The Obligations of the World to the Bible for the Sabbath

Every reflecting man must, one would suppose, contemplate with grateful admiration, the great wisdom of the divine Author of the Scriptures in the institution of the Sabbath. I know of nothing like this observance in any other system of religion except that revealed in the Bible, unless it be some feint traditions of it in some pagan lands of remote antiquity. It is a weekly observance; fixed and permanent j hebdomedal from its original institution, and to the end of time. Some of the ancient pagan nations had something in the form of an hebdomedal observance. Hesiod, the celebrated Greek poet of Bceotia, who lived about nine hundred years before the coming of Christ, says, “the seventh day is holy.” Homer, who flourished about the same period, and Callimachus, also a Greek poet, who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, about seven hundred years later, speak of the seventh day as holy. Lucian also, a Greek writer, born at Samosata, who flourished about four hundred years after Callimachus, says, “The seventh day is given to the schoolboys as an holyday.” Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, says, “No city of Greeks, or barbarians can be found which does not acknowledge a seventh day’s rest from labour.” In the earlier ages of Greece, the years were numbered by the return of seed time and harvest, and the several seasons of labour and rest 5 and the day divided, not into hours, but into morning, noon, and evening. The months of the Greeks were divided into decads or three periods of ten days each 5 and I do not find any mention of a division of time into weeks among that people. There was no Sabbath among the ancient Romans. Their year was originally divided by Romulus into ten months *, and afterwards, by Numa, into twelve. Their months, like those of the Greeks, were divided into three parts, kalends, nones, and ides. The custom of dividing time into weeks did not obtain until the reign of the emperor Severus.* Both the Greeks and Romans had their days of cessation from labour, but they were not hebdomedal. They were also religious observances 5 that

* Potter’s Antiquities of Greece, and Adams’ Roman Anti. quities. is, they were devoted to the honour of their pagan gods. They were days on which their altars smoked with sacrifices 5 days of festivity 5 days on which their public games were celebrated, and on which their temples, groves, and sacred fields were stained with blood and resounded with bacchanalian madness. When heathen poets and historians therefore speak of holy days, they mean days of mirth and wickedness. Such are the days of rest throughout all Mahomedan countries. A late correspondent in one of our religious periodicals, describes a Sabbath in Constantinople as a day of universal sport and diversion.* Modern missionaries, if I mistake not, uniformly testify, that there is no Sabbath in pagan lands. I have conversed with gentlemen of high intellectual and Christian character who have resided years in China and India, who have informed me, that they could never see any signs of a sabbatical observance in those vast countries. Nor have I been able to find any traces of a Sabbath among our own aborigines. The remark therefore, needs no qualification that the Sabbath, as its design and duties are disclosed in the Scriptures, is one of the strong peculiarities of a supernatural revelation. It was given to the great progenitor of our race while he was in a state unfallen innocence; it was the first command, taking the precedence in point of time even to the

* Cheever’s Letters to the New-York Observer. prohibition of the tree of knowledge 5 it rests on the essential relation of a creature to his glorious Creator. During the whole progress of the patriarchal age, you find traces of its observance. The manner in which its observance was revived and re-established before the commencement of the Mosaical economy and before the Israelites came to Mount Sinai, proves that it was an institution previously recognized, and had never been entirely lost. The authority and dignity given to it in the moral law affords decisive proof of its perpetual obligation. The allusions to it in the Psalms and in the Prophets, as well as its strict observance under the New Testament, show that it was destined to form a part of the gospel dispensation. The Saviour and his apostles honoured it, by honouring the ten commandments as of perpetual force and obligation j by respecting its sanctity in their own deportment, and by recognizing its continuance at a period when all obligation to a merely Jewish institution would long have ceased. Nor was any thing abrogated under the Christian dispensation with respect to the Sabbath, except those temporary and figurative enactments which constituted the peculiarities of Jewish age, and changed the Jewish Sabbath - into the “Lord’s Day.”* The Sabbath therefore is one of the great peculiarities

* See these positions illustrated and defended in an able treatise on the Authority and Perpetual Obligation of the Sabbath, by Daniel Wilson, now Bishop of Calcutta. of a supernatural revelation. And not only is it one of its strong peculiarities, but an institution for the existence and influence of which the world is under untold obligations to its great Author.

We may advert to this institution in the first instance, simply as a day of rest. One principal design of it was to give both man and beast one day’s respite from labour out of every seven. It deserves our special notice, that the letter and spirit of the divine command require both man and beast to abstain from all servile occupations on this day. Rest constitutes one of the essential parts of this observance. In the language of the Scripture, to “profane the Sabbath” is the same thing as to labour upon the Sabbath, while to sanctify the Sabbath signifies to rest from labour. The Jews were so scrupulous in this particular, that they would not even take up arms in self-defence on this day 5 so that when Antiochus Ephiphanes and Pompey availed themselves of this conscientious tenderness, and attacked them on the Sabbath day, they became the victims of their fury without opposition. It was designed to be a day of respite from anxiety and toil j a day of refreshment both to the mind and the body 5 and though not required to be a day of feasting, was specially forbidden to be a day of fasting and sadness

And is there not wonderful wisdom and benignity in such an arrangement? Man was not made for constant and unrelieved employment. He was not formed for seven days toil, but for six. No doubt it seems to many persons, that the mere fact of resting one day in seven can exert very little influence on the condition of our own race. To men who never labour it is not strange that this thought should sometimes occur. To the mass of pagan lands, whose life is one of dreaming indolence and sloth, the periodical recurrence of such a rest would not make much diflference in their condition. But to a man whose mental energy is in a state of perpetual excitement 5 to a laborious, working community 5 such a rest is like the soft slumbers of midnight when it covers with its gentle folds an agitated and trembling mind, and a body overpowered with toil. The command to rest it will be recollected, stands not alone. “Six days shalt thou labour.” It is in the combined and contrasted influence of such an arrangement only, that the Sabbath finds its appropriate place. There is nothing healthful that is still and stagnant; and there is nothing cheerful and placid where there is no cessation from the exhausting toil of this busy and care-worn world. God has given laws to this organic frame which cannot be violated with impunity. Man can no more labour a series of years without the Sabbath, than he can labour a series of days without nocturnal repose. The measure of weekly rest is as wisely determined by the Author of our physical constitution, as is the measure of our diurnal rest. When in defiance of the laws of nature and heaven, France abolished the Sabbath, and rested one day in ten. instead of one in seven, the experiment proved that the amount of productive labour was diminished by the change. It has been well ascertained that the proceeds of labour would, in any considerable period of time, be greater from six days in the week, than from the whole seven. “- If there were two contiguous nations, the one of which observed a day of rest, and the other laboured every day in the year, and if in industry and the number of labourers they were equal, there can be little doubt that the profits of the former would be considerably greater than those of the latter.” Facts might be greatly multiplied to show that the repose of the Sabbath is indispensable to the most healthful and vigorous exercise of the physical powers. In nothing has the Creator more obviously accommodated his government to the physical constitution of man, than in prescribing this weekly rest. Just as a beast of burden breaks down prematurely, that is worked every day in the year, will the powers of human life prematurely run down, if the toil of the week is not succeeded by the repose of the Sabbath. In an inquiry made a few years since before a committee of the British House of Commons in relation to the influences of the Sabbath, an eminent physician, who had practised between thirty and forty years, testified, that “men of every class who are occupied six days in the week, would in the course of life be gainers by abstaining from labour on the seventh.” The Sabbath has been emphatically called “the working man’s friend.” Who can doubt, that one motive which influenced its great Author to institute it was compassion to the poor? A manufacturing, an agricultural, or even a commercial community, deprived of the Sabbath, could not live out half its days. One reason why princes, ministers of state, and seamen do not live so long as other men, is, that they have no weekly day of rest. A few short years of vigorous, excited exertion, without the weekly intervention of this repose, and both body and mind lose their nerve and sinew. And there is nothing to refresh their languor and invigr

orate their debility, but rest. The mind can no more bear to be over-worked, than the body. It becomes oppressed and burdened, and sinks in depression, and not unfrequently from its mere neglect of this day of rest, wanders in derangement. The truest economy of human life will be found in the provisions of that day of mercy, which, for the time being, shuts out the contrivance, care, perplexity, and responsibility of business, and invites to calm repose.

It may be seriously doubted whether this distinct design of the Sabbatical institution is sufficiently considered. It is a day of rest. No man has the warrant from heaven to make it a day of labour, except those who minister at the altar. “The priests under the law profane the Sabbath and are blameless.” No, the Sabbath is not appreciated as a day of rest. There was no day in Paradise to be compared with that “seventh day which God blessed and sanctified, because that in it lie rested from all his work which he created and made.” Light was never more beautiful, nor sounds more melodious, than when Eden was first lighted bj the dawn of this day of rest, and listened to the voice that blessed the first-born Sabbath. Nor was the benediction recalled after ungrateful man had disobeyed his Maker. Man was cursed, and made to toil in the sweat of his brow; woman was cursed, and her sorrows multiplied, the ground was cursed, and doomed to thorns; but no curse alighted on this day of rest. “The Sabbath was made for man.” Amid the deep depression and unmingled darkness of the fall, this day still remained, the unobscured, unequivocal pledge of some distant, though then unknown good.

The Sabbath may also be regarded as pre-eminently the means of intellectual advancement. It is worthy of remark that the original law ordaining the Sabbath, contains no explicit injunction that it be a day of religious observances, unless it be contained in the phraseology which requires that it be kept holy. Nor is there any injunction in relation to the religious exercises of the day in the Old Testament, except that a burnt offering of two lambs were on that day added to the morning and evening sacrifices. Reason itself teaches us that if God has reserved one day in seven as a sacred rest., that portions of it at least ought to be occupied in religious services. Hence we find, that under the old dispensation, God set apart the entire tribe of Levi, one twelfth of the Hebrew nation, not merely to perform the rites and sacrifices which the ritual enjoined, but to diffuse over the great mass of the people religious and moral instruction. In sketching the characters and fortunes of the different tribes, their great Lawgiver says, “Of Levi, let thy Urim and thy Thummim be with thy holy one 5 they have observed thy word and kept thy covenant; they shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law.” To them was the custody of the sacred volume consigned, with the ark of the covenant 5 and they were required to gather the people together periodically, “men, women, and children, and the stranger within their gates, that they may hear, and learn, and fear the Lord their God, and observe to do all the words of his law.” Hence, when Nehemiah assembled the Jews, after their return from the captivity, and restored their religious worship, “Ezra the scribe brought the book of the law before the congregation, and read therein from morning until mid-day. So they read in the book of the law distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading.” They analysed the word of God, and expounded it at large, and showed- its import and meaning. And the same usage prevailed under the New Testament. The Saviour established an order of men, whose peculiar office and employment were to teach and instruct the people in the great truths and duties of a supernatural revelation; to call up their attention 5 to give them just apprehensions of what God has revealed, and to enforce upon them the obligations of his gospel. If you turn to the New Testament, you will find that this service was performed, regularly and specially, on each returning Lord’s-day. And this is one of the great peculiarities of revealed religion, and one of the distinguished blessings of the Sabbath. Ministers of religion are indeed found in every community, pagan as well as Christian. Wherever idols are worshipped, there are altars and priests 5 there are soothsayers and diviners. But their duties are confined to the performance of religious ceremonies. They never attempt the religious and moral instruction of the great mass of the people, and never desire it. But the Sabbath of the Scriptures is devoted to diiferent ends. In the performance of its appropriate duties in Christian lands, every man becomes a learner, and derives his instructions from the best and most important sources. He hears the Holy Scriptures; he listens to the instructions and counsels of wisdom from the house of God; he occupies a place in the school of Christ, and becomes familiar with subjects that interest his mind, — that elicit thought and inquiry, and induce no small degree of mental discipline and capacity for intellectual effort. Ignorance and barbarism form no part of the character of men who revere the Lord’s-day. You cannot consign to intellectual obscurity, a community that is subjected to the illuminations of the Sabbath. Carry the privileges of this day to the most

barbarous people on the globe, and just in the proportion in which they are subjected to its influence, are they elevated from intellectual degradation. It would probably strike us with surprise to be informed how large a portion of men exists, whose only opportunity of information is derived from the Sabbath. If there is an exception to be made from the general spirit of this remark, it is in favour of the daily press ‘y and for this reason do I look upon those who conduct it, as sharing with the pulpit no common responsibility. I would say more upon the importance of the Sabbath in this particular, should I not appear unduly to magnify mine office. If a minister of the gospel is laboriously devoted to his own intellectual and moral culture, the Sabbath, constituting as it does one seventh part of human life, furnishes no contemptible opportunity for mental improvement. Its instructions are designed to affect the great mass of mankind, and address themselves equally to all orders and classes of men, not overlooking the tenderest and most docile age; for scarcely do children come into existence in Christian lands, than they are encircled with the light of Sabbaths. There is something too, in the kind of instruction which the Sabbath communicates that has the happiest effect on the human mind. It relates to themes which call the soul away from the bustle of the world, to contemplate the wonderful works of God in creation, providence and redemption.

It casts a veil over what is seen, and uncovers to the eye of the mind what is unseen. It throws back into obhvion the lying vanities of sense and time, and brings forward the permanent realities of eternity, every where disclosing facts, principles, and results which arrest the wandering intellect, and are fitted to expand and exalt it for ever. Many a sleeping genius, reposing within the curtains of its own unconscious powers, has been awakened to hope and action by the instructions of the sanctuary; and many a germ of thought, which otherwise had wasted its fragrance on the air, has taken root and bloomed on this consecrated soil. It were a curious, but not unprofitable, inquiry to institute. How many well educated men in Christian lands, have received the first impulse and sujjgestion in their lofty career from the instructions of the Sabbath? Exclusive immersion in the perplexities and cupidity of secular vocations debases the intellectual character 5 and it is only by being conversant with objects more exalted, that the mind projects her noblest achievements. I am persuaded more is accomplished, directly or indirectly, by the various institutions of the Sabbath, in enlightening the great mass of mind, than is accomplished in any other way, and that it is no undeserved commendation of it to say, that it is the day of light to this benighted world.

The Sabbath also lies at the foundation of all sound morality. Morality flows from principle. “Out of the heart are the issues of life.” Let the principles of moral obligation become relaxed, and the practise of morality will not long survive the overthrow. No man can preserve his own morals 5 no parent can preserve the morals of his children, without the impressions of religious obligation. If you can induce a community to doubt the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures 5 to question the reality and obligations of natural religion *, to hesitate in deciding whether there be any such thing as virtue, or vice — whether there be an eternal state of retribution beyond the grave — or whether there exists any such being as God j you have broken down the barriers of moral virtue, and hoisted the flood-gates of immorality and crime. I need not say, that when a people have once done this, they can no longer exist as a tranquil and happy people. Every bond that holds society together would be ruptured 5 fraud and treachery would take the place of confidence between man and man; the tribunals of justice would be scenes of bribery and injustice 5 avarice, perjury, ambition and revenge would walk through the land, and render it more like the dwelling of savage beasts, than the tranquil abode of civilized and Christianized men. If there is an institution which opposes itself to this progress of human degeneracy, and throws a shield before the interests of moral virtue in our thoughtless and wayward world, it is the Sabbath. In the fearful struggle between virtue and vice, notwithstanding the powerful auxiliaries which wickedness finds in the bosoms of men, and in the seductions and influence of popular example, wherever the Sabbath has been suffered to live, the trembling interests of moral virtue have always been revered and sustained. One of the principal occupations of this day is to illustrate and enforce the great principles of sound morality. Where this sacred rest is preserved inviolate, you behold a nation convened one day in seven for the purpose of acquainting themselves with the best moral principles and precepts. And it cannot be otherwise than that the authority of moral virtue, under such auspices, should be acknowledged and felt. We may not at once perceive the effects which this weekly observance produces. Like most moral causes, it operates slowly; but it operates surely, and gradually weakens the power and breaks the yoke of proffligacy and sin. No villain regards the Sabbath. No vicious family regards the Sabbath. No immoral community regards the Sabbath. The holy rest of this ever-memorable day is a barrier which is always broken down, before men become giants in sin. Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the laws of England, remarks, that “A corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath.” It is an observation of Lord Chief Justice Hale, that ••’ Of all the persons who were convicted of capital crimes while he was upon the bench, he found a few only who would not confess, on inquiry, that they began their career of wickedness by a neglect of the duties of the Sabbath, and vicious conduct on that day.” The prisons in our own land could probably tell us that they have scarcely a solitary tenant who had not broken over the restraints of the Sabbath before he weis abandoned to crime. You may enact laws for the suppression of immorality 5 but the secret and silent power of the Sabbath constitutes a stronger shield to the vital interests of the (Community, than any code of penal statutes that ever was enacted. The Sabbath is the keystone of the Temple of Virtue, which, however defaced, will survive many a rude shock so long as this foundation remains firm.

The Sabbath may also be regarded as a distinguished means of national prosperity. The God of heaven has said, “Them that honour me I will honour.” You will not often find a notorious Sabbath-breaker a permanently prosperous man. A Sabbath-breaking community is never a prosperous, happy community. Such a man, such a community provokes the displeasure of God, and draws down his judgments. When the Athenians recalled their celebrated general Alcibiades from an important expedition, it was because the night before his departure, he had cast public reproach and contempt on the gods of his country. “If thou turn away thy foot,” said the God of the Hebrews, “if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words 5 then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father.” Elsewhere he says, “If ye will diligently hearken unto me, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbath-day to do no work therein 5 then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain for ever.” There are a multitude of unobserved influences which the Sabbath exerts upon the temporal welfare of men. It promotes the spirit of good order and harmony j it elevates the poor from wantj it transforms squalid wretchedness*, it imparts self-respect and elevation of character 5 it promotes softness and civility of manners 5 it brings together the rich and the poor upon one common level in the house of prayer 5 it purifies and strengthens the social affections, and makes the family circle the centre of allurement and the source of instruction, comfort, and happiness. Like its own divine religion, it “has the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come.” I see not how men can afford to dispense with the Sabbath, whatever their condition in the world. It is said that a late distinguished statesman, when travelling over New England, and observing her every where scattered churches, and the order and decency of her Sabbaths, remarked with emphasis, “I never beheld such a community before. This is the glory of New England.” No statesman of enlarged and comprehensive views can deny the benevolent influence of the Sabbath. When the influence of this sacred rest comes to be extended from shore to shore 5 when its temples crown every hill and are the ornament of every valley; when its humble supplications, and hallowed songs are heard from ten thousand times ten thousand assemblies of worshippers j who can doubt that its weekly return to this wide world will be entertained as “angel’s visits,” though neither “few,” nor “far between.” Who can doubt that those divine judgments which so often complete the ruin of a people, would be mitigated and withdrawn? There is a beautiful representation of this thought by a far-famed, though eccentric orator, which it is impossible for me to give, except very imperfectly, because I do it only from memory. The city of London contains about a thousand churches. “When I approach the city of London,” said the late John Randolph, “I sometimes feel that I am approaching a place devoted to destruction. The cry of its abominations goes up to heaven; and I seem to see the tiempest gathering over it. But then again, I look at her thousand spires that penetrate the clouds, and see them conducting oflf its fury.”

There is another consideration of still weightier import, which I may not suppress. The Sabbath is the great means of perpetuating the knowledge of the true religion. Few persons, if any, are universal sceptics. All nations have some religious impressions, be they ever so erroneous. The Sabbath was originally instituted by God in commemoration of his own existence as the Creator of the world, and for the purpose of being a perpetual testimony against the worship of idols. It was subsequently instituted in commemoration of the deliverance of the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and as a token of their vocation as his chosen people. “Surely, my Sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord who hath sanctified you.” Subsequently the observance of it was enforced as a commemoration of the resurrection of the Saviour. The Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian Sabbath all unite in the same design, and are now all concentrated in the last named day. This day commemorates the three great facts that distinguish the true religion from paganism, the church from the world, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, to the exclusion of every other way. The mere existence of this day is a public proof of these three facts. If these three facts, the creation of the world — the calling of the Hebrew nation as God’s peculiar people — and the resurrection of the Saviour can be established 5 the religion that is founded upon them must be of divine origin. Now the weekly observance of this day of rest transmits these facts through all the generations of men. It is a sign between God and man, recurring every week. Just as coins and pillars, and monuments, and the festal days which commemorate some remarkable epoch in a nation’s history, are signs and proofs of the events they commemorate, so is the Sabbath a standing, public proof of these great facts. We should never have heard of the Sabbath but for the events which it commemorates. When we speak of it, we recur to the reasons of its original institution. When our children inquire why it is set apart, we tell them; and when their children make the same inquiry, they have the same answer 5 and in that answer have an epitome of the evidence in favour of the only true religion. Wherever this day of rest is duly observed therefore, it is the great preservative against idolatry, polytheism, and all false rehgions. Wherever it is observed, there, and there only is to be found the knowledge of the one only living and true God, of the existence of his church on the earth, and of her salvation through the great Mediator. But for this testimony, we see not how the knowledge of the true religion would have been preserved in the earth. If you find a people strangers to the Sabbath, you may be confident they are without God in the world. When France abolished the Sabbath, she declared there was no God but reason, and no hereafter. You may wander at the present day over the far-famed cemetry of her metropolis, and read the numerous inscriptions upon tomb stones erected at that melancholy period, death is an ETERNAL SLEEP! The saniG result will follow, wherever the same experiment shall be made. The nation that disowns the Sabbath is necessarily a nation of infidels and atheists. Look where you will, either among individuals, families, or communities, and if the Sabbath is a desolation, there you will find a gradual and certain decay from true religion to infidelity and paganism. Let the Sabbath be forgotten for twenty years in this favoured land, and you will have no necessity of going to India, or the Southern Ocean to find paganism, for we ourselves should have become a nation of pagans. Blot out the Sabbath and no longer will the Bible lead men

to repentance and salvation. No longer will the silver clarion of the gospel “proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.” No longer will the voice of supplication ascend from this ruined world to draw from heaven the blessings bestowed by the hearer of prayer. No longer will the Spirit of truth and grace dwell with men, to dissipate their darkness, and make the desert Uke Eden, and the wilderness like the garden of the Lord. No longer will ordinances quicken, or the soul be comforted, or mercy be triumphant. Darkness will cover the earth and gross darkness the people. Sin will reign. Satan, the great enemy of God and man will lay waste this fair creation; will walk to and fro through the earth in all the phrenzy of his long-wished for usurpation, and death and hell will follow in his train.

May we not then affirm the obligations of the world to the Bible for its Sabbath? As a man of the world, I venerate the Sabbath. I would not be the agent in the destruction of this day of rest for all that earth can give. It would indeed have little to bestow, when all that is illuminating and pure, elevating and noble, serene and holy have become thus exiled from among men. That man has lived too long, who has survived the extinction of the Sabbath. My young friends does not this day of light, and mercy, and hope, deserve respect Does it bear no stamp of divinity? The Great Lord of the Sabbath bids you rest on that sacred day. On that sacred day he bids “reason which, amid the bustle of the week, has been jostled from her throne, resume her sway. He calls conscience from the retirement into which she had been driven by the spirit of gain, or the strife of party.” And he awakes all the tenderness of the heart, touches its sympathies, and opens it to the sweet influences of his love. Never does the world of nature more delightfully co-operate with the world of grace than on this sacred day. Never does the dew fall in sweeter silence, nor the vapours ascend more softly. Never does the kingdom of providenxze smile more significantly than on the observance, or frown more fearfully than on the violations of this day of rest. No man is the looser by keeping this day holy. O it is enough to sicken one’’s heart to survey the immoralities that are engendered by the neglect and abuse of this day! Among the causes which diminish the appropriate influence of the Sabbath in this land, are the rapid growth of our large cities, the influx of a foreign population from catholic countries, the limited extension of the Christian ministry, the cupidity of monied and business corporations, the example of the rich, the influence of the government, the want of parental authority, the thoughtlessness of young men, and the desecration of the day by many of the professed people of God. And yet as a nation, I cannot feel that we are a community of Sabbath-breakers. With the single and melancholy exception of the Post Office department, the public departments of business are all closed on this sacred day. The custom house, the banks, the insurance offices, the public offices at the seat of government, the courts of justice, the mercantile houses, the shops of business and labour are closed one day in seven. And well may we feel that this is an unspeakable blessing. It would be an insupportable grief and burden, were it otherwise. And yet is the sin of Sabbath-breaking becoming more and more apparent, in the land. Notwithstanding the strong barriers erected to protect this sacred observance, there is reason to fear, that the irresistible flood of business and pleasure will roll over this great institution. On the behalf of this holy day therefore, I solicit your example and your influence, wherever you may be, and as long as you shall live. It is entitled to your reverence and love. You have nothing you can substitute in its place. Despise its guidance, reject its consolations, refuse its hopes, extinguish its light, and you are buried in cheerless gloom. If you would that those who come after you should rise up and call you blessed; if you would embalm your names in the grateful remembrance of coming generations 5 continue the exemplary and fearless guardians of the Christian Sabbath, and transmit its blessings to distant futurity. On you devolves the sacred charge of extending and perpetuating the unappreciated blessings of this holy day. Should older men become demoralized 5 should grave Senators trample on this institution of heaven’s wisdom and mercy ,* there is a redeeming spirit in the young. I repeat the thought, let it be one of the great

principles of your conduct, wherever and whatever you may be, to uphold the authority and plead the cause of this holy institution. Let no change of condition, or place, or pressure of business tempt you to profane the Sabbath. No one external observance will exert so powerful an influence on your moral character as a scrupulous and cheerful regard to the Lord’s Day. You cannot become abandoned, while you revere the Sabbath. You cannot become useless members of society, so long as you regard the Sabbath. You cannot put yourselves beyond the reach of hope and heaven, so long as you treasure up this one command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”