even in rural 
 situations, have as much of sedentary oc- 
 cupation through the week as to prevent 
 our advocacy of the whole Sabbath day's 
 immurement in either church, house, or 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 29 
 
 hovel. Even the Jews were allowed their 
 *' Sabbath day's journey;" and as an arti- 
 san's week-day confinement is in many 
 instances too close, and that often in nar- 
 row, dank streets of towns, where the 
 atmosphere is polluted with soil and smoke, 
 his health of body and mind is dependent 
 on opportunities of cleansings, with the 
 occasional enjoyment of free air and ex- 
 ercise of lungs and limbs. The sanctifi- 
 cation of the Sabbath imposes no such 
 restraint or confinement. A man may 
 walk forth alone, or with a friend, or lead 
 out his family in peace and quietness, 
 under the very best of religious feelings, 
 to enjoy the freshness of Nature's common, 
 and there, with beast, bird, and flower, in- 
 hale the fresh breath of heaven, by bank, 
 glen, or meadow green, in perfect inno- 
 cence. This is as difierent from the dese- 
 cration of the day by long journey ings on 
 week-day business, or the idle stroll of 
 
30 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 banded parties, as any allusion we might 
 seek to find could possibly express. To 
 descend to a minute detail of what may 
 or may not be lawfully done on the 
 Sabbath day, may, in an essay of this 
 description, be considered too prolix or 
 out of place. The rule seems to be thus 
 understood by us work-people generally : 
 that, the day being hallowed for rest, 
 everything that comes under the character 
 of work or week-day labour is therefore 
 prohibited; besides, that this implied part 
 of the prohibition is in strict accordance 
 with the positive commandment, "In it 
 thou shalt not do any work." The laxa- 
 tion, which some suppose to have come 
 by our Saviour, under the Christian dis- 
 pensation, appears to us only as a kindly 
 softening of the dogmatic formula of some 
 of the stricter sects among the Jews, who 
 looked more to outward form than to inward 
 rectitude, but by no means any abrogation 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 31 
 
 of the true spirit of tlie commaiidment, 
 "Do good on the Sabbath day, but do 
 not do evil." 
 
 Here was the Divine explication, from 
 which the question comes, what is the 
 good understood to be requisite to be done, 
 or the evil to be avoided? Obedience 
 to the commandment we premise to be the 
 first good, in giving up every-day work, 
 and holding the Sabbath holy, as set apart 
 for religious exercises, deeds of occurrent 
 necessity and mercy to our fellow-crea- 
 tures, man or beast, are positive good! 
 deeds, or works for any other purpose, 
 not coming under these exceptions of 
 "necessity and mercy," are prohibited, 
 for God's pecuhar glory, as standing in 
 relation to our reverence and obedience, 
 and our consequent peculiar good, as re- 
 cipients of these benefits, flowing from 
 that obedience. 
 
 The main good is the assurance of the 
 
S2 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 blessing of God in the present affairs of 
 life, or, in other words, that this ordinance 
 of His appointment duly attended to assures 
 its own blessing in effect, giving present 
 comfort and happy prospects of futurity. 
 
 A statement of the particular works re- 
 commended under the heads of " necessity 
 and mercy " belong more peculiarly to the 
 teaching of the pulpit, as they occur in 
 the practical illustration of the working 
 out of our faith in the evangelical doctrines 
 which are the foundation of our Christian 
 hopes. 
 
 We therefore here decline to note minute 
 examj)les of particular acts or works, as 
 lawful or unlawful, believing it more to 
 our present point to state simply the effects 
 which follow upon giving up our weekly 
 duties, and (as far as our frail nature, and 
 our various circumstances will permit) our 
 secular thoughts also, such as are lawful 
 and necessary on other days, and devoting 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. So 
 
 this time peculiarly to the cultivation and 
 extension of our higher faculties, intellec- 
 tual, moral, and religious. 
 
 These effects are of a glorious character 
 and tendency, as by thus improving the 
 opportunity which the weekly Sabbath 
 presents, the mental faculties become de- 
 velo]3ed by exercise, as partly by reading, 
 hearing, and studying for himself a man 
 may acquire a respectable standing for 
 rational information in general, as well as 
 for necessary religious knowledge in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 Thus employing himself on the Sabbath 
 he will soon be led into a taste for im- 
 proving his other spare hours throughout 
 the week, in following up studies to which 
 he will thus properly become inclined. 
 
 We have observed many instances of 
 individuals who have taken what appeared 
 to us to be an accidental taste for this pro- 
 priety of conduct, and who have by per- 
 
 c5 
 
34 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 severance raised themselves up from the 
 character of mere simpletons to a reputable, 
 moral, and religious status in society, such 
 as might be envied by others who, under 
 more favourable circumstances, have quite 
 neglected such improvement. 
 
 There is no branch of education, reli- 
 gious or moral, to which a man, even a 
 daily-working man, gives his study, but 
 what will improve his taste in other 
 branches of knowledge also ; indeed for 
 all that is truly great and good. This sort 
 of study is of a generative nature, as, for 
 instance, in investigations of religious 
 truth, a man' will, even imperceptibly to 
 himself, gather in a considerable stock of 
 other useful information, particularly of a 
 moral kind, sometimes even of a scientific 
 description. A faithful or religious root 
 will thus shoot out moral stems, on which 
 a modest piety will blossom as the flower, 
 and the joy of his soul will thus become 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 35 
 
 a present fruit of the hope that is in 
 him. 
 
 In hard circumstances of life, even family 
 circumstances and world's wants — want of 
 work, bread, credit, creature- comforts of all 
 descriptions, to which even work-people in 
 to\^Ti and country are sometimes eventually 
 reduced, the world is apt to wear a very 
 dispiriting aspect. In such cases the Sab- 
 bath sun may arise on a family with but 
 little to eat, or wherewithal to be clothed, 
 — yet even in such circumstances. Sabbath 
 sanctification in the soul, with its conco- 
 mitants, faith and integrity in the heart, 
 will still strongly support the spirits, by 
 nourishing the hope that overcometh de- 
 spair ! Amid even the gloom of sadness 
 in the mind, these, like sunshine on the 
 cloud, form a rainbow in the mental hori- 
 zon, giving promise that the flood of ad- 
 versity shall not eventually overflow us. 
 
 That " ignorance is the mother of devo- 
 
S6 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 tion" is now an exploded opinion ; we now 
 the rather revert to the maxims of the 
 wise^ the substance of which is, " My son, 
 get knowledge, listen to instruction, get 
 understanding ; search for wisdom as for 
 hidden treasure ; it shall be life to thy 
 soul," &c. 
 
 What, then, is so favourable as condu- 
 cive to this search after these jewels of the 
 mind, knowledge and heavenly wisdom, as 
 the opportunity presented by the free lei- 
 sure of the Sabbath ? Among the working 
 classes many have little time else for 
 mental improvement, even from our early 
 youth upwards. In the absence of other 
 favourable opportunity, from circumscribed 
 circumstances in humble life. Sabbath even- 
 ing schools have done much good within 
 the last fifty years ; more, indeed, than we 
 can pretend to calculate ! We might, how- 
 ever, boast of something in the shape of 
 moral philosophers, who have compara- 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 37 
 
 tively little else of scholastic education ; 
 while necessarily, in Sabbath schools, reli- 
 gious education is held as the proper sub- 
 ject of study. 
 
 Though our week-day schools in Scot- 
 land are favourable to the lower classes, 
 and we believe daily improving in their 
 plans of education, and methods of facili- 
 tating progress in secular knowledge, yet 
 still, without the Sabbath, for all the pur- 
 poses of religious training, we should make 
 but a sorry figure as rational beings. 
 
 Without these acquirements, where, in- 
 deed, can we find the qualifications requi- 
 site to recommend us to situations in any 
 department in the ordinary business of life, 
 even as good, honest, useful servants ? And 
 if we come to have families, what princi- 
 ples can we teach our children from in- 
 fancy, when earliest impressions are re- 
 ceived, or upwards, if Ave have little or no 
 rational information ourselves ? 
 
38 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 In following out our subject more fully, 
 the idea naturally intrudes itself, — In what 
 position would we, the present labourers 
 in this country be, without the firee benefit 
 of this institution ? 
 
 Suppose, even in our rural situation, that 
 our time went on in an undivided course, 
 labourers and artisans, in town, village, and 
 hamlet, working on in an unremitting line 
 of life ; a population of grubbing farms- 
 men and '^ unwashed artificers, " uninter- 
 mittingly puddling in the mud of our own 
 perspiration, till our minds should become, 
 not a type of a Divine spirituality, but a 
 mere steam to drive the bodily machine 
 and keep its members in a stated course 
 of productive motion. Even the gin-horse, 
 that has not mind to cultivate, could not 
 stand this continued monotony of existence 
 without the break of Sabbath rest; nor 
 (thank God for the Sabbath ! ) is even the 
 gin-horse required so to do. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 39 
 
 Or again : suppose for a moment that the 
 Legislature should feel disposed, and em- 
 powered, and were foolish enough to 
 abolish the Sabbath, obliging us, under 
 pains and penalties of fine and imprison- 
 ment, to pursue our weekly avocations un- 
 inter^mittingly, would we feel passive, or 
 only affronted, or maddened to despera- 
 tion? — would our hearts remain callous, 
 or sink within us, or swell with i:^digna- 
 tion ? — or what open consequence might 
 likely ensue ? I may presume that our 
 island undergoing the throes of volcanic 
 agency would be little less alarming. 
 
 Any of all the evils of foolish legislation, 
 since the days that Herod was Tetrarch 
 in Galilee, inclusive of that of hunting 
 our covenanted fathers like partridges on 
 our moors, would appear less monstrous 
 than such an attempt to rob us of that day 
 in which God has given us the earnest of 
 his will to make us his freed-men, as well 
 
40 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 as for the present refreshment and im- 
 provement of mind and body. 
 
 Had our Maker and supreme Lawgiver 
 claimed the Sabbath as solely his own, so 
 peculiarly and exclusively as that we had 
 no allowance to bestir ourselves within the 
 specified time, and this under a penalty, 
 such as that of touchinsr the mountain of 
 Sinai while the sacred commandment was 
 for the last time tabled to man, in such 
 case our sacred duty would have been to 
 have acquiesced with reverence and sub- 
 mission, and to have counted out the days 
 from our weeks and years as his peculiar 
 portion, or seventh part, as if paying an 
 interest on our life's bond of time ; and 
 this, although we should have had to 
 remain as dead or entranced, throughout 
 every recurrence of that day's existence. 
 But our gracious Benefactor deals with 
 us on no such terms ; he has only chal- 
 lenged the Sabbath as more peculiarly his 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 41 
 
 own, to preserve it from tlie earthly pol- 
 lution of other days, the pollution of 
 avarice and oppression, and bestows its 
 blessings of rest more particularly on the 
 poor and over-laboured in every age of 
 the world. This he has done as an essen- 
 tial privilege to the weary and heavy-laden, 
 who without such benefit, might have faded 
 from the earth, nor any of their race have 
 been found in the land of the living. 
 
 The institution of the Sabbath seems to 
 have been understood down through all 
 ages. In the interru23tions of written his- 
 tory, other vestiges of ancient records re- 
 main, indicating to the annalist what may 
 have been understood in early ages. These, 
 like the cairn altars of the Druids on our 
 hills, throw a glimmer of light back through 
 the shadows of the past on the manners 
 of early times. The simple fact of the 
 number seven being found marked upon all 
 that remains of the monumental history of 
 
42 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 the past, is of itself sufficient to convince 
 us that the six days of creation, and the 
 seven days of the week, have been point- 
 edly established, and clearly understood 
 since the creation of man. 
 
 But rather than labour to prove, in 
 detail, from the Scriptures or from other 
 types, that the appointment of the Sab- 
 bath had commenced with the date of man, 
 and had been continued downwards, we are 
 inclined to consider the continuance of the 
 Sabbath as a pre-eminent proof of the truth 
 of the primitive Scriptures, even the record 
 of the Antediluvian ages. This stands in 
 perfect analogy with many instances of old 
 customs; the emblems of which are con- 
 tinued amongst us, though even only in 
 the games of schoolboys, long ages after 
 their archetypes have been foregone and 
 forgot, and but for which symbols, still 
 extant, might not now be believed to have 
 ever existed. The continuance of the Sab- 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 43 
 
 bath is therefore as certain a proof of the 
 authenticity of the okl Scriptures, as they 
 are of it, and each a proof of the other; 
 at least as corroborative as any class of fos- 
 sils is in proof of any era in the history 
 of geology. 
 
 That the SabbatVi is still continued with 
 us, that its uses are pre-eminent, that the 
 blessings which it brings are so adapted to 
 our constitution, supersedes the necessity 
 of any argument in proof of the original 
 appointment. When admitted to have been 
 appointed, and found beneficial to any na- 
 tion, in any age, it must be acknowledged 
 to be useful to others also, and to none 
 more so than to our own hard-wrought 
 countrymen at the present time. 
 
 If it had been instituted in society for 
 no other purpose than as a restraint on 
 the lawless tyranny of slaveholders in any 
 age, or even for the benefit of work-horses, 
 it would have been worthy of our acknow- 
 
44 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 ledgment as a Divine appointment. But 
 as all continued labour, without the break 
 of Sabbath rest, would be only a species of 
 slavery, the application of its benefits is 
 as broad and diffuse as the dispensation of 
 light. 
 
 No one disputes the necessity of the 
 nightly-recurring hours of rest to man and 
 beast in general ; it would be doubting our 
 own rationality should we conceive the 
 Sabbath as less indispensable. For it is 
 to man, as a rational being, that it is ad- 
 dressed, as more particularly necessary and 
 useful. 
 
 On the written law being delivered from 
 Sinai, the fourth commandment seems not 
 to have been addressed to man as a new 
 commandment, then for the first time pro- 
 mulgated, but as the renewal of a statute 
 previously known. '^ Remember the Sab- 
 bath day, to keep it holy," signifies to us 
 to remember something formerly understood. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 45 
 
 To contract its meaning, then, or to 
 suppose it applicable to one class or na- 
 tion more than to another, is in effect 
 to break up the decalogue and deny the 
 whole law of life. May cavillers not as 
 well deny the obligation of those com- 
 mandments which stand lower on the ta- 
 bles ? the fifth, sixth, and all that follow ? 
 upon which are founded the laws of so- 
 ciety, the national security for public con- 
 duct. In which case the wicked would 
 have full scope for mischief, so long as 
 they could personally defend themselves 
 from the consequences of a general liber- 
 tinism. Yes, the fourth commandment is 
 as sacred, and as necessary, as at least any 
 other on the Divine tables — as obligatory 
 to-day as it was in the tabernacle of Israel. 
 Indispensable to the temporal as well as 
 to the spiritual advantages of man, in all 
 ages, from the beginning to the end of 
 the world's time. 
 
46 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 ^' The Sabbath was made for man," in- 
 deed, not as an institution of ceremony, a 
 mere accommodation that might be dis- 
 pensed with, and foregone at pleasure, but 
 as an indispensable auxiliary to the pur- 
 poses of ■ his being ; graciously adapted to 
 his constitution and circumstances, a po- 
 sitive condition of his rational existence. 
 
 The divine law in regard to it lies not 
 alone in the words of the commandment, 
 or in our proof that the commandment was 
 from the date of our creation, but is also 
 imprinted upon the natural constitution of 
 man, in his physical, intellectual, moral, 
 and religious capacities. The infringement 
 of its rest is therefore, in any degree, 
 hui'tful to the individual, and a continued 
 violation of it destructive to his whole 
 being. His bodily powers overwrought, 
 by adding the Sabbath to the week, is 
 ruin to his constitution ; his mind strained 
 in sedentary attentions to common mental 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 47 
 
 drudgery, or more intricate studies, with.- 
 out tlie seventh day's relaxation, is ready 
 to become deranged, worn out, or debili- 
 tated to idiotcy. Without the rest and 
 means of information which the Sabbath 
 is calculated to furnish to the great mass 
 of society, our moral character would soon 
 be obliterated. As a community, we should 
 degenerate into a kind of savage assem- 
 blage, uninformed, uninfluenced by any- 
 thing worthy of the name of mind, and a 
 state worse than that of mere animalism 
 might be expected eventually to ensue. 
 
 The earth would then be in a more bar- 
 barous state than on the sixth morning of 
 the creation, before there was a man to 
 till the ground, when the animal tribes 
 lived undisturbed, and their Maker ^' saw 
 that it was good ! "" Indeed, without the 
 adventitious aid of the Sabbath to man's 
 condition, the ground would cease again 
 to be tilled, and man to retain his position 
 
48 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 in life; and as the human race could not 
 be expected, for any great length of time, 
 to survive such a deprivation, their final 
 excision might be the consequence, and 
 indeed, become necessary, in the order of 
 creation ; for it is not to be presumed that 
 the race of man could long subsist in a 
 state of barbarism, as the animal tribes 
 continue from age to age, who live purely 
 by instinct — for instinct is a more safe 
 guide to the animal nature than ill in- 
 formed reason is to the human being, and 
 without the aid of the blessed Sabbath to 
 the constitution of man, he would not feel 
 enabled to maintain himself in the charac- 
 ter of an improved rationality. 
 
 Were this world ever to be converted 
 into a place of punishment for the trans- 
 gressions of the human race, it would only 
 require to immortalize the earth, put an 
 end to death, and abolish the Sabbath. 
 The blessings which the Sabbath brings. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 49 
 
 once negatived and eiFectless^ ''the spirit 
 that rules in the children of disobedience " 
 would soon fill up the outline of the most 
 horrible picture. 
 
 Five righteous persons would have saved 
 Sodom ; the Sabbath had not been regarded 
 in that city. This alone will account for 
 the state of that people, their wickedness 
 and brutality. It is not in human society 
 to become as bad where the Sabbath is 
 held in reverend regard, or rather, where 
 the man holds himself in reverence by the 
 due application of the blessings of the 
 Sabbath to his earthly constitution. A 
 man may live bereft of his legs and arms, 
 if the vital parts are left whole and his 
 brain entire. In such circumstances he 
 may yet become a philosopher. But with- 
 out the necessary aids to his means of 
 information, you may as well denude him 
 of brain also, the organ of mental im- 
 provement. These aids the Sabbath is 
 
50 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 principally calculated to furnisli; and, if 
 duly appreciated, to promote in the mass 
 of society. 
 
 The education of that day being princi- 
 pally spiritual, the careless livers are greatly 
 overruled by the example of the well-doers 
 around them. It is particularly a day of 
 teaching, and of instruction to the mind; 
 and its teaching is of the most interesting 
 kind, being chiefly spiritual. God does not 
 require us to respect the day for the day's 
 sake, but for the sake of its proper religious 
 use to ourselves, and consequent respect to 
 his commandment. And this he does as 
 our most wise and indulgent heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 The way it is introduced to us_, the 
 manner of its weekly recurrence, is indi- 
 cative of this. The labourer feels that it 
 is the gift of a higher Power than that 
 of his earthly master. He sees that his 
 master himself, however arbitrary in other 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 51 
 
 respects, is, in some degree or other, awed 
 
 by tlic custom and sanctity of that day, 
 as if brought under the influence of some 
 invisible power, or spell, and this over 
 and above what the laws of society im- 
 pose. Hence the man finds that his ser- 
 viceable attentions on that day to his mas- 
 ter's will or family comfort is rendered by 
 him more on the terms of common friend- 
 ship, or neighbourly kindness, than is his 
 week-day tasks, which for the most part 
 are demanded on much the same terms 
 from hinds as from horses and other cattle. 
 — So much of flesh and bone, for so much 
 sustaining bread and corn. 
 
 While this demand may be just and 
 necessary, the Sabbath interposes as a law 
 of life and preservation, corrective of the 
 extreme, or of the abuse of power. In 
 such situations the Sabbath sun arises as 
 an earnest of the Sun of Righteousness, 
 " with healing on his wings." The man 
 
62 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 feels, though he may not be able to give 
 expression to the feeling, that this is 
 indeed "the day that God hath made,*" 
 and in it he is led to be glad ; his bones 
 indeed rejoice in their rest, and, as 
 a hind, or farm-servant, he sees that 
 even his horses, released from straining 
 draught, seem to know it, and rejoice 
 also. 
 
 In the glow of fancy, we country people 
 often suppose that all the animated creation 
 have some sense or sympathy in the matter, 
 as if sharing in the benefit of the Sabbath ! 
 — That the birds sing more cheerfully, and 
 the rooks sit more tamely by the wayside 
 on that day, less afraid of man, even 
 inclining to some degree of familiarity, 
 as if under more than their week-day 
 security ; or as if the holiness of the time 
 led them to court a friendship. 
 
 However fanciful this may be, it is yet 
 expressive of the favourable impression that 
 
j^ A^r 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 53 
 
 the Sabbath makes on the mind of the 
 concciver. 
 
 To the poor man's family circle, the day- 
 is altogether an inestimable blessing. The 
 husband and father is on that day at home, 
 which circumstance of itself makes it a 
 family day of days ! He is not understood 
 to be at his distant task in the field, nor out 
 in his workshop, as on other days ; but in 
 his house, at his own fire-side ; comforting 
 his family, and exchanging acknowledg- 
 ments of kindred feelings. Here is the 
 opportunity of impressing, by precept and 
 example, the propriety and pleasure of the 
 virtuous and religious observances of life. 
 If sedate and cheerful himself under the 
 holy impulse, the influence goes round, 
 embracing the whole circle. The mind is 
 improved and strengthened, good intentions 
 are induced and confirmed, faith and hope 
 are nourished, and a fresh vegetative energy 
 is excited, favourable to the growth of all 
 
54 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 the charities of life. The concerns of 
 another hfe is of course understood to be 
 the chief ingredient in the Sabbath enter- 
 tainment in every family circle. 
 
 The Sabbath is thus essentially necessary 
 as giving opportunity to concoct the pure 
 blood of religion in the heart of the day, 
 that it may circulate through the week, 
 and give current health and vigour to the 
 great body of time ; thus acting in sympa- 
 thy with the human constitution. 
 
 The Sabbath is a corrective of pride^ by 
 teaching humility and dependence on God ! 
 Of avarice, by limiting the desires of an 
 undue accumulation of this world's wealth, 
 or of resting our affections thereon ! Of 
 gross pleasures, by nourishing the pure : 
 of unbelief, by inducing the belief of 
 the true God, and his superintending 
 providence : of our consequent responsi- 
 bility, and the truth of his revealed reli- 
 gion. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 55 
 
 With what renewed vigour the Sabbath- 
 rested man goes to his work on the Mon- 
 day, it is quite unnecessary to express here, 
 as all the working-part of mankind know 
 it so well from the experience of perso- 
 nal feeling ; and those who are not ac- 
 customed to labour, can hardly be supposed 
 so ignorant as to be unable to form a pretty 
 correct conception of it. All we need to 
 observe on this point is, that if the Sc.bbath 
 rest was taken from the working classes, 
 they would so sink in their constitutional 
 energy that, in place of the value of 
 labour falling it would ultimately rise, and 
 continue to rise on the market, to a degree 
 that might eventually defeat its own pur- 
 poses in the economy of human life. The 
 productive energies of society would thus 
 become crippled, and prosperity die away, 
 crushed by conflicting interests, and civi- 
 lization itself might eventually sink into 
 barbarism. 
 
56 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 It is therefore the duty, we may say 
 the common sense of man, not to say of 
 every Christian man — for though he were 
 a Pagan in principle it would be the interest 
 of his very nature, as a mere human being, 
 to resist in his person, and by his whole 
 influence, every appearance of the slightest 
 encroachment upon the full, free, and per- 
 fect rest of the Sabbath. 
 
 The loise and witty pretenders to philo- 
 phy will often flout the weahiess of rigid 
 observance; but the distinction is clear 
 between superstitious gloom and rational 
 piety. 
 
 No attempt has ever been made in this 
 country, nor is likely ever to be made, in 
 a legislative capacity to abrogate the Sab- 
 bath. Hence, if a failure in regard to 
 Sabbath observance comes, it will be on 
 our own part; and we may fail in our 
 public or private capacity in duly honour- 
 ing the Sabbath, still the day cannot fail 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 to US, but by our despising and rejecting 
 the blessings which it brings, which woukl 
 be thus negatived to the rejector. Such 
 rejection is a species of triple sacrilege, 
 by which the man not only robs heaven, 
 but society and himself in one act. Heaven 
 is robbed of its due honour of the man's 
 obedience, society of his proper usefulness, 
 and the man himself of the benefits con- 
 ferred by the appointment. 
 
 But the danger to us comes from other 
 points — from a laxity of public morals, a 
 derilection of our duty in regard to reli- 
 gious observances, and more particularly 
 from the inroads made upon standard 
 customs by new interests and consequent 
 changing manners. 
 
 Great interests, in their efibrts to carry 
 out broad calculations, seem to think 
 nothing of *^ adding night to day, and 
 Sunday to the week;" and strong interests 
 have always an influence in attracting 
 
 d5 
 
58 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 adherents. At tlie same time they have 
 such a growhig tendency to strike out 
 their roots into the body of society, that 
 the cancerous fibres get woven into the 
 heart of life, and the man's whole health 
 of existence becomes contaminated. 
 
 We are led here to make a serious 
 appeal to our more immediate countrymen, 
 and to those particularly of our own class. 
 
 In so far as history has noted the events 
 of the past, in no age or nation of the 
 world has our national bravery ever been 
 disputed. We have, both as an indepen- 
 dent kingdom, and since our union with 
 England, maintained a character alike 
 unsullied for integrity of principle and 
 practice. This has been hitherto acknow- 
 ledged by those who were at the time 
 even the enemies of our country. 
 
 This patriotic feature in the character of 
 our forefathers has been the pride, per- 
 haps too often indeed the boast, of their 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 59 
 
 successors. But for these qualities they 
 have never been more conspicuous than 
 for what, in another point of view, they 
 have considered true religious faith and 
 practice. If therefore we admire, and 
 would wish still to inherit their sturdy 
 virtues, in those their more stern charac- 
 teristics, why should we not, with even 
 more propriety, still retain the better 
 part of their long-established character, 
 their religious habits and devotional fer- 
 vour ? 
 
 These have been depicted, and dilated 
 on, in the most nervous strains of the 
 best of our preachers and poets ! Why 
 should the best poem, on the best subject 
 of our most conspicuous national bard, 
 outlast the living practice of our native 
 manners, so glowingly portrayed, so faith- 
 fully delineated? Why should that best 
 portion of that lovely picture of our Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night, — our highest, our 
 
60 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 distinguishing national virtue be oblitera- 
 ted, — amongst our changing manners, and 
 superseded by religious apathy or worse 
 fashions? Crowns and sceptres are tran- 
 sient trifles, sometimes dispensable at a 
 nation's will ; but the casting away of 
 these virtuous habits, which have been 
 our fathers' diadem, is like a renuncia- 
 tion of our chartered right of communica- 
 tion with heaven. 
 
 The character of man cannot be sup- 
 ported in creation where the man gives 
 up the distinction of his relation to divinity. 
 When he fails to live upon his Maker's 
 law as instituted for his entire benefit, in 
 his moral and religious capacity, he then, 
 in thus forsaking his first love, enters 
 into a new alliance, and becomes a member 
 of another family, another class, and hence 
 another character. 
 
 Is the time present, or shall a time ever 
 come, when our Scottish cotter shall have 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 61 
 
 no Saturday night, in the generally under- 
 stood sense of that expression ? that night, 
 on the evening of which he 
 
 " Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
 And weary o'd^ the moor his course does homeward 
 bend." 
 
 Should such time ever come, our labourer 
 may date his account settled with rational 
 liberty, may sign and seal his discharge to 
 his life's best comforts, bringing his se- 
 venth part of time to a poor account in 
 the great market of society. Should he sell 
 it, like his other days of life, would he 
 thus add any increase to his year's earn- 
 ings ? No, — our present six days of work 
 is suiRcient labour on the market : adding- 
 our seventh would not brino- a shillins" 
 more of annual income, that is, supposing 
 that unremitting labour could be sustained 
 by human nature. 
 
62 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 The blessings of the Sabbath are the 
 precious gift of our earliest, our best, our 
 latest Friend. How can we sell such, or 
 give it for the idea of a paltry gain ? Where 
 Sabbath labour is bartered for bread or 
 coin, it is like the sorcerer's money offered 
 to purchase the Holy Ghost — it will perish 
 with him. Whoso goeth out to gather 
 manna on the Sabbath shall find none. 
 
 Although the Sabbath cannot be blotted 
 out of the world's time, nor lost to man 
 generally, yet its blessings may be neutra- 
 lized to any simple individual or genera- 
 tion through their remaining passive, and 
 " taking the colour of the time, its form 
 and pressure ;" and as there is avarice in 
 present activity willing to purchase the 
 souls of men, if spirit could be alchymized 
 into favourite metals, or bartered on ex- 
 change, like stock and scrip, there is an 
 open market for the working man's share 
 of his Maker's precious gift of trust, his 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 63 
 
 life's hours of the Sabbath, his day of holy 
 rest. 
 
 This market is held on principles nega- 
 tive and positive. One man goes on the 
 negative, like the simple youth, as seen by 
 the wise man from his window, " like a 
 fool to the correction of the stocks ;" the 
 other, positively, hires himself for his Sab- 
 bath hours to post or valet the fool on his 
 errand, while the money of both passes 
 with their share of the Sabbath hours into 
 the scrip-bag, leaving them minus so much 
 soul, so much substance. 
 
 And is there who, like Esau, would sell 
 this glorious birthright for a mess of pot- 
 tage ? " Poor silly man, how pitiable he 
 seems,'' who can thus " inter celestial hopes 
 without a sigh." How ignorant also ! as 
 a very little Sabbath teaching would have 
 led him to understand, that, with common 
 economy, he might have his Sabbath sup- 
 port by a little husbandry of his week- 
 
64 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 days' earnings, reserving his Sabbatli to his \ 
 best purposes of life, the comfort of soul 
 and body. 
 
 The only point left free to us, as the 
 humble essayest, is a friendly remonstrance ; 
 and on this point we will observe, that all 
 who fear God will certainly, with grateful 
 hearts, acknowledge His gift of the Sabbath 
 with due thankfulness; and in accordance 
 with His beneficent design, enjoy the day 
 by improving it in a s])iritual manner to 
 His peculiar glory, and their own improve- 
 ment in the knowledge of Him, whom to 
 know is life eternal ; while they who re- 
 ceive it not thus, voluntarily exclude them- 
 selves from the sanctified rest and the bless- 
 ings which it is calculated to confer. 
 
 If we would not willingly lose it, or give 
 it extra to our week-day employers (as if 
 given at all in work it must), why should 
 we infringe on its sanctity in our persons ; 
 or incautiously see it desecrated by our 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 65 
 
 neighbour with our passive acquiescence, 
 or without at least a friendly remonstrance ? 
 
 If we could only conceive the means of 
 lawfully imjn-essing on our neighbour the 
 propriety of due Sabbath observance, every 
 one on his neighbour, and also some fair 
 means of influencing public bodies to the 
 propriety of its proper observance, in pre- 
 ference to the calls of false interests, half 
 the task of the requisite reformation from 
 present and increasing desecration would 
 be accomplished. 
 
 Nothing is so likely as a cool, collected, 
 intellectual, and moral pressure brought to 
 bear strongly on the point, by teaching the 
 ignorant, influencing the passive, and di- 
 recting the application of principle. 
 
 As a something, considered present inte- 
 rest, seems to lead a great proportion of the 
 public mind, if we could only convince men 
 that their Christian duty would produce 
 a higher per centage on their present life's 
 
66 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 stock in trade, this, as well as many other 
 necessary reforms, would be completed in a 
 week, and there would follow a settled rest 
 on the next Sabbath ! But how shall we 
 convince them, since the worldly mind is 
 so dull of virtuous comprehension ? 
 
 To those who resist Moses and the Pro- 
 phets, as well as also Him who has arisen 
 from the dead, what human appeal may 
 be made ? — something little less than the 
 earth's shakings in threatening of final dis- 
 solution. 
 
 But as public matters are now often car- 
 ried by majorities, it is still left us, that 
 the well-disposed should conjoin to agitate, 
 and labour for a majority to stand up in 
 protection of the Sabbath from public de- 
 secration. Moral force is the true agent 
 to be employed in this work, as physical 
 coercion always fails of effect in moral or 
 religious matters. The mind is never sub- 
 dued by pinching the body into forced 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 67 
 
 circumstances : we have proof enough of 
 this from the Cross downward. Under 
 despotism men may take the colour of 
 the evil time, but the immortal mind will 
 have its own range; will never be bound 
 in earthly chains, nor in fettered circum- 
 stances ever sit easy. 
 
 While the spirit of the Gospel is mild 
 and persuasive, it is also of a teaching 
 character, beginning with the soul to sub- 
 due the body, till the whole man is brought 
 into the status of upright Christian faith 
 and consequent rectitude. 
 
 Uniting to forward this cause would be 
 like building up the walls of Jerusalem 
 under Nehemiah; let every well-disposed 
 man's hand be to the work, and the moral 
 and religious defence will arise around our 
 Zion. 
 
 If the Sabbath had not been a consti- 
 tuent and imprescriptible ordinance, a sup- 
 plement to man's condition — more particu- 
 
68 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 larly in his improved state of civilization 
 — its use must have been long since fore- 
 gone and forgot. In such case it would 
 have shared the fate of the false deities 
 of antiquity, whose temples are dust, and 
 whose foolish forms and prestiges have 
 faded like a dream of night from the pre- 
 sent mind. But altogether unlike these 
 passive images of human fantasy, the Sab- 
 bath appears to us as a stem sprung from 
 the stock of the tree of life in the garden 
 of paradise, shooting forth into boughs 
 and branches, overspreading the earth, in- 
 viting to its shadow and its shelter all who 
 are weary and heavy laden ; for besides its 
 sanctification by the rest of God from the 
 work of creation, it became also expressly 
 typical of the next two greatest advents in 
 the whole history of man. 
 
 First of the Saviour, long promised to 
 our fallen race, who, agreeably to divine 
 promise, has come, and personally invited 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 69 
 
 US, in the language of life, — " Come unto 
 me all yc who are weary and heavy laden, 
 and I will give you resty 
 
 And, lastly, of what remains, yet as 
 certain, when the same friendly voice shall 
 again be heard, amidst the shakings and 
 the final crash of creation, calling all His 
 faithful into the enjoyment of His ever- 
 lasting rest in the eternal Sabbath! 
 
 It is to this everlasting rest that the whole 
 order of things seems to have been tend- 
 ing since " the beginning." The primitive 
 state of man having been deranged by his 
 original transgression of the divine law, 
 the earth was so far cursed in consequence. 
 *^ In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days 
 of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it 
 bring forth to thee. In the sweat of thy 
 face shalt thou eat bread, (fee." But here 
 the Sabbath intervened as a remission of 
 the seventh part of the curse, and an ear- 
 nest of the purpose of heaven in the ulti- 
 
70 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
 . ^ 
 
 mate redemption of man, through grace, 
 unto eternal life. Therefore the Sabbath 
 is holy ! Holy as the whole of the days 
 of man on the earth would have been, had 
 transgression not marred the glory of his 
 primitive condition, and all who truly desire 
 the everlasting rest, reserved for the re- 
 deemed, the faithful, and the justified, will 
 value the day as the token and foretaste of 
 that heavenly Sabbath reserved for the 
 followers of the Lamb in the kingdom of 
 His Father's glory. 
 
 2r. er. 3a\)m, printer, Wiint ©fKcc Coitrt, iTlfct S'tmt. 
 
Saorl?3 ^ublisbcti 65 13artrfligc nnti Oaftro. 
 
 UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF HER MOST GRACIOUS 
 MAJESTY THE QUEEN. 
 
 SABBATH PRIZE ESSAYS BY WORKING MEN. 
 
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 Price 35. 6f?., elegantly bound, witli Six Engravings on "Wood hy 
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 Printer, Ipswich. 
 
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 Price 3s., similarly bound, &c., the Third Essay, which gained a 
 
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 DEDICATED BY PER3IISSION TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY 
 
 The Thirtieth Thousand, price 3s., crimson cloth, gilt, with Five 
 Illustrations, 
 
 THE PEARL OF DAYS: 
 
 OR, 
 
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 By a Labourer's Daughter. 
 
 *#* Sixteen Thousand copies of this work have been sold in little 
 more than three months. In a Letter received by Lord Ashley 
 from Prince Albert, his Royal Highness remarks, '* The Pearl of 
 Days has interested both the Queen and myself exceedingly." 
 
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 THE WORKING MAN'S CHAETER; 
 
 OR, 
 
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 ADVOCATING THEIR SPIRITUAL AND MORAL IMPRO\"EMENT : 
 
 Containing full information respecting the Sabbath movement, is 
 published in Weekly Numbers at IM., and Monthly Parts, in an 
 attractive Wrapper, with Illustrations by Gilbert and other cele- 
 brated artists, engraved by George Measom. 
 
 Each number consists of interesting articles, written by Work- 
 ing Men, in which they express their own thoughts, in their own 
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 spindles," but also in the work shoj), the mine, the field, the factory 
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 and it is confidently hoped that the working men of England 
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 The Supplemental Sabbath Prize Essays 
 
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 No efibrt will be spared to make the work worthy of support. 
 One or two engravings of first-rate talent will be given in each 
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 is the result of long reflection upon the subject, and contains a sound and 
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 it is peculiarly adapted to the urgency of the moment, and furnishes for the 
 defence of tlie Sabbath innumerable weapons from the armoury of God's 
 Word." — Edinbdkgh Witness. 
 
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