The Ministers of the State of Connecticut, convened in General
Association, have published a serious, sensible, plain Address to
the People of the Churches and Societies under their pastoral
care, on the subject of the increasing negligence of the Publick
Worship of God; which they consider as one of the most painful
and alarming, among the various instances of declension and
immorality, which at the present time threaten the very existence
of religion in this country.--"In what manner," says the Address,
"does this evil affect the political interests, the essential
wellbeing, of the community? All the branches of morality are
indissolubly connected. From one breach of moral obligation to a
second, to a third, and to all, the transition is easy, necessary
and rapid. From negligence of the duties we owe to God, the
passage is short to contempt for those we owe to men. The
Sabbath, in the judgment of reason and of revelation, is the
great hinge on which all these duties are turned. When the
ordinances of this holy day are forsaken and forgotten, the whole
system of moral obligation must of course be also forgotten; the
great, substantial and permanent good, of which religion is the
only source, is effectually destroyed; the political peace and
welfare of a community, the salvation of the human soul, the
infinitely benevolent designs of redeeming love, the institution
of the means of grace, and the obedience and sufferings of the
Son of God, are frustrated and set at nought. Thus, by one
effectual blow of sin, and the friends of sin, are all the great
and valuable interests of mankind overthrown."
* * * * *
Although our remarks are confined to America, we may mention that it has
been stated by some of our own countrymen who have visited London that
Sunday is generally as well observed there as in New England; yet we find
in the "Salem Gazette" of Nov. 23, 1785, that the attendance on public
worship in London was then rather small as compared with what might have
been seen in Boston at the same date. But that was before the days of the
"sensation" preachers, as they are called,--Spurgeon, Beecher, Talmage, and
men of that stamp, who now draw crowds of people, many of whom are not
always the most religious in the community, but who love excitement rather
than quiet contemplation.