"1 terms, or given forth a corresponding opinion. No fewer than six hundred and forty-one medical men of London, including Dr. Farre, subscribed a petition to Parliament against the opening of the Crystal Palace for profit on Sundays, containing the following sentence" Your petitioners, from their acquaintance with the labouring classes, and with the laws which regulate the human economy, are convinced that a seventh day of rest, instituted by God, and coeval with the existence of man, is essential to the bodily health and mental vigour of men in every station of life.” Many medical men on the other side of the Atlantic-of whom we name only Drs. Warren of Boston, Smith of New York, Harrison and Massey of the Ohio Medical College, and Aldin of Massachusetts-are equally decided in entertaining the same views. We must content ourselves with the striking words of Dr. Massey, Professor of Surgery in the above-mentioned institution, who affirms that “under the due observance of the Sabbath, life would, on the average, be prolonged more than one seventh of its whole period; that is, more than seven years in fifty." 2 From medical authority let us turn to the views held by persons who, as masters and employers of workmen, or as otherwise having excellent opportunities of observing the condition of the laborious members of society, are competent witnesses in the cause. Dr. Humphrey mentions a case which has often been cited. "A contractor went on to the west, with his hired men and teams, to make a turnpike road. At first he paid no regard to the Sabbath, but continued his work as on other days. He soon found, however, that the ordinances of nature, no less than the moral law, were against him. His labourers became sickly; his teams grew poor and feeble; and he was fully convinced that more was lost than gained by working on the Lord's day. So true is it, that the Sabbath-day labourer, like the glutton and the drunkard, undermines his health, and prematurely hastens the infirmities of age and his exit from this world."3 Let another out of many similar instances suffice. Two thousand men "were employed for years, seven days in a week. To render them contented in giving 1 Association Medical Journal, June 1853, p. 554. 2 Permanent Sabbath Documents (Boston, II. S., 1844), No. 1, p. 30. up their right to the Sabbath as a day of rest, that birthright of the human family, they paid them double wages on that day, eight days' wages for seven days' work. But they could not keep them healthy, nor make them moral. Things went badly, and they changed their course-employed the workmen only six days in a week, and allowed them to rest on the Sabbath. The consequence was, that they did more work than ever before. This, the superintendent said, was owing to two causes- -the demoralization of the people under the first system, and their exhaustion of bodily strength, which was visible to the most casual observer."1 When we advert to exertions of another description, we find that the result of everyday work is the same. It was remarked by the celebrated painter, Sir David Wilkie, that "those artists who wrought on Sunday were soon disqualified from working at all."2 The editor of the Standard some years ago recorded the result of many years' observation in these words-"We never knew a man work seven days a week, who did not kill himself or kill his mind." And Wilberforce said that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labour, so as to bring on a premature death.3 There is a third class who, from their experience of hard labour, either of mind or of body, are entitled to be listened to on this question. Manual labourers will be found nearly unanimous in the conviction that continuous toil is destructive to health; and we have seen upwards of one thousand of them publishing to the world their persuasion that a weekly day of exemption from toil, and yet spent not in total inaction or amusement, but in the duties of piety and benevolence, is indispensable to their physical welfare, and even to the preservation of life. One of them remarks, that "on more than one occasion he has found that continued application to labour during six days in the busy season, and consequent long hours, was more than his constitution would bear, and that if he had attempted to dispense with the relaxation of the Sabbath, he should long since, he firmly believed, have retired to the rest 1 Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. 1, p. 33. 2 The Sabbath at Home and Abroad, p. 47. 3 Venn in Funeral Sermon for Mr. Wilberforce. "3 and silence of the grave." "1 Another says, "Many a man would tell us that he could not support himself under his arduous toils, were it not for the periodical return of the Lord's day."2 When persons who have attempted to work on the seventh, as on the other days of the week, have been compelled to resort to its rest, the evidence is even strengthened. A party of gold-diggers in California made trial of the former practice. The result is thus stated by Dr. Brooks, one of their number:-"After dinner we determined to rest till the next day. The fact is, that the human frame will not stand, and was never intended to stand, a course of incessant toil; indeed, I believe that in civilized, that is to say, in industrious communities, the Sabbath bringing round as it does a stated remission from labour, is an institution physically necessary. We have all of us given over working on Sundays, as we found the toil on six successive days quite hard enough." The French, it is well known, had sufficient experience of both a seventh and a tenth day's rest; and that the change from the former to the latter was, in respect of sanitary interests, found wanting, formed one of the reasons of their return to their ancient practice. Akin to the testimony just presented is that of persons who have been engaged in the more exhausting labours of the mind. A distinguished financier charged with an immense amount of property during the great pecuniary pressure of 1836 and 1837, said, I should have been a dead man, had it not been for the Sabbath.a Similar was the experience of Wilberforce in another department of mental exertion. "I have often heard him assert," observes the Rev. John Venn, "that he never could have sustained the labour and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of the Sabbath." 5 Dr. Farre, who has afforded us the benefit of his acquaintance with the human frame, may again be called to attest the influence of professional toils which may be considered as both mental and bodily. "I have found it essential to my own wellbeing," he says, "to abridge my labours on the Sabbath to what is actually necessary." We 1 Prize Essays by Five Working Men, p. 174. 2 Ibid. p. 42. 3 Four Months among the Gold-finders in Alta California, pp. 58-60, 82. 4 Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. 1, pp. 27, 28. 5 Venn's Funeral Sermon for Mr. Wilberforce. add the remarkable saying of Coleridge, who, although not a Puritan in this matter, was well able to attest the value of the hebdomadal rest to the wearied mind. "I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in the year." He A very interesting department of our subject respects the benefit accruing from a weekly day of rest to certain of the lower animals. These creatures have in common with man physical natures, which are worn down by excessive labour and recruited by rest. They are observed to be amenable to laws of health and disease no less unerring, and in some instances even more appreciable, than those which apply to their masters. And it is found that such of them as are employed in our service require equally as we the rest of the seventh day. The statement made before a statistical society by Mr. Bianconi of Clonmel in Ireland, proprietor at the time of one hundred and ten vehicles which travelled from eight to ten miles an hour, is well known. mentioned that none of the cars, except those connected with the mail, were run on Sunday; that he found it much easier to work a horse eight miles every week-day, in place of six miles, than an additional six miles on Sundays; and that by this plan there is a saving of thirteen per cent., adding, I am persuaded that man cannot be wiser than his Maker.1 Intelligent coach-proprietors have confirmed the views of Bianconi.2 And an American writer, after adducing some interesting facts in proof of the necessity of the Sabbath's rest to man and beast, proceeds to say, "Great numbers have made similar experiments, and uniformly with similar results; so that it is now settled by facts, that the observance of the Sabbath is required by a natural law, and that were man nothing more than an animal, and were his existence to be confined to this world, it would be for his interest to observe the Sabbath."3 1 See Life of Sir A. Agnew, p. 29. 2 Report on the Observance of the Sabbath-day from Select Committee of House of Commons, &c. (1832), pp. 126, 127, 130. 3 Permanent Documents, No. 1, pp. 40, 41. CHAPTER II. ADAPTATION OF THE SABBATH TO THE CONSTITUTION AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAN MIND. "I am prepared to affirm that, to the studious especially, and whether younger or older, a Sabbath well spent-spent in happy exercises of the heart, devotional and domestic-a Sunday given to the soul-is the best of all means of refreshment to the mere intellect." ISAAC TAYLOR. THAT the Sabbatic institution is eminently calculated to promote the intellectual improvement of mankind, will appear from two considerations. First, it affords regularly the opportunity and facilities for desisting from pursuits which, if not so interrupted, are fatal to mental cultivation, and a season for employing the means of improving the mind, which, without such an institution, could not be provided. Let us look at this consideration, in the first instance, as applying to persons whose occupations are of an intellectual rather than of a physical nature, men of science and literature, statesmen, financiers, merchants, and others. It is well known that the exertion of thought on any subject, if prolonged beyond a certain time, is detrimental to both body and mind. Health fails, and nothing is more unfavourable to mental vigour than physical exhaustion. The views become clouded; the power of attention is impaired; and the result of persistence in such a course must, as already remarked, be idiocy, insanity, or death. What would have prevented those evils? Nothing but a discontinuance of the customary mental exertion. It is not the activity of the intellect, but its activity as put forth in one uniform mode, that does the injury. The cure, or the preventive, as the case may be, must be |