Transcribed from the 1853 John Snow edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
A LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF DERBY,
ON
THE CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE OF OPENING THE
CRYSTAL PALACE ON THE SABBATH.
“Remember the Day of Rest to keep it holy.”—_Fourth Commandment_.
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”—_The Gospels_.
* * * * *
BY
THE REV. B. PARSONS,
OF EBLEY;
AUTHOR OF “ANTI-BACCHUS;” “THE MENTAL AND MORAL DIGNITY OF WOMAN;” “EDU-
CATION THE NATURAL WANT OF EVERY HUMAN BEING;” “THE GREATNESS OF
THE BRITISH EMPIRE TRACED TO ITS PRINCIPAL SOURCES;” ETC. ETC.
* * * * *
LONDON:
JOHN SNOW, 35, PATERNOSTER ROW;
BUCKNALL & HARMER, STROUD; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1853.
_Price One Shilling_.
A LETTER, _&c._ _&c._
MY LORD,
Divided as the country is in its political and religious sentiments,
there is one subject on which there is a very great unanimity: and I may
add also that this union of opinion exists among the most moral of your
countrymen; the most loyal supporters of the throne and the constitution;
the most enlightened members of the community; and the most benevolent
and philanthropic individuals in the empire. I need not say that the
point on which all these persons are agreed is “THE OBSERVANCE OF
SABBATH.” Here, my Lord, you have thousands or rather millions of
citizens who never trouble the realm in any way by their vices or
disorderly conduct; who are never brought before magistrates or judges
for their offences; and who require no soldiers or police to watch over
them and keep them from disturbing the commonwealth.
It is a matter of surprise to all sober and reflecting minds that you, my
Lord, should wish to set yourself in an attitude of antagonism towards
all these peaceful and religious men and women; and especially that you
should do this most _gratuitously_ and in _defiance of your own creed_.
In proposing to have the Pleasure Grounds of the new Crystal Palace
thrown open during one half of the Lord’s-day, you involved yourself in a
responsibility which no one called upon you to incur, except a small body
of railway speculators, and a few theoretic and practical rejectors of
the commandments of the Most High. Your coadjutors and instigators are
those who never allow a word of Scripture to stand in the way of their
views, their pleasures, their prejudices, or their love of gain. It has
become popular of late years for prime ministers “to do evil that good
may come.” The Maynooth grant was asked for by few. The Catholics
themselves did not want it. There has rarely been a measure which met
with such unanimous opposition; but still it was carried—_most
tyrannically_ carried—in defiance of the voice of the nation: and, how
has it worked? The believers in Roman Catholicism knew that it was
intended as a bribe, and therefore an insult; and have resolved that they
will not be converted into spiritual chattels, or have their zeal
quenched or consciences silenced by Government pay. The money was taken
from our pockets to purchase state patronage for the premier and his
partisans, but the artifice has proved a perfect failure, for the
followers of _Pio Nono_ have shown that they are not to be bought. Your
measure, my Lord, concerning the Sabbath is as perfectly gratuitous as
the Maynooth scheme.
I. In wishing to grant a charter for the violation of the Lord’s-day,
you, my Lord, tried to play the same game as your predecessors. The
profit of a small company of railway kings was the chief thing sought;
and to obtain their smile, you were willing to risk the favour of the
King of Kings, to endanger the morals of the country, and consequently
the Throne, the Constitution, and the Church; and you were also setting
yourself in an attitude of defiance against the best and most patriotic
of your countrymen. There might, my Lord, have been boldness in this
effort of yours to undermine the Sabbath and trample upon the consciences
of the majority of the nation, but the infatuation was equal to the
courage. You have long been ambitious of power. The deep and settled
opinion in your own mind for a long time has been, that both as a
profoundly wise and apostolically religious man, you, my Lord, and you
alone, were the _only_ person in the realm qualified to guide the affairs
of this great empire. Your Lordship has for some years put yourself
forward as the bulwark of the Church and of pure Christianity. All
persons who differed from you have been viewed as heretics and sinners
exceedingly; and you are, according to your own showing, a model saint,
the moral hero and spiritual Wellington of religion and the Bible; and
yet, after all these high pretensions, no sooner were you in power than
your first effort on behalf of Christianity was to announce to the
country that you were about to set the authority of your royal mistress
against the command of the King of Heaven; and, in doing so, you
alienated from yourself and your administration the minds of the majority
of the religious people whom you promised to serve if you could only
obtain the reins of government.
By many of the most devout members of your Church, your premiership was
hailed as the advent of another Luther or Wickliffe, and you covered all
these with chagrin and shame by your gratuitous violation of the law of
the Most High. There never was a specimen of greater infatuation in a
statesman who aimed at popularity and almost vaunted of preeminence in
religious zeal. You, my Lord, great as your power may have been, were
hardly high enough to despise the favour or indignation of the Ruler of
the Universe. Read history, my Lord, and you cannot find a single
Sabbath breaking nation but has paid dearly for its ungodliness. The
Lord’s-day, scripturally observed, would have saved France from the
convulsions and bloodshed which have made it a warning to the world.
Sabbath breaking sent the Jews to Babylon, and gave them seventy years of
captivity that “the land might enjoy her Sabbath,” and that all ages
might learn that the Almighty will not have His commands set at nought
with impunity.
But supposing you had possessed such power that you could have said, “_I
fear not God_,” yet sound policy might have suggested that it would be
well to have some “_regard to man_.” You really were not quite secure in
your post as prime minister. A few votes of the senate deprived you in
an instant of all your authority; and you fell because you rendered
yourself unpopular in the estimation of the nation. You ought also to
know that religion is a sacred thing in the eyes of all, whether Pagans,
Jews, Mahommedans, or Christians. To touch the ark has brought
destruction upon many an “Uzzah” without any special intervention of
heaven; and you, my Lord, are not too high for their doom. The majority
which sustained you in office was very small and doubtful; and nothing
sunk you so low in the estimation of thousands as this Sabbath
desecration, which you proposed to establish by a royal charter!! By
many you were looked upon as the bulwark of the Church and religion; and
by your own speeches you wished to make the country believe that you were
a very godly man; and yet without the least substantial reason you
blasted all their hopes, and, in their estimation, you have denied the
faith, and become worse than an infidel—because an _unbeliever_ has no
reverence, and can have no reverence for the Word of God; but you profess
to _believe_ in its divine origin, and to be guided by its sacred
injunctions, and thus sinned with your eyes open: you have therefore
foolishly, most gratuitously, alienated your friends, and hastened your
own downfal, and all to please the avarice and fill the coffers of a
small clique of gentlemen who prefer “gain to godliness.”
* * * * *
II. You have not only been guilty of the most gratuitous presumption and
rashness, but you have also acted in defiance of your own creed. You, my
Lord, according to your own showing, are a very religious, indeed, an
apostolically religious, man—a believer in the Church Catechism, and in
the doctrine of confirmation. Doubtless your Lordship has been
confirmed; and I may presume that you go to church as often as the
majority of your order; and, when there, you listen very attentively to
the reading of the decalogue, and after each precept you most devoutly
and sincerely repeat the prayer, “_Lord have mercy upon us_, _and incline
our hearts to keep this law_!” At the end of the tenth command you vary
the words, and say, “_Lord have mercy upon us_, AND WRITE ALL THESE THY
LAWS IN OUR HEARTS, WE BESEECH THEE.”
In the Communion Service of the Prayer Book, I read the following
words:—“Then shall the priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly
ALL THE TEN commandments; and the _people_, _still kneeling_, shall after
_every_ commandment _ask mercy for their transgression_ thereof, and
grace to _keep_ the same for time to come.” In accordance with this
direction the clergyman in a solemn voice commences with Exodus xx. 1:
“GOD SPAKE THESE WORDS AND SAID;” and thus wishes to impress upon the
devout and kneeling audience before him, that the laws which he is about
to rehearse are the identical laws which were once proclaimed by Jehovah
himself, and that they have now all the majesty and authority of the
Divine Legislator which they have ever had. When he comes to the
_fourth_, he reads, “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six
days shalt thou labour, and do _all_ that thou hast to do; but the
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no
manner of work, _thou_, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man servant,
and thy maid servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy
gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all
that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed
the seventh day, and hallowed it.” No sooner are these words ended, than
you, my Lord, and all true Churchmen, all newspaper editors and railway
directors, who go to church on Sunday mornings, repeat the solemn prayer
given above. In the sentence, “_Lord have mercy upon us_,” you confess
that you have broken the commandment, and pray the God of Heaven to grant
you “_mercy_” for the past; and in the following words, “_Incline our
hearts to keep this law_,” you entreat Jehovah to renew your hearts, and
give you an inclination to obey the “_Fourth Commandment_” in future.
Are you, my Lord, sincere in this prayer and supplication? Are your
Church friends among the nobility, railway companies, and newspaper
editors, who use this form of devotion, sincere? The Son of God tests
our love by our obedience. “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” are
his sacred injunctions, plainly teaching us that if we violate his
commands we give a public demonstration that we do not love him. Now, to
keep the Sabbath _one half_ of the day and violate it the other, is to
furnish but a very poor proof that we feel any deference for the Fourth
Commandment.
My Lord, would you be satisfied that your commands to your servants
should be _half_ broken and _half_ kept? Are you pleased with your
coachman if he drives you _half_ way to church on the Sabbath when your
command is to be driven _all_ the way? Do you like to have your will in
any other particular but _half_ done? Would you be pleased to have your
hunters and racehorses but _half_ fed and _half_ groomed, or your food
but _half_ cooked? Yet we may ask, Who is the Earl of Derby, that his
commands should be _perfectly_ obeyed to the very letter, while the God
of Heaven, at the instance of this same Earl of Derby, is to be satisfied
with only a moiety of that obedience which he has enjoined in the
Scripture?
What, my Lord, if you comprehended all your own wishes in “_Ten
Commands_,” and summoned all your servants into your presence once a week
and directed your chief steward to read in their ears your injunctions,
commencing with the sentence, “The Earl of Derby spake these words and
said”; and what if all your attendants fell on their knees before you,
and, in the most pitiful language, confessed that they had rebelled
against your precepts; implored mercy for their transgressions; earnestly
entreated you to assist them in their future efforts to do your pleasure;
and, having satisfied themselves that you had pardoned them, immediately
rose from the ground and resolved in future to be more guilty than ever
by neglecting your commands altogether, or by only attending to _half_
their import! Could you put up, my Lord, with this farce week after week
and year after year? Would it require fifty-two repetitions of such
insolence to exhaust your patience? Would the Earl of Derby allow
himself to be thus insulted even a second time? Would you not denounce
these impudent menials as a set of mocking hypocrites? But is it a
matter of more importance that the Earl of Derby should not be mocked
than that the God of Heaven should be worshipped in sincerity and in
truth? Let me then entreat your Lordship, as you value your present
consistency and future happiness, either to reverence the Fourth
Commandment, or else cease to use the prayer attached to it in the
Liturgy.
But perhaps you may say, “that you neither disobey it, nor teach others
to do so.” I need not tell your Lordship, as a learned man, and the
Chancellor of one of the great seats of learning, that the day mentioned
by Moses, and which you pray the Almighty to give you grace to observe,
is TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LONG; that during these twenty-four hours we are
commanded to abstain from all manner of work; that we are “to keep the
day holy to Jehovah,” and consequently to observe it religiously by not
“doing our own ways, finding our own pleasure, or speaking our own
words.” Such is the command of the King of Kings. How then can the
_half_ observance of the Lord’s-day be reconciled with the divine command
to keep the _whole_? If the railway to Sydenham is to be worked on the
Sabbath, and the pleasure grounds thrown open, you will of necessity doom
a large number of clerks, stokers, drivers, porters, waiters and others
to labour on that day on which Jehovah has commanded that no work shall
be done. The God of Heaven says, “Thou shalt do no manner of work”; but
the Earl of Derby tells the people that they _may_ work on the Sabbath!
You thus set yourself in a position of antagonism against the Creator of
the Universe. The Scriptures assert that “The Son of Man is the Lord of
the Sabbath”; but you, my Lord, intimate that the Earl of Derby is the
Lord of the Sabbath!! When “God spake,” he solemnly commanded that the
_whole_ day should be observed; but when the Earl of Derby spoke, he said
“_Let half the day be kept_,” thus making himself not only equal but
superior to the Almighty!
It is no use, my Lord, to plead that only a few hands comparatively will
be employed, because you have no right to doom even _one_ man to lose his
day of rest and sin against God, for the gain and gratification of
others. One soul is of more value than the whole world; and I query
whether your Lordship will be willing to stand at the bar of the Eternal
in the stead of the poor labourers whom you condemned to toil on the
seventh day, and thus converted into Sabbath breakers. And it would not
be one, two, or ten, who would be robbed of the rest of the Sabbath, but
the opening the grounds at Sydenham on Sunday would be the condemnation
of hundreds of our countrymen to this seventh-day slavery. Why should
railway companies be permitted to exact Sunday labour from their
servants, and yet grocers, drapers, tradesmen, and manufacturers be
prohibited from similar gains? The age is passing away for legislative
favouritism; and if one company may have royal authority to work, oppress
and destroy their vassals, why should not all the shops be thrown open:
why should not the anvil, the saw and the spade be used, and all
apprentices and labourers be called upon to be Sunday slaves? Such
labour will minister to the pleasure and profit of many. It is rather
remarkable, that almost the same day in which your good lady was
announced, in connection with the Duchess of Sutherland and others, as an
opponent to American slavery, you, my Lord, proclaimed yourself as the
patron of English slavery! and might have founded your arguments on the
same principles as the Transatlantic planters. Uncle Tom was enslaved
for the profit and pleasure of his masters; and clerks, drivers, stokers,
&c., &c., are to be enslaved on the Sabbath to enrich their employers,
and to minister to the gratification of the irreligious portion of the
community who “are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” Indeed,
the American slave in many instances is allowed his full day of rest on
the Sabbath; but the white slave of the railway and of Sydenham is to
know nothing of the repose of that day which Jehovah has set apart for
the benefit not only of the sons and daughters of toil, but also of
animals, for it was one of God’s commands to the Jews that “the ox and
the ass should rest.”
Of course, my Lord, if you persevere now you are out of office, in this
wish to have the Sabbath desecrated, you will also, in accordance with
your public DISSENT from the Church of England, demand that the Prayer
Book shall be altered. You will for consistency sake request the
Convocation, to which you are said to be very favourable, to immediately
set about the re-formation of the Liturgy as their very first work. By
all means let the Fourth Commandment be omitted from the Catechism; let
all reference to it be erased from the Baptismal Service; let sponsors no
longer be called upon “to promise and vow” that their godchildren shall
“keep God’s holy will and commandments and walk in the same all the days
of their life”; and, in the service of Confirmation, let the candidates
be duly taught that in taking their vows upon them, they are, on the
authority of the Earl of Derby, freed from the observance of the Sabbath;
let the priests of the Church also be informed that to read the Fourth
Commandment is an absurdity now it is abolished; and above all, never
again let heaven be mocked, piety outraged, and common sense insulted by
the repetition of the prayer, “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our
hearts to keep this law.” Why should not a second book of sports be read
from the pulpits of the Establishment, and the people be duly apprised
that the words of the Eternal respecting the seventh day, “In it thou
shalt do no manner of work, _thou_, nor _thy son_, nor _thy daughter_,
_thy man servant_, _thy maid servant_, _thy cattle_, and _the stranger_
within thy gates,” are now of no force, for the Earl of Derby has
proclaimed that railway speculators may compel their servants to work on
the seventh day, and as a consequence that all other persons may “go and
do likewise”?
You have, my Lord, by your changing, often surprised your countrymen; but
this wish to trample the Prayer Book in the dust, to set Baptism,
Catechism, Confirmation, the Communion Service, and the Word of God at
defiance, is a revolution which none of your friends or foes were
prepared to expect, and should you succeed will be attended with greater
evils to the masses and greater calamities to the nation than have ever
yet occurred. England owes all to her Bible and her Sabbaths; and I may
add, that the Scriptures would have been of little good without her
_Sabbaths_. Abolish, my Lord, the rest of the seventh day, and you may
write “Ichabod” on our walls. The Bible has been but partially studied
by those nations who reject the Lord’s-day, and their history and present
condition show that they have paid very dearly for this neglect.
But, my Lord, if you have power, supposing you were prime minister, to
annul the Fourth Commandment, then you have power to abolish all the
rest. If you can command that the Sabbath shall be _half_ kept and can
give men a charter to break the other _half_, you certainly have power to
allow them to break it altogether; and if you can grant a royal
commission to violate _one_ precept of the decalogue, you can license the
people to break the whole. And, my Lord, you must not stop, for there
are persons to whom the _Sixth_, the _Seventh_ and _Eighth_ Commandments
are as great an obstruction to their profit or pleasure as the Fourth
Command is to the Sydenham gentlemen. How many thieves could enrich
themselves but for the Eighth Command; and how many might relieve
themselves of the burden of dependents or jump into rich inheritances, by
trampling the Sixth in the dust! Yea, my Lord, were they only allowed by
a royal charter to violate one _half_ of these commandments, by half
starving, half killing and half robbing their fellow creatures, no one
can tell the property that might be saved or gained. Here would be a
“MAGNA CHARTA” with a vengeance, and one, my Lord, which would
immortalize your name to all eternity. The dead, by the million, would
proclaim your fame or your infamy. And there can be no just reason given
why, if you granted a charter to railway speculators to enable them to
rob their servants of the Sabbath, you should not give other worshippers
of Mammon equal power to plunder and oppress; for I shall presently have
to show that to deprive the physical frame of rest once in seven days is
both robbery and murder, and therefore if you begin to charter these
outrages, you will find it difficult to stop. It will be only for any
company to make out a case and prove that _pleasure_ and _profit_ will be
the result of oppression, robbery and death, and you, to be consistent,
must advocate their cause.
The change in The Prayer Book too must be greater than at first was
contemplated. Instead of praying “Lord have mercy upon us, and write ALL
these THY commandments in our hearts, we beseech thee”; or, when the
fourth is abolished, “Lord have mercy upon us, and write NINE of these
THY commandments in our hearts, we beseech thee,” you will have to
obliterate them from the Liturgy altogether. And indeed wherever in the
prayers, thanksgivings, or collects there is any reference to the
commandments of Jehovah, the words must be omitted in the re-formed
Prayer Book. Of course, my Lord, after this great and stupendous change,
we shall hear no more of the heresy of Nonconformists, and the wonder of
modern times will be, not, “Is Saul among the prophets?” but, “Is the
Earl of Derby among dissenters?”
Other Prayer Book reforms, my Lord, will have to follow. To preserve
your consistency it will be needful to omit the Lord’s Prayer. Five
times in the full morning service of your Church the petition is offered,
“Lead us not into temptation,” and yet when your devotions are ended you
wish to proclaim by royal charter that the people shall be _tempted_ to
break the Sabbath. I need not tell your Lordship as a learned divine,
that “temptation,” in the prayer alluded to, means, temptation “_to
sin_,” and that “_to sin_” is to violate the commandments of Jehovah.
When therefore you pray not to be led “into temptation,” you intimate
that your nature is weak, and entreat our heavenly Father to prevent your
being placed in any position in which your pious principles would be
likely to give way. How strange then that you, who are so sensitive of
your own frailty, notwithstanding the robustness of your piety, should
propose to have the young, the morally feeble and undecided, tempted
every seventh day to trample the commandment of heaven in the dust!
Surely, my Lord, if it is of so much importance that yourself and all the
railway directors and pious newspaper editors who go to church, should be
kept from temptation, that you pray _five times_ in the morning service
for divine protection, then it is also necessary that the poor vulgar
herd of sinners, who have so little of your apostolical godliness, should
also be preserved from temptation. It seems inexplicably marvellous that
you should exhibit so much care of your own piety and morality, and yet
be so reckless about the virtue of your poorer neighbours as actually to
propose that other persons, by royal charter, should be led into that
very temptation to sin from which you _five times_ on the Sabbath morning
entreat the Almighty to enable you to escape. Either, my Lord, invite
the Convocation to obliterate the Lord’s Prayer as well as the ten
commandments from the Liturgy, or else cease to instigate the nation to
rebel against the Word of God. In fact, if you continue to advocate
Sabbath breaking, you ought to leave the Church and reject the Liturgy,
or to have the words “_command_” and “_commandments_” expunged from every
prayer and collect in the Prayer Book.
Need I remind your Lordship, that the words “Thy kingdom come, thy will
be done in earth as it is in heaven,” refer to the ten commandments? The
kingdom of God will come when his commands are obeyed, just as the
kingdom of our Queen extends wherever her laws are observed. Where the
laws of England are trampled in the dust, there the sceptre of Victoria
is set at nought; and just in the same manner, so long as the laws of the
decalogue are disregarded, the kingdom of God cannot come. “The will of
God” will “be done in earth as it is in heaven,” when his laws are
obeyed, because his will is embodied in his commandments. But if you
propose to grant the nation or a few of your favourites a royal charter
to break the divine commands, doubtless you will also have the petitions
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,”
“deliver us from evil,” &c., &c., erased from the Lord’s Prayer and from
the Prayer Book. Indeed so few of the words of the Saviour will remain,
when all reference to obedience to the laws of God is obliterated, that
for very shame the mutilated part must be abandoned.
I cannot imagine that after proposing this charter for Sabbath breaking,
you will ever repeat the words, “God be merciful unto us and bless us,
and show us the light of his countenance and be merciful unto us. _That
thy way may be known upon earth_, _thy saving health among all nations_.”
God’s “way” is his commandments, and there is no “_saving health_” except
in obeying them. But to give a royal charter to set at nought the Fourth
or any other Command, is to do what you can to prevent God’s “way” from
being “known upon the earth,” and therefore of course you will have this
Psalm expunged from evening service, or else never unite in repeating or
chanting it. Your conduct, my Lord, for the sake of consistency, must
demand the most sweeping alterations in the Prayer Book.
I have thus shown, my Lord, that you cannot be a true Churchman, nor a
devout worshipper according to the forms of the Liturgy, if you advocate
Sabbath desecration; and hence your desire to make such an irreligious
use of your power has not only been gratuitous, unwise, and impolitic,
but also a most glaring contradiction of your own professed principles.
James speaks of “the _superfluity_ of naughtiness,” and you, my Lord,
have given to the nation a public commentary on the words, and to do so
have deeply reflected on your own consistency.
III. Truth and humanity tell us, my Lord, that your proposition is not
only inconsistent with your creed, but also that it is very CRUEL to a
large number of your fellow citizens. The Redeemer has said that “_The
Sabbath was made for man_.” Now man is a compound being, consisting of a
frail body and an immortal soul. His body requires periodical rest; his
soul stands in need of religious instruction; and the Fourth Command
contains _two_ parts exactly corresponding with these _two_ exigencies of
our race. It demands “_rest_” from labour for the body; it enjoins
“_holiness to the Lord_” for the soul. “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep
it holy: six days shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do,”
&c., &c., are words which embrace these two principles. Holiness is the
work of the soul. You cannot make a body holy; because holiness, or
religion, is an intellectual and spiritual business. It is true you may
employ the body in a holy or unholy manner, but then the moral principle,
which sins or obeys, is in the soul, and the bodily members are only the
instruments with which the heart accomplishes its good or wicked desires.
When therefore the Scriptures command us to hallow or consecrate one day
in seven, they enjoin a duty which can only be performed by an
intelligent and voluntary being; and consequently one with which human
legislation has nothing to do, except to see that no one shall be robbed
of the liberty or power of attending to it. There is no government,
prince, monarch, or emperor in the world that has a right to dictate to
mankind respecting the _religious_ observance of the Lord’s-day. Here
men must be left to persuasion, exhortation, and the power of conscience.
And therefore, my Lord, you are not called upon to legislate on the
worship of the Sabbath. You must leave to others the same right which
you claim for yourself. Doubtless you, my Lord, go to church, or not,
according to your inclination; the rest of the nobility act in like
manner; some of them are said to be Homœopaths in Sabbath worship; and
you really must permit your countrymen and countrywomen to enjoy the same
freedom. The business of legislation is with man’s mortal and corporeal
nature, with his property and liberties. You have to guard that he be
robbed of no right, that he receive no personal injury, that his life be
safe, and his property secure; and it is on these principles of physical,
civil, and social legislation that we demand that _one_ day in seven
shall be the possession of every British subject.
The Fourth Commandment enjoins a day of _rest_ for man’s body. Jehovah,
who “knoweth our frame,” who made us, and fully understands the
capabilities of our brain, nerves and muscles, and who may with the
profoundest reverence be termed, _The Great Physiologist_, has set apart
one day in seven for bodily rest from labour. The body of Adam was
stronger than ours. It knew no infirmity, was enfeebled by no disease;
the labour of Paradise was comparatively light; and yet to Adam was given
the rest of the seventh day. And to enforce this duty on our first
parents, our merciful Creator not only sanctified the day, or made it a
_holy_ and _sanctifying day_ for them, but rested himself as our example.
There is no doubt that antediluvian believers kept the Sabbath, and they
were as strong as we. We read of the observance of the Sabbath in the
wilderness _before_ the law was given on Sinai, and Jehovah worked
especial miracles on the manna to enable the children of Israel to rest
on this holy day; for on the sixth he rained twice as much food from
heaven as on any other morning, and on the seventh he preserved it from
putrefaction, which always occurred on any other day, except the Sabbath,
if the manna was kept until the morrow. God also said to these
Israelites in the wilderness, before the law was given on Sinai, that the
law of the Sabbath was to be observed “as a SIGN between himself” and his
worshippers. We have reason to believe that these children of Abraham
were quite as strong in nerve and muscle as we are, and we know that
their labour was not very hard, for they had during their wanderings in
the wilderness but few occupations, and yet they were commanded to rest
on the seventh day.
Some persons ask, Why did they rest on the _seventh_ day, and not on the
_sixth_, the _eighth_, or the _tenth_? Our only answer to this question
is, that God, “who knoweth our frame,” judged it to be best and ordained
that it should be so. A man may ask me why the earth moves on her axis
from the west to the east, and I confess that I cannot give any better
answer than that it is the will of the all-wise Creator. I cannot give a
reason why the centipede has so many feet. If any person asked whether
eighty, or one hundred and one would not have been as well, I must leave
the matter in the hands of God. I say, “it is the will of God,” and “God
is merciful.” Ten thousand questions in physics might be put to me which
I could only answer by saying, “God is wise,” “God is powerful,” “God is
love,” “God is merciful, and has made the world and our corporeal frame
what they are.”
But I may add one word respecting the rest of the seventh day. The most
distinguished physiologists assure us that both men and cattle require to
be relieved from toil at the end of every six days. Gentlemen who have
had much to do with horses have assured me that it was always a dead loss
to rob those animals of the physical rest of the Sabbath, and that horses
which are so worked invariably become diseased and die before their time.
Before observation and physiology brought out these facts, the great and
merciful Creator gave the command to Moses that “_the ox and the ass
should rest_” _on the seventh day_. In the evidence on “SABBATH
OBSERVANCE” which was given before the “PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE,” and
which, as a Government document, your Lordship has doubtless read, it is
stated by several eminent physiologists, that man’s _corporeal_ frame
requires the rest of the Sabbath, and that to rob him of this is to
injure his health and shorten his days. Yea, they show that tea gardens
and other places of excitement produce baneful effects upon the brain and
nerves, and eventually lead to premature decay and dissolution. Hence,
my Lord, _physiology_ teaches that our merciful Father, the maker of our
frame, was right and kind and compassionate in ordaining _one_ day in
_seven_ as a rest from toil. The refreshment of sleep teaches us that
the body needs repose from continuous labour, and the Sabbath was
intended to be still more invigorating.
I must here remind your Lordship that _rest_ is the meaning of the word
_Sabbath_. A sage reviewer in one of our “Quarterlies,” who has been
pompously quoted by a literary brother of the “DAILY” press, has told us
with much learned _naïveté_, that the word “_Sabbath_” means “_seven_”!!
Doubtless we shall soon hear from the same philosophical philologer that
the moon is made out of gossamer. The one will be as true and as
scientific as the other. But we may leave these critics to the lexicons.
You, my Lord, are distinguished as a scholar, and therefore know full
well that our term “_Sabbath_” is the very identical Hebrew word for
“_Rest_,” and that a literal translation of the first words of the Fourth
Commandment would be, “Remember the _Day of Rest_ to keep it holy.”
“_Rest_” from labour, then, is the exact meaning of the word “_Sabbath_.”
History and physiology show that man’s corporeal frame requires rest from
toil every seventh day; and the Bible teaches that our heavenly Father,
who made us thus frail, has, in pure love and mercy, commanded that one
day in seven for the repose and consequent reinvigoration of the body
shall be reserved from worldly occupations. Physical laws, as well as
revealed laws, are the laws of God; and in the law of the Sabbath we have
both combined to preserve the health and life of man. We have here a
sacred bulwark of philanthropy, proving that the Sabbath, or _Rest-day_,
was made for man. The labourer, therefore, has a _Divine right_ to one
day in seven as his own property. The charter or title deeds which give
him a claim to the full enjoyment of the Sabbath for twenty-four hours,
were signed by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The great seal of
heaven is upon them. They are inscribed on the bones, muscles, nerves,
brain, heart, lungs, and digestive organs of the human constitution, and
were solemnly proclaimed by Jehovah himself amidst the thunders of Sinai.
No work, except what can be shown to be absolutely necessary, must be
done on the seventh day: and he who deprives the servant, operative, or
labourer of this sacred claim to rest from toil, is both a robber and
murderer, and will be treated as such at the great day.
You, my Lord, must enter eternity as a child of Adam, and not as a
nobleman; and you will be acquitted or condemned accordingly as you
observed or violated the ten commandments. As a sinner you may trust in
the merits of Christ, but at the bar of God your faith will be tested by
your observance of the decalogue. “Faith without works is dead,” and
cannot justify the soul. You will there have no ancestry to plead, no
titles to wear, and no wealth or influence to bribe. Death, as to all
these advantages or disadvantages of your earthly existence, will leave
you as bare and naked as Lazarus. Nor will forms and ceremonies be
admitted as a substitute for the “weightier matters of the law.”
Baptismal regeneration, sacramental grace, the repetition of forms of
prayer, going to church once a day, the _half_ observance of the Sabbath,
and zeal for tithes and offerings, will not stand in the place of
obedience to the law uttered on Mount Sinai. You must obey, or be
excluded from Paradise. Your obedience also must proceed from faith and
love; not a deed must be done to merit the kingdom of heaven, but every
act of piety and devotion must proceed from pure gratitude to HIM who
died to procure eternal life for all who believe with a practical faith.
You know, my Lord, who has said, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these _least_ commandments, and shall teach men so, the same shall be
called _least_ in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach
them, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” I need not say
that the precepts here referred to are the ten commandments; because
Christ came to abolish the ceremonial law; but to fulfil and establish
the laws of the decalogue. Of these “one jot or tittle was not to be
abolished”; for “on them hang all the law and the prophets.” The period
also in which they were to be observed and kept is the Gospel
dispensation, here emphatically called “the kingdom of Heaven.” The
kingdom of Victoria is the kingdom where her laws are to be observed, and
“the kingdom of Heaven,” or “kingdom of God,” is the Gospel kingdom in
which the laws of God are to be carefully taught and devoutly obeyed.
Your Lordship will hardly assert that the divine law of the Sabbath is
one of “the least of the commandments”; because an injunction which is
intended to preserve human life, and give the soul leisure to prepare for
a better world, can scarcely be called _little_, and certainly not the
“_least_”; but if it was “_the least_,” yet even then the Earl of Derby,
if he broke it, or taught men to break it, or gave them a royal charter
to do so, would incur the wrath of “The Lord of the Sabbath.”
It would be easy to show that the Fourth Commandment, far from being the
“_least_” is one of the very “_greatest_” of the laws of the decalogue;
for without it the other precepts would be to a great extent unheeded;
man’s life would be shortened, and his soul lost. Many have separated
the ten commandments into two classes—the first four referring to
Jehovah, and the remaining six to our fellow man. The Lord Jesus
evidently sums up the whole under the two ideas of “Love to God,” and
“Love to our neighbour.” We have therefore the authority of the Divine
Lawgiver himself for this twofold division; and a very little reflection
will show us that the Fourth Command is the bond or _vinculum_ which
unites the two tables of the law together. “Remember the day of rest to
keep it holy,” refers to the worship of God, and consequently to the
first table. “In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, nor thy son,
thy daughter, thy man servant, thy maid servant, thy cattle, nor the
stranger that is within thy gates, or jurisdiction,” embraces our
neighbour or universal man as far as our influence or legislative power
may extend; for your Lordship knows very well that the words, “_within
thy gates_,” include political and magisterial dominion. The Fourth
Commandment, then, is a Janus—it has two faces and looks both ways: it
regards what is due to our heavenly Father, and what is due to our
brethren and sisters. It teaches the worship which must be paid to the
former, and the rest from labour which is needed by the latter. Abolish
this command, and you do away with the public worship of Jehovah; and at
the same time rob the physical frame of your brother of that repose, and
his mind of that edification, which are absolutely necessary to his
corporeal, moral, and eternal well being.
Instead, then, of saying that the precept concerning the Sabbath is a
ritual, ceremonial, or positive law which is abolished, we are fully
warranted in asserting that it is one of the very “greatest” of the MORAL
commandments. For if the worship of Jehovah is a _moral_ duty of all
ages, times, and dispensations—if to regard the health, life, rights, and
universal welfare of our neighbour is also a _moral_ obligation founded
in nature, and therefore immutable as eternal justice—then the observance
of the Sabbath, like the prohibition of idolatry, murder, and theft, is
based in the natural and everlasting laws of rectitude, which remain
unchanged from age to age. If we “love God with all our heart, mind,
soul, and strength,” we shall hail the opportunity of ceasing from
worldly pursuits one day in seven, that we may meditate upon him, worship
him, and study his word “without distraction”; and if we “love our
neighbour as we love ourselves,” we shall neither rob him of his day of
rest, nor hurry him to the grave by continuous labour. You might, my
Lord, as well strive to stay the planets in their flight, as endeavour to
be a Christian while you encourage Sabbath labour. The sum and substance
of all law, all justice, all mercy, all worship, is _love_. The Apostle
says, “Love is the fulfilling (_πλήρωμα_, the fulfilment, the completion)
of law,”—of _law_, _καr’ ἐξοχῆν_—the fulfilling of all good, sound,
healthy, equitable law. In connection with the words just quoted from
Rom. xiii., the inspired writer, after mentioning the prohibition of
“adultery, murder, theft, false witness, and avarice,” adds, “and if
there be any other law, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, ‘_Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_.’” Now the Fourth Commandment is
especially comprehended in this love to our fellow man.
You, my Lord, would not like to be robbed of the comforts of home on a
Sabbath; to have your health broken up by incessant labour; and, if a
Christian, nothing would be more painful to you than to be deprived of
the rest and spiritual enjoyments of the Lord’s-day: then how can you
wish stokers, porters, clerks, and waiters to be thus injured? You must,
my Lord, you must “love your neighbour as yourself,” or you cannot be a
Christian; and therefore you cannot be a Christian if you encourage
Sabbath labour. And the railway speculators who wanted you by royal
charter to sacrifice the liberties, comforts, health, and lives of your
fellow citizens, at once deprived themselves of all claim to Christian,
humane, or equitable principle. To enrich themselves, they were willing
to barter away all the dearest rights of their brethren and sisters by
robbing them of the rest of the Sabbath; and what is worse still, they
tried to cover over all this wickedness with the pretence of having a
regard to the happiness of the working classes. Judas of old professed
to have very great sympathy for the poor; but we are told that his
seemingly pious considerations arose rather from avarice than
benevolence. “This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because
he was a thief and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.” If the
Sydenham philanthropists feel so much for the comforts of the poor, let
them become clerks, drivers, and waiters themselves, and carry the people
for nothing: or let them devote a week-day to the gratuitous conveyance
of the masses to the Crystal Palace, and not a voice, even in obedience
to the sophistry of pseudo philanthropists, will be raised to have the
building open on the Sabbath.
Sabbath labour, then, my Lord, is a gross violation of the law, “Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”; and I am persuaded that even the
misled Spitalfields weavers, and others, when they understand the bearing
of the whole subject, have too much humanity and justice about them to
wish that workmen employed on the railway should be enslaved on the
Sabbath to minister to their pleasure. The operatives of our country
generally demand, “JUSTICE FOR ALL, AND FAVOUR TO NONE,” and therefore
will hardly desire that one portion of their brethren should be deprived
of the rest and comforts of home on the Sunday to enable another portion
to indulge in various amusements. This would be to imitate the slave
owners, oppressors, and tyrants whom they so loudly denounce, and would
prove that, were they in power, they would wield the iron rod of the
despot as cruelly as any Pharaoh, Nero, or Russian Czar. The stoker, the
clerk, and the porter have bodies and souls. Six days’ toil on a
railway, over the same ground and subject to the same monotony of duties,
is as fatiguing to them as driving the shuttle or superintending the
spindle. There is generally no very great variety of scenery for the
clerk who gives out the tickets or the porters who traverse the platform.
I have known the poor railway clerk doomed to be at his post from eight
in the morning until eleven at night during _all the seven days_ of the
week, and all this for a very paltry remuneration. While waiting for a
train, some time ago, I had the following dialogue with a young man who
filled the office of clerk and porter, and attended to the telegraph:—
_Myself_. Are you the only person employed here?
_Clerk_. Yes, Sir.
_Myself_. Are you here many hours?
_Clerk_. I come before seven in the morning and leave about nine at
night.
_Myself_. Then you have _fourteen_ hours a day?
_Clerk_. I have two hours to spare in the middle of the day, when I go
home to dinner.
_Myself_. Have you to be here the same time on Sundays as weekdays?
_Clerk_. Just the same.
_Myself_. Can you ever go to a place of worship?
_Clerk_. Never, Sir.
_Myself_. How long have you been on the line?
_Clerk_. Upwards of five years; and have not had an opportunity of
going to a place of worship all that time.
_Myself_. Did you ever attend church or chapel?
_Clerk_. I was brought up in a Sunday School, my parents are members
of a Christian Church, and I always attended myself until I was
occupied on the railway.
_Myself_. What wages do you obtain?
_Clerk_. I am paid eighteen shillings a week.
Here, my Lord, are some facts worthy of your consideration. You have
heard a great deal about Millocracy and the cruelties practised in the
manufacturing districts. I live among factories and we have “_A Ten
Hours Bill_,” and our operatives leave work at four, some at two, o’clock
on Saturday, and have the whole Sabbath to themselves. The wages on an
average are quite equal to those of this railway clerk. And yet we are
told that these masters are tyrants, oppressors, and care nothing for
their workpeople. But if so, what shall we say of the “_Railocracy_”
which is springing up among us? The poor railway operative in a great
number of cases has no Saturday afternoon to himself, no Good Friday, no
Christmas-day, no Sunday, no holiday throughout the year. He must never
attend a place of worship, and in some instances he is prohibited from
reading during the hours that he is on the line. Such a monotonous life,
though spent on Parnassus, or in the pleasant vale of Tempe, would prove
fatal to all physical, intellectual, and moral health. And when we
consider that some of the buildings and localities in which these poor
fellows are imprisoned are almost as comfortless as an Irish cabin, and
far worse than many gaols, we must blush for the system which thus
violates all the dictates of humanity and religion. We spend some
thousands a year to send missionaries to the heathen, to teach barbarians
to keep the Sabbath, but how little do those simple hearted savages dream
that, at home, we doom our own Christian brethren to break the Sabbath
and become pagans in a land of Bibles and Gospel light, or that we have
Lords who wish for royal charters to sanction this cruelty and
wickedness!