It is Sunday morning, and above earth's beauty shines the purest, softest
sky this summer has yet gladdened us withal. My window is thrown open; I
see the sunny gleam upon garden leaves and flowers; I hear the birds
whose wont it is to sing to me; ever and anon the martins that have their
home beneath my eaves sweep past in silence. Church bells have begun to
chime; I know the music of their voices, near and far.
There was a time when it delighted me to flash my satire on the English
Sunday; I could see nothing but antiquated foolishness and modern
hypocrisy in this weekly pause from labour and from bustle. Now I prize
it as an inestimable boon, and dread every encroachment upon its restful
stillness. Scoff as I might at "Sabbatarianism," was I not always glad
when Sunday came? The bells of London churches and chapels are not
soothing to the ear, but when I remember their sound--even that of the
most aggressively pharisaic conventicle, with its one dire clapper--I
find it associated with a sense of repose, of liberty. This day of the
seven I granted to my better genius; work was put aside, and, when Heaven
permitted, trouble forgotten.
When out of England I have always missed this Sunday quietude, this
difference from ordinary days which seems to affect the very atmosphere.
It is not enough that people should go to church, that shops should be
closed and workyards silent; these holiday notes do not make a Sunday.
Think as one may of its significance, our Day of Rest has a peculiar
sanctity, felt, I imagine, in a more or less vague way, even by those who
wish to see the village lads at cricket and theatres open in the town.
The idea is surely as good a one as ever came to heavy-laden mortals; let
one whole day in every week be removed from the common life of the world,
lifted above common pleasures as above common cares. With all the abuses
of fanaticism, this thought remained rich in blessings; Sunday has always
brought large good to the generality, and to a chosen number has been the
very life of the soul, however heretically some of them understood the
words. If its ancient use perish from among us, so much the worse for
our country. And perish no doubt it will; only here in rustic solitude
can one forget the changes that have already made the day less sacred to
multitudes. With it will vanish that habit of periodic calm, which, even
when it has become so largely void of conscious meaning, is, one may
safely say, the best spiritual boon ever bestowed upon a people. The
most difficult of all things to attain, the most difficult of all to
preserve, the supreme benediction of the noblest mind, this calm was once
breathed over the whole land as often as sounded the last stroke of
weekly toil; on Saturday at even began the quiet and the solace. With
the decline of old faith, Sunday cannot but lose its sanction, and no
loss among the innumerable that we are suffering will work so effectually
for popular vulgarization. What hope is there of guarding the moral
beauty of the day when the authority which set it apart is no longer
recognized?--Imagine a bank-holiday once a week!