Part 3

One fruitful source of Sabbath desecration is the unnatural condition in which men and women are compelled to live, in the heart of our great cities. Every thing around them blights the gentlest and most gracious thoughts and feelings of our nature. They live from hand to mouth—they snatch at each day’s existence—they have no rest, no sense of possession in the present, no hope for the future. They are out of reach of true rest on the Sabbath. It is mere mockery to talk about it. Keep them at home, and the Sabbath cannot be a delight, except when an enthusiastic spirit can wholly emancipate itself from circumstances. God’s ordinance seems to them a delusion and a snare. Picture the miserable houses, the foul air, the dirty, damp, mouldy walls, the reeking smoke, the pestilential exhalations from the open sewer, the cries of drunkenness, and the curses of blasphemy, amidst which we expect half a million of men in our metropolis to pass the Sabbath. No wonder that they fly from it, fly to the ale-house, and drown there their disgust and despair. They are hardly within reach of our Christian instructions,—alas, for the seed sown in such stony ground! The circumstances of their life expose it to fearful peril; a broad change must pass over the moral and mental condition of these people before, _as a class_, they can be expected to receive gladly the Gospel and bring forth its fruits. Let them get out to something they will care for—something that will teach them—God’s clear air and sunshine, the violet odour, balmy to them as the breath of Paradise, the bird song, the breeze among the boughs, the fresh clean meadows, the sparkling wreathing river, and they are at once within reach of better and holier thoughts. Or if no thoughts come to them, for impressions shape themselves into thoughts but slowly in minds inept, yet a genial refreshing dew has passed over their spirits—they feel that the city life, with its squalor and misery, is man’s work not God’s,—and at last, though the thought may be long in ripening, they may come to think that it may be true after all, as the Bible says, that in God the poor man has a defender and keeper, and a remedy for all the ills which sin and selfishness have entailed upon the world.

Those who see much of this class will be deeply convinced that we have no means of reaching them at present as a class, though the direct and earnest attention of the Church, in all its branches, to their condition and needs, is a most hopeful symptom; but looking at this great class, and their relation to society—so benighted, so withered in soul, as to resist sternly the Divinest influences—I confess it seems to me a terrible responsibility to keep them away, on any day, from anything which would do them even a little good. It is but little that we can hope, and that little will be slowly realized. With sorrow we open the way for them—sorrow, that they will not choose a more excellent way. We believe in God’s high purpose in the institution of the Sabbath day, and fling wide the gates of our sanctuaries. But if men pass scornfully or scowlingly, let us at least be thankful, tearfully thankful, if they are not passing by our doors to dens of vice and crime. Let us not tell them, If you do not come here, the Lord does not care where you go. Let us tell them that HE follows them everywhere with His care,—that HE has spread abroad the expanse of nature for them,—that He has given art, science, commerce, and history to man;—it may chance that many, hearing this, may desire to know more of Him, and learn from himself what He means by a Sabbath day.

It may be said, and with justice, that the majority of the frequenters of the Crystal Palace will hardly be of the class which has been described. Not the poorest, but the class above the poorest—the well-paid artizans, the shopmen and shopwomen, the mercantile clerks and the kindred classes will furnish at any rate a large proportion of the visitors to this Exhibition. It is worth one’s while to consider thoughtfully whether we are prepared to apply the same rigid rule, as regards the measure of time to be devoted to public services on the Lord’s day, to the poor workman and shopman confined to the hot dense air of the factory or shop during all the disposable hours of the week, and living probably in a home but sparely visited by the light and air of heaven,—between which home and the sanctuary he ought, according to the present theory, to divide his time on the Sabbath,—and to the rich man who, in the afternoon or evening, can walk in his own garden, pluck the fruit of his own vine and fig-tree, ventilate his lungs in the purest and balmiest air, and, being refreshed in body, can go down to God’s house in comfort and refresh his soul. We must beware, lest we make the lot of the poor more bitter by the yoke of our law of ordinances which are in themselves beautiful and benignant, lest he take the name of his God in vain. Many hold forth a rest day in the week as the remedy. This simply means, in most cases, the sacrifice of four or five shillings a week. Six days’ labour can hardly supply the needs of a poor man’s family, especially its higher needs. The loss of some shillings is certainly the loss of some books, some schooling, some innocent amusements for his children, and is, not seldom, the loss of bread.

The last, and in the estimation of a large number of religious men, the most serious aspect of the question which I will refer to is this:—“The opening of the Crystal Palace,” it is said, “is but the door to the opening of the national institutions, the theatres, and, finally, the factories and shops on the Sabbath.”

But there is evidently a limiting principle at work, recognized by the public, and expressed by the Government. The limitation of the hours, the clause against the sale of spirituous liquors, and the close of that portion of the building which would involve actual handiwork, are recognized by the public at once as right and seemly. There is a public feeling in England which will care for these things, which are supposed to be imperilled; a public feeling which, during the next years, it will be the office of the Church to nurture and unfold. If that public feeling fail us, then, unquestionably, our condition will be most serious; and the question must be argued, how far a Government may maintain, in the face of public feeling, a system of preventions and prohibitions? That it has the right, up to a certain point, most people feel; that there is a point beyond which it is most unsafe, all are agreed. But that point will never be reached in England, while the Church is faithful to her country and to her Lord. If that point ever be reached, on us will be the sin. Ministers of the Church of Christ! there has been too long a schism in the army. The shepherds have been battling for precedence and prerogative, and the sheep have strayed. The call to us now is for work; work—not by platform crudities, vanities, and falsities; not by protests, preventions, petitions, and bills of spiritual rights;—but by earnest, manful, godly, spiritual effort to make the Gospel known and felt as the power of God unto salvation. The power of the Gospel is not felt as it once was. Admirable sermons are preached, and with admirable emphasis and theatric art, but power does not go forth from them. Men look at us, hear us, admire us, but our prehensile power is gone. We do not lay hold on men. We have dealt too much in a religion of exclusions and negations. We need to take hold on men, and say,—“We have good news—good news of God.” The cry, “Good news! light! bread! life!” should be heard more loudly from our pulpits. We should not lack hearers, if we could make them feel that we had good news to tell. Were our Master among us at this crisis, He would not work by protests and prohibitions. Wherever the people were, there would He be, vehement against organized hypocritic wickedness, but patient, gentle, merciful to the souls gone astray in their darkness and misery. Oh, that our hearts could catch that tone of touching human tenderness wherewith He would address this weary and burdened generation, “_Come unto me_, _all ye that are weary and heavy laden_, _and I will give you rest_.” But He is with us alway, and, by ways that we little discern and sympathize with, He may be leading this generation to himself. Let us be humble-hearted and full of charity; let us work, work harder and more lovingly, with more oneness of heart and voice, to make men feel that it is God’s good news to them which we have in charge, and then will our Sabbaths return to us, fresh and pure, beautiful and blest, as that George Herbert wrote of.

“SUNDAY.

“O day most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world’s bud, Th’ indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a friend, and with his blood; The couch of time; care’s balm and bay: The week were dark, but for thy light: Thy torch doth show the way.

“Man had straight forward gone To endless death: but thou dost pull And turn us round to look on one, Whom, if we were not very dull, We could not choose but look on still; Since there is no place so alone, The which he doth not fill.

“The Sundays of man’s life, Threaded together on time’s string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternal glorious King. On Sunday heaven’s gate stands ope; Blessings are plentiful and rife, More plentiful than hope.

“The rest of our creation Our great Redeemer did remove With the same shake, which at his passion Did th’ earth and all things with it move. As Samson bore the doors away, Christ’s hands, though nail’d, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that day.

“The brightness of that day We sullied by our foul offence: Wherefore that robe we cast away, Having a new at his expense, Whose drops of blood paid the full price, That was requir’d to make us gay, And fit for Paradise.

“Thou art a day of mirth: And where the week-days trail on ground, Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. O let me take thee at the bound, Leaping with thee from sev’n to seven, Till that we both, being toss’d from earth, Fly hand in hand to heaven!”

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J. UNWIN, Gresham Steam Press, 31, Bucklersbury London.