WORKING MEN’S ESSAYS ON THE SABBATH. 
 
 FIRST PRIZE. 
 
 . HEAVEN’S ANTIDOTE 
 
 THE CURSE OE LABOUR; 
 
 #{ib topnil fliiratagts nf tjjE litMiiitlj, 
 
 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 JOHN ALLAN QUINTON. 
 
 Six (Engrabings, 
 
 BY GEORGE .MEASOJI, EROJI DESIGNS BY GILBERT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PARTRIDGE AND OAICEY, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 DAVID ROBERTSON, GLASGOW. 
 
 MDCCCXUX. 
 

 AMTOMAWST SIDfI©lo 
 
 The circumstances out of which this Essay originated 
 were as follows:—Towards the close of the year 1847, a 
 Christian gentleman, lamenting the fearful increase of 
 Sabbath desecration by railway, steamboat, and other 
 travelling facilities—deeply impressed with the intimate 
 connection between the preservation of the Sabbath and 
 national morality, prosperity, and order, and being con¬ 
 vinced that many fallacies 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 ver¬ 
 dict upon this momentous subject. For this purpose 
 he offered three prizes, of £25, £15, and £10, for the 
 three best Essays upon “ The Temporal Advantages of 
 the Sabbath to the Labouring Classes, and the conse- 
 
 
 
ADJUDICATION NOTICE. 
 
 space of about three months, 1045 Essays were re¬ 
 ceived. 
 
 After a patient investigation of this vast mass of 
 MSS., which occupied from the close of March to the 
 close of December, 1848, we have awarded the three 
 principal prizes as follows 
 
 Eiest Prize, £25.—To John A. Quinton, Journeyman 
 Printer, Ipswich. 
 
 Second Prize, £15—To John Younger, Shoemaker, 
 St. Boswell’s Green, Roxburghshire. 
 
 Third Prize, £10.—To David Earquhar, Machinist, 
 Dundee. 
 
 In making this award, we are constrained to throw 
 ourselves upon the candid consideration of the com¬ 
 petitors and the public. AA r e 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. 
 
 AYe 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. 
 
 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 hope that such further measures will he arramred 
 as shall awaken an enlarged sympathy with the object 
 throughout the British empire, and shall ensure the 
 ultimate preservation of the entire of these valuable 
 and interesting JISS. 
 
 ALEXANDER SWAN, \ 
 
 ROBERT KETTLE, [ ADJUDICATORS. 
 
 DANIEL FRANCIS OAKEY, > 
 
 V The Supplemental Prize Essays are publishing in 
 “ The Working Max's Charter." 
 
Mrninuthii. 
 
 It had been the desire of those who are engaged 
 in the direction of the Sabbath Essay movement, 
 that the following Essay should have been intro¬ 
 duced by one of the honorary editors, who is 
 such a grace and ornament to the churches with 
 which he is connected; and, but for the extreme 
 pressure of his avocations, both in the pastorate 
 and by the press, he would have complied with 
 that desire. As it thus became necessary to 
 seek some other for this office, I have gladly 
 accepted the opportunity thereby afforded me, of 
 evidencing my deep interest in this noble and 
 gratifying labour of love amongst our hardwork¬ 
 ing brethren. Nor is this necessity without its 
 advantages, since it gives occasion for exhibiting 
 that evangelical unity amongst differing churches, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 viii 
 
 which may be the harbinger of more peaceful 
 and. happy times, when Ephraim shall no longer 
 envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim, but Chris¬ 
 tian union shall be perfected, and made manifest 
 in the whole body of Christ our Head. One 
 of the Essayists, in reply to a letter I had oc¬ 
 casion to address to him connected with a com¬ 
 munication of his for the Working Man’s Charter, 
 observes, “ May I be permitted to remark upon 
 the singularity of my case, that the first approved 
 literary effort of a humble member of a dissent¬ 
 ing community should be ushered into the world 
 under the auspices of a clergyman of the church 
 of England? May our united efforts in this labour 
 of love receive the divine approbation.” To this 
 devout aspiration I heartily respond “Amen.” | 
 May such interchanges of love and amity be j 
 more frequent. They are not' altogether new. j 
 Dr. Doddridge, the Nonconformist minister, was j 
 the first editor of the pious and enlightened i 
 Archbishop Leighton’s works, and a recent 
 Bishop of Winchester, in his Elements of 
 Theology, long a text-book for divinity students 
 in our universities, has placed in his list of 
 elementary works the Commentary of Dr. Dod- i 
 
NTEODUCTION. 
 
 dridge; while the simple and beautiful hymns 
 of Dr. Watts are published under the sanction 
 of the Christian Knowledge Society, and are as 
 household words, as the very songs of Zion, in 
 all families, and in all churches of the land. I 
 cannot but rejoice, then, that it is permitted to 
 me at once to take part in this most encouraging 
 Sabbath movement, and at the same time to help 
 on the great work of Christian union, by thus in¬ 
 troducing to the notice of the religious world this 
 deeply interesting and edifying composition, which 
 is the work of one who is a member, and a valued 
 and prized member, of the Independent Congre¬ 
 gation of Ipswich, the town in which he has long 
 been known, and which may w r ell be proud of 
 having thus been honoured by one of its working 
 men. 
 
 The fact of our author being a working man, 
 though undoubted amongst his own townsmen, is 
 just that very one which it becomes us chiefly to 
 certify our readers respecting. The Edinburgh 
 Witness, a periodical of considerable influence 
 and power, has not hesitated to say of this Essay, 
 that it is one which any writer of any age might 
 rejoice to have composed. And, as this is not 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 only high, but deserved praise, it may excite 
 doubts in the minds of some as to whether it 
 really be the original and unaided production of 
 the person it is represented as having been 
 written by. It is not merely the public at large 
 who are interested in this fact, as a remarkable 
 literary incident; but all the fellow-competitors of 
 our author are concerned to know that they have 
 been dealt faithfully by in the adjudication, and 
 that none but those justly entitled to a standing 
 therein have been admitted to competition. But 
 even more than all this, the holy and solemn 
 cause itself in which these Essays have been 
 written, demands imperatively of us that we 
 substantiate the character and position of the 
 writer, so as to prove beyond all dispute that 
 he is of the class professed, and that, though in 
 that class, he is capable of himself accomplishing 
 the production of such a work as now appears 
 from his hand, head, and heart. 
 
 We have felt bound, then, to' seek the very 
 best information upon this point, and we are 
 happy to have it in our power to offer abundant 
 testimony to the fact. The master in whose 
 employment our author is, and has been for 
 
INTEODD CTION. xi 
 
 .some years past, and who is himself well known 
 in the town of Ipswich, has kindly favoured us 
 with the following satisfactory reply to our re¬ 
 quest that he would furnish us with his testi¬ 
 monial. 
 
 I have the pleasure of stating that Mr. Quinton 
 has been twelve years in my establishment, that he has 
 conducted himself in the most praiseworthy manner, and 
 by his application and talent has gradually improved his 
 position. He has been truly a working man, and all his 
 distinctions are well earned. 
 
 1 am, dear Sir, 
 
 Youm faithfully, 
 
 To Eev. J. Jordan. J. M. BURTON. 
 
 As the foregoing is the testimony of his em¬ 
 ployer, the next shall he that of a personal 
 friend, to whom our author referred us. He 
 writes evidently with all the warmth of friend¬ 
 ship, but at the same time with the earnestness 
 of sincerity. In omitting, therefore, some pas¬ 
 sages of his letter, we can assure the reader that 
 we do so mainly out of deference to an expres¬ 
 sion contained in a letter from Mr. Quinton 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 himself, in which he writes, “ I speak truly, 
 when I say that I am very averse to this ex¬ 
 posure before the public eye.” We will not 
 risk, then, the damage of such a feeling as 
 this, while we must not shrink from discharging 
 our duty to the public. Mr. Quinton’s friend 
 writes thus respecting him. 
 
 bev. sm, 
 
 I cheerfully comply with your request in sending a 
 few brief particular respecting Mr. John Allan Quinton, 
 whom I have known during nearly the whole time of my 
 residence in Ipswich, a period of nine years, throughout 
 which I have had opportunities of closely observing his 
 conduct and deportment, and becoming acquainted with 
 his position in life. He has been in Mr. Burton’s em¬ 
 ploy during all that period, and is, strictly speaking, his 
 servant. His employment is exclusively in the printing 
 office, and he, in common with other working men, 
 receives, as well as them, his weekly wages, although 
 his length of sendee, ability, and conscientious, upright 
 conduct have placed him in the position of foreman, or 
 
 His character, I believe, no one would attempt opcnly 
 to impeach. Almost proverbial for integrity and upright¬ 
 ness; modest, diffident, unassuming; nature has done 
 much for him; the grace of God has done more. He is 
 greatly esteemed in the Christian community to which 
 
 he belongs, and by his fellow townsmen generally. 
 
 His industry is highly commendable, and to this only 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 can be attributed tbe attainments he has made in know¬ 
 ledge. His recreation is only a change of employment. 
 .... Those who know most of him will speak in the 
 highest terms of his character and industry. .... 
 
 What I have said I believe to be strictly in accordance 
 with truth, and feel sure that my testimony would be 
 confirmed by many to whom he is well known, and who 
 have, like myself, cultivated his friendship. 
 
 I heg, Sir, to subscribe myself, 
 
 Yours, most respectfully, 
 
 GEO. MESSENT. 
 
 Ipswich, Feb. 14, 1841). 
 
 The next testimony we would offer to the 
 reader, is that of an intelligent member of the 
 Society of Friends, resident at Ipswich, and for 
 some time engaged in business as a banker— 
 R. D. Alexander, Esq., F.L.S., whose frequent 
 opportunities of knowing our author, and under¬ 
 standing his character and position, enable him 
 to speak as satisfactorily as conclusively to these. 
 Mr. Alexander writes thus. 
 
 RESPECTED FRIEXD, IpSWlcll, 10; 2; 1849. 
 
 As one of John Allan Quinton’s referees, I write 
 to state that, in my character of editor of “ The Tem¬ 
 perance Recorder,” and of a series of Temperance Tracts, 
 1 became acquainted with him about seven yearn since, 
 when he was, and still continues to be, the foreman in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xiv 
 
 Burton’s printing office—hired by him as “ a composi¬ 
 tor,” but of late years mostly, or almost entirely, occupied 
 as overseer of the office, having from the increased work 
 brought to the office—I have reason to believe in part 
 from the good management of Quinton—little leisure to 
 work at “the case.” I have made very frequent, almost 
 daily, visits to the printing office for a length of time, 
 and have admired the quiet bearing of his manner, 
 maintaining good order by gentle rule and respectful 
 manner to those below him, aided by his unwearied in¬ 
 dustry and attention to his employer’s work. 
 
 J. A. Quinton’s conduct in private life is, I believe, 
 consistent with his profession as a Christian; and in 
 general terms I may say that he is a good example for 
 
 I am, respectfully, 
 
 R D . D. ALEXANDER 
 
 We will present only one more testimonial, but 
 it is that which, in every Christian community, is 
 necessarily looked to as the most essential one— 
 the good word of the minister of our holy faith 
 under whose pastoral care Mr. Quinton lives, and 
 whom, according to the ability given him, he aids 
 in his work of inviting sinners to flee from the 
 wrath to come, and to turn to repentance and 
 calling upon God. The Rev. John Whitby, to 
 whose kindness we are indebted for having com- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XV 
 
 municated with the three gentlemen who have 
 already borne their testimony to Mr. Quinton’s 
 worth, writes as follows. 
 
 Ipswich, Neb. 18, 1849. 
 
 HEV. SIR, 
 
 I duly received yours, and saw Mr. Quinton on 
 the subject, who, I believe, has written to you, and 
 communicated the circumstantial facts you requested. I 
 did not know him till he had ended his apprenticeship. 
 
 His membership with a Christian church began at 
 Stowmarket. He has been some years in communion 
 and membership with the church in Nicholas Chapel, of 
 which I am the pastor. I had the pleasure of marrying 
 him, some eight or nine yearn since, to one of our 
 estimable members of the church. 
 
 He has always been a studious and persevering young 
 man, with a comprehensive mind and rather exuberant 
 imagination. As a Christian, he has maintained a high 
 and honourable reputation, much esteemed and beloved 
 by true Christians. Nor has his Christian life been 
 fruitless, but devoted to the cause of Christ. He has 
 preached the Gospel in villages and in my pulpit—with 
 acceptance. I cherish a great regard for him, and so does 
 the church of which he is a member. It is Christianity 
 that has made him truly great. He has only written 
 what he has enjoyed of the blessedness of keeping and 
 loving the Sabbath. I was not surprised when I heard 
 that he had reached the honour of the first prize on the 
 Sabbath to the working classes. I knew liis power of 
 illustration. As to his eligibility as a working man to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be a competitor, I may just say I have often seen him 
 at .work in the printing office of Hr. Burton, who, I 
 believe, has written you in connection with the other 
 gentlemen you mentioned. I need not add more. 
 
 I am, Rev. and dear Sir, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 JOHN WHITBY, 
 
 Having now, as we trust, anticipated and satis¬ 
 fied every reasonable question that can be raised 
 respecting our author, we are further desirous of 
 gratifying what is likely to be the natural wish 
 of every reader, and what has been the fre¬ 
 quently expressed one of a large number of the 
 competitors witli whom we have had communi¬ 
 cation, that every Essayist should supply a brief 
 account of himself, and thus make his fellow- 
 competitors as well acquainted as possible with 
 him, and the circumstances and occurrences of 
 his life. Although, as stated above, our author 
 would willingly, if consulting his own feelings 
 alone, avoid such publicity, yet, for the sake of 
 others, and especially for the sake of that cause 
 in which he has been called upon to take so 
 prominent a part, he consents to forego his own 
 
INTRODUCTION. XVU 
 
 feelings, and has favoured us with a brief sketch 
 of his life, which commences thus. 
 
 In the late honours that have been so unexpectedly 
 thrust upon me, I have been unable to exercise any 
 choice. I have been drawn, perforce, from the familiar 
 sanctum of seclusion, and must cease more than ever to 
 feel that I am my own, but am become more expressly 
 the property of the Lord and his people. I will now 
 proceed to register a few of the leading details of my 
 past life, which has been remarkable for no very striking 
 incidents. 
 
 I was bom at the small town of Needham Market, in 
 the county of Suffolk, in the year 1817. I am the eldest 
 of a family of either twelve or thirteen; ten of whom 
 are living. My parents also are still living. I might 
 observe, in passing, that they are respected for their un¬ 
 impeachable lb es and integrity of character. They have 
 for many years been members of a Christian community. 
 My father was a tailor by trade, but about thirty-six years 
 ago he took a small chemist and druggist’s shop, vacated 
 by death; and by his uniform application to business and 
 his eminent trustworthiness, he gradually extended and 
 consolidated a snug little business, which has enabled 
 him to bring up his large family in respectability and 
 economic habits. At the age of nine or ten I was taken 
 from a dame’s school, and placed under the tutorage of 
 Mr. J. Webb, then of Needham, but now Baptist Minister 
 of Stoke Green Chapel, Ipswich. Mr. Webb, however, 
 shortly after leaving to prosecute his college studies, I 
 was transferred to the care of Mr. Durrant, with whom 
 I continued till within a short period of my apprentice- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xviii 
 
 ship. This school was of the ordinary character to be 
 found extensively, twenty years back, in villages and 
 small towns. My education comprised writing (anything 
 but of a first-rate description), arithmetic, reading, and 
 grammar—and all these imparted in the most crude 
 and meagre manner. If by education we are to under¬ 
 stand the education of the mind—of this I had positively 
 none. I was not conscious, for two or three years after 
 completing my scholastic drudgeries, of any signs of in¬ 
 tellectual life, or stirrings of mental wakefulness. Pour 
 or five years seem a long time to spend in amassing 
 nothing; but a large portion of time was wasted in or¬ 
 namental printing, &c., which was of no practical utility 
 whatever. My instructor was a stenographer; and as I 
 took a great deal of pleasure in the practice of this art, 
 he was particularly gratified thereat, and gave me abund¬ 
 ance of exercises and tasks, which, when performed, 
 were rewarded, with special marks of appreciation, by a 
 holiday. These things comprise the tout ensemble of my 
 education. I never, at school, learned a sentence of 
 geography, so far as I can recollect—no use of globes— 
 no Latin—no study of maps—no drawing—no history 
 —no natural philosophy, &c. I never attempted a 
 thesis or an essay; nor did I attempt such a task for 
 years afterwards. 
 
 At the age of fourteen I was apprenticed to Mr. Woolby, 
 printer and bookseller, Stowmarket, (three and a half 
 miles from my native place,) with whom I continued six 
 years. Being naturally indisposed to mix in society, I 
 kept myself quite retired, seldom going out after or 
 before business hours, even for requisite exercise. This 
 confinement, chiefly self-imposed, and this consequent 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 deficiency of physical recreation, superinduced a feeble¬ 
 ness of constitution that has unfitted me, for years, for 
 any severe or prolonged muscular exertion. The first 
 two or three years of my apprenticeship were devoted to 
 the study of music, the reading of poetry, sometimes 
 novels, and works of general information. I soon 
 evinced a taste for works of an imaginative and ex¬ 
 citing character, and for a poetical style of composition. 
 Of some of Byron’s works I was passionately fond. 
 From reading, I soon began to write, poetry. I lived 
 in a land of dreams and ideal enchantments. The poetic 
 aifiatus or inspiration has oftentimes emasculated my 
 strength, filled me with trembling, and compelled me 
 to desist from labour. I grew disgusted with the mean 
 and gross realities of common life. I felt inarticulate 
 longings for something above the actual. This state of 
 feeling and emotion breathed itself out in innumerable 
 fragmentary effusions. About this time I became ■ a 
 Sabbath school teacher; and shortly after, through in¬ 
 strumentality in connection with the school, I was 
 brought to decision of character. For a long period of 
 years I never remember to have absented myself from 
 a place of worship, which I almost invariably attended 
 three times on the Sabbath. Coeval with these circum¬ 
 stances, I might mention, a society for Mutual Improve¬ 
 ment was established, directed and presided over by 
 gentlemen of considerable mental culture and attain¬ 
 ments. This institution I joined; and here my first 
 decided public efforts were made to emancipate my mind 
 from the thraldom of ignorance. 
 
 On April 1st, 1836, 1 was received into fellowship with 
 the Independent Church, Stowmarket, then under the 
 
XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pastoral care of Rev. AT. ATard, M.A. (since deceased). 
 My attention was now almost entirely absorbed by 
 religious reading, exercises, and correspondence, and 
 by visiting the sick and ignorant. I also had earnest 
 desires stirred up in my mind towards the ministry of the 
 Gospel. On the expiration of my term of apprenticeship, 
 having in purpose renounced my secular calling, and being 
 in a precarious state of health, I returned home with the 
 intention of recruiting the same, and waiting the develop¬ 
 ments of God’s will in this matter. Here I continued 
 for about eight months, employed in reading, and occa¬ 
 sional preaching in the surrounding villages. I likewise 
 undertook the superintendence of a Sabbath school. As 
 winter drew on, however, and no means wherewith to 
 prosecute my introductory studies, previous to a collegiate 
 course, were apparent, I began to grow uncomfortable 
 in burdening my parents, and thought I had mistaken 
 the path of duty. I accordingly, in the month of De¬ 
 cember, came to Ipswich in order to obtain a situation. 
 I was, by a singular concurrence of circumstances, di¬ 
 rected to Mr. Burton’s—engaged with him—where I 
 have continued ever since. His business was then very 
 small; but from that period until now (more than twelve 
 years) it has steadily increased in every department. He 
 has now machines worked by steam power, a stereotype 
 foundry, &e., and every facility for doing work in the 
 best style. My province has been exclusively in the 
 office; and, to a considerable extent, the management of 
 the printing office has been entrusted to me. During 
 all this long period, I have closely applied myself to 
 business, through long hours; but as I did it cheerfully, 
 and with an indomitable determination to battle up- 
 
INTEODTJ CTION. 
 
 xxi 
 
 wards, its oppressiveness was not so painfully felt. My 
 leisure for reading and intellectual culture has accord¬ 
 ingly been exceedingly limited. I believe I should be 
 within the mark if I said that, on an average, I have not 
 read twenty volumes, small and large, light and solid, 
 per year. I begin to feel this deprivation now very 
 keenly, and long for more literary and religious leisure. 
 Until within the last two years, I have regularly engaged 
 in the villages as an evangelist. Enfeebled health now 
 forbids such exhausting labours. 
 
 Such, dear Sir, is a plain unvarnished statement of the 
 leading events of my unexciting history. I leave them in 
 your judicious hands, to make what use of them you may 
 deem proper. But the less parade the better, if my feel¬ 
 ings are to be consulted. I shall be happy to answer any 
 question which may he suggested by the foregoing facts. 
 
 Such is our friend’s unvarnished tale of him¬ 
 self and his earlier years. In concluding this 
 introduction tve will add a brief remark respecting 
 the Essay itself, and the position assigned to it. 
 It is not detracting from the merits of either 
 this, the first, or the other two, the second and 
 third Essays, selected out of so large a number 
 as 1045 competitors, to say, that they have not 
 attained to then honourable position without 
 much anxious discrimination on the part of those 
 who adjudicated respecting them. So far is this 
 from being the case, that we hail it rather as 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a testimony of the anxiety and faithfulness with 
 which the adjudication was carried on, as an 
 omen for good respecting the whole movement, 
 and as a corroborative assurance that, while there 
 were others esteemed worthy to compete closely 
 with these for the superiority, there are special 
 and peculiar excellencies in the three which entitle 
 them to their place and reward. 
 
 The one immediately before us will not fail, 
 we are persuaded, to commend itself to the 
 reader, for its evident and obvious appropriate¬ 
 ness to the solemn subject discussed in it, under 
 the peculiar phase demanded by the terms of the 
 competition. There may be others of apparently 
 more vivacity and power—others, again, that seem 
 to manifest closer and severer judgment—others 
 still, irradiating sparks of apparently more fervid 
 and devout piety; but for a noble combination 
 of all these, developed with a staidness and 
 sobriety of thought adapted to the subject, and 
 enlivened with rich and eloquent strains of ex¬ 
 hortation, we believe that no other will be found 
 to rival it, and that it will thus abundantly 
 justify the final decision respecting it, and ap¬ 
 prove itself to all as thus rightly placed, whatever 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 comparisons may be hereafter instituted between 
 it and others, as they severally appeal - , and as, no 
 doubt, their respective friends and admirers may 
 be tempted to urge in their behalf. 
 
 It is, then, with entire confidence that we 
 commend both the work and its author to the 
 favour and interest of all who would cherish in 
 then - hearts a due reverence for God’s holy day, 
 and that affection and love for the class of per¬ 
 sons from whom this Essay emanates, which those 
 cannot fail to have who understand and appreciate 
 the apostolical injunction, “As we have many 
 members in one body, and all members have 
 not the same office: so we, being many, are one 
 body in Christ, and every one members one of 
 another.” Eom. xii. 4. 6. 
 
 J. JORDAN. 
 
 Enstone, Oxon. 
 
 Feb. 1849. 
 
gfitttm'a Mtot t to tjie 
 Curst nf fuluntr. 
 
Imee’s MMt tn tjji (Curse nf JeIihe. 
 
 Progress. But our advancement does not | 
 consist, in all cases, in pursuing with acce- j 
 lerated speed the track trodden by our pro- 1 
 genitors. These are rather times of sifting I 
 
heaven’s 
 
 JTIDOTE TO 
 
 investigation. Everything is being tested, i 
 Every received dogma is submitted to the j 
 crucible. Ever)' object of popular faith and 
 homage is subjected to the most keen and 
 rigid scrutiny. Every social and religious 
 institution has passed, or is passing, the 
 same fiery ordeal. Men are digging down 
 to discover the deep foundations of things. 
 
 A stem spirit of utilitarianism is abroad, 
 plucking up whatsoever is useless, and over¬ 
 throwing whatsoever is obstructive of the 
 prosperity and progression of man. Some 
 of the most sacred objects commanding our 
 love and veneration, as well as many of the 
 imposing shams that have fed and thriven on 
 popular’ credulity, have been, fiorn time to 
 time, assailed and denounced by their adver¬ 
 saries. The Bible has been again and again 
 cast into the furnace of controversy; hut al¬ 
 ways to come out more glorious and precious 
 than before. Christianity, too, has often en¬ 
 gaged in desperate conflict with her embattled 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 5 
 
 foes, but has always retained possession of the 
 field, and come off more than conqueror. On 
 the other hand, numerous systems of error, 
 excrescences of ancient institutions, and crea¬ 
 tions of human selfishness, that once flou¬ 
 rished in the world, have shrivelled beneath 
 the exposures of the intelligent and the good. 
 At the present period, many of these lately 
 reigning pretences, impeached hy reason and 
 condemned hy public opinion, are slowly pe¬ 
 rishing from our midst. 
 
 We need not he surprised, therefore, that 
 the Sabbath —an institution crossing fallen 
 man’s self-interest at such a variety of points, 
 and tolerant of none of the grosser or more 
 grovelling predilections of the masses—should 
 come in for its full share of hostility and re¬ 
 pudiation. Avarice grudges it, and would he 
 glad to buy it up. Selfishness covets it, and 
 ■waits only for a plausible pretext to seize 
 upon and annex it to its domains. Sen¬ 
 suality gloats upon it, and, scorning its al- 
 
6 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 leged sanctity, would spend it in a carnival 
 . of folly and voluptuousness. Infidelity would 
 raise its sliouts of triumpli on beholding it 
 trampled down by worldliness; whilst reli¬ 
 gious lukewarmness holds its entreasured 
 blessings with such a relaxing grasp, that it 
 would not require a very powerful effort to 
 wrench them from its custody. But the 
 Sabbath has most to fear from the gigantic 
 public companies everywhere springing up 
 around us in this age of enterprise. What 
 isolated individuals would shrink from the 
 responsibility of attempting, confederacies, 
 strong in wealth and in influence, will be 
 found daring enough to do, and that, too, 
 with comparative impunity. Many of these 
 leagues of selfishness, we fear—whose greed 
 is concentrated and intensified by their num¬ 
 bers—would not scruple to stretch forth their 
 monopolizing hands and appropriate this day 
 to schemes of aggrandizement. But, should 
 they ever be suffered to extort this blessing 
 
THE CORSE OF LABOUR. 7 
 
 from society, and silence all indignant re¬ 
 monstrance, no earthly power would be able 
 to stand against then - desolating inroads. 
 The health, the domestic comfort, the moral 
 elevation, and the spiritual welfare of the la- 
 homing classes, would he of no more account 
 than the small dust of the balance. The 
 happiness of thousands of lowly families 
 would he speedily and remorselessly sacri¬ 
 ficed. Multitudes of human beings, dear to 
 their kindred, dear to their country, and dear 
 to their Creator and Eedeemer, would thus be¬ 
 come the mere " tools of gain—the conscripts 
 of ambition—and the materials of luxury.” 
 
 If such a catastrophe is to be averted, the 
 friends of humanity and the guardians of 
 truth must awake from their lethargy, and 
 bravely go forth to repulse the invaders of the 
 Sabbath. Should the Sabbath’s privileges be 
 wrested from the sons of toil, it can only 
 happen through the apathy and the unfaith¬ 
 fulness of the philanthropic and the good. 
 
8 heaven's antidote to 
 
 But if every one who is baptized with love 
 for his species would diligently study the 
 subject in all its hearings, master its appa¬ 
 rent difficulties, get distinct views of it be¬ 
 fore his own mind, and then do his utmost 
 towards the creation of a healthy public opi¬ 
 nion on the matter, the ominous evils now 
 menacing our country would be immediately 
 checked—the designs of the sordid, the pro¬ 
 fane, and the licentious would be frustrated 
 —the claims of the Sabbath would be esta¬ 
 blished on an immovable basis—the tide of 
 Sabbath desecration would be rolled back, 
 and a glorious impetus would be given to the 
 holy enterprises of the age. 
 
 Should the following investigation of the 
 temporal advantages of the Sabbath, consi¬ 
 dered especially in relation to the working 
 classes, tend, however feebly, to aid a “ con¬ 
 summation so devoutly to be wished,” the 
 writer will have accomplished an object lying 
 very near to his heart. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 9 
 
 The plan we propose to pursue will he, to 
 commence with the subordinate benefits con¬ 
 ferred by the Sabbath, and gradually ascend 
 to the contemplation of those affecting the 
 higher interests of mankind. And should we 
 be tempted to dwell longer on these inferior 
 advantages than may be thought necessary, it 
 will be in consequence of their being usually 
 very inadequately set forth, and because they 
 are actually realized by far greater numbers 
 than are those of a more exalted character. 
 We shall notice— 
 
 I. THE PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES OF THE 
 SABBATH. 
 
 Among these may be enumerated repose, 
 cleanliness, and health. 
 
 I. REPOSE. 
 
 Man needs periodic intervals of rest. The 
 strongest constitutional stamina, the most ro¬ 
 bust or sinewy human frame, must speedily 
 relax beneath the exactions of the mildest 
 
 B 3 
 
10 
 
 heaven’s antidote 
 
 I forms of continuous labour. A kind provi- 
 j sion is partially made to avert tliis result, by 
 I tlie season of nocturnal repose, when tbe be- 
 j nevolent Creator, quenching tbe glare of day, 
 
 ! and drawing tlie curtains of darkness around 
 | a wearied world, enfolds tbe children of crea¬ 
 tion beneath tlie shadow of his wings, and 
 hushes them to slumber on their beds of 
 peace. But this sweet restorative—welcome 
 as it always is to human infirmity, and 
 anxiously as it is longed for, as the day 
 drags to its close, by multitudes overmastered 
 | by the severities of toil and the monotonous 
 | struggles of life—does not fully meet the 
 ; exigencies of man’s nature. The nightly 
 
 ! supply of refreshment and strength is not 
 
 | equivalent to the daily expenditure of energy 
 ! ordinarily incurred; and especially is this true 
 ! in vast numbers of cases among the working 
 i classes, where the constitution has been dete- 
 I riorated by early privations, by insufficiency of 
 ' food, and by uncleanly or intemperate habits. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 A supplemental period of rest is therefore 
 required, to treasure up such a degree of 
 strength as shall enable those upon whom 
 the burden of labour presses most heavily, 
 to fulfil their allotted tasks without prema¬ 
 turely wearing out the animal system. 
 
 But neither is this all. It is not enough 
 that a race of rational beings should he dealt 
 ! with on the mercenary principles adopted with 
 | respect to our beasts of burthen. Man’s two- 
 ! fold nature—his nobler capabilities—his ele¬ 
 vation as a moral agent—his soul, resplendent 
 | even in its ruins—challenge a loftier recogni¬ 
 tion of his claims than is due to the mere 
 I drudges of creation. To calculate the daily 
 ravages committed upon the loins, the muscles, 
 and the limbs of labour, and to dole out the 
 minimum amount of rest and nutriment that 
 will suffice to repair these damages—to barely 
 maintain the equilibrium of functional waste 
 and supply, at the smallest possible sacrifice 
 of their services—is to embrute the labouring 
 
12 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 population; yea, to degrade beings originally 
 fashioned in the image of God into mere 
 animate machines, to he used in the produc¬ 
 tion of wealth, luxury, and patrician indul¬ 
 gences, in which they are never suffered to 
 participate; instead of which, they are doomed 
 —through the elasticity of youth, the vigour 
 of manhood, and the decrepitude of age—to 
 spend all their intervals of relaxation from 
 physical exertion in eating, in chinking, or in 
 sleeping—and all this only to gather fresh 
 power for the strained sinews, and new mois¬ 
 ture for the dripping brow! But man yearns 
 for a higher order of repose than this: some¬ 
 thing more congenial with the diviner indwell¬ 
 ings of his being. Not the mere oblivion of 
 the senses; not the luxurious stretch of the 
 tired limbs; not the subdued throbbings of 
 the overwrought brain; not alone the casting 
 out of mortal weariness and pain;—not a rest 
 altogether imposed by physical necessity, hut 
 a rest that may he wakefully, intelligently, 
 
THE CORSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 13 
 
 and complacently enjoyed. Such a want is 
 delightfully supplied hy the institution of the 
 Sabbath! 
 
 The wisdom as well as the benevolence of 
 Heaven is clearly exemplified in this ordi¬ 
 nance, in its manifest adaptation to the cir¬ 
 cumstances of the hulk of mankind. These 
 days are not “ like angels’ visits, few and far 
 between;” nor is the respite from secular em¬ 
 ployment, when it arrives, too protracted in 
 its duration. It preserves a judicious mean 
 between these mischievous extremes. Had 
 its recurrence fallen at intervals more distant 
 than at present, its benign influence would 
 have been found insufficient to withstand the 
 crushing effects of unremitting labour on the 
 health of our operatives. And, on the other 
 hand, if it had occurred oftener, it would have 
 exposed multitudes to privations, from the 
 scantiness of their earnings; it might have 
 tended to undermine those industrial habits 
 upon which the working classes have to rely 
 
14 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 for their prosperity and advancement; and 
 might, moreover, have increased those pro¬ 
 pensities to indolence and dissipation which 
 even notv are too extensively disclosed. As 
 it is, the Sabbatical rest, whilst it affords hut 
 a brief holiday to idleness, suffices to oil the 
 wheels of industry, to give new zest to enter¬ 
 prise, and to renerve the arm, and gird up 
 afresh the loins of labour. 
 
 The Sabbath, as a day of relaxation and 
 refreshment, should he esteemed precious by 
 the working classes in particular. The states¬ 
 man, the merchant, the manufacturer, and even 
 the tradesman, can often escape the duties or 
 emancipate themselves from the thrall of busi¬ 
 ness ; and, vanishing from their respective en¬ 
 gagements, may embark for foreign travel, and 
 luxuriate awhile in some invigorating clime; 
 or, wandering up and down our own fair isle 
 in search of health, may halt at spots rich in 
 historic interest and in memorials of ancient 
 fame, or may visit the wonder-teeming cities 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 15 
 
 | and towns reared by modem enterprise; or 
 else, if wearied with the excitement of such 
 scenes, may turn aside for a season to the 
 margin of the ocean, and there inhale health 
 I and gladness from its bracing breezes; refresh 
 their bodies in its living waters; and soothe 
 j the irritation of their feelings with the music of 
 j its murmunngs. But not so the poor work- 
 
 ; ing man; he cannot go beyond his tether 
 
 j —he can rarely cast off Ins collar. From 
 
 | morning’s dawn to evening’s close, and often 
 
 j into the deep shadows of the night—through 
 
 scenes of sorrow and tribulation and the in¬ 
 cipient stages of disease—his necessities chain 
 ! hm to his post. Condemned, like Sisyphus I 
 
 j of old, to roll the stone of labour up the steep 
 
 j acclivity of life, which, on having neared the 
 
 i summit, rebounds to its starting point again, 
 
 ; he finds himself, after the disbursement of his 
 
 j scanty wages, again at the bottom of the 
 
 ] mountain, yoked to his hopeless task, and 
 
 | compelled to begin anew the up-hill struggle. 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 But cheer thee, child of travail! The blessed 
 Sabbath is thine own! It is the excellent gift 
 of thy Maker—see, then, that no man rob thee 
 of the boon! It is the heirloom of thy family 
 —see that it be not alienated from their pos¬ 
 session ! It is a sacred inheritance, bequeathed 
 by successive generations of the godly—see, 
 then, that its frail fences are kept unbroken, 
 and that its fruitful soil is not, through ne¬ 
 glect, cursed with sterility and nakedness! 
 The fifty-two Sabbaths of rest with which the 
 i year is interspersed are like patches of ver- 
 | dure, watered by ever-springing fountains, 
 j that dot the inhospitable wilderness, and in- 
 j vite its fainting travellers to exhilaration and 
 
 ! repose. They are the ports that fringe the 
 
 sea of human industry, in -which the dis¬ 
 tressed bark may find a sure anchorage, 
 and where it may renew its outfit for time 
 and for eternity. 
 
 Oh, precious day! the workman’s jubilee— 
 the slave’s release—the shield of servitude 
 
THK CURSE OF LABOUR. 17 
 
 —the antidote of weariness—the suspension of 
 the curse! How it smoothes the hrow of care! 
 How it brightens the countenance of gloom! 
 How it braces the enervated limbs of labour! 
 How it revives the drooping spirit of despair! 
 How it gives wings to the clogged affections 
 and aspirations of the soul! How it pours 
 some drops of sweetness on the bitterest lot, 
 and sheds some gleams of sunshine athwart 
 the saddest heart! How it lifts the groveller 
 from his low pursuits, and fills him with a 
 noble self-respect! How it extinguishes the 
 jealousies and rivalries of week-day occupa¬ 
 tions, and links men’s hearts in the bonds 
 of brotherhood! It does homage to the 
 glorious attributes of the man, even when it 
 finds him in the condition of the serf. In 
 most cases it proclaims to the servant equal 
 liberty with the master. It is a perpetual re¬ 
 buke to the reigning rapacity of the world. 
 It deals out, with evenhanded justice, the es¬ 
 sential rights of manhood, to all classes alike; 
 
18 
 
 •heaven’s antidote to 
 
 and is designed to protect tlie poor from the 
 bribes of wealth, and the weak from the en¬ 
 croachments of power. 
 
 Companions in labour! have you never 
 attempted to compute the value of the Sah- j 
 
 bath, even in this, the meanest of its uses, i 
 
 as a provision of rest for the body ? Have j 
 any among you been wont scornfully to re- j 
 pudiate it, as an institution originated and j 
 upheld by the craft of priests ? Do you re- j 
 gard its weekly advent as an unwelcome in- I 
 trusion—as a perpetual restriction on your ; 
 privileges, a curb to your enterprise, and a j 
 sacrifice to your pocket ? Can you read no '■ 
 inscription of Divine loving-kindness on its j 
 serene brow, and discover none of the gifts j 
 strewn by its bountiful hands ? Are you ac¬ 
 customed to yawn away its lagging hours in j 
 
 idleness, or sport them away in folly or in ! 
 
 wantonness ? Oppressed by tlie insipidity of • 
 inaction, do you cry, “ Oh, what a weariness 
 it is! When will the Sabbath be gone, that 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 we may sell corn, and set forth the refuse of 
 the wheat ?—that we may dress the vineyard, 
 plough the field, weld the metal, print the 
 hook, weave the cloth, make the garment, 
 build the house, or garnish the sepulchre?” 
 Brethren! reflect seriously on these things; 
 and though it should appear that the Sabbath 
 was ordained for no higher purpose than to 
 minister to the animal refreshment of man, 
 yet even this is a blessing of such priceless 
 worth, that to wring it from the possession of 
 society, would superinduce a catastrophe too 
 frightful to contemplate. 
 
 That the Sabbath is no modern ecclesiastic 
 innovation, and that it is not an exploded 
 ordinance of the Jewish economy engrafted 
 upon the Christian system, are clear from ac¬ 
 knowledged records of a remote antiquity; 
 some of which furnish indubitable proofs of 
 a general tradition respecting the primitive 
 Sabbath. Hesiod, who lived about 900 years 
 before the advent of Christ, says, “ The 
 
20 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 seventh clay is holy.” Homer, who sang about 
 . the same period, and Callimachus, likewise a 
 Greek poet, who flourished about 700 years | 
 
 later, allude to the seventh day as holy. ! 
 
 Theopliilus, of Antioch, says, concerning the j 
 seventh day, “ The day which all mankind | 
 celebrate.” Porphyry says, “The Phoenicians 
 consecrated one day in seven ns holy.” Lu- j 
 
 cian remarks, “ The seventh day is given to j 
 
 schoolboys as a liolyday.” Eusebius observes, | 
 “Almost all the philosophers and poets ac- j 
 knowledge the seventh day as holy.” Cle- ! 
 mens Alexandrinus says, “ The Greeks, as 
 well as the Hebrews, observe the seventh day 
 as holy.” Josephus, the Jewish historian, I 
 says, “ No city of Greeks or barbarians can J 
 
 be found which does not acknowledge a ; 
 
 seventh day’s rest from labour.” Philo tes- j 
 rifles, “ The seventh day is a festival to every | 
 nation.” Thus, through a long succession of j 
 ages, and by numerous Gentile nations, who j 
 were not at all likely to adopt any one of the I 
 
the curse of labour. 
 
 21 
 
 exclusive rites of Judaism, we have ample 
 evidence that the seventh day has been ob¬ 
 served, with more or less of religious ceremo¬ 
 nial, as a period of relaxation for the wearied 
 body, and as a temporary asylum from the 
 wasting strifes and cares of life. The illus¬ 
 trations furnished above point unquestionably 
 to vestiges of the primeval Sabbath, instituted 
 in Paradise, and which had been republished 
 to the new world by Noah and his posterity— 
 memorials of which were thus preserved among 
 heathen races, despite the prevalence of de¬ 
 pravity and the growth of human selfishness, 
 not so much from veneration for the high 
 authority that prescribed it, as from an ap¬ 
 preciation of its suitableness and profitable¬ 
 ness for the burdened masses of mankind. 
 
 A really sanctified Sabbath throughout the 
 world would exhibit impressive proofs of the 
 Divine benignity, and would present to the 
 devout mind, even in its merely picturesque 
 aspects, one of the most interesting spectacles 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 that could he witnessed upon earth. Go forth 
 at early morning, and climb the side of an up¬ 
 land peak, contiguous to some thicldy-peopled 
 city. Gaze eastward, southward, -westward, 
 and northward—through the whole circuit 
 travelled by the sun—and hehold the delect¬ 
 able representation of Sabbath rest. Every 
 sound breathes softer; every tint gleams 
 brighter; every scene seems fresher. Cast 
 thy glance across the country — pass from 
 field to field, from rill to river, from alp to 
 glen, from hill to valley, from grove to grove, 
 from one cluster of human dwellings to an¬ 
 other, and read in every softened feature of 
 nature the sweet tranquillity of Sabbath rest! 
 
 The flocks are wandering and gambolling 
 in the dells; the cattle are grazing on the 
 hill-sides; and the heasts of burden, freed 
 from their yoke, are feeding on the open 
 plains. The plough stands where it halted 
 in its course across the furrows; but the 
 husbandman is gone home to cultivate his 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 23 
 
 soul. The sound of the axe has ceased from 
 the forest, and the prostrate trees lie as they 
 fell; hut the woodman is gone away to pon¬ 
 der on the sudden death-stroke that may lay 
 him low, or is on his way to the place where 
 the keen axe of truth will he levelled at the 
 roots of his stubborn sins. The mills are at 
 rest on every hill-top; but their inmates have 
 retired to their habitations, to gamer up the 
 com of heaven. Few men are seen abroad ; 
 they are chiefly at home, by the domestic 
 hearth, beside the family altar, teaching groups 
 of children, watching at the couch of sick¬ 
 ness, or smoothing the pillow, and pouring 
 balmy speech into the ear of the dying. 
 Again behold and rejoice over the glorious 
 benefits of Sabbath rest! 
 
 Turn next towards the great city, rearing 
 its roofs, chimneys, steeples, monuments, and 
 huge masses of masonry in an atmosphere 
 less murky and impure than that which broods 
 over it on the other days of the week. The 
 
24 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 swarms of industry are now hived. The 
 mingled hum of busy multitudes, the heavy 
 tramp of traffic, the rush of enterprise, the 
 clamour of human passions, the noise of 
 innumerable tools and implements of handi¬ 
 craft, the fierce panting of engines, the ring¬ 
 ing of anvils, and the furious racings of 
 machinery; the shouts of crowds, the brawls 
 of drunkenness, and the plaints of mendicant 
 misery, are all sunk into silence, and disturb 
 not with a ripple of agitation the still Sab¬ 
 bath air. The huge factories and workshops 
 that girdle the city, and which are the foun¬ 
 tains of its prosperity, are empty and dumb; 
 and the swarms that carry on their earthly 
 burrowings in those warrens of industry are 
 reposing themselves in the companionship of 
 their families. The tall ships at anchor in 
 the harbour have furled their sails, closed 
 dorm their hatches, and hid from all eyes the 
 merchandise treasured in their holds; whilst 
 the Bethel-flag waves amidst a forest of masts, 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 25 
 
 and they that go down to the sea, and do 
 business on great waters, are below, study¬ 
 ing the chart of Eevelation, tracing the dan¬ 
 gers of their life’s voyage, and anticipating 
 the glad horn' when, redeemed from every 
 peril, and home on the bosom of a favouring 
 tide, they shall safely moor their bark in the 
 haven of eternal life. The black and dusty 
 wharfs, usually the Babel-scenes of confusion, 
 are cleared of their hordes of porters, and 
 clerks, and captains, and loitering crews, who 
 have cast off their burdens along with tlieh 
 foul skins and rough garments, and are now 
 lading themselves with the rich freightage of 
 the Holy Word. The merchant has quitted the 
 desk of his dusky counting-house, and is now, 
 in secret places, turning over the blotted leaves 
 of his own heart. The shopman has left his 
 counter, the weaver his loom, the joiner his 
 bench, the smith his forge, and the broker his 
 stall; for the new Sabbath, in its advent, has 
 published to all its tidings of liberty and rest. 
 
1 
 
 26 heaven’s antidote to I 
 
 The gates of the temple of Mammon are ! 
 shut, ancl the gods of gold and silver are | 
 forsaken by their week-day devotees. The ! 
 chiming hells, sounding alike across country j 
 and town, are calling upon all men to cut the ! 
 cords of their earth-bound thoughts and low 
 cares, and go up to worship at the footstool 
 of Jehovah; and the tapering spires, like 
 holy fingers, are pointing significantly to- ! 
 wards the sky. 
 
 And now the minister is descending from 
 his study, his countenance impressed with a 
 solemn sense of his responsibility; the saint 
 is coming forth refreshed from his closet; the ! 
 pardoned penitent is rising from his knees; 
 the evangelist is on his way to his mission 
 work; the Sabbath-school teacher is pleading 
 with his class; and the Christian matron is 
 gently leading forth her children to the moun- j 
 tain of the Lord’s house. j 
 
 At length a new traffic fills the streets; ; 
 a growing bustle stirs the air; a new scene j 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 27 
 
 ! expands before the eye. Eeligious assemblies 
 
 ! are gathering the major part of the popula- 
 
 i tion. They come from the spacious squares 
 
 and the crowded lanes; they are seen issuing 
 ! alike from the lordly palace and the plebeian 
 
 i hut. Trooping together are seen grey-haired 
 
 i sires and sprightly youth; the widow in her 
 
 ' weeds and the virgin in her teens; the father 
 
 | in hale manhood and the mother in her 
 
 charms; the lofty in their grandeur and the 
 lowly in their simplicity; the mighty in their 
 pride and the feeble in their meekness; the 
 healthy in their bloom and the sickly in their 
 | paleness; the saint with his pleasant gravity 
 | and the sinner with his indifference; the cox- 
 ! comb in his daintiness and the rustic in his 
 j rudeness. They pass along, not with the 
 ! swift-footedness of week-day enterprise, hut 
 ! with a measured step and gait, befitting the 
 solemn associations of the day. Gradually 
 their numbers are diminished, and ere long 
 the tluong has disappeared, whilst the silence 
 
28 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 of the streets is broken only by the footfall 
 of some lonely passenger. They are gone to 
 the places where the rich and poor meet to- ; 
 gether on terms of equality—where world- 
 made distinctions are effaced—and where one 
 common Father looks down, with impartial 
 benignity and grace, on priest and people, on 
 peer and pauper, on sovereign and slave. The 
 bells grow dumb one by one, and the doors of 
 the sanctuaries shut in their congregated wor¬ 
 shippers. 
 
 Organs are pealing through the lofty roofs 
 of cathedrals, and along the aisles of churches; 
 anthems are swelling from scores of unseen 
 chapels; the glad outbursts of thanksgiving 
 and the hallelujahs of the happy are mingling j 
 in the air, and filling the clear vault of heaven I 
 with rich harmony. Then the holy breath of j 
 prayer goes up like fragrant incense, ascend- i 
 ing to the sky; after which the manna of j 
 the word is scattered round the camp, and the ! 
 doctrines of grace are distilled like reviving j 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 29 
 
 dew upon the parched hearts of men. Prayer 
 and praise again succeed, and then—convinced 
 hy some eloquent Apollos, or conscience- 
 stricken hy some vehement Paul, or com¬ 
 forted hy some consoling Bamahas, or melted 
 hy some fervent John—the assemblies break 
 up and return, fervently ejaculating their 
 gratitude for the priceless privileges of Sab¬ 
 bath rest! 
 
 Alas! that the preceding sketch of Sabbath 
 sanctification should seem so much like an 
 ideal creation. Its observance, in the most 
 favoured spots of our world, is hut a remote 
 approximation to its destined quietude and 
 purity. The picture is everywhere blotted 
 and blurred. Clouds of human depravity 
 darken its divine beauty. The greed of co¬ 
 vetousness has wrung from its hands some of 
 its noblest blessings; while the natural im¬ 
 piety of man’s heart, and the constraints of 
 his evil habits, complete the awful work of 
 desecration. God has given the day, and 
 
30 
 
 heaven’s antidote to ! 
 
 blind selfishness not only wrongs itself of the j 
 invaluable boon, but would lay an embargo 
 upon its free blessings in relation to others '■ 
 also. Sloth is seen foolishly idling away the j 
 golden hours. Profaneness is heard uttering 
 its coarse jests and blasphemies in the very ! 
 precincts of the sanctuary. Profligacy comes 
 forth meretriciously attired, and, heedless of 
 rebuke, tracks the very footsteps of the pious. 
 
 The “ lovers of pleasure,” transported by the 
 wild liberty of the day, rush into scenes of j 
 sinful excitement—crowd the steam-boats, 
 riot in suburban tea-gardens, or promenade j 
 
 the streets, the parks, or the river’s banks, j 
 
 Trains rush across the startled country, rob- ; 
 bing thousands of railway servants of their , 
 
 heritage of rest, and pouring influxes of dissi- j 
 
 pated strangers into quiet villages and distant | 
 
 towns; whence, after roaming and enrous- • 
 ing for hours, they are again borne back by j 
 
 the returning train; but not without having i 
 
 given an additional stimulus to all that was , 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 31 
 
 evil, and leaving behind them broad sowings 
 of demoralization, destined to spring up and 
 yield a wild produce of corruption and sorrow 
 in future years. 
 
 II. CLEANLINESS. 
 
 The Sabbath is productive of habits of 
 cleanliness. Superficial thinkers might, pos¬ 
 sibly, pronounce this alleged advantage to be 
 foreign and far-fetched; but a dip beneath the 
 surface will reveal its intimate relation to the 
 day, and invest it with an importance that 
 cannot well be exaggerated. Eecent investi¬ 
 gations have brought to light a revolting pic¬ 
 ture of squalor, impurity, and wretchedness, 
 herding together in the crowded avenues and 
 courts of our great towns and cities. Phi¬ 
 lanthropy has pleaded earnestly and long for 
 the removal of these nests of social abomina¬ 
 tion, and the public, catching at length the 
 same humane inspiration, are sternly demand¬ 
 ing that sweeping sanatory measures should 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 j be adopted to get rid of these receptacles of | 
 | • corruption and nurseries of crime. Now, to 
 I the outcasts self-banished to these regions, the 
 I Sabbath never comes! In vain its morning i 
 ! eye peeps kindly in at the patched and gloomy 
 | windows, for it meeteth no recognition there! j 
 i In vain its meridian beams, struggling through 
 | the murkiness and filth above, around, he- j 
 neatli, seek to shine into the doorways of 
 those den-like homes, for they are quickly 
 quenched by the deep darkness that abideth \ 
 there! There the Sabbath’s decencies are 
 never cultivated, the Sabbath’s peace is never : 
 enjoyed, the Sabbath’s festival is never kept, 
 
 | the Sabbath’s blessing is never known! 
 j But oh! what augmented numbers of the 
 I working classes would become the irredeem- 
 | able victims of this dark lot if the Sabbath 
 j were repealed! The periodical return of the j 
 : Sabbath supplies a powerful motive to the j 
 
 ! cultivation of the proprieties of life. It pro- j 
 
 I motes, at regularly recurring intervals, the 
 
the curse of labour. 
 
 purification of the dwelling, the cleansing of 
 household utensils, and the lustration and 
 anointing of the person. By what washings 
 and purgings, by what scourings and polish¬ 
 ings, by what decorations and trimmings is 
 its near approach announced! What multi¬ 
 tudes of buckets, and brushes, and dust dis¬ 
 turbers are called into active requisition, and 
 what streams of beautiful water are spoiled 
 to remove the unclean accumulations of the 
 week, and to offer a fitting tribute to the 
 purity of the day. The greasy coating of 
 mingled dirt and perspiration, deposited 
 day by day upon the surface of the body, 
 is cast off with the soiled work-day dress; 
 and those whose calling brings them con¬ 
 tinually into defiling contacts are permitted 
 to know the deliciousness and delight of a 
 purified skin. 
 
 And then, when the day of hebdomadal 
 release arrives, and, denuded of every badge 
 of servitude, and apparelled in his best gar- 
 
 c 3 
 
34 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 ments, tlie transformed artizan steps forth 
 • from his abode into the presence of others 
 metamorphosed like himself, ivhat manly and 
 dignified feelings are awakened in his breast; 
 and, on finding himself saluted by his supe- 
 I riors in station, what feelings of self-respect 
 j will arise in his soul! Thus the Sabbath 
 
 j counteracts the inevitable tendency of the ser- 
 
 ] vilities of labour—it is perpetually at war 
 
 i with the sad effects of the curse; for, whilst 
 
 , menial occupations gradually undermine and j 
 
 j lower a man in his own estimation, and shroud 
 
 the excellence of liis being in mysterious 
 darkness, it is the aim of the Sabbath, by the 
 hallowing associations into which it ushers 
 ! him, to impress him with a sense of the so- 
 
 i lemnity of his position and the grandeur of 
 
 his destiny. ; 
 
 ! It is impossible to overrate the beneficial , 
 
 : influence of the habits of cleanliness thus j 
 
 j superinduced, upon the health, decencies, and j 
 
 j morals of the labouring population. It is an j 
 
THE C0ESE OF LABOUR. 
 
 35 
 
 influence so constant in its operation, and so 
 comprehensive in its range, that none hut the 
 most abandoned in character and condition 
 can resist its assimilating action; and these 
 escape it only by fleeing to some dark retreat 
 on the first approach of the Sabbath’s sun, 
 where they will hide their shame and filthiness 
 till the Monday’s bustle again calls them 
 forth, to prowl up and down and prey upon 
 the world. Besides, this luxury of purifica¬ 
 tion and this beauty of order, enjoyed by the 
 provident and thrifty on the Sabbath, by no 
 means terminate with the close of that day; 
 but, following them through the week, and 
 through the year, and through the successive 
 stages of life, materially aid in the formation 
 of the general character of that great class 
 among the people. For those who are accus¬ 
 tomed to study the phenomena of society will 
 find it to be an almost invariable law, that 
 improvidence and impurity go hand in hand 
 —that profligacy and physical filthiness are 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 i 
 
 j 3G 
 
 | twin evils; whilst devotion ever companies i 
 
 • with decency, and piety has always a fitting j 
 
 symbol of itself in external cleanliness. | 
 
 Thus, one benefit comes not alone. Clean- j 
 
 liness allures and leads the way to other j 
 
 graces. Physical benefits are often a pre- 
 | lude to moral blessings. The appendages of j 
 the body become a true index to the coudi- j 
 tion of the mind. The dwelling, like a faith- j 
 ful mirror, reflects from every side an image j 
 of the family; and household fife, in its re- ; 
 volving phases, is but the visible development j 
 of the habits and garniture of the soul. 
 
 The objection may be started to the fore¬ 
 going line of argumentation, that, if the Sab- j 
 bath’s visitation did not present its appeals to 
 the cleanly propensities of the people, other 
 opportunities would be sought and set apart J 
 by them for the realization of so desirable an ; 
 object as that at which w T e have glanced. 
 
 But when, we seriously ask, are such op- j 
 portunities, recurring with sufficient frequency, | 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 to be found ? When would there occur such 
 n confluence of powerful motives, favoured by 
 adequate leisure, as would stimulate, not here 
 and there an isolated individual or a solitary 
 family only, but large masses of the working 
 classes, to the cultivation of the proprieties 
 and amenities of life? Where, amid the 
 fierce contentious, the grinding extortions, the 
 lustful rivalries, and the everlasting labours 
 of a Sabbathless world, -would these blessed 
 pauses be met with? Nay, the spirit of the 
 mechanic would be so paralysed and abased 
 as to make him utterly reckless of all decent 
 appearances. Every finer instinct and every 
 germ of greatness would perish in his nature ; 
 and these gone, and together with them every 
 facility and incentive to self-improvement, the 
 man would degenerate into the brute, and 
 communities of such beings would become 
 awful scourges in the earth. We solemnly 
 believe that the Sabbath alone, by its uni¬ 
 versal provisions, its benignant restraints, and 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 its proclamations of mercy, stands angel-like 
 between us and this abyss of ruin. 
 
 The Sabbath is eminently conducive to 
 health. Health consists in the proper per¬ 
 formance of the functions of those organs 
 which constitute the body of man: it is the 
 perfection of the physical system. The pre¬ 
 servation of health depends upon the main¬ 
 tenance of the energy of the living functions, 
 which, when severely tasked by protracted 
 labour, can only be restored by commensu¬ 
 rate repose and recreation, and by such other 
 exercises as tend to impart vivacity and ex¬ 
 hilaration to the mind. Now, these indis¬ 
 pensable advantages, as we have attempted 
 to show, are guaranteed by the Sabbath, and 
 that in far more abundance and with greater 
 certainty than could be otherwise secured. 
 The weekly Sabbath comes to sprinkle its 
 reviving dews on the hot brow of industry, 
 
THE CURSE OE LABOUR. 
 
 and administer tlie elixir of life to a fainting 
 world. 
 
 A moderate amount of physical effort, pro¬ 
 portioned to the degree of muscular energy 
 possessed, and interspersed by intervals of 
 refreshment, contributes decidedly to the de¬ 
 velopment of the strength and well-being of 
 the frame; hut wherever the tasks of toil are 
 pitilessly multiplied—where the shoulders can 
 never throw off the yoke—where the spur is 
 ceaselessly applied to the poor fettered slave 
 —such a course of stimulation must strain 
 and derange the delicate mechanism, engen¬ 
 der disease and premature decay, and goad 
 the body, with unnatural swiftness, into the 
 bosom of a welcome grave! 
 
 Health is unquestionably the greatest tem¬ 
 poral blessing sweetening the condition of 
 those who are dependent for their subsist¬ 
 ence on manual labour. It is the chief ele¬ 
 ment in the scanty capital of the poor opera¬ 
 tive. Bob him of this, and you reduce him 
 
40 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 to pauperism, and want. While health tints 
 his countenance, nerves his arm, wings Iris 
 feet, exhilarates his spirits, and pours a 
 spring-tide of energy through the channels 
 of life, the robust mechanic will sport with 
 labour, laugh at poverty, and find existence 
 to he a luxury and a joy. But, when the 
 health sickens and the strength declines— 
 when the arm hangs pithless and the eye 
 grows dull—then it is that confidence reels, 
 the buoyant spirits droop, and hope—that hea¬ 
 venly guest, which is the first to come and 
 the last to leave the human bosom—lan¬ 
 guishes and dies. It is a sorrowful sight 
 to behold the delicate and sickly compelled 
 by dire necessity to bend their weakness to 
 efforts suited only to the athletic—to see the 
 shrivelled limb straining its feebleness to earn 
 some scanty pittance, and the decrepit form 
 home to the dust in painfulness beneath its 
 cruel load. Yet such sights are at present 
 mournfully common in our world. We can- 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 41 
 
 not walk along our streets, or visit tire re¬ 
 treats of industry and the marts of business, 
 without having our eyes grieved and our hearts 
 pained by their recurrence. 
 
 But if man fade so rapidly, with a seventh 
 portion of his time consecrated to rest and 
 renovation, then what imagination can con¬ 
 ceive the frightful condition into which he 
 would be plunged if the barriers of the Sab¬ 
 bath were hurled down, and reclining hu¬ 
 manity were summoned from its repose to 
 commence a life of uninterrupted bondage! 
 If the wear and tear of the beautiful ma¬ 
 chine he attended with so much mischief 
 now, how fearful would be the destruction of 
 health and life under a system so grinding and 
 ruthless! How dreary and death-like would 
 the world become! Its workshops would re¬ 
 semble the wards of some mighty hospital, 
 tenanted by the pining victims of intense toil. 
 Manhood would, in one or two generations, 
 lose all its characteristic. strength; youth 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 42 
 
 would be smitten with a fatal blight ere it 
 had half attained its growth; and hale old ' 
 age would soon become a prodigy to be won- j 
 dered at in the land. j 
 
 Yokefellows! flunk how the abstraction of | 
 the Sabhath would hopelessly enslave the 
 working classes, with whom we are identi¬ 
 fied. Think of labour thus going on in one j 
 monotonous and eternal cycle—the limbs for i 
 ever on the rack, the fingers for ever plying, j 
 the eye-balls for ever straining, the brow ; 
 for ever sweating, the feet for ever plodding, 
 the brain for ever throbbing, the shoulders ! 
 for ever drooping, the loins for ever aching, i 
 
 and the restless mind for ever scheming, j 
 
 Think — as your imagination beholds the 
 unvarying wheel of work, the tread-mill of 
 labour, thus going round, and round, and 
 round, without a change, without a pause, 
 from morn to night, from moon to moon, 
 and from year to year—think, if you can, 
 of the desolations that must follow this ah- 
 
CORSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 43 
 
 solute reign of labour over the whole realm 
 of time. Think of the beauty it would ef¬ 
 face; of the merryheartedness it would ex¬ 
 tinguish ; of the giant strengths that it would 
 tame; of the resources of nature that it would 
 exhaust; of the aspirations it would crush; 
 of the sicknesses that it would breed; of the 
 projects it would wreck; of the groans that 
 it would extort; of the lives that it would 
 immolate; and of the cheerless graves that it 
 would prematurely dig! See them, toiling 
 and moiling, sweating and fretting, grinding 
 and hewing, weaving and spinning, strewing 
 and gathering, sowing and reaping, razing and 
 building, digging and planting, unlading and 
 storing, striving and struggling;—in the gar¬ 
 den and in the field, in the granary and in 
 the barn, in the factory and in the mill, in 
 the warehouse and in the shop, on the moun¬ 
 tain and in the ditch, on the road-side and in 
 the wood, in the city and in the country, on 
 the sea and on the shore, on the earth and 
 
44 heaven's antidote to j 
 
 in the earth; in clays of brightness and days ' 
 
 of gloom; in hours of sun and seasons of j 
 
 storm; in times of trouble and times of ; 
 
 peace; in the heights of day and in the j 
 
 depths of night; through the savageness of 
 winter and through the gentleness of spring; 
 in the energy of youth and in the impotence of 
 age; when health is merrily dancing in the 
 blood, and when disease is eating up the ] 
 
 strength; when death is in the lonely home, 
 and when happy life encircleth the hearth 
 thus the wheel of labour would go round 
 with the earth, and the clrildren of industry, 
 chained to its surface, must follow its ruinous 
 circumvolutions, till, exhausted by unnatural 
 efforts, they relax their hold, drop off, and 
 suddenly disappear! , 
 
 The wom-out wayfarer, finding no verdant 
 resting place, and no house of entertainment 
 to cheer him in his travel, must sink at length 
 on the road-side and miserably perish. The 
 delicate and the fragile would he speedily 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 45 
 
 I " crushed,” by such a doom, “ before the 
 I moth." Feeble constitutions, that with a 
 j seventh day’s fostering care might eke out 
 ! their residue of strength' for many years, 
 
 1 would he broken down with a sudden crash. 
 I Incipient diseases, which nature, invigorated 
 | by adequate rest, might overgrow, would he 
 ! developed with a deadly rapidity. An intenser 
 
 i labour would he found a dreadful forcer of the 
 seeds and rudiments of decay which are em¬ 
 bedded, more or less plentifully, in all of us. 
 Under the vassalage of such a gigantic op¬ 
 pressor as unrestricted labour, earth would 
 reek with the sufferings of her offspring; 
 whilst the ail-absorbing prayer of her millions 
 would be for “Best! Rest! Rest!” or the 
 quiet slumber of the grave! 
 
 Oh, glorious Sahbath! almoner and nurse 
 of health! we, tire children of toil, flee to 
 the shadow of thy protection. Thou standest 
 beside us, like some guardian spirit, casting 
 over us the shield of thine excellency, enfold- 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 i ing our jaded powers in thy sustaining aims, ! 
 
 J and saying to the encroaching tide of human j 
 
 ! selfishness, “ Hitherto shalt thou come, hut j 
 
 no further; and here shall thy proud waves j 
 he stayed.” May thy bulwarks, notwithstand- I 
 ing all hostile assaults, stand strong as the 1 
 everlasting hills, and he, in all coming ages, j 
 ■ for a refuge and a covert to the children of ! 
 
 | men! ! 
 
 II. THE MERCANTILE ADVANTAGES OF 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 We have dwelt somewhat at length upon 
 the physical benefits resulting from the ob¬ 
 servance of the Sahbath — contemplating it 
 as the couch especially provided for the re¬ 
 pose of the prostrated powers of industry; 
 as a season eminently adapted to lure to the 
 cultivation of all the graces and refinements 
 of civilization, and as a provision designed 
 to replenish the impoverished springs upon 
 which an energetic condition of health and 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 47 
 
 strength depends. But, besides these advan¬ 
 tages, we believe it is capable of proof, that 
 the suspension of all secular employment on 
 the Sabbath contributes directly to the pe¬ 
 cuniary interests of the working classes. 
 This assertion will, perhaps, excite a mo¬ 
 mentary surprise in those who have only 
 viewed the subject with the eye of covetous¬ 
 ness, and under the bias of a sordid heart. 
 But, after pondering well the few rudimental 
 thoughts we are about to submit, we think 
 they will arrive at a thorough conviction of 
 the soundness of this somewhat startling pro¬ 
 position. 
 
 For the sake of perspicuity, we shall di¬ 
 vide the- working classes of our country into 
 two distinct branches—the two great arterial 
 streams of production, that supply the ne¬ 
 cessities of the social body, and that create 
 the wealth of the empire—viz., our mecha¬ 
 nics and our agricultural labourers; the former 
 division comprehending our manufacturing 
 
48 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 operatives, our artificers, the workers in me¬ 
 tals, and those following numerous other skil- i 
 ful crafts; and the latter branch comprising i 
 all farm servants, or individuals engaged in j 
 the production of food. Let us first view the 
 subject in relation to the mechanical depart¬ 
 ment of labour, by whose agencies we are 
 furnished with all the external necessities and 
 luxurious appendages of life; such as our 
 apparel and all our personal ornaments; our 
 dwellings, with all their garniture and uten- j 
 sils; and our libraries, with their literary ; 
 stores. : 
 
 The addition of the Sabbath to the estab¬ 
 lished period of labour, would he attended by ; 
 such consequences as are greatly to he de- j 
 precated by those whose hands are obliged to 
 I minister to their daily wants. They are these: I 
 —increased production; diminished consump- j 
 tion; a new stimulus to competition, and a j 
 reduction of wages. If these effects can he j 
 shown to he the legitimate fruit yielded by I 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 49 
 
 the secularization of the seventh day, we shall 
 have done much towards winning for it a 
 higher and warmer estimate on the part of 
 many who have been wont to regard its 
 observance with grudging aversion. If the 
 former two results mentioned can he satis¬ 
 factorily proved, the latter two, at least in a 
 country like ours, depressed hy a superabund¬ 
 ant population, must inevitably follow. 
 
 I. INCREASED PRODUCTION. 
 
 The appropriation of the Sabbath to worldly 
 occupations would be accompanied by in¬ 
 creased production. That is, the fruit of our 
 manufacturing exertions would be multiplied, 
 just in proportion to the additional period of 
 time devoted -to labour. We are aware that 
 this position is by no means .certain—that it 
 is based, perhaps, upon a fallacy. But then 
 the alternative of relinquishing it would tell 
 fearfully against the interests of our over¬ 
 tasked artizans, and would disclose such a 
 
50 
 
 heaven's antidote to 
 
 state of tilings as Christians, philanthropists, 
 patriots, and statesmen must alike deplore. 
 However, as it is our intention to recur to 
 this surmised objection again, we shall for 
 the present assume the proposition to he sound, 
 and give the working people of England the 
 full benefit thereof. We shall now attempt ! 
 simply to furnish some illustrations of its | 
 truth and validity. It is very clear that, all j 
 things being equal, the result of a man’s in- | 
 dustry who works six days or sixty hours, 
 would he exceeded one-sixth by the result of 
 seven days’ or seventy hours’ work per week. 
 Only let this principle he expanded over the 
 whole field of labour, and the aggregate re¬ 
 sult must he of the same nature as that in 
 every individual case. Thus, then, it follows, 
 that the present amount of manufactured 
 stock, annually produced from the raw mate- j 
 rial, would he multiplied in the proportion of j 
 one-sixth, by the abstraction of the Sabbath | 
 from rest—which would he an increase equi- j 
 
CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 51 
 
 valent to the sudden influx of nearly a mil¬ 
 lion fresh operatives. Now the question for 
 the working classes to consider is, would this 
 increase of production he advantageous or de¬ 
 trimental to their interests? Would it pro¬ 
 mote their prosperity and independence, or 
 conduce to their depression and servility? 
 Would it tend to their progressive enrich¬ 
 ment, or would it hang at length like a mill¬ 
 stone about their necks, and drag them down 
 to the depths of wretchedness ? Is there a 
 fair prospect of disposing of this immense 
 excess of production? Are there markets 
 available for this purpose ? Are the ports of 
 the world’s commerce opening so rapidly to 
 our trading enterprise, that there can be no 
 reason to fear lest the supply should exceed 
 the demand, lest our marts of merchandise 
 ! should be glutted, and our warehouses crammed 
 ! 'with unsaleable goods ? Increased produc- 
 j tion, to any extent, could be attended by no 
 evils, if consumption, domestic or foreign, 
 
52 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 kept pace with it. Do the signs of the times 
 indicate the probable advent of such a state 
 of mercantile prosperity? We trow not; hut 
 rather the reverse. So far, indeed, is it from 
 being the case now, that we are in exactly 
 the opposite condition. Our manufactrarag 
 industry already furnishes more than home 
 necessities .and foreign purchases combined 
 can remuneratingly take off. Even now, 
 during some portion of every year, tens of 
 thousands of operatives are without employ¬ 
 ment, or are compelled to abridge their hours 
 of labour; whilst ever and anon some com¬ 
 mercial crisis convulses the framework of so¬ 
 ciety, drives multitudes forth from then cells 
 of industry, and sends them drifting through 
 the land—a famishing and beggared race! 
 The effect of the secularization of the seventh 
 day would he to augment and aggravate these 
 terrible evils. But this is not all. It would 
 lead to— 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 53 
 
 II. DIMINISHED CONSUMPTION. 
 
 Storehouses gorged with surplus merchan¬ 
 dise on the one hand, and a -risible decline in 
 the trading prosperity of a nation on the 
 other, generally go together. The falling off, 
 in the case we are assuming, would affect the 
 staple commodities of business — food, ap¬ 
 parel, and furniture ; and this decline would 
 result mainly from these two causes:—first, 
 the non-employment of hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands of men, -women, and children, whose 
 ordinary week-day operations would he super¬ 
 seded by the labours of the Sabbath, and 
 who would, therefore, he incapacitated from 
 obtaining any of the comforts, and hut a few 
 scanty morsels of the necessaries of life;— 
 and a second source of this decline would 
 exist in the diminished requirements of the 
 working classes themselves for the indul¬ 
 gences of life. A population, despoiled of its 
 holydays, and brutalized by ceaseless toil. 
 
54 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 would have little taste, and less leisure, for 
 the acquisition of such things. The exten¬ 
 sion of oru’ work over another day of the 
 week would not create one new want, nor 
 add any keenness to those already felt. No 
 more food would he consumed in consequence, 
 even with the sharpest appetite that labour 
 could impart; for the Sabbath is, proverbially, 
 with the thrifty poor, a day of feasting and 
 I good fare. The dwelling would boast of no 
 richer garniture in consequenceno taste¬ 
 ful ornaments would be seen scattered about 
 the room, when there would be no neighbours 
 to drop in, to admire the cottage tidiness. 
 Alas! under such a system, how soon would 
 the pride of housewifery' be swept away, and 
 nothing but the meanest utensils would re¬ 
 main to relieve the nakedness of the domestic 
 abode. And then, no more wearing apparel 
 would be required in consequence. On the 
 contrary, every inducement to procure showy 
 and costly attire would be withdrawn. What 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 55 
 
 millions then would never change the clothes 
 that served them well enough for the drudge¬ 
 ries of life! It is impossible to calculate 
 how great a portion of the working classes 
 are indebted for their prosperity to the Sun¬ 
 day suits worn hy the industrious millions. 
 When we take into consideration the hands 
 employed in manufacturing and beautifying 
 the stuffs of which they are composed—in 
 distributing and retailing them, throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land—and the 
 everlasting stitch, stitch, stitch, in fashioning 
 them into vestments of elegance and beauty 
 —we shall have some conception of the mul¬ 
 titudes that draw their subsistence from this 
 source alone. 
 
 Perhaps it may be urged against this view; 
 that, if the lower orders did not purchase 
 their dresses for Sabbath use, they would, 
 nevertheless, procure them for other occa¬ 
 sions. This would undoubtedly be the case, 
 to some extent, among the better class of 
 
56 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 artificers, but -would still, we apprehend, leave 
 a serious defalcation in tlie demand for goods 
 of other qualities. Tor it should he remem¬ 
 bered that, with multitudes, the Sunday suit 
 is quite distinct in material from the clothing 
 required by them in following their respective 
 crafts. Whether these festive habiliments 
 are worn partly for the gratification of pride, 
 is not now the question for us to discuss; we 
 have here to consider it simply as an element 
 of comparative mercantile prosperity, or de¬ 
 pression—as a matter of pounds, shillings, 
 and pence, in relation to the condition of the 
 productive classes. And, so considered, the 
 diminished consumption of the staple articles 
 above mentioned, would reduce myriads of 
 industrious families to destitution, and would 
 recoil fearfully upon the cupidity of man. 
 
 III. INCREASED COMPETITION AND REDUCTION OF WAGES. 
 
 From a redundancy of production and an 
 abated demand, must follow increased com- 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 57 
 
 petition^ and reduction of wages. With less 
 work to he performed, with a multiplying 
 number of operatives, and with more time by 
 one-sixth in which to exercise their callings, 
 there would arise, of necessity, sharper emu¬ 
 lations among those who have no property 
 besides their hands and their health—nothing 
 wherewith to support themselves and feed 
 their families, save their skill and labour. 
 Men thus circumstanced, in order to secure 
 some few crumbs at nature’s table, would 
 be found struggling desperately with their 
 fellows, beating each other down to such a 
 minimum of remuneration as would barely 
 suffice for the necessaries of life. In a race 
 where all the competitors could not win, each 
 one would strive, at whatever hazards, to be 
 himself the successful candidate : “ Skin for 
 skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for 
 his life.” Now, it would be utterly impos¬ 
 sible for an adequate rate of wages to be 
 maintained amid the inroads of such evils 
 
58 
 
 heaven’s antidote 
 
 upon the social economy. They must continue 
 to sink lower and lower towards the point of 
 utter penury and distress. 
 
 If the abrogation of the Sabbatical rest 
 were not attended by the results we have pre¬ 
 dicted, then it would he in consequence of 
 the two following factsviz., that seven days’ 
 uninterrupted labour is not more productive 
 than six days’ toil, supplemented by a day of 
 rest; for it should he remembered, that time 
 is hut one of the many elements conducing 
 to efficient and fruitful labour; vigour of 
 limb, buoyancy of spirit, and a joyous sense 
 of freedom, are almost equally essential;— 
 and again, that the mortality of our species, 
 occasioned by this grinding system, would he 
 increased to such a frightful extent, as con- j 
 tinually to relieve the overgorged labour-mar- j 
 ket of its surplus hands. We leave the abet- j 
 tors of Sabbath abolition to decide, on which j 
 of the horns of this dilemma they choose to j 
 he impaled. | 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 59 
 
 But we must now offer a word or two 
 respecting the healings of the question on 
 the husbandmen of our land. By the growth 
 of the rural population, and the extensive 
 displacement of manual labour by the intro¬ 
 duction of machinery, the wages of this great 
 body of our yokefellows have been already 
 frittered down well nigh to a famishing point. 
 But, miserable as is their condition at present, 
 seven days’ toil in every week would only 
 serve to aggravate its horrors. A sixth por¬ 
 tion of those at present employed, would he 
 immediately expelled from the soil, billetted 
 upon the large towns, and drafted into other 
 occupations; or, disappointed in their most 
 vigilant efforts thus to found for them¬ 
 selves a home by dint of honest industry, 
 they would be compelled to take refuge within 
 the precincts of some union-house; or else,by 
 the pressure of their wants, would, under the 
 influence of exasperated feelings, be goaded 
 into the commission of crimes that would 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 embitter all tbeir days, and darken tlie once 
 bright prospect of tbeir eternal future. Whilst, 
 at the same time, those who continued to plod 
 at the employments of husbandry would soon 
 discover, that the pitiful sum at which their 
 sweat and strength were valued would un¬ 
 dergo no rise in consequence of their mul- ! 
 tiplied tasks: they would receive the same | 
 insulting pittance for seven days’ labour that ! 
 they had formerly received for six; for it is j 
 not the question, with many of their oppres- j 
 sors, what remuneration their hard services I 
 deserve, but upon how little of human fare ! 
 the sons of the soil can labour and exist. J 
 The foregoing considerations disclose to us ! 
 this fact—that we do not need the Sabbath i 
 for mercantile, manufacturing, or agricultural 
 pursuits, and that it is clearly the pecuniary 
 interest of working men in particular to resist 
 to the utmost all the encroachments of un¬ 
 necessary labour upon that day. In volunteer¬ 
 ing their own services, either out of contempt 
 
THE CUESE OF LABODE. 61 
 
 for the day, or through a longing for unhal¬ 
 lowed gains, or in countenancing the enthral¬ 
 ment of their fellows, they are fighting against 
 themselves, and plunging a dagger into the 
 heart of their own prosperity. Eather, let 
 the whole community of labour, with unity 
 of soul, rise to withstand every insidious at¬ 
 tempt to wrest from them this magna charta 
 of their rights, as the free creatures of God! 
 
 III. THE INTELLECTUAL ADVANTAGES OF 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 We have hitherto confined our illustrations 
 of the value of this institution to its meaner 
 uses—as a benevolent provision, conservative 
 of the well-being and happiness of the body; 
 and as an economical arrangement, conducive 
 to the wealth and prosperity of the empire: 
 hut we now propose to advance a step fur¬ 
 ther, and view the Sabbath in its adaptation 
 to the higher attributes and more dignified 
 relationships of man. He errs guiltily who 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 regards tlie mechanic simply as a curious 
 piece of mechanism, consisting of hrains, and 
 hones, and muscles, and nerves, endowed with 
 extraordinary capabilities of labour, and who 
 treats him precisely as he would any other 
 piece of machinery, casting him off when no 
 longer serviceable. 
 
 Man is a being of mysterious complexity; 
 and he who, in subjugating his powers to 
 menial tasks, overlooks or blinks this fact, 
 commits a sacrilege upon his nature. Whilst 1 
 there is nothing too low or grovelling for j 
 him to stoop to, there is, at the same time, 
 nothing too high to he unattainable by his 
 ambition. While his feet tread the ground, 
 his brow fronts the sky. While Ins hands 
 turn the sod, tug at the oar, or ply the loom, 
 his soul, in its spiritual outgoings, may he 
 roaming among the stars. The extremes of 
 majesty and meanness thus meet in his 
 nature. His perishing body establishes his 
 affinity with the dust; whilst his indestructible 
 
THE CORSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 spirit links him -with tlie heavens. His limbs 
 furnish him with instruments fitted for labour; 
 but his intellect qualifies him for thought. 
 The meanest serf whose figure is bowed 
 earthwards by the hardships of his lot, is 
 invested with an immortal mind—all un¬ 
 hewn, and shapeless, and beautiless it may 
 he, hut still lying there, embedded in the 
 deep mines of his nature — dungeoned in 
 darkness, peradventure, hut still alive, look¬ 
 ing hopefully through its bars, and strug¬ 
 gling to be free—-void and unfashioned now, 
 hut with capacities for treasuring up a vast 
 fund of ideas—poor and talentless in its pre¬ 
 sent state, hut nevertheless a mint that may 
 hereafter coin and give currency to its in¬ 
 tellectual opulence—barren and birthless now, 
 but containing in its womb the dormant rudi¬ 
 ments of noble purposes, startling discoveries, 
 beneficent deeds, or mighty revolutions. The 
 annals of politics, the chronicles of science, 
 and the archives of religion, hear witness to 
 
64 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 the bountiful upspringings of great and good 
 ' men from these iminclosed wastes of hu¬ 
 manity. Science can hoast of its Kepler, its 
 Ferguson, its Watt, its Newton, and its Ste¬ 
 phenson; and literature can point, amidst in¬ 
 numerable others, to the names of Erasmus, 
 Shakspeare, and Burns — all these having- 
 sprung from the loins of labour. Philan¬ 
 thropy has called some from the forge and 
 from the anvil to the more blessed work of 
 fusing hostile hearts and welding human 
 sympathies. Religion, too, has ever se¬ 
 lected her bravest and holiest champions 
 -from among the “ common people.” In 
 primitive times she found her John, and 
 James, and Peter, following the occupation 
 of fishermen on the hanks of the Galilean 
 lake, and, taking them from thence, made 
 them the apostles of her sublime revelations; 
 and, in this late age of missions, she has 
 drawn her most illustrious Christian heroes 
 —her Martin, her Brainerd, her Carey, her 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 65 
 
 Williams, her Knibb, and her Moffat—from 
 similar spheres of social obscurity, and sent 
 them forth to humanize, regenerate, and re¬ 
 deem mankind. 
 
 Such being the inherent grandeur of man, 
 even when found in the rudest condition and 
 fulfilling the humblest functions, we may rea¬ 
 sonably suppose that the Sabbath, being made 
 expressly for man, whilst it ministered re¬ 
 freshment to his corporeal frame, would not 
 overlook the higher necessities of his com¬ 
 pound nature. Nor are we disappointed in 
 these expectations. The Sabbath has a two¬ 
 fold function to perform. It comes to give 
 rest to matter and liberty to mind. Whilst 
 it soothes the senses, it unleashes the spirit 
 from its tether. It withdraws the hands from 
 gold-gathering, that it may feed and feast the 
 intellect with knowledge. It disinters the 
 soul from the rubbish of earthly cares, and 
 plumes it for higher converse and loftier 
 studies. It favours inaction only so far as 
 
66 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 it shall contribute to the advancement of 
 intelligence. Thus the Sabbath as clearly 
 indicates that the -working man has a mind, 
 demanding to he exercised and enriched, as 
 that he has a body sighing in its weariness 
 for the sweet indulgences of rest. And how 
 beautifully is it adapted to the former, as 
 well as to the latter of these ends! It sup¬ 
 plies the great desideratum of the artizan and 
 husbandman’s plodding existence—leisure for 
 profitable reading and mental and moral cul¬ 
 ture. Its benign influences are eminently 
 calculated to warm into life and nurse into 
 maturity many of the finer attributes of man¬ 
 kind. 
 
 X. OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRIVATE STUDY ASD 
 REFLECTION. 
 
 The advantage of the Sabbath, as it re¬ 
 spects the enlargement and fructification of 
 the minds of the lower classes, is strikingly 
 seen in the opportunities it affords for private 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 67 
 
 study and reflection. The different callings 
 pursued by the hulk of our working men 
 engross nearly all their time, and which they 
 are thus compelled, by their indigent circum¬ 
 stances, to give in exchange for the means 
 of subsistence. Where some few parings of 
 time remain at the disposal of the sons of 
 toil, they are generally so scattered, and oc¬ 
 cur at seasons when the corporeal powers 
 are so prostrated, and the spirits so spent, 
 as to be comparatively valueless, and passed 
 in negligent musing. It must be admitted 
 that such intervals of spiritless exhaustion 
 are not calculated to predispose to intel¬ 
 lectual effort, or to increase the hunger of 
 the mind; but rather, where no deliberate 
 resolve to excel has been formed, present 
 strong inducements to waste them in scenes 
 of excitement and sensuality. And, sad to 
 tell, the garish and syren-voiced temptations 
 of the world have prevailed, to a lament¬ 
 able extent, in alluring our artizans and 
 
68 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 peasantry from tlie more solid pursuits of 
 learning. 
 
 Now this great defect of the week is boun¬ 
 tifully supplied by the boon of the Sabbath. 
 
 It prescribes the ancient landmarks of labour, l 
 and incloses from the wide waste of common 
 life an allotment sacred to the culture and 
 growth of mind. A seventh portion of our 
 time—fifty-two Sabbaths in every year, and 
 ten years of Sabbaths, or 3650 days, in a 
 life of threescore years and ten—is thus re¬ 
 deemed from secular pursuits, and becomes 
 the especial property of mind. Oh, wlnit in¬ 
 tellectual riches would the Sabbath hours of 
 an average life, wisely husbanded, enable us 
 to hoard! How might we elevate our con¬ 
 dition, dignify our characters, strengthen our 
 virtues, and sweeten the bitterness of our 
 lives, by a conscientious use of these oft- 
 recurring opportunities! But, alas, how little 
 is this princely blessing understood or appre¬ 
 ciated by the working classes! How fearfully 
 
THE CUKSE OE LABOUR. 
 
 69 
 
 are its privileges abused, and its purposes per¬ 
 verted! Instead of works healthful in their 
 tone and moral in their tendency, we find 
 the reading multitude delighting in low and 
 pernicious productions. Instead of reading 
 books calculated to expand their intellect, and 
 nourish in them great and good and god-like 
 thoughts, we find among them works irreli¬ 
 gious in their character, and designed to pan¬ 
 der to the corrupt passions of human nature. 
 In the place of the Bible may be seen the 
 romance; in the place of the volume illus¬ 
 trating the works and ways of God, or des¬ 
 canting on the destiny of man, will be found 
 the Sunday newspaper, consisting of the 
 weekly offscourings of a nation’s depravity 
 diligently raked together. This literary gar¬ 
 bage is the mental aliment served up for Sab¬ 
 bath entertainment to tens of thousands of 
 out- working population. The issue of these 
 messengers of impiety and immorality fluc¬ 
 tuates between 50,000 and 100,000 weekly. 
 
70 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 What streams of corruption a prostituted 
 press thus pours forth throughout the land, 
 polluting the souls and vitiating the tastes 
 of old and young, imparting morbid cravings 
 to the minds of both sexes, and poisoning 
 the nether springs of morality and religion. 
 Where is the man who has risen from a low ; 
 
 station to eminence of rank, or to com- i 
 
 mending influence of mind, by feeding on j 
 
 such trash as this? Where shall we find J 
 
 the pioneer of liberty, the wrestler for hu- j 
 
 man rights, the social regenerator, the ori- j 
 
 ginal thinker, the conqueror of science, ; 
 
 or the preacher of religion, who, in sur- j 
 
 mounting his early disadvantages, has not , 
 
 jealously husbanded the precious hours of | 
 
 the Sabbath? Never, until the working j 
 
 classes shall change their predilections, root j 
 
 out these literary tares from their homes, j 
 
 and spend a portion of the Sabbath in 
 storing their minds with wdiolesome know¬ 
 ledge, will they realize the full advantages 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 71 
 
 of the clay, in relation to their intellectual 
 development. 
 
 II. MEAKS OF PTJB1IC OBAl IXSTMCTIOH. 
 
 Besides the facilities thus supplied for the 
 private acquisition of knowledge, the Sahhath 
 also furnishes the means of public oral in¬ 
 struction. This provision is peculiarly valu¬ 
 able to the mass of the people, whose avoca¬ 
 tions and straitened circumstances necessarily 
 exclude them from many sources of improve¬ 
 ment accessible to others. It is pre-eminently 
 the glory of the Sahhath. In England, Scot¬ 
 land, and Wales, about 35,000 buildings are 
 flung open on this day for the importation 
 of instruction in morals and religion. About 
 40,000 minds, many of them gifted and 
 powerful, have consecrated their talents to 
 tins work, and distribute on this day the 
 fruit they have garnered up by the studies 
 of the week. Everything in the nature and 
 accompaniments of the day favours and aids 
 
72 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 their efforts. The cessation of business, the 
 sudden enfranchisement of the thoughts from 
 worldly thraldom, and the universal tran¬ 
 quillity that reigns around—all conduce to 
 the success of the preacher’s ministrations. 
 But for the institution of these means, what 
 multitudes of every generation must have 
 passed to the grave ignorant of their re¬ 
 sponsibilities, then- moral relations, and their 
 destiny. The Sabbath abstracts the mind 
 from carnal contacts, and keeps it from root¬ 
 ing itself altogether in the earth. It beckons 
 the crouching spirit of the trader away from 
 week-day scenes, to higher and calmer re¬ 
 gions. 
 
 The instruction dispensed on this day is of 
 a character calculated to expand, refine, and 
 sublimate the mind. It embraces a boundless 
 range of topics, from the simplest elements of 
 knowledge appreciable by the dullest intellect, 
 to the most recondite mysteries that baffle the 
 highest reason. It unseals the fountain-head 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 73 
 
 of truth, in the nature of God. It unlocks the 
 treasures of divine philosophy, in creation, in 
 Providence, and in redemption. It impresses 
 into its sacred service whatever is beautiful 
 in nature, grand in science, and instructive 
 in art; whatever is pure in ethics, lovely in 
 virtue, and sublime in revelation; whatever is 
 monitory in the past, perilous in the present, 
 
 I and inspiriting in the future. It leads the 
 mind backward to the ages before the flood, 
 to the paradisaical state of man, to the origin 
 of the universe, and thence to the vast soli¬ 
 tudes of a past eternity; or it urges the shrink¬ 
 ing spirit forwards, through the valley of the 
 shadow of death—through the dark and popu¬ 
 lous empire of the grave—into the august 
 presence of the Judge of all the earth—to the 
 ! home of the beatified—to the pandemonium of 
 the wicked—and outwards into the immensi¬ 
 ties of the everlasting future! It addresses 
 itself to all the faculties and passions of the 
 soul; it illumines the understanding, sobers 
 
74 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 tlie judgment, thrills the heart, softens the j 
 feelings, energizes the conscience, and sane- I 
 tifies the deepest affections of our mysterious j 
 nature. i 
 
 The public instruction of the Sabbath 
 teaches man also to understand himself—a | 
 study of supreme importance, and of intense ! 
 interest, and one that should take precedence ! 
 of every other. It is ever reminding him of ! 
 his immortality, and giving premonitions of i 
 his latter end. Its lessons are suited to the | 
 changeful circumstances and experiences of j 
 his chequered history; it counsels him in his ! 
 embarrassments, comforts him under his ad- ! 
 versifies, encourages him amidst his struggles, : 
 and strengthens him for the hour of tempta- ' 
 tion. It habituates the mind to the contem- i 
 plation of all that is wonderful and glorious in 
 God, and all that is hateful and terrible in sin; 
 all that is divine in compassion, and victorious 
 in love; all that is beautiful in holiness, and 
 hideous in depravity; all that is hallowing in 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 75 
 
 truth, and pestiferous in error; all that is 
 alluring in heaven, and revolting in hell. It 
 is impossible to exaggerate the blessed effects 
 resulting to the working classes from thus 
 familiarizing their minds with sound scriptural 
 views and holy hihle principles. Such in¬ 
 struction exerts a plastic power upon the 
 character, and tends to make them more con¬ 
 scientious as servants, more patriotic as citi¬ 
 zens, more peaceful as subjects; wiser as men, 
 better as parents, and happier as Christians. 
 
 III. SABBATH SCHOOLS. 
 
 The Sabbath schools of our land afford 
 another exemplification of the advantages of 
 the Sabbath in relation to mind. These de¬ 
 lightful institutions are mainly supplied with 
 scholars from the families of the lower ranks 
 of society. There are at the present time, 
 according to a recent calculation* not fewer 
 
 * See Edward Baines’ Lecture on Education at Crosby 
 Hall, Feb. 15, ISIS. 
 
 E 2 
 
76 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 than two millions of such children gathered 
 every Sabbath day into these Christian nur¬ 
 series; a large proportion of whom are em¬ 
 ployed through the entire week, and who, but 
 for this expedient of Christian benevolence 
 and zeal, would grow up in a state of barren 
 ignorance. Here, then, w T e have a machinery, 
 simple in its construction, noiseless and un¬ 
 obtrusive in its operations, hut nevertheless 
 wonderful and far-reaching in its results. The 
 ten thousand little streamlets glide unseen 
 along the bed of society—the children and 
 their teachers come and go from week to week 
 —the busy world, meanwhile, taking no note 
 of them; hut a mighty and beneficent work is 
 stealthily going on in secret. The fallow 
 ground of two millions of minds is brought 
 under the culture of spiritual husbandry*. 
 The virgin soil of youthful hearts is turned 
 up, and exposed to the warm breath of instruc- 
 
 ! 
 
 * A glorious band of 250,000 teachers are employed in the 
 work of Sabbath-school tuition .—Vide Baines’ Lecture. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 77 
 
 tion. The seeds of evil geminating there— 
 those indigenous to their nature, those shed 
 upon them by a pernicious parental example, 
 and those home to them on the wings of every 
 worldly influence—are sought out, and care¬ 
 fully eradicated. Fresh sowings simultaneously 
 take place; living germs of goodness are 
 implanted; the stony heart is oft-times made 
 ductile by tender treatment; the conscience 
 is aroused; the intellect is dressed and fructi¬ 
 fied; an appetite for nutritious knowledge is 
 created; and thus the work hopefully goes on. 
 
 Sometimes the green blade of promise 
 speedily appears, the budding intellect ex¬ 
 pands its leaves, and the progressive life yields 
 a rich crop of piety and usefulness. In other 
 cases the springing is delayed. The golden 
 grain seems to have perished in the unge- 
 nial bed to which it had been consigned. But 
 no. Bank passions and luxuriant vices have 
 only checked the precious seed, and retarded 
 its growth. The living rudiments can never 
 
78 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 rot: they lie deeply earthed in the heart, 
 entangled, perhaps, -with the fibres of sins 
 that root themselves there; awaiting a pre¬ 
 destined day—an hour—a place—when and 
 where they shall suddenly burst, with start¬ 
 ling energy, into sight. It may he on the 
 desolate rock, when the wreck is going down; 
 it may he in the heart of a deep wilderness, 
 or in the worse solitude of a crowded city, 
 when no friendly face beams upon them; it 
 may he in the grave-yard, in the day of 
 desolation; it may he in the lonely cham¬ 
 ber, in the dead of night; it may he in the 
 dungeon, when crime is fully ripe; or it 
 may he on the death-bed, when the judg¬ 
 ment hour draws near! For on all these 
 occasions, and in all these places, have 
 the imperishable reminiscences of Sabbath- 
 school instructions been suddenly revived: 
 sometimes to communicate a glimmering hope 
 of the Divine mercy; at others, to add fuel 
 to the burnings of despair. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 79 
 
 Wliat rich fruitage has this blessed system 
 already yielded! The Sabbath-school is a 
 nursery of national righteousness. It has 
 supplied men of integrity for responsible sta¬ 
 tions in society. It has, from year to year, 
 replenished the church of God with new mem¬ 
 bers. It has provided the ministry of our 
 land with not a few of its most illustrious 
 ornaments; and has given the first impulses 
 of seraphic zeal to many of the most dis¬ 
 tinguished missionaries of modem times. And 
 who can compute the number of dormant 
 minds it has quickened into activity—the fine 
 intelligences it has opened and expanded; the 
 memories it has stored with precious truths; 
 the trailing virtues it has supported and 
 invigorated; and the thriving vices it has 
 withered, uprooted, and destroyed! 
 
 It is, moreover, the peculiar excellence of 
 this educational system, that it not only de- 
 velopes intellect, but it developes it in a right 
 manner. It does this, not by artificial stimu- 
 
80 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 fonts, forcing a precocious and sickly growth, 
 but by simply aiding the bealtby action of 
 nature. For it is not the abstract acuteness 
 and capacity of any mind, but the proper 
 application of its powers, that should he a 
 matter of solicitude. A splendid intellect 
 prostituted to the advocacy of error is a fear¬ 
 ful curse; whilst the humblest talents, plighted 
 to truth, and wisely directed, may prove an 
 enduring blessing. 
 
 Had the Sabbath no other benefit of which 
 to boast, than that of educating the incipient 
 mind of the children of the working classes, 
 it would be entitled to our warmest gratitude 
 and commendation. Sabbatli-school instruc¬ 
 tion is one of the most hopeful and influential 
 of all labours, and in the present perilous 
 times is emphatically required! If the wide 
 undergrowth of youthful mind be not care¬ 
 fully -watched, and directed, in its earlier 
 stages of development, small success will at¬ 
 tend any subsequent efforts to improve it, 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 81 
 
 when it has attained a dwarfed, misshapen, 
 and stubborn maturity. If good impulses 
 are not given to the rising intelligence of the 
 labouring population in childhood, there is 
 painful reason to fear that, in very many cases, 
 the impressing season is irrevocably lost. 
 Other teachers are in the field. Other in¬ 
 fluences are busy all around. Life opens up 
 its beguiling scenes to the inexperienced eye. 
 Harlotry lavishes its blandishments and weaves 
 its snares. Scepticism insinuates its doubts. 
 Profanity next approaches, flashing its witty 
 jests and blasphemies. Enticements to dis¬ 
 soluteness and sensuality ply the unguarded 
 victim on every side, till at length the time 
 not spent in the duties of his calling is 
 wasted in awful wickedness. Thus the fallen 
 one becomes a wretched outcast from all good 
 men. And thus minds that, with timely 
 training, might have straggled into light and 
 usefulness, become blasted by early neglect, 
 and the fierce onset of earthly temptations. 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 But, if youth will push its w r ay to the brink 
 of destruction, let us, nevertheless, fence the 
 path with all possible resistances and obstruc¬ 
 tions. Since the road to ruin is so easy and 
 congenial to the heart of man, let us lodge 
 in his mind every principle that is calculated 
 to retard his progress and damp his guilty 
 ardour. This object is blessedly achieved by 
 the Sabbath-schools of our country. 
 
 What a fund of blessing is thus hoarded 
 up in the Sabbath! Its uses in relation to 
 mind are not at present fully understood; for 
 its rich available sources have never yet been 
 half explored. The present Sabbath-school 
 system, for instance, is but the embryo of a 
 more perfect scheme for intellectual elevation 
 hereafter to be disclosed. 
 
 iv. the domestic advantages of 
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 Besides numerous incidental and collateral 
 benefits resulting from the advent of the 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 Sabbath, in relation to the homes of the work¬ 
 ing classes, there are three great ends directly 
 promoted by it that are worthy of special re¬ 
 gard : it favours the cultivation of natural 
 affection, it secures family fellowship, and it 
 generates and fosters domestic piety. 
 
 I. UNDER THE AUSPICES OP THE SABBATH, NATURAL 
 AFFECTION IS NURTURED AND INCREASED. 
 
 The institution of families does not owe its 
 origin to human ingenuity. God himself has 
 grouped the human race in these miniature 
 associations; and, by the refined instincts 
 which he has implanted in their bosom, has, 
 in all ages, and amidst all the confused com¬ 
 minglings of mankind, preserved this unique 
 institution from destruction. The homes of 
 men are the centres of nearly all the light 
 and warmth that cheer the social world; the 
 arks that shelter mankind from the raging 
 tumults and storms of life; the cells where 
 the loving and the loved hoard the sweet fruits 
 
84 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 of their reciprocal affection; the well-springs 
 that supply mankind with the purest draughts 
 of earthly happiness. Attachment to home is 
 always strongest in the hearts of the virtuous 
 and the good ; whilst it will he found, that 
 those wdio.have abandoned themselves to sen¬ 
 sualism and vice, have first learned to loathe 
 the quiet joys, the chaste delights, and the 
 gentle affections of the family circle. 
 
 All our natural affections are quickened by 
 frequent and kindly domestic communion. 
 The offices of love, the acts of devotedness, 
 and the proofs of tenderness, constantly re¬ 
 peated among relatives mingling in the same 
 dwelling, cannot hut powerfully affect their 
 emotional nature, and continue to weave, day 
 by day, a chain of love around their hearts. 
 The strength of this chain will depend, in a 
 great measure, upon the frequency or infre¬ 
 quency of the intercourse subsisting between 
 the respective members of the household. It 
 is proverbial, that absence tends to the 
 
THE CURSE 
 
 LABOUR. 
 
 estrangement of tlie heart, even from tliose 
 claiming the closest kinship with us. Where 
 our seasons of communion, therefore, only 
 occur at lengthened intervals, or where they 
 are hurried and embarrassed hy the intrusion 
 of care and anxiety, the bonds linking to¬ 
 gether the members of the family must of 
 necessity he thereby relaxed and weakened. 
 
 These observations bring at once to our 
 view the position of the working classes, in 
 their respective families, as it respects the 
 cultivation of those natural affections from 
 which so large a share of then earthly en¬ 
 joyments spring. During the days of la¬ 
 bour, the artizan or the husbandman is, to 
 a great extent, an involuntary absentee from 
 his home. He rises early in the morning, 
 before tlie remainder of the family are up, 
 and goes forth, like the sun, to perform his 
 daily circuit of duty. If the scene of his 
 operations happen to he near, he shows 
 himself punctually at the hours of refresh- 
 
heaven’s antidote 
 
 ment, partakes hastily of the family meals, 
 and again disappears; hut if, as is fre¬ 
 quently the case, his sphere of labour he 
 remote, then he returns no more to his fire¬ 
 side till the evening is far spent, and when 
 the children, or the sick wife perhaps, have 
 retired to rest; whilst in very many instances 
 the great distance of his employment will de¬ 
 tain him from the hosom of his family till 
 the hroad shadows of the closing week are 
 stretched across the land. This is the per¬ 
 petual lot of millions of our toiling tribes. 
 What opportunities, then, have they, in these 
 swift visits to the domestic hearth, or in the 
 drowsiness of evening exhaustion, to breathe 
 sympathy or minister comfort to an ailing 
 and suffering wife? What opportunities to 
 win, by parental endearments, a lodgment in 
 the hearts of their offspring? What leisure 
 to sit under the shadow of the gourd their 
 own hands have planted, and eat of its de¬ 
 licious fruits? If some provision had not 
 
the curse of labour. 
 
 87 
 
 been made to obviate the effects of this do¬ 
 mestic deprivation, the families of the work¬ 
 ing classes generally would present a painful 
 spectacle of mutual indifference and disaffec¬ 
 tion between husbands and wives, and of 
 alienation between fathers and children: for 
 when the natural affections, which mainly 
 give birth to all the delights of home, are 
 suffered to languish through neglect, there 
 are no evils or distractions to which such 
 households may not become a prey. 
 
 But the same benevolent Being who has, 
 by certain constraining laws interwoven with 
 our nature, clustered mankind in these little 
 communities, has also, even in the most un- 
 propitious circumstances, afforded facilities 
 for promoting those refined instincts, on the 
 strength of which the happiness of the 
 family institution chiefly depends. God has 
 given to the sons of labour the Sabbath for 
 a sacred possession. On this day the sepa¬ 
 rations of the week do not take place; the 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 dissociated axe brought together into fellow¬ 
 ship; the brother caresses the sister; the 
 father lavishes his fondness upon the chil¬ 
 dren ; the husband tenderly greets the wife; 
 and the zone of charity encompasseth the 
 household. The pulses of affection are 
 quickened in every soul; each beholds his 
 or her happiness imaged in the beaming 
 countenances of all beside; and thus love 
 ripens apace, beneath the clear sunshine of 
 the heart. 
 
 If the Sabbath fail to bring household har¬ 
 mony and interchanges of affection, as it does 
 in too many cases, we must attribute it, not 
 to any defectiveness in the provisions of the 
 day, but to the prevalence of discordant pas¬ 
 sions in the bosoms of the members of the 
 family. Their heart-strings are out of tune ; 
 consequently the music of domestic life is 
 marred. The father is austere and despotic, 
 it may be, or the mother is querulous and 
 ill-tempered; in either case, the green affec- 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 tions of childhood are blighted as soon as 
 they appear. The husband is perhaps en¬ 
 slaved by intempearnoe, and robs his family 
 to satiate his lusts; the down-trodden wife 
 either upbraids him, or sullenly submits to 
 her fate; and the slighted children learn to 
 dread and recoil from their degraded sire. 
 To such the Sabbath reunion brings no di¬ 
 vine concord, no holy heart-communion; and 
 thus ruthlessly does sin oftentimes blur the 
 bright beauty of Sabbath homes, and neu¬ 
 tralize the kind intents of Him, who is 
 alike the founder of families and of Sabbath 
 days. 
 
 II. TUB SABBATU SECURES TO THE WORKING CLASSES 
 OPPORTUNITIES FOR DMIESTIO FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 This is but an amplification of the idea 
 upon which we have already dilated. During 
 the week by far the largest portion of their 
 time is consumed amidst their coadjutors in 
 toil, many of whom are comparative strangers 
 
90 heaven's antidote to 
 
 to them; others are unworthy of their con¬ 
 fidence and friendship; whilst the fellowship 
 of not a few is decidedly distasteful and 
 distressing. It imparts a double joy, there¬ 
 fore, to the intelligent and virtuous man, 
 to he able to escape for a season from such 
 contacts, and to find a temporary retreat in 
 the bosom of a cheerful family. Here he can 
 breathe freely, in an atmosphere untainted 
 by the impurities that have surrounded him 
 throughout the w T eek. Here he can solace 
 his soul with the sweet converse of those he 
 loves. On this day he has time to imprint, 
 line by line, lineament by lineament, an in¬ 
 delible image of himself on the hearts of his 
 sons and daughters. On this day he has 
 leisure to extract the honey of domestic hap¬ 
 piness from the beauteous flowers bursting 
 and blooming around him in the garden of 
 his home. On this day he has opportunity 
 to cultivate the affections of his children, by 
 directing them towards worthy objects; to 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 admonish them of their faults and follies; 
 to point out the temptations to which they 
 are exposed; to forewarn them, with a pa¬ 
 rent’s earnestness, of the perils that beset 
 their steps; to impregnate their minds with 
 sound principles; to instil virtuous senti¬ 
 ments; to extirpate vindictive dispositions; 
 to encourage the exercise of the intellect, and 
 strive to exalt the moral sense; in short, to 
 weed out of their natures whatever would 
 prove detrimental to them happiness or use¬ 
 fulness, and at the same time to foster in 
 them whatever might tend to improve their 
 characters, or give stability to their future 
 lives. 
 
 If this parental mission, to which the Sab¬ 
 bath peculiarly calls the heads of households, 
 were hut conscientiously fulfilled, what my¬ 
 riads of youth might he snatched from in¬ 
 famy; and what numbers of sorrowful parents, 
 whose heads are prematurely bending to the 
 grave, might spend a happy and extended 
 
92 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 old age beneath the family vine they had 
 planted in their days of strength. But, in 
 the most critical periods of their children’s 
 history, their minds and morals were neg¬ 
 lected—left exposed to the sower of every 
 sort of evil—and now, alas! they are har¬ 
 vesting a terrible retribution in the crimes ; 
 and sufferings of their scattered offspring! 
 
 Contrasted with this dark picture, how 
 blessed is the retrospect of a well-spent Sab¬ 
 bath in the family! What a sweet prepara- j 
 tive for the struggles of the coming week! 
 Where is the father who would not go forth 
 on the Monday morning with a heart brimful 
 with rapture to toil anew' for his wife and 
 
 children! And how often, as the hot dews j 
 
 of labour roll from his forehead, and his j 
 weary arms drop pithless by his side, will ^ 
 the swift thoughts of home rush over him, ^ 
 reviving him like new wine, and quickening , 
 all his flagging energies! The exertions of j 
 
 such a man, acting under such abiding im- I 
 
THE CUESE OF LABOUE. 
 
 93 
 
 pulses, cannot be otherwise than fruitful; and 
 how precious should such fruits be esteemed, 
 when cast into the family lap for the impar¬ 
 tial use of all! 
 
 It is equally cheering to the matronly wife, 
 to be privileged, for one day in seven, to en¬ 
 tertain her lord in the peaceful realms wherein 
 she lives and reigns. Exiled to a great 
 extent from her presence in the week, she 
 ardently longs for the day when her husband 
 shall fill the vacant chair beside the health, 
 irradiate the cottage with his smiles, and de¬ 
 light her ear with that voice whose tones of 
 tenderness whispered away her heart in the 
 romantic days of her maidenhood. 
 
 But, if the communion of a well-ordered 
 home be thus refreshing to parents, it is dif¬ 
 ficult to overrate the hallowing influence it 
 exerts upon the minds of the rising members 
 of the family. It helps to consolidate the 
 virtuous formations of their characters. It 
 preserves the guileless and unsuspecting from 
 
94 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 the fatal seductions that bestrew the highways 
 of the world. It restrains those prurient de¬ 
 sires that so often hum in the hosoms of the 
 young, to rush into the world and into the 
 blighting excitement that rages out of doors, 
 and teaches them betimes that real happiness 
 may he imbibed at the quiet cistern of do¬ 
 mestic enjoyments, hut never from the turbid 
 currents of a dissipated life. 
 
 And then, this influence is as lasting ns it 
 is beneficial. The recollections of a happy 
 home will cling to the young adventurer when 
 his turn comes to plunge into the wild waters 
 of a turbulent world. In the case of him who 
 is under the sway of virtuous principles, these 
 sacred remembrances will never lose their 
 power; whilst in the case of him who has 
 swerved from the path of rectitude, the Sab¬ 
 bath counsels of a serious father, and the fer¬ 
 vent pleadings of a pious mother, will vibrate 
 upon his ear amid the guilty excesses of a 
 profligate career. The earliest impressions of 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 95 
 
 home are generally the deepest, and the last 
 to he effaced; and where these are of a pleas¬ 
 ing and salutary character, they will often act 
 like an anchor, in steadying the heart of the 
 young sinner, and preventing him driving 
 headlong on the rocks of destruction! But 
 there is yet another aspect in which the do¬ 
 mestic advantages of the Sabbath may be 
 viewed. 
 
 The ordinary work-days of most of our 
 operatives are necessarily so engrossed by 
 their out-door occupations, and the time con¬ 
 sumed in going to and fro, that, whatever 
 their inclinations may be, they seldom have 
 opportunity to indulge in the offices of fa¬ 
 mily devotion. Business, as now conducted, 
 is so thoroughly worldly in its spirit and re¬ 
 quirements, and so greedy of every moment 
 it can wrest from its slaves, that no space 
 
96 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 is left, between the rising and the setting 
 sun, for the pious labourer to assemble his 
 household around the domestic altar. His 
 meal-times barely suffice to enable him to 
 reach his home, to appease the appetites of 
 nature, and to retrace his steps again, Thus 
 the devout-workman, however his soul may 
 pant for a brief daily season which he may 
 consecrate to the social exercises of religion, 
 finds himself irresistibly borne onwards by 
 the tide of human selfishness, and compelled 
 to conform to many of the customs and re¬ 
 strictions imposed by the ungodly. 
 
 But here again, as elsewhere, the mercy of 
 Heaven interposes on hehalf of its vexed 
 children. Every seventh day that breaks 
 upon the groaning world publishes liberty to 
 these lamenting captives. The rich banquet 
 which tins day spreads, atones, in some mea¬ 
 sure, for the spiritual scarcity of the week. 
 On the Sabbath the perusal of the Scriptures 
 may be resumed; the reunited household, free 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 97 
 
 from the inquietudes and claims of secular 
 duties, may meet for praise and prayer around 
 the throne of grace; the well-matched pair 
 will take sweet counsel together, and of the 
 Lord; the inquisitive children, gladdened at 
 their father’s sojourn among them, will drink 
 from his lips the words of sacred instruction; 
 friends and kindred, dropping in, will frater¬ 
 nize with the family in their communings 
 with each other and with heaven, and go away 
 hearing a rich blessing in their souls; songs 
 of rejoicing and canticles of praise will re¬ 
 sound through the templed cottage; whilst 
 the foretastes of heavenly bliss will often ra¬ 
 vish the hearts, and the foreshadowings of a 
 coming glory will gleam upon the counte¬ 
 nances, of its happy inmates. Nor will the 
 public ordinances of divine worship interrupt 
 this holy fellowship. An intelligent and 
 earnest piety in the rulers of the family will 
 generally so contrive, as that most, if not all, 
 of its members may repair in company to the 
 
98 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 house of Gocl, and there celebrate divine 
 mercy with the great congregation of Israel. 
 
 Such are some of the inestimable privileges 
 which the Sabbath institution guarantees to 
 the families of the working classes. It re¬ 
 quires, therefore, hut a glance to perceive 
 the deranged and godless state to which the 
 repeal of the Sabbath law would reduce them. 
 The natural affections of the lower orders 
 would thereby he blunted, and a diminished 
 interest in each other’s well-being would ensue, 
 in consequence of the infrequency and has¬ 
 tiness of their family intercourse. The se¬ 
 veral members of the same household would 
 grow up in strange and freezing apathy 
 towards each other. The children would sel¬ 
 dom see the father, except for a few burned 
 minutes, and then it would he when he is 
 chafing beneath the labour-yoke, and when 
 his eye is continually roving to the admoni¬ 
 tory hands of his watch—a time not at all 
 calculated to encourage the reciprocities of 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 99 
 
 paternal and filial love. The father, too, on j 
 liis part, never having a few consecutive hours ; 
 of leisure, to enable him to explore the mine j 
 of household treasure which he nominally j 
 possesses, would soon feel the chain of la¬ 
 bour drag as heavily as his dead heart witliin 
 him, while the brawny arm of energy, and 
 the soul of enterprise, would flag, because | 
 
 the inspirations of love were wanting. For, j 
 
 where ambition, or covetousness, or emula- j 
 tion stimulates one to indefatigable effort, J 
 love impels thousands on in the fierce races j 
 of human industry. Think of this state of j 
 things everywhere existing among the work¬ 
 ing classes—think of homes divested of their ; 
 attractions—think of the bonds of sympathy j 
 between the closest kindred universally re¬ 
 laxed— think of the strong affinities of na- : 
 ture which, for lack of adequate domestic 
 fellowship, are dying out of human hearts— 
 think of hard labour, thus deprived of its 
 elastic spring, going on with sluggishness 
 
100 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 ancl languor; for who would toil, and sweat, 
 and “ grind the hones out of his arms,” with¬ 
 out a powerful motive ?—and what motive is 
 sufficiently strong to urge millions of our : 
 yokefellows to menial offices all their lives, 1 
 save necessity to provide for themselves, and i; 
 | love towards those dear ones who have a I 
 natural claim upon their services?—think of I 
 the consequences that would ensue from the ! 
 withdrawal of this mainstay of the industrial j 
 habits of the people; and infer therefrom, the : 
 inexpressible advantages accruing to innu- ! 
 merable family groups, and to society at large, ! 
 from the maintenance of the Sabbath from 
 I all secular and carnal innovations. 
 
 The extinction of the Sabbath, moreover, ! 
 
 as a day designed to he especially devoted to ' 
 
 religious pursuits, must lead to the extinction j 
 of domestic piety; and wheresoever piety : 
 shall cease to have a voice and an altar in the 
 house, it will simultaneously cease to have an 
 embodiment in the church, and an existence 
 
THE CORSE OF LABOUR. 101 
 
 in the world. Were religion, with its angel- 
 retinue of graces, to he thus banished from 
 our earth, godlessness and impiety, with their 
 demon-throng of attendant evils—oppression, 
 extortion, discord, hatred, revenge, blood¬ 
 thirstiness, and every species of sensuality 
 that can debase the human form — rvould 
 reign and riot unchecked among mankind! 
 Between us and a catastrophe so dire stands 
 the Sabbath day, whose seemingly frail bar¬ 
 riers were originally built, and whose dilapi¬ 
 dations from age to age have been repaired, 
 by the hands of a divine artificer. 
 
 V. THE MORAL ADVANTAGES OF 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 This is one of the most solemn phases 
 of the subject. It may be viewed very dif¬ 
 ferently by different minds. The dominant 
 mood of the ruminator is likely to darken or 
 illumine the steps by which he reaches his 
 conclusion. We believe that the beneficial 
 
102 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 influence of the Sabbath on the interests of 
 morality can be triumphantly established. In 
 the right dedication of the day is locked up 
 all its hoarded blessedness. Used in accord¬ 
 ance with its institutional laws, it is birtkful j 
 of unmingled good. Desecrated to dissipa¬ 
 tion, wasted in the chase of vanity, or pawned 
 for unblessed gains, it entails a terrible and 
 an accumulating curse. 
 
 In the fulfilment of these functions it 
 wages a vigorous war against the reigning 
 spirit of the work-day world. The mandates 
 of Christianity, thundered across the Sabbath 
 stillness, are calculated to arrest the demo¬ 
 ralizing mania of worldly grasping, and bring 
 men to a reflective pause. The prescriptions 
 of the gospel, which are being constantly 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 103 
 
 republished under the sanctions of the Sab¬ 
 bath, are utterly at variance with the selfish 
 maxims and greedy impulses of a trading 
 community. Whilst, on work-days, the com¬ 
 petitions of industry and the contentions of 
 trade are continually fomenting jealousies and 
 animosities between mankind, the Sahbath 
 seeks, by its lessons of forgiveness, to recon¬ 
 cile and fraternize the alienated. Whilst, 
 throughout the week, prosperous extortioners 
 overreach their neighbours, and wring the 
 materials of wealth out of the stinted poor, 
 on the Sabbath they are confronted by some 
 stern messenger from the avenger of oppres¬ 
 sion, and into their tingling ears is pealed 
 the royal law of love, “Do unto others as you 
 would that others should do unto you.” 
 Amidst the weekly drudgeries or hirelingship, 
 the factitious disparities of station, and the 
 inequalities of lot, stand out in dismaying 
 prominence, causing heart-burnings among 
 the more dependent classes: in tlie eye of 
 
104 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 I the Sabbath all men are regarded as equal— | 
 
 •j the wide chasms that yawn between the clif- 1 
 
 | ferent sections of society are closed, and class j 
 
 j enmities and feuds are abated. The frequent ! 
 
 i hardships and indignities inflicted upon the : 
 
 labouring poor breed bitterness in their souls, 
 and prompt them to reprisals: the Sabbath 
 not only manumits them from these galling 
 impositions, but teaches them to love, to for¬ 
 give, and to do good unto those who despite- 
 frilly use them. In the desperate struggles 
 which the week witnesses, for earthly distinc¬ 
 tion and aggrandizement, the rights of others j 
 
 are frequently trampled on with reckless j 
 
 temerity; competing rivals are mercilessly | 
 
 over-ridden, and thus an awful disregard j 
 
 of the charities of life is propagated: the j 
 
 Sabbath lifts up its standard against this i 
 
 prevalent spirit of selfishness, reproves all j 
 
 such encroachments on the primary rights of j 
 
 man, and pleads the cause of the injured and j 
 
 distressed. All the commercings of w T eek-day 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 105 
 
 life nourish the selfism of man; -whilst the 
 Sahhatli, on the contrary, appeals to, and 
 seeks to bring forth, the benevolence of his 
 nature. The whole gist of secular occupa¬ 
 tions is to tempt man to sacrifice others, as 
 far as is needful, for the attainment of his 
 own private ends, whilst the scope of the 
 Sabbath is to prevail upon him to sacrifice 
 himself for the benefit of his fellows; whe- j 
 
 ther by ministering with his gold to their j 
 
 physical necessities; whether by extending a j 
 
 helping hand to the unfortunate and sinking; j 
 whether by exploring the outlying settle- | 
 
 ments of social darkness and degradation, and j 
 
 afterwards calling the attention of the world j 
 
 to their humiliating revelations; whether | 
 
 by consecrating his gifts to the general 
 advancement of his species; whether by 
 going meekly from hovel to hovel, and from 
 cellar to garret, breaking the bread of truth, 
 and handing round the cup of comfort to the 
 ignorant and the unhappy; or whether, if 
 
 F 3 
 
106 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 needs be, by pouring out bis blood and life, 
 a libation on the altar of human happiness. 
 For, -while dissuading from gainful frauds and 
 worldly greediness, as ignoble in themselves, 
 and trenching on the dues of others, the Sab¬ 
 bath also summons the sons of men to all 
 these moral duties and disinterested services. 
 
 The day that inculcates these obligations 
 likewise teems with opportunities for their 
 discharge. The Sabbath is the fulcrum on 
 which the lever of the Gospel mainly rests. It 
 fosters every noble enterprise, and promotes 
 all that is truly good and great and hopeful 
 in man. It is earthly life filtered of its dregs. 
 It is the cream of time. It closes the ordinary 
 outlets of cupidity, and directs the activity of 
 men into a thousand holier channels. It gives 
 abundant time for well-doing. It works out, 
 too, a generous willinghood of heart. It 
 breaks down alike the opposing barriers of 
 business and the more stubborn aversions of 
 mind. It empties the warrens of the world, 
 
THE CORSE OF LABOUR. 107 
 
 and swarms the vineyards of the church. It 
 clears the shops, the mines, and the factories 
 of the land, and, with their inmates, peoples 
 human homes. It flings wide open the doors 
 of opportunity to all, and thus prepares a 
 harvest for the Christian reaper’s sickle. It 
 gathers the younger children from the school, 
 or from the mill; the grown sisters from the 
 sempstress’s; the elder brothers from the desk, 
 or from the field; the father from the work¬ 
 shop, the ham, or the mine; and the mother 
 from her cottage drudgeries; and groups them 
 all around the cheerful fireside. 
 
 All trading, world-made distinctions are 
 now effaced. Men appeal- no longer as 
 miners, as weavers, as masons, as plough¬ 
 men, or as builders. The Sabbath recognises 
 them alone as men—as responsible beings— 
 moral agents — candidates for immortality 
 —the subjects of a retributive government— 
 and the objects of impartial, divine benignity 
 and grace. How solemn are the aspects of 
 
108 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 human nature that the Sahbath thus dis¬ 
 closes ! What a spectacle of hidden majesty 
 it unshrouds! How silently it tears away 
 all that is merely adventitious in man, and 
 | hares to view a world of spirits, awing the 
 
 | eye that surveys them in all their grandeur 
 
 i and vast interests! A world of spirits! 
 
 : shrined in flesh! guested in tabernacles of 
 
 , dust! self-sunken in abysses of depravity! 
 j borne' down by heavy tasks of toil! all the 
 | radiant beamings of their high destiny shut 
 l in, or else extinguished! This infinite region 
 j of spiritual existence would have remained 
 j well nigh unknown, hut for the Sabbath; 
 
 i for when would despotic labour have volun- 
 i tarily suspended its mean pursuits to explore 
 ! its mysteries? When would avarice or am¬ 
 bition, for ever on the drive, have found 
 leisure to study its sublime secrets ? To the 
 mass of men, rolled onward on the restless 
 surges of a Sabbathless life, this illimitable 
 world of spiritualism must have continued un- 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 109 
 
 known, save •when some stray glimmerings 
 of its glories migkt occasionally straggle 
 through an opening in the gloom wherewith 
 their nature and destiny were enwrapped. 
 Too contented as men are to linger in the 
 outer courts of the temple of the universe, 
 were it not for the rending of the vail, by the 
 hand of the Sahhath, few men would have had 
 the inclination to enter within the sacred pene¬ 
 tralia of theh being. But, glorious to tell, the 
 , Sabbath has torn off man’s earthly disguises, 
 
 : raised the vassal of labour from his abject pos- 
 
 j ture, and proclaimed aloud his original dignity 
 , and worth. How magnificent the field, and how 
 boundless the scope, thus opened to the moral 
 student and the Christian husbandman! 
 
 II. THE SABBATII FAVOURS MORALITY BY TIIE DIVERSIFIED 
 TALENTS IT EXLISTS, AND THE INNUMERABLE AGEN¬ 
 CIES IT ORGANIZES, IN ITS SERVICE. 
 
 The blessed release which the seventh day 
 brings, and the sacred leisure which it be- 
 
110 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 stows, have induced the benevolent and the 
 good of our world to seize upon these 
 facilities and turn them to the highest profit 
 and advantage of mankind. On this day 
 talents that had been buried in the world, 
 through lack of a fitting sphere for their 
 exercise, are disinterred and employed. 
 Sanctified gifts, that are often compelled to 
 lay barren through the week, are fruitful 
 in usefulness on the Sabbath. On this 
 day the pent-up goodness of the world 
 obtains vent, the cramped energies of phi¬ 
 lanthropy find enlargement, while all the 
 holier sympathies of men for their erring 
 and outcast brethren are evoked. Exhorta¬ 
 tions and teachings, which it would affront 
 the children of the world to thrust upon 
 their attention during the week, may now 
 be fittingly and more effectually addressed. 
 Compassion, that can find an outlet only 
 for its yearnings whilst under the bonds of 
 secular engagements, may now freely go forth 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. J11 
 
 in search of the -wretched objects of its com¬ 
 miseration. 
 
 As soon as the golden gates of the Sabbath 
 are flung hack, what angel-shapes of good 
 rush in upon the world! As the day advances, 
 what glorious legions are going up to assail 
 the evils reigning in the earth! What a holy 
 host of messengers are running to and fro! 
 What lips are dropping with divine instruc¬ 
 tion ! What a multitude of voices, attuned by 
 love, are exhausting all the arts of eloquence! 
 What vehement appeals, gushing from full 
 souls, are everywhere smiting the ears of 
 apathy, riving the consciences of the guilty, 
 and fusing the petrified hearts of the wicked! 
 On this day, in our own land, not fewer than 
 from 30,000 to 40,000 recognised ministers 
 are reasoning, pleading, and expostulating 
 with millions of their fellow-men, composed 
 of all shades of character and of all grades of 
 guilt. About the same number of exhorters 
 and evangelists are itinerating the villages, 
 
112 
 
 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 tlie hamlets, and the more outlying portions 
 of the population. Home missionaries, city 
 mission agents, visitors of the sick, and bible 
 readers, in abundance, are permeating the 
 channels of obscure life, and purifying the 
 dregs of society with the vital elements of 
 truth. Not less than 250,000 Sabbath-school 
 teachers are seeking to disinfect the minds, 
 and to mould and sanctify the characters, of 
 two millions of the rising generation, that are 
 soon to supplant their fathers. Besides these 
 more public and organized efforts in the 
 service of morality and religion, what earnest 
 lessons are being instilled in the retirements of 
 home. Mothers indoctrinating their offspring 
 with virtuous sentiments and godly precepts, 
 and shedding tears of solicitude upon in¬ 
 durated hearts; and fathers inculcating upon 
 the impatient temperament of their sons the 
 lessons of wisdom they have acquired in 
 the suffering school of adversity and ex¬ 
 perience. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 113 
 
 Now the end and aim of all these simul¬ 
 taneous efforts is, so far as they have respect 
 to the present world, to promote the interests 
 of public morality. And only think for a 
 moment of the stupendous, deep, and perma¬ 
 nent influence which this weekly concentration 
 of holy forces must exert upon the general 
 mind. How it emboldens virtue and abashes 
 vice! How it chastises arrogance and rewards 
 humility! How it opens the heart of niggard¬ 
 liness, and quickens the pulses of benevolence! 
 How it dashes the chalice of sinful pleasure 
 with bitterness, and discovers its dregs of gall! 
 How it bridles furious passions, and slakes the 
 fires of consuming lusts ! How it hedges with 
 briars and thorns the ways of wickedness, and 
 illumines with honour the paths of justice and 
 uprightness! How many retire to their’ evening 
 rest, as the stricken deer to its mossy couch, 
 with the arrows of remorse rankling in their 
 hearts! And what numbers on the succeed¬ 
 ing morning cross the Sabbath frontiers, and 
 
114 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 pass into the world with the dread voice of 
 God vibrating on their ears, and the thun¬ 
 ders of his anger reverberating through then- 
 souls ! 
 
 But, in the position we have taken, we are 
 open to the objection that, whilst the Sabbath 
 brings a vast accession to the moral forces 
 ordinarily at work upon the world, it at the 
 same time lets loose upon society an amount 
 of demoralizing influences, fearfully predomi¬ 
 nating over all that is healthful and good. It 
 ■null he retorted, that the suspension of employ¬ 
 ment which we demand for the working classes 
 may, by multitudes of our countrymen who 
 possess no religious predilections, and who are 
 conscious of no intellectual cravings, he abused 
 to their own injury and to the infliction of 
 serious evils upon society. Idleness, it may 
 be alleged, is the parent of mischief. Autho¬ 
 rized leisure, falling into the hands of the 
 profligate, will he sure to he spent in wanton¬ 
 ness and rioting: drunkards will waste it in 
 
CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 debauchery; courtezans will find a disengaged 
 population peculiarly susceptible to their bland¬ 
 ishments ; the devotees of pleasure will convert 
 it into a carnival of delight; and thousands, 
 prompted by a lust for gain, will abet these 
 practices and pander to these vile tastes. The 
 priests of Bacchus will be driving a flourishing 
 trade in the myriad temples of their god; tea- 
 gardens, abounding with music and dancing, 
 hot excitement, and all the witcheries of sin, 
 will present their enticements to the young; 
 whilst the proprietors of steam-boats, and the 
 directors of railways, will increase their divi¬ 
 dends, by ministering to this feverish passion 
 for lawless liberty and joy. 
 
 It is too true. We admit it all. Facts 
 impart a mournful plausibility to this objec¬ 
 tion. But we deny the inference which the 
 adversary of the Sabbath would draw from it. 
 Because the sacred leisure which God gives to 
 man is thus perverted irom its exalted uses, 
 must we then chain men down, like condemned 
 
116 
 
 heaven’s antidote 
 
 galley-slaves, to everlasting drudgeries, in order 
 to keep them out of tlie reach of temptation? 
 Must we bandage their limbs and stultify their 
 minds, to prevent the gratification of their low¬ 
 born desires and the spread of their contagious 
 example ? Are we to deny them the freedom 
 and rights of men, lest they should abuse them 
 to licentiousness and immorality ? Nay: men 
 must he dealt with as moral agents, and not as 
 tools in the hands of purblind expediency. 
 The Sabbath is a test of moral bias. It leaves 
 men to the spontaneous outgoings of their 
 nature. It discovers of what sort they are. 
 The Gospel wars not so much against par¬ 
 ticular forms, as it does against the principle of 
 evil. It directs its remedial measures not so 
 much to the symptoms, as to the central seat 
 of the disorder. It is not chiefly engaged in 
 plucking and crushing the poisonous fruits as 
 fast as they ripen, but fetches its heavy blows 
 at the roots of the upas tree. For, he it 
 remembered, that whatever luxuriant evils may 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 117 
 
 lie thrust to the surface on the Sabbath, they 
 were previously already in existence, sprouting 
 in the seed-bed of the heart, and waiting only 
 for favourable circumstances to accelerate their 
 development and nurse them to maturity. 
 The Sahhath, therefore, does not give birth to 
 the many baneful evils that spring up and 
 flourish beneath its brightness, any more than 
 the sun can be said to create the deadly 
 hemlock and nightshade, or the hurtful tares, 
 that are nourished from the fountain of its 
 splendour. All violent, arbitrary, and oppres¬ 
 sive attempts to hinder the desecration of the 
 Sabbath must fail. The cure will he only 
 skin-deep. If every outlet for the virus of 
 society be closed, the raging malady will he 
 driven deeper into the social constitution. Any 
 panacea, to be efficacious, must go to the very 
 core of human nature, and purge its innate 
 rottenness. 
 
 Thus the friends of morality and of the 
 Gospel have abundant incentives to exert 
 
118 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 themselves. Let them still continue bravely 
 to breast the dark surges of the -world’s 
 ■wickedness. Their Sabbath mission is pre¬ 
 eminently aggressive. To stand still is im¬ 
 possible, amid the rush and restlessness and 
 roar of the human sea. By presenting a 
 broad front, and by a firm evangelical bul¬ 
 wark alone, can the strong tide of worldli¬ 
 ness be turned, and progress be achieved. 
 Whilst the Sabbath peculiarly exposes the 
 irreligious and the vicious to the appliances 
 of hell, it likewise opens a sublime sphere 
 for Christian labour and enterprise, which, 
 without it, we might seek in vain. On every 
 Sabhath the weekly controversy is renewed, 
 between God and Satan, between truth and 
 error, between virtue and vice, between loyalty 
 and treason! The singular moral phenome¬ 
 non is seen of light struggling for ascendancy 
 in the midst of darkness; and of a redeemed 
 race seeking to imbue the corrupted mass 
 of men with the principles of holiness and 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 119 
 
 love. Thus, from year to year, the universal 
 battle rages on between tbe emissaries of 
 beaven and bell-between Michael and tbe 
 dragon; but, through all tbe vicissitudes 
 and evolutions of the church, tbe tide of 
 pubbc morality is ever mounting higher and 
 higher. 
 
 It is true this is not at all times apparent. 
 There are, ever and anon, seasons of depres¬ 
 sion and of temporary retrogression. The 
 religious progress of a nation is subject to 
 fluctuations, as well as its trade and com¬ 
 merce. The present period, for instance, is 
 a fearful crisis in the social and spiritual 
 condition of our country. Practical religion 
 seems long to have been ebbing; it is in¬ 
 deed at its neap-tide. The bonds of public 
 morals are alarmingly relaxed. Still we are 
 anxiously looking for the return of a spring- 
 tide of prosperity. Meanwhile, if we take an 
 average standard of comparison, we shall find 
 that we have advanced considerably above the 
 
heaven’s antidote to 
 
 highest point of past times. Besides, many 
 of the popular sins which we most pungently 
 deplore, are such only as seen in the purer and 
 clearer light which Christianity sheds increas- ; 
 ingly around us. j 
 
 But a solemn responsibility rests upon all I 
 Christian people! Let them, especially at ! 
 this critical juncture, beware of throwing any 
 stumbling-blocks in the way of the general 
 reformation of Sabbath manners, and of the 
 moral and spiritual regeneration of society. 
 
 All now depends upon the energy and per¬ 
 severance of the good; for if the Sabbath, 
 through their supineness and unfaithfulness, 
 should be partially abolished, and spent in 
 labour or in licentiousness, how then could 
 the agents of good reach the people?—how 
 could the machinery of salvation be success¬ 
 fully worked? All men—and our working 
 population in particular—would be subjected 
 to evil influences only, and that continually. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 121 
 
 VI. THE RELIGIOUS ADVANTAGES OF 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 These are so manifest and unequivocal, 
 that, hut for the completion of the argument, 
 their consideration might well he omitted. 
 Forming, however, as they do, the culminat¬ 
 ing point in the subject, they claim a suc¬ 
 cinct notice at our hands. A record of them 
 is as essential to the perfection of the sub¬ 
 ject as the head-stone is to the finish of an 
 edifice. The higher we have ascended into 
 the Sabbath’s lofty territory, the purer has 
 the air become, the more has the prospect 
 widened, and the richer have been the clus¬ 
 ters of blessings we have plucked. And now 
 we have at length reached its divine heights, 
 and stand midway betwixt earth and heaven, 
 from whence the mists of human woe are 
 seen floating at our feet, the tumults of earth 
 dying away into a confused murmur, whilst 
 
122 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 upwards tlie enraptured gaze is riveted upon 
 tlie scenery of the opening skies. The bene¬ 
 fits of the Sabbath are commensurate with 
 the heights and depths of man’s nature, and 
 the lengths and breadths of its necessities. 
 The mind of man is not capacious enough 
 to hold all the benefactions that the Sabbath 
 pours forth; neither can the dower which 
 it confers upon the intellect, nor the con¬ 
 tributions it makes to domestic enjoyment, 
 exhaust the treasures that it holds in store. 
 It reserves its noblest blessings for the 
 spirit of man, in the exercise of its highest 
 prerogatives and in its most dignifying re¬ 
 lations. 
 
 Let us now, with as much brevity as 
 possible, advert to a few spiritual advantages 
 of supreme moment, accruing from the ob¬ 
 servance of the Sabbath, so far as they bear 
 upon the temporal interests of mankind. 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 123 
 
 A correct conception of God, together with 
 veneration for his character, is of infinite 
 importance to mankind. It constitutes the 
 best safeguard of states. It imposes a salu¬ 
 tary check upon rulers, and it inspires the 
 governed with respect for the majesty of 
 law. It is essential to the preservation of 
 morality; virtue would perish without it. It is 
 indispensable to the maintenance of society. 
 It is the basis of all true brotherhood. It 
 reveals the origin and guarantees the pos¬ 
 session of human rights. It is the most 
 ennobling element of human character. It 
 is at once the most simple and sublime, the 
 most necessary and stupendous, of all studies. 
 It keeps man, on the one hand, from degene¬ 
 rating into the brute, whilst, on the other, it 
 advances him to a state of intellectuality 
 
124 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 and spiritualization. It is requisite for the 
 cultivation of the religious sentiment in man; 
 and without such development his nature is 
 hut half disclosed—his latent character hut 
 half expressed. 
 
 But the knowledge of God, and therefore 
 all the precious benefits resulting from it, 
 depend upon the sanctification of the Sab¬ 
 bath. Wherever the Sabbath does not exist, 
 there is no religion, no intelligent homage. 
 Man utterly forgets God, and God punitively 
 hides his face from man. “ The moral world 
 becomes a desert, where life never springs 
 and beauty never smiles. Putrid with sin, 
 and stupified with ignorance, the soul of 
 man loses its rational character, and pros¬ 
 trates itself before idols, stocks, and stones. 
 To these man offers his prayers, his praises, 
 and his victims; to these he sacrifices his 
 offspring; and to these he immolates the 
 honour of his wife. A brutal worshipper of 
 a brutal god, he hopes for protection and 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 125 
 
 blessing from the assumption of every folly 
 and the perpetration of every crime.” * A 
 population wronged of their Sabbaths, and 
 enslaved by ceaseless toil, cannot possibly 
 retain any spiritual or exalted conceptions 
 of the Supreme Being. Besides, having no 
 adequate opportunities for the acquisition of 
 defined ideas on this momentous subject, the 
 inevitable tendency of a servile destiny is to 
 generate gross and derogatory notions, cor¬ 
 responding with their own debased condition. 
 With the spiritual portion of their nature 
 virtually cancelled, and well nigh every di 
 viner lineament effaced, how can they think 
 of God—if they think of Him at all—other¬ 
 wise than as such an one as themselves? 
 The popular religion of a people is an in¬ 
 fallible index to their character and habits. 
 Where low and obscure notions of God are 
 entertained, we shall find them indicative of an 
 ignominious condition, of a rude disposition, 
 * Dr. Dwight. 
 
126 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 of an entombment of mind, of an utter 
 prostration of all moral majesty. Whereas, 
 where the most luminous, vivid, and profound 
 conceptions of the Divine Being abound, we 
 find a people distinguished by all that is re¬ 
 fined in manners, urbane in disposition, and 
 ennobling in pursuits; renowned for their 
 scientific attainments, for the achievements 
 of their genius, and the beneficence of their 
 virtues. 
 
 II. NECESSARY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF OnRISTIANHr. 
 
 The Sabbath is imperatively necessary for 
 the diffusion of Christianity. These are na¬ 
 tural and hereditary allies. There is a divine 
 kinship between them. The hand that smites 
 the one, insults and wounds the other also. 
 Their success or defeat is correlative. They 
 live or die together, sharers in one indis¬ 
 soluble fate. Voltaire keenly felt this, and 
 gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. His 
 malignant attempt to subvert Christianity 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 127 
 
 signally failed, through his inability to abolish 
 the Sabbath, and stifle the immortal yearn¬ 
 ings of men’s hearts for its sacred privileges 
 and immemorial usages. The Sabbath, 
 every week, opens the vast temple of crea¬ 
 tion, for the celebration of solemn worship; 
 gathering adoring hosts around the enshrine¬ 
 ments of mercy; and repeating, throughout 
 its spacious courts, with ten thousand times 
 ten thousand voices, the transforming story 
 of the Cross. Christians! we urgently appeal 
 to you. Shall this temple of praise—this 
 pavilion of peace—he closed by the suppres¬ 
 sion of the Lord's Day? Shall the throne he 
 forsaken, and the altar overturned? Shall 
 the anxious crowds, that have been wont to 
 come up to the solemn feasts of Zion, he 
 turned hack upon the desert places of a bleak 
 and hitter world? Shall the rehearsals of the 
 Song of Kedemption cease, and, instead there¬ 
 of, the groans of those who are wrestling with 
 a slavish lot he heard ascending to the ears 
 
128 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 of tlie Lord of Sabaotli? Shall Christianity 
 he arrested in the very midst of its enter¬ 
 prises, and hunted from the world ere its 
 henign mission has been half accomplished? 
 Is the highest manifestation of benevolence 
 to succumb to the hostile combinations of 
 human selfishness? Is piety to be trampled 
 under foot by impiety? Is religion to be 
 supplanted by atheism? Is guilt to go 
 pining to the grave without the discovery of 
 its expiatory sacrifice? Is the day coming 
 —are we already entering its shadows—when 
 the great Teacher and loving Saviour is to 
 be suffered to go in and out among his pur¬ 
 chased ones no more? Oh, men of God! 
 awake and bestir yourselves to a right ap¬ 
 preciation of the Sabbath! If you love 
 Christianity—if you believe it to be of God 
 —if you believe it to be the only means of 
 restoring man to his Maker’s allegiance, like¬ 
 ness, and fellowship—then diligently guard 
 its imperilled treasures by upholding the bul- 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 
 
 129 
 
 waits of tlie Sabbath. Every profane foot 
 that trespasses upon its,sanctity—every ad¬ 
 ditional burden of duty imposed upon our 
 operatives, our cab-men, our domestics, and 
 railway servants—every effort to relax the 
 stringency of its requirements—every attempt 
 to popularize it by the introduction of con¬ 
 tinental licentiousness — must be jealously 
 watched and strenuously resisted. If the 
 working orders can but be brought to de¬ 
 spise or undervalue this blessed birthright, 
 it will not be long before it is either forcibly 
 wrested from them, or bribed away for some 
 alluring morsel. In that melancholy day of 
 their whole nature’s nakedness, may God 
 have mercy on them! for the pity and the 
 help of man will not avail! 
 
 III. THE SABBATH GUARANTEES A SEASON FOR UNMOLESTED 
 
 If the body need intervals of repose—if the 
 mind require the redemption of opportunities 
 
130 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 for its improvement—liow much more does 
 the soul sigh for a kind recognition of its 
 claims. And the Sabbath-day does pay 
 homage to man’s immortal spirit. It enshrines 
 his dignity. It memorializes his primitive 
 excellence and glory. It foreshadows his 
 brilliant or his appalling destiny. It is the 
 ancient and enduring witness to the undi- 
 minislied worth of his sullied nature. It is 
 that strip of our time, which especially links 
 earth with eternity; which dwindles the present 
 to a mere speck, in the vastness of that futurity 
 which it discloses. In many senses it is a 
 type and symbol of heaven. It repeals, to a 
 great extent, for the time being, the invidious 
 distinctions of society. It unsceptres the 
 master, and denudes the hireling of the badges 
 of his servitude. Opulence cannot buy up its 
 spiritual blessings; whilst poverty operates as 
 no disqualification for its favours. Its smiles 
 are as sweet in the wood-side hut as in the 
 apartments of the marble palace. It pays no 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 131 
 
 obsequious deference to learning, rank, or 
 worldly power; and it offers no insulting 
 slights to millions whom the world disdains. 
 Its glances go far deeper than the rags or 
 robes, the roughness or the polish, of the 
 outer man. It is sent as a messenger to 
 the godlike guest lodging in all men’s bo¬ 
 soms ; and proclaims, in the ears of all alike, 
 the abstract grandeur and preciousness of the 
 human soul. 
 
 On this day, the merchant, the trader, the 
 husbandman, and the mechanic, can yield up 
 their whole thoughts to the momentous matters 
 of salvation, and give wing to their aspirations 
 after eternal life; while at the same time they 
 enjoy the satisfying conviction, that no tem¬ 
 poral duties are thereby neglected, nor any 
 deranging check interposed to the ordinary 
 courses of business. Free from the irritations 
 incident to secular pursuits, here is a season 
 eminently adapted for celestial contemplation, 
 for the study of the heart, for the perusal of 
 
132 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 the Scriptures, for the special exercise of 
 spiritual gifts and graces, for intercession 
 on hehalf of others, and for an undistracted 
 attendance on the public solemnities of 
 religion. 
 
 “God has anointed this day with the oil 
 of gladness above all its fellows. What the 
 sun is among the planets—what the market- 
 day is to the tradesman—what a fair wind is 
 to the sailor—what the tide is to the waterman 
 —that the Sabbath-day is to the soul. Au¬ 
 gustine calls it the ‘ Queen of days.’ It is the 
 great market-day of heaven, when starving 
 souls may take in, and lay up, provision for 
 the rest of the week; yea, for eternity itself. 
 Blot out this day from the calendar of the 
 Christian, and all that remains would be cloudy 
 and cheerless.”* 
 
 * Sherman’s Plea for tlie Sabbath. 
 
THE CURSE OE LABOUR. 133 
 
 IT. ITS OBSERVANCE THE BEST PREPARATIVE FOR THE 
 VICISSITUDES OF THE WEEK. 
 
 The sanctification of the Sabbath is the best 
 preparative for the vicissitudes of the week. 
 It instils accurate views of the world. It 
 disenchants the imagination of the spells of 
 the great delusion. It sends us forth into the 
 highways and bypaths of life, with watchful 
 eyes, an engarrisoned heart, and an attempered 
 spirit. It dignifies our daily duties, instead of 
 suffering us to be undignified and debased by 
 them. It corrects our estimate of temporal 
 prosperity, and enables us to enjoy its favours 
 with moderation and meekness; whilst it un¬ 
 stings the privations of adversity, and helps us 
 to bear them with magnanimity. It super¬ 
 induces a mood of mind and 'tone of feeling, 
 calculated to blunt the poignancy of human 
 griefs, to break the shocks of worldly disap¬ 
 pointments, and to preserve some cheering 
 beams of hopefulness amidst the darkest day. 
 
134 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 It imparts equanimity to the disordered passions 
 —acts as an anodyne to the feverish excite¬ 
 ment of the mind—smooths the asperities of 
 the temper—and thus, by restoring thefunctions 
 of self-control, aids us in triumphing over the 
 adverse circumstances of life. It forewarns 
 and forearms for the conflict between grace 
 and corruption; it rouses the mind into a 
 defiant and repellant attitude to meet the 
 onsets of temptation; and it makes the black¬ 
 est cloud of impending trial transparent with 
 divine light, as we enter upon its shadows. 
 Its counsels are generally conducive to our 
 worldly interests, to social elevation, to inde¬ 
 pendence of character, and to an honourable 
 reputation. And this it achieves, not by 
 fostering the spirit of sordid gain, hut by 
 enforcing the claims of godliness, whose pre¬ 
 rogative it is, to have “ the promise of the life 
 that now is, as well as of that which is to 
 come.” We cannot conclude this part of our 
 subject better, than by adducing the testimony 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 135 
 
 of the eminent Lord Chief Justice Hale, re¬ 
 specting the salutary influence of the Sabbath 
 on the engagements of the ensuing week. He 
 says: “I have found, by a strict and diligent 
 observation, that a due observing of the Lord's 
 Day has ever had joined to it a blessing upon 
 the rest of my time, and the week thus begun 
 has been blessed and prosperous to me; and, 
 on the other side, when I have been negligent 
 of the duties of this day, the rest of the week 
 has been unsuccessful and unhappy to my 
 secular employments, so that I could easily 
 make an estimate of my success through the 
 week by the manner of my passing this 
 day.” 
 
 Although the demonstration of the divine 
 origin of the Sabbath forms no part of our 
 contemplated design, still it is by no means 
 extraneous to the scope of this essay. If the 
 foregoing views be correct, they must force 
 on every candid mind the conviction, that the 
 redemption of a seventh portion of our time 
 
136 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 from common uses, and its preservation from 
 age to age, despite the encroachments of 
 human hostility, impiety,- and cupidity, does 
 not arise from a mere conventional com¬ 
 pact of society; hut rather that it exhibits 
 marks of a more profound and far-seeing 
 wisdom, and tokens of a higher and more 
 benevolent watchfulness, than human sagacity 
 could possibly have displayed. If an obvious 
 fitness of things—if striking institutional 
 adaptations to man’s nature and necessities 
 —may be regarded here, as elsewhere, as 
 proofs of intelligent design, then are we 
 driven to the irresistible conclusion, that 
 “ the Sabbath was made for man ” by his 
 benignant Creator, and was part of the 
 original constitution of things. For it would 
 be irrational to suppose that these beautiful 
 harmonies are fortuitous, or that the sum 
 of these advantages is the result of mere 
 accident. 
 
 It only remains for us now to draw these 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 137 
 
 remarks to a close. And, in doing so, we 
 would energetically urge upon our enlight¬ 
 ened yokefellows the tremendous importance 
 of being found true to themselves and to 
 their country in the present crisis. Let them 
 display a magnanimous firmness equal to the 
 emergency. Let them unite and make com¬ 
 mon cause against every attempt at Sabhath 
 spoliation and invasion. Let not the in¬ 
 dividuals of one section of the community 
 of labour he so base and venal, as to he 
 successfully bribed into the surrender of their 
 own privileges, or the betrayal of the rights 
 of their comrades. Great vigilance and wari¬ 
 ness must he exercised; as the transference 
 of the seventh day to mammon will not, 
 probably, he overtly sought, hut attempts will 
 he made to bring it about gradually and 
 stealthily—now tampering with one section, 
 and now with another; and manifesting great 
 care and craftiness in introducing the thin 
 part of the wedge, which will he well edged 
 
138 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 ■with gold to make it work its way. Plausible 
 pretexts will be found in abundance; for 
 wickedness is never at a loss for specious 
 arguments wherewith to sanctify its foulest 
 treasons. But, by a timely persuasion of the 
 perils by which they are menaced; by a 
 prompt and manful decision of purpose; and 
 by a simultaneous movement in the right 
 direction, the crisis may he safely passed. 
 Whilst, on the other hand, by disunion and 
 faithlessness among themselves; by a reck¬ 
 less indifference to the issues of the pending 
 contest; or by a blind and an infatuated 
 hostility to the day, on the ground of its 
 sanctity, such mad and suicidal conduct 
 must lead at least to the partial overthrow 
 of an institution conservative of peerless 
 blessings to the working classes, and will 
 entail upon them and their progeny an awful 
 retribution. 
 
 Suppose the Sabbath were to he, by all 
 people, consentaneously abolished; let the 
 
THE CURSE OF LABOUR. 139 
 
 railway trains, as on other days, dart athwart 
 the land; let the tide of commerce, unar¬ 
 rested, flow; let the hives of industry still 
 swarm; let the clangour of machinery and 
 the deafening roar of trade continue to re¬ 
 sound; let the tramp of traffic still go on; 
 let the greedy grasp their gains, and the 
 slaves go groaning beneath their fetters; in 
 short, let the contentious world proceed as at 
 other times. And what would he the up¬ 
 shot of all this? Should we he the hap¬ 
 pier—the healthier—the freer—the richer? 
 Would any one of the ends of our terrestrial 
 existence he in any degree facilitated thereby ? 
 Would the selfishness of man, unchecked 
 and unreproved, be less grinding or cruel? 
 Would the oppressor he less tyrannical? 
 Would any of the acknowledged evils of 
 society he diminished one iota ? Would the 
 competitions, the rivalries, and the heart¬ 
 burnings of men be less crushing and ruin¬ 
 ous ? Alas, no! every evil under which we 
 
140 heaven’s antidote to 
 
 now writhe would be aggravated; every carnal 
 passion would then have full swing; every 
 undamped lust would then burn with in¬ 
 creased intensity; health would be prema¬ 
 turely blasted; the nobility of man would be 
 annihilated; and the glorious energies of his 
 immortal spirit would be hopelessly impri¬ 
 soned. Mammon and Bacchus might con¬ 
 tinue to be diligently served, but God would 
 be unworshipped! Mankind, thus inglo- 
 ripusly wedded to the world, would through 
 all their lives grovel in the dust, and never 
 devoutly raise their foreheads to the temple 
 of the sky! 
 
 Help, ye wearied children of labour! Help, 
 ye Christian ministers and philanthropists! 
 Help, ye statesmen and legislators! Help, 
 ye British patriots, whose hearts yearn for 
 the welfare of your suffering kind! Help! 
 that the most distant approach to such a 
 state of things as we have just surmised 
 may be prevented, and that the blessed 
 
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 MAJESTY THE QUEEN. 
 
 SABBATH PRIZE ESSAYS BY WORKING HEN. 
 
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 Price 2s. 6d, elegantly bound, with Engravings on Wood by George 
 Measom, from Designs by Gilbert, tbe Second Prize Essay, for 
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 THE LIGHT OF THE WEEK. 
 
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 Also, price 3s., similarly bound, &c., the Third Essay, which gained 
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 dedicated by permission to heb most gracious majesty 
 THE QUEEN. 
 
 The Thirtieth Thousand, price 3s., crimson cloth, gilt, with Five 
 Illustrations, 
 
 THE PEARL OF DAYS; 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH TO THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 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.” 
 
THE WORKING MAN’S CHARTER 
 
 . THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 ADVOCATING THEIR SPIRITUAL AND MORAL IMPROVEMENT: 
 Containing full information respecting the Sabbath movement, 
 published in Weekly Numbers, at l^d., and Monthly Parts, in ; 
 attractive Wrapper, with Illustrations by Gilbert and other cel 
 brated artists, engraved by George Measom. 
 
 Each number consists of interesting articles, mitten byWof 
 ing Men, in lvhich they express their own thoughts, in their o\\ 
 words, and thus prove not only the existence of “ mind among tl 
 spindles,” but also in the workshop, the mine, the field, the factoi 
 —in fact, among every class of the workmen of Great Britain, 
 will be made, emphatically, the Working Man’s own publication, at 
 it is confidently hoped that the working men of England will gii 
 the periodical their hearty support. 
 
 It has been determined to print the