institution is to men in every clime; how speedily and effectually it displaces the old customs when its religion has been embraced, and how firm a lodgement it effects in the consciences and affections of the converts. On the score, then, of practicability, it has the decided evidence of experience in its favour, while all such evidence pronounces the proposed substitute to be a hopeless project. Let us now turn to another criterion of the intellectual adaptation of a seventh-day, according as it is employed in religious services, or in other means of mental improvement; we mean power or efficiency, and let us see what facts disclose on this point. If it be said that the religious institution has so preoccupied men's minds as to preclude a fair trial of other expedients which have but rarely been invested with a formal appointment, we reply, that considering the facilities and favourable feelings for a change already mentioned, we can see nothing in all this but a testimony to the efficiency of a sacred, and the imbecility of a secular Sabbath. That surely which is too feeble to struggle into general use, or to maintain its ground, promises no good should it by any possibility be brought into full operation. That, on the other hand, which, with the whole tide of human immorality set in against it, has nevertheless prevailed in the world, proclaims thereby its power to reign. But it is not true It was the subject that the former has not had a sufficient trial. of experiment, under a formal appointment, for ten years in France, the result of which was that it had to take refuge in religion. There are many in our own land engaged in the pursuit of knowledge who never keep a religious holiday, and who enjoy the freedom from interruption in their studies which such a day secures. This state of things has long existed, and is to be found in other countries as well. In all Popish lands the Lord's day is, for the most part, free to be applied to mental exercises or to anything else, and will be taken advantage of for the former purpose by some of each community. Add to these cases that of the far greater proportion of mankind who have been without the restraints of a sacred day, and who therefore have had more time for making acquisitions in learning. It appears, therefore, that the proposed and other methods of intellectual discipline which have been deemed worthy to supplant the Christian Sabbath have been sufficiently tried to enable us to judge of their merits. And we are willing to accept the history of the latter, circumscribed and abated though its proper influence has been by the keenest opposition, as furnishing the means of deciding on its fitness as an instrument of mental improvement. To that history, as formerly presented in a summary form, we add only the comprehensive words of Jortin: "To whom are we indebted," asks the learned writer, "for the knowledge of antiquities, sacred and secular, for everything that is called philology or polite literature? To Christians. To whom for grammars and dictionaries of the learned languages? To Christians. To whom for chronology, and the continuation of history through many centuries? To Christians. To whom for rational systems of morality and of natural religion? To Christians. To whom for improvements in natural philosophy, and for the application of these discoveries to religious purposes? Το Christians. To whom for metaphysical researches carried as far as the subject will permit? To Christians. To whom for jurisprudence and political knowledge, and for settling the rights of subjects, both civil and religious, upon a proper foundation? To Christians." ניי The charge of immoral tendency preferred against the strict observance of the Lord's day finds a thorough refutation in certain moral contrasts furnished by the annals of our country. In briefly tracing these contrasts we shall see enough to justify Foster's eulogium, that "the Sabbath is a remarkable appointment for raising the general tenor of moral existence," and the words of Blackstone and Pollok: "A corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath ;" "Sure sign, whenever seen, That holiness is dying in a land, The Sabbath was profaned and set at nought." How dissimilar was England when above one hundred murders had been committed in the kingdom by ecclesiastics, of whom not one had been punished so much as with degradation, the punishment enjoined by the canons, to England in the time of Queen 1 Jortin's Sermons, vol. vii. pp. 373, 374. Elizabeth! What an alteration in the other direction followed the publication and republication of the Book of Sports, which opened the flood-gates to all kinds of licentiousness! Mark the improvement which was the result of a change of measures. Never were the claims of the Lord's day more ably defended and enforced from the pulpit and the press, or more zealously complied with in the practice of the people, than during the times of the Commonwealth and of the preceding struggles. "You might walk the streets [of London] on the evening of the Lord's day," as Neal observes of "the people in the Parliament quarters," "without seeing an idle person or hearing anything but the voice of prayer or praise from churches and private houses." 1 He further says that there were no gaming-houses nor houses of pleasure, nor was there any profane swearing nor any kind of debauchery to be seen or heard in the streets.2 Referring to the period when the monarchy had been overturned, he remarks: "In the midst of all these disorders there was a very great appearance of sobriety both in city and country; the indefatigable pains of the Presbyterian ministers in catechizing, instructing, and visiting their parishioners, can never be sufficiently commended. The whole. nation was civilized, and considerably improved in sound knowledge." Add the testimony of Bishop Burnet: "There had been a face of gravity and piety in the former administration; there was good justice done, and vice was suppressed and punished, so that we always reckon the eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity." Compare with those years some later periods when the Sabbath law was not so obeyed; the time, for example, of Charles II., when "religion, which had been the fashion of the late times, was universally discountenanced, those who observed the Sabbath, scrupled profane swearing, etc., being branded as fanatics, and the exorbitant vices of the Court spread over the whole nation, and occasioned so general a licentiousness as to require the king's notice of it in addressing the Parliament;' and the days of Walpole, when corruption was so notorious as to elicit from that statesman the saying, that "every man had his price ;" and when London itself was infected with banditti, so that 1 History of the Puritans, ii. 591. 3 Ibid. iv. 18. 2 Ibid. 594. ."4 many gentlemen were robbed and even murdered on the public streets in open day. Let us observe the opposite effect of a continued respect for the institution among the Puritans who were driven from their country, as well as among their descendants. The Pilgrim Fathers took refuge in Holland. But, as Mather, in his Magnalia, says, they saw that, whatever banks the Dutch had against the inroads of the sea, they had not sufficient ones against a flood of manifold profaneness; they could not with ten years' endeavour bring their neighbours particularly to any suitable observation of the Lord's day, without which they knew that all practical religion must wither miserably."1 So they resolved to leave Holland. What character they maintained while in that country may be known from the testimony of the magistrates of Leyden, who, while reproving the Walloons, say, "These English have lived now ten years among us, and yet we never had any accusation against any of them, whereas your quarrels are continual." 2 After this noble race had been settled for one hundred years in America, they are found persevering in a dutiful respect to the Sabbath and its sacred services, and in a course of practical morality becoming their principles and profession of religion. The same alternations of good and evil, arising from the same causes, as are presented in the history of England, appear in that of Scotland. The interval between her first and second Reformations was marked by a very efficient system of Christian instruction, and by the "very healthful moral condition of her people," the efforts of the bishops who were introduced by the Court, in propagating their views of religion, and in attempting to bring the observance of the Sabbath into conformity to that encouraged by royal proclamation, serving to stimulate the zeal and exertions of the faithful ministers of the land. The period, again, from the second Reformation to the Restoration of the Monarchy was even more distinguished by the religious and moral elevation of the country. Kirkton's account of its concluding years is well known. We give a portion of it: "In the interval betwixt the two kings, religion advanced the greatest step it had made for many years. Now, the ministry 3 was notably purified, the magistracy was altered, and the people strangely refined. No scandalous person could live, no scandal could be concealed in all Scotland, so strict a correspondence there was betwixt ministers and congregations. At the king's return every parish had a minister, every village had a school, every family almost had a Bible, yea, in most of the country all the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided of Bibles, either by the parents or their ministers. I have lived many years in a parish where I never heard an oath, and you might have ridden many miles before you heard any. Also, you could not for a great part of the country, have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody complained more of our Church government than our taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was, their trade was broke, people were become so sober."1 In this state of things Charles II. ascended the throne. This event was soon followed by an attempt to enforce Episcopacy upon the Scottish nation, which gave rise to a war of about twenty-eight years' duration. The act for the establishment of parochial schools was repealed. Three hundred and fifty ministers were ejected from their parishes, and forbidden to preach even in the fields, or to approach within twenty miles of their former charges. In their place were appointed men whom Burnet describes as mean and despicable in all respects, the worst preachers he ever heard, ignorant to a reproach, and many of them openly vicious."2 The Revolution, indeed, put an end to persecution, rescinded the acts establishing a form of religion opposed to the wishes of the people, and led to the restoration of the parochial schools. But it is not surprising that the evils which had been inflicted by a tyrannical government, a brutal soldiery, and a clergy sunk in sloth, ignorance, and vice, should not cease with their causes, particularly as hundreds of these clergy were retained in their charges. So late, accordingly, as 1698, ten years after the Revolution, there were, according to Fletcher of Saltoun, 200,000 people who subsisted by begging from door to door, and the half of whom were vagabonds, living without any regard or submission either to the laws of the 1 Kirkton's History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 48, 49, 64, 65. 2 History of his own Times (Edit. of 1850), p. 103. |