of his immortal nature, with all the blessed hopes and dread responsibilities that belong to it-let alone everything but his mere physical comfort and domestic happiness-would it be for the good of the working man to pull down the only real bulwark that protects his day of rest from the invasion of the worshippers of Mammon. This was not the plan of the all-wise God. He intended the Sabbath as a day of rest, but, at the same time, and doubtless in part for that very reason, he consecrated it as a day of religion. He set his own seal upon it. In order that it might exist for his creatures, he provided that it should exist for HIMSELF. He took it under his supreme guardianship -the kindest, most faithful, and most loving care that the universe can furnish. He bid man cease from toil, but he made his rest "holy." He did not enjoin, together with the rest of the body, the stagnation of the soul. No: he called his creature on that day to the special privilege of communion with himself not a mere bodily worship, such as the prostration of the heathen before his idol (that were indeed a low and base view of religion)—but the worship of his spirit and understanding -of his heart and soul-an honourable, a delightful, an elevating service-the pouring out of heartfelt gratitude, the lifting up of heartfelt praise, the communicating of heartfelt sorrows, the entreating of all the blessings that he needs for body and soul, for wife and children, for neighbours, country, and mankind-the studying of sublime truth, the storing up of practical wisdom, the striving to secure, in his brief passage through this world, the everlasting happiness and honour of the skies. Such, I say, was God's design; and, therefore, from the creation of the world, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." And when afterwards he gave his law to Israel-that law which comprised the principles of all man's duty to God and to his fellow-men-the great, glorious Moral Law, bright with faultless truth, and so plain that he who runs may readthe law which God himself declared to be summed up in the two grand principles of loving God with all our hearts, and loving our neighbour as ourselves he enshrined in its very midst these words “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it HOLY." God's rest, then, is a "holy" rest. He "hallowed" the day he "sanctified" it. The sanctification of the day carries and crowns its rest. We know from many striking passages in the writings of the prophets, that this Sabbath was expressly guarded against the very perversion now contemplated, of making it a day of worldly pleasure: "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; 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; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it," Isa. lviii. 13, 14. It had a higher character-it was a day of duty and sacred happiness; for if one truth is more certain than another, it is this, that happiness is indissolubly connected with duty. But it is said that the Sabbath, 1, 2. The first day of the week then though thus commanded to the children of Israel, was intended for them alone, and was to cease with the close of the Mosaic dispensation. It is, indeed, true that the day was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week; but there is abundant proof that the first day has been observed as the Sabbath from the earliest days of the Apostles of Christ to the present time. Our Saviour himself, so far from abrogating the institution, declared, "The Sabbath was made FOR MAN." Whilst rejecting superstitious restrictions added by the traditions of the Jews, he vindicated the Sabbath as made, not for the Jews only, but "FOR MAN." His authority was thus added to that of the law of the Ten Commandments. In this point, as in others, he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. But the day was changed immediately after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and was thenceforward observed by the Apostles and their followers in commemoration of that event -the greatest event in the history of mankind. Our Lord himself appeared to his disciples, for the second time, on the first day of the week. It was on the first day of the week, the day of Pentecost, that the disciples were "all with one accord in one place;" and that the Holy Spirit was poured out miraculously on them and their hearers -Acts ii. 1. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that, "upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them," xx. 7. Paul enjoined the Corinthians and Galatians, "upon the first day of the week to lay by in store as God had prospered them," as "a collection for the saints," 1 Cor. xvi received the name of "the Lord's day," by which it is now distinguished. The Apostle St. John, in the Revelation, thus designates it-"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," Rev. i. 10. Pliny, the Roman Proconsul of Asia, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan (written not above forty years after the death of St. Paul), in describing what he considered the perverse and criminal obstinacy of the Christians of Pontus and Bithynia, says: "They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they met on a certain stated day, before it was light, and addressed themselves in the form of prayer to Christ, as to some God, binding themselves by a solemn oath, not for the purposes of any wicked design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery; never to falsify their word, nor deny a to deliver it up: after which it was trust when they should be called upon their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat, in common, a harmless meal" (the Lord's supper). One of the earliest of Christian writers, Justin Martyr, who died A.D. 150, thus states the practice of the Church in his day: "On the day which is called Sunday, all, whether dwelling in the towns or in the villages, hold meetings, and the memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as the time will permit: then the reader closing, the president, in a speech, exhorts and incites to an imitation of these examples: then we all rise and pour forth united prayers; and when we close our prayer, as was before said, bread is brought forth, and wine, and water; and the president utters prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and all the people respond by saying, Amen; and a distribution and participation of the things blessed takes place to each one present, and to those absent it is sent by deacons. Those who are prosperous and willing give what they choose, each according to his own pleasure, which is deposited with the president, who carefully relieves the orphans and widows, &c. We all commonly hold our assemblies on Sunday, because it is the first day on which God converted darkness and matter, and framed the world; and Jesus Christ, our Saviour, on the same day rose from the dead."-Justin Martyr's Apology. as a fearful perversion of God's ordinance ? It is a very significant circumstance, that in the London petition-an argumentative petition on the subject of the Sabbath-Mr. Mayhew and his friends have not introduced the slightest recognition of religion, as either the duty, the interest, or the privilege of man! Yet who can live through a few years of this changeful state, and who can know anything of the deceitfulness of the human heart, without feeling that religion affords the best and the necessary, if not the only support in trial, incentive in duty, safeguard in "All things whatever that it was duty temptation, and hope in death! Withto do on the Sabbath, these we have trans-out it, there is no true happiness, no ferred to the Lord's day, as more appro- real peace; but with it there is a peace priately belonging to it, because it has a precedence, and is first in rank, and that passes understanding. more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath."- Comment. on Psalm xcii. Tertullian, who lived at the end of the second century, gives a still more minute account of the mode of observing the Christian Sabbath. The learned Eusebius, who wrote at the beginning of the fourth century, says It is, therefore, clear that the Christian Church, from its very earliest formation at Jerusalem, has observed the Lord's day as a religious Sabbath a day of public assembling, of worship, of reading the Scriptures, of religious instruction, of prayer, of singing the praises of God and Christ, of holy vows, of collections for the relief of the poor, and of celebration of the Lord's supper. And now, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, we are told that "the mode of observing the Sunday among the early Christians proves incontestably that the present Sabbath is a social rather than a Divine institution!" and we are urged to "bring it back to its true uses-the recreation and refreshing of the labourer!" without even a hint being given of the propriety of religious worship or religious observances ! Is not this a gross falsification of history, as well I appeal to the plainest intellect, if those who omit from their view of man's interest and condition all that belongs to his relation to God and his hopes for a never-ending existence, do not degrade him immeasurably below the Christian standard, and place him well nigh on a level with the beasts that perish. There is such a thing as practical atheism, without speculative atheism; and it consists not in formally denying the existence of God and his claims upon his creatures, but in absolutely forgetting, in virtually ignoring them. Of such men it is truly said in the sacred Scripture, that they "live without God and without hope in the world" What signifies all the amusement that could be crowded into a few chequered years of earthly existence-what signifies even all the mere human knowledge that could be accumulated-to the man who at any moment may be called away from earth for ever, and summoned to a heavenly tribunal ? In the estimation of enlightened reason, not to say of Christianity, the poor man who lives in daily communion with God, and in the firm hope of a state of unsullied happiness, has a moral dignity incomparably transcending that of the richest nobleman, who fares sumptuously every day," or of the most learned philosopher, if the joys and aspirations of these latter do not extend beyond the bounds of time. 44 But if there is such a thing as immortal existence, what can be more in accordance with the plainest reason, than that man should be a religious being? and if religion is his duty, honour, and privilege, what can be more reasonable than that he should give up one day in seven to its duties and enjoyments? I repeat, and that with unlimited confidence, that the religious man is the happy man; and. therefore, to say that a day religiously spent is a day of "rigour," is totally false, and only shows how much the man who asserts it is to be pitied. But what would the Sabbath be, if it were not religious? Would it be a day of mere amusement and pleasure to the working man? Beware, work ing men, lest it prove to be a day of "rigour" indeed, by becoming a SEVENTH day of unbroken labour. Remove the religious sanction and object of the day, and what is to prevent every manufacturer from opening his mill, every merchant his warehouse, and every tradesman his shop? And then what would be the fate of labour? My belief is, that the working man would find himself under a necessity of working, not a legal necessity, but a necessity imposed upon him by the circumstances in which he is placed, and which would only leave him the option of working on the Sabbath, or losing his work on the week-days. Moreover, I am persuaded that he would work this seventh day for no wages; because, as the cost of supporting his family would not be increased, there is no necessity why he should receive more wages than at present. At first he might obtain an advance, but in the end competition would bring down the wages to the old standard. Again, I appeal to parents whether they would wish the Sunday-school to be abolished; or whether they think their children would be more easily managed, and would grow up more obedient, more affectionate, more truthful, more sober, more chaste, under a system that proclaimed recreation to be the only object of the Sabbath, or than where they are trained up by their pious teachers "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." What constitutes the happiness of families? Is it the eagerness with which they all seek amusement and indulgence? Or is it the sense of duty, taught by God's word, and which instructs children to obey their parents, to love their brothers and sisters, to act honestly and justly, and to fear and love their Maker? It is one of the best known of all facts, to those who have experience of the young, that the violation of the Sabbath is the beginning of evil courses. Multitudes of criminals have acknowledged that this was the first step in the downward road. But how can it be proclaimed throughout the land that the Sabbath is nothing beyond a day of pleasure, without inducing Sundayscholars to leave the schools by wholesale? It is obvious that places of worship would be deserted in the same way as schools. The service of God would either cease in the land, or it would be attended to as a matter of empty form, to be hurried over as expeditiously as possible. And if the churches, chapels, and Sunday-schools are emptied, what kind of buildings I would be filled? There might be a few such as the Crystal Palace; but the great majority of those who were not tied to labour would be found in the public-house, the tea gardens, and possibly in the theatre, the circus, or the casino. The Sabbath of England would become worse than the Sabbath of the Continent, where the day is too generally one of labour in the morning, and of mere amusement all the rest of the day. sanctuary, and the tranquillity of the domestic hearth, where parents collect their children to instruct them in their highest duties, and assist them in their heavenward course. The effort making in London is not to be despised. It becomes the ministers of religion to arouse themselves to a sense of the danger with which we are threatened. The Sunday-school teachers, I am sure, will do their duty. Christians of all denominations are called upon to take their stand in behalf of an institution without which religion could scarcely live in this busy world. But, of all classes, you, Working Men, are most deeply interested in the maintenance of the Sabbath, and would be the greatest sufferers from its loss or secularization. Speak, then, with a clear voice, now that this great question is mooted, and say that no power on earth shall take from you the Sabbaths which you reverence and love. I am, my Friends, It is said as an excuse for opening the Crystal Palace and other places of amusement on Sunday, that working men need "recreation and refreshing." Undoubtedly they do; but nothing that the wit of man could devise would be so conducive to the renovation of the toil-worn frame, as the peaceful calm of a religious Sabbath, the intel-"Leeds Mercury" Office, lectual and spiritual exercise of the Yours respectfully and truly, EDWARD BAINES. Feb. 12, 1853. The Counsel Chamber. ATHEISM. IT is a remarkable fact, that, at the present moment, the same errors, in respect to religion, should be prevailing in every part of the world. In the days of our grandfathers, it was supposed that the United States were destined, in the later ages, to be the depository, the stronghold, of true religion, and the refuge of the persecuted people of God from Europe. There was some 1 what soothing in the thought; but, according to appearance, the New World will speedily be in a condition but little superior to that of the Old. The celebrated Dr. Lyman Beecher, father of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Authoress of "Uncle Tom," has had his powerful understanding turned to the condition of his country, and the result has been, a volume entitled, "Atheism Considered |