namely, that they do not touch the central seat of life; do not destroy, though they may impair, the action of the Church in the fulfilment of its office? We know that the tares are mingled with the wheat; and how can we be certain that those tares may not signify perverted thought as well as corrupted action? But I desist from this strain of observation, and bring these remarks to a close with the suggestion that, according to the established doctrine of Holy Scripture and of the Christian Church, the great Sacrifice of Calvary does not undermine or enfeeble, but illuminates and sustains, the moral law; and that the third proposition of Mrs. Besant, with which alone we are here concerned, is naught.

J.

Z

XI.

THE LORD'S DAY.*

1895.

THE citadel of Christianity is in these days besieged all round its circuit. There is one point, however, in that circumference, where the defence presents to us certain particularities. That point is the article of Sabbath, or more properly of Lord's Day, observance. And the particularities are two, widely separated from one another. The first is that, among the forces employed in defence, there are important auxiliaries, who put wholly out of view the revealed sanction and the properly Christian motive; who are not and do not profess to be available for the work of active defence of other points of the precinct. The other peculiarity is this: that very many of those defenders, whose motive and profession are not secular, but distinctly religious, are singularly illequipped with consistent or perspicuous ideas of the subject, and, what is more, that in their ordinary practice they systematically and very largely make over large portions of the day, if not to secular occupations and amusements, yet to secular thought and conversation. This is done without deliberate or conscious insincerity; yet we must all feel that when the margin between profession and practice has become, and is

* Reprinted from The Church Monthly.

allowed to remain, enormous, real insincerity lies perilously near.

As to the first head, we have a class, or more than a class, who view the subject entirely from the natural or secular side, but who still believe, with a greater or less vivid clearness of conviction, that a periodical day of rest, which they reasonably associate with the one day in seven now become so venerable from its associations as well as its origin, is a necessity of health, as well for the brain of man as for the general fabric of his body: but at any rate, and in the highest degree, for corporeal health and vigour, as commonly understood. I assume, and also very strongly believe, this to be generally true, although I am not aware that the opinion has ever been. made the subject of sanitary statistics. It would, however, be interesting, if it were found practicable, to test the question through the case of that limited proportion of the British community, who do not in one way or another enjoy at the least some considerable amount of relief from labour, bodily and mental, on the consecrated day, by a definite exhibition of results on health, through a comparison of their experiences with those of the community at large.

This extremely important belief seems to be largely held among the masses of the people, apart from, as well as in connection with, the ideas of religious duty and of spiritual health. Even the most devout may thus think and feel without any inconsistency. It is probably both knowledge of, and participation in, this conception which has greatly helped the continuance of Sabbath legislation, nay, the increase of its stringency in the particular of public-houses, and the notable caution and self-restraint of the House of Commons as to

administrative changes recommended on the ground of mental recreation and improvement for the people. There can be no reason, why the firmest believers in the Christian character and obligation of the day should not thankfully avail themselves of the aid derived from alliance with this secondary but salutary sentiment.

When we approach the second head, it becomes needful to separate between ideas and practice. As to ideas, it can hardly be said that in our own country, of which alone I speak, the general mind is possessed with any conception, at once accurate and clear, of the religious ground, on which we are to observe the Sunday. There is a hazy, but still practical, and by no means superficial, impression that in some way or other it has to do with the original command delivered through Moses, so often recited in our churches, and backed there by the definite petition that God will incline our hearts "to keep this law." We do not in due proportion weigh or measure two facts which at this point bear materially on the case.

Two changes have indeed been imported into this law; one of them into its form, the other into its spirit. The first has been altered by translation of the commandment from the seventh day of the week to the first the second, by imparting to it a positive and affirmative, in addition to its originally negative and prohibitory sense. I am not aware that the sabbatical signification has been relaxed; and it has certainly been kept in very full view by the Church, and by the State, of England. But the ascent that the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue has made, and the development and expansion that it has received, under the Christian dispensation, have not been so prominently put forward. Hence perhaps it is that we have but imperfectly grasped

what is implied in what we familiarly call the observance of Sunday. Possibly there may have been a concurring cause for this defect in the indisposition of many minds, after the crisis of the Reformation, to recognise any action of the Church apart from actual Scripture. It is difficult, on a tranquil survey of the whole case, to exclude from it some admission of such action. But, so far as this action has existed, it has been in obvious furtherance of the mind of the Bible, and it may equitably be considered not as raising any question as between clergy and laity, but as expressing the harmonious co-operation of the entire Christian community.

The auxiliary evidence, which the Old Testament supplies to support the Fourth Commandment, is ample. And it was fortified by secondary institutions, such as the "preparation of the Sabbath," and the limitation of the Sabbath day's journey. It was not relaxed by our Lord; who lived obediently under the conditions of the older covenant, and whom we are evidently to understand, on some marked occasions, not as impairing the commandment, but as protesting against and cancelling an artificial and extravagant stiffness in its interpretation. Cruden (in loc.) observes that the word "Sabbaths" included the great festivals of the Jews. But the obligatory force of the Fourth Commandment as touching the seventh day is destroyed by the declaration of St. Paul (Col. ii. 16) that we are liable to be judged or coerced by none in respect of Sabbath days. This command was addressed, as is obvious, especially to Jews who had become Christians; so that it applies with an even enhanced force to us, who have never been under the obligations of the Mosaic law.

The opinion, which required a great sabbatarian