SUNDAY AND SABBATH.
I am not sure that in such an enquiry as this history is of much avail.
I do not find that those who search into the past to write the history
of it ever discover much that is of use to-day. It seems to me that in
tracing an idea, or a law, or a custom, historians are satisfied with
giving an account of its growth or decay as if it were the life of a
tree. They do not enquire into the why of things. They will tell you
that an idea came, say, from the East and was accepted generally. They
do not say why it was accepted. And to have traced a modern belief back
into the far past is to them sufficient reason for its presence,
forgetful that whatever persists, whether a law or an idea or a belief,
does so because it is of use. Living things require a sanction as well
as a history, and therein lies their interest. And what I am writing now
is of the sanctions of religions.
Still, there is sometimes an interest, if but a negative one, in the
history of an observance or belief. It is useful sometimes to trace an
observance back, if only to show that the reason generally given for its
retention is not and cannot be the real one. Of such is the history of
the observance of Sunday, or the Sabbath, in England and Scotland.
We have discovered from the inscriptions at Accad, upon the Euphrates,
that in the time of Sargon, 3,800 years B.C., the days were divided into
weeks of seven days, named after the sun and moon and the five planets,
as they are now in places. And there were, moreover, "Sabbaths" set
apart as days of "rest for the soul," "the completion of work." There
were five of these Sabbaths in Chaldea every lunar month, occurring on
the 7th, the 14th, the 19th, the 21st, and 28th of the month. That is to
say, the new moon, the full moon, and the days half way between were
Sabbaths, with the addition of a fifth Sabbath on the 19th day. On these
days it was not lawful to cook food, to change one's dress, to offer a
sacrifice; the king may not speak in public or ride in a chariot, or
perform any kind of military or civil duty; even to take medicine was
forbidden. It was a day of rest. And this was 3,800 B.C., nearly 2,000
years before Abraham lived, 2,300 years before Moses and the Ten
Commandments, almost contemporary, according to the Bible records, with
Cain and Abel. The day was already called the Sabbath. It had existed
already for no one knows how long, probably thousands of years; it was a
day of rest, and it was observed much as was subsequently the Jewish
Sabbath. Without doubt the Jews only adopted a custom known to more
civilised nations ages before, and they gave to it the sanction of their
religion, as they and many other people have done to many matters. There
is everywhere a strong tendency, if possible, to give religious sanction
to every observance. The stronger emotions attract to themselves the
lesser. So have the Jews and Mahommedans adopted sanitary precautions,
the Hindus sanitary and marriage laws, and Christianity marriage laws
also in their faiths. So did my friend mentioned in the preface include
all civilisation in his religion.
The observance of the Sabbath arose not from a religious command
transmitted by Moses, but as the result of observation and custom
thousands of years before, that a day of rest was needed for man.
When they reached a certain standard of civilisation all peoples seem
to have had such a day set apart. It was a want that arose out of the
keener struggle for existence, a mutual truce to the war of competition.
But the day itself varied. The Greeks divided their lunar month into
decades, having thus three festival days in a month. The Romans, we are
told, divided it into periods of eight days, though I do not know how
they managed their arithmetic or got eight into twenty-nine without some
awkward remainder. And in the farther East it was usual to celebrate the
full moon and the new moon and the days half way between as days of
rest. A lunar month consisting of sometimes twenty-nine and sometimes
thirty days, the period between rest days was sometimes six days as in a
week, and sometimes seven days. Thus among the Burmese, although there
are, as usual, seven days named after the sun, moon, and planets, the
rest day goes by the day of the month, not by that of the week, just as
it did with the Accadians. For in the East a month remains a month; it
is the life of a moon. It begins with the new moon and ends with the
fourth quarter, and is easily reckoned by any villager. With us in the
North the age of the moon has ceased to be of any importance. Our life
after dark is indoors, where we have lights and the moon is of no use
to us. Our houses are lit artificially, and very few Europeans could
tell at a moment's notice how old the moon is.
But in the East it is not so. With them the night is the time for being
out of doors, and when they go to their houses it is only to sleep. The
nights are cool after the hot day, and on the full moon nights the world
is full of light. The night of the full moon, when the scent of flowers
is on the still air and all about is full of magic, is one of the great
beauties of this world. But of it we know nothing in Europe.
Therefore in colder climates the month by the moon was abandoned, and
reckoning the year by the sun took its place. And as civilisation
progressed it was inconvenient to be uncertain about which was the day
of rest, so it became the custom to make it every seventh day,
regardless of the moon. This seems to have obtained first in Egypt and
to have spread over the civilised world, the seventh day being the
Sabbath. But it still remained a day of rest, unassociated, except by
the Jews, with religion.
The early Christians kept no Sabbath. They kept the first day of the
week as a day of rejoicing, to celebrate the rising of Christ. Indeed,
the Jewish Sabbath was considered as abrogated, and the first day of the
week was kept, much as it is now kept on the Continent, as a day of
rest, of rejoicing, of relaxation after work.
So it was observed till the Reformation.
The Reformers, whatever they altered, did not alter this. They gave no
command to return from Christian observance of the day to Jewish
observance, and all over the Continent, among those of reformed churches
as among those of the Catholic church, Sunday is the day of rest, of
worship, and of relaxation.
It was so, too, in England and Scotland.
The change back to the Jewish Sabbath seems to have come with the
Puritans and to have been introduced by them to Scotland. And this is
but one example of how Puritanism was practically a rejection of
Christianity and a return to the codes of Judaism, which suited those
iron warriors much better than Christian ethics.
In England the feeling has been tempered, but among the Scotch, who are
in so many ways like the old Jews, it took root, it flourished, and it
is the Jewish Sabbath both in name and observance that we see now
there.
Why was there this reversion? For what reason has the Jewish Sabbath
appealed more nearly to the Scotch than the Christian Sunday? What
feelings were those that caused this?
If you turn to the people who have done this and look into their
characters you will note one strong and marked instinct. It is the
dislike to art of all kinds, to painting and music, to dancing and
acting, their strong distrust of beauty and gaiety. They are a sober
people, hard and stubborn and dour, to whom art and amusement appeal, as
a rule, not at all; and when they do appeal it is too strongly. They
would not have organs in their churches and cards were to them the
devil's picture books. They had in them then, they have now, no single
fibre that responds to the lighter and brighter things of this world.
Their very humour is grim. Have they, then, no idea of pleasure? Do they
never enjoy themselves? It would be a mistake of the greatest to suppose
that. They, too, as all other men, have their times for relaxation, for
enjoyment, for mental rest and refreshment. Only that what gives
pleasure to them is different from what gives pleasure to other people.
They take their pleasures sadly; the chords of their hearts are tuned to
other keys than that of gaiety and art. These latter they cannot
understand, they awaken either no echo or far too strong an echo; and,
like all men when they cannot understand a thing, they hate it. There is
no medium in these matters that appeal to the emotions. You must either
like or hate. You may see this always. Either you enjoy Wagner's music
or you abominate it, either you appreciate old masters or they are to
you daubs, either you are in tune to laughter or it seems to you the
veriest folly.
The Scotch take their amusement and their relaxation on the Sabbath as
other people do on the Sunday. They rest from work, they attend divine
service, and for relaxation they awaken those gloomy and fanatical
thoughts which give them pleasure. For these are to them pleasure, just
as much as gaiety is to other people.
Do not doubt that it is real pleasure to them. Men's hearts are tuned to
many keys, and there is a minor as well as a major. It is true that it
is difficult for those who rejoice in light and sunshine, in gaiety and
humour, who revolt from grey skies and shaded days, from gloomy thoughts
and dreams of hell, to realise that there are men to whom these are in
harmony.
Most of us would forget hell if we could, would banish the thought if it
arose, but some love to dwell upon it, to repeat it, to preach of it.
The idea thrills them as blood and massacre do others. Some men would go
miles to avoid seeing an execution, others would go as many miles to see
it. Emotions are of all sorts, and what to some is horrible is to others
attractive.
"Will the doctrine of eternal punishment be preached there?" asked the
owner of a large room suitable for meetings to one who would have hired
it to preach there. And when the answer was that the subject would not
be touched on the room was refused. "Ay, but I hold to that doctrine,"
he repeated to every objection.
Widely, therefore, as the Continental Sunday and the Scotch Sabbath
differ in appearance, they arise from the same causes, they result in
the same effects.
They are caused by the desire for bodily rest, for soul nourishment, for
mental relaxation, necessities of mankind, and each people so frames its
conception of the proper way to keep the day as to attain those ends.
For "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," and men
adapt their religious teaching to suit their necessities.