Everybody has heard of what is called the “Christian sabbath,” and nearly
everybody has a tolerably clear idea of what is meant by a “continental
sabbath.” A “continental sabbath” may be described as a sort of week-day
Sunday, that is, as a religious holiday with more secular, than pious,
features. A Christian sabbath is so near dead in this country as a
religious fact that a definition of it cannot be had from real life. We
find the ideal sabbath of the Christians in the history of early New
England. For two centuries the people have been gradually outgrowing the
austere religion which made Sunday a day to be dreaded all the week. The
attempt has been frequently made by a small puritan contingent, which has
survived all these years, to resuscitate this dead sabbath and inflict it
upon the world again. But so far the effort has only met with deserved
failure.
Resurrections have never been successful. When the inhabitants of graves
have come out of their abodes it has been only to walk the streets for a
brief period, and then to return again to silence and rest. The stories of
ghosts, when true, are always short. These visitants never stop long or do
anything that is of any worth to the world. When the grave is once made
over the dead it is best to let it alone. There is nothing in cemeteries
to aid progress or civilization.
We do not need the revival of old customs or of old faiths. To endeavor to
rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as foolish as to try to
make people go back into log houses and cook over a fire-place. Some
persons can never realize that the world grows; that what was a help to
one age becomes a hindrance to another; that time corrects the mistakes of
men and that respect and reverence for our ancestors do not necessarily
require us to adopt their clothes or their habits.
Men and women are made fossils by their religion. The people who are
trying to-day to resurrect the puritan sabbath are people who have got
religion, but not much of anything else. A man who allows religion to
dominate all his thoughts, all his efforts, all his acts, usually is a
nuisance, if nothing worse.
A day of rest once a week is a good thing in itself, but it is a bad thing
when controlled by religion. We are in favor of Sunday as a day when man
can lay aside his business, his care, his tools, and enjoy himself, but we
want everybody to take their hands off of it. Sunday is not a day for
religion alone. If certain people wish to go to church on Sunday, let them
go; but when these people, who go to church on Sunday, wish to compel
everyone else to do the same, they need to be informed that _liberty on
Sunday is just as much a human right as liberty on Monday_. There are
better things that man has found than religion. Liberty is better, truth
is better, happiness is better. We would like to see an American Sunday on
this continent, a Sunday in harmony with the principles upon which our
government was founded, a Sunday which was not run by religion, a Sunday
for man and not for the church. Such a day would not be a sabbath, but it
would be a free day, a happy day. The notion of Sunday as a holy day is
too absurd, too ridiculous to deserve respectful attention. No man can
have fifty-two holy days in a year.
The minister must take his pious grasp off of the throat of Sunday.
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A true man is not troubled by anything but his own acts.
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The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens, grandly
obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.
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A great many people are afraid of knowledge, but we have seen hundreds of
people that we thought would be improved if they knew more, but we have
never seen one that we thought would be better if he knew less.