the census of 1851, 5,288,294 are absent every Sunday from the house of God. This fearful extent of ungodliness is chargeable in different measures on all classes of the community. Much of it belongs to persons of rank, to professional men, to merchants, clerks, and others. But a very large proportion of the evil attaches to the labouring population. In the Report for 1849 of the London City Mission, we are informed that "the neglect of public worship among the working classes of the metropolis, and especially the men, is almost universal." Similar and equally recent is the testimony of the Directors of the Edinburgh City Mission, where they say, "What strikes one most is the breaking off of the working classes from the public ordinances of Divine worship, their disregard and even hostility to Christian ministers." It is stated of a working man in England that he had made a point of learning how his shop-mates spent the Sabbath, and that he had found that an awfully irreligious feeling had taken possession of the minds of a great majority of them, not one in ten, and sometimes not one in twenty attending a place of worship, and the majority looking down upon the churches and chapels as built not for them, but for the masters and middle classes who get their living by oppressing the poor workmen. This is the alleged reason of one class. But there are many who will tell you that they cannot go to church and also cook their dinner. Yet there are many, too, in the situation of the dying boatman, who, when his master endeavoured to give him religious instruction and consolation, observed, "You forced me to break one of God's commands, and when I broke one, I thought there was little use in trying to keep the others."1 "In the least unfavourable aspect," says Mr. Mann in his remarks prefixed to his Report on the Census of 1851, "and assuming that the 5,288,294 absent every Sunday are not always the same individuals, it must be apparent that a sadly formidable portion of the English people are habitual neglecters of the public ordinances of religion. Nor is it difficult to indicate to what class of the community this portion in the main belongs. The middle classes have augmented rather than diminished that devotional sentiment and strictness of 1 Baylee's Statistics and Facts, p. 65. attention to religious services by which, for several centuries, classes, too, the subject of religion has obtained of late a marked SABBATH DESECRATION ABROAD. Although our proper subject is the manner in which the Christian Sabbath is treated, it may not be altogether out of place simply to glance for a moment at the kind of Sabbatism which obtains among two classes who recognise in part only the Divine revelation. Among the Jews there is a variety of practice in regard to the observance of their Sabbath. Messrs. M'Cheyne and Bonar state that when they visited Altona, which contained 2600 Jews, they found many of their shops were opened though it was their Sabbath. They also mention the following fact: Mr. Moritz, before his conversion from Judaism, was on a visit to London, and on inquiring of a Jewess, in whose house he lodged, why there was such quietness in the streets on a Lord's day, was answered, "The people of England are a God-fearing people, and if we had kept our Sabbath as they keep theirs, Messiah would have come long ago." 2 And yet it is affirmed that there are Jews in foreign lands who are more strict than their English brethren; some going to the extreme of observing the day with 1 Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, p. 518. 2 Ibid. p. 512. uncommanded rigour, and regarding even the extinguishing of a fire as a violation of the Sabbath.1 The Mohammedans have also their weekly Sabbath. In Constantinople, we are told, it is a day of universal sport and diversion. "Friday," says a traveller, "is the Sabbath of the Mohammedans, as that was the day on which Adam, they say, was made, and the day on which the resurrection will take place. Christians are prohibited from attending their mosques during public worship, and females, without being expressly forbidden, are ordered to pray at home on the Sabbath, which it is alleged they never do."2 Turning to those who profess themselves Christians, we advert, first of all, to the Greek and other Eastern Churches. How the Sabbath is spent by the members of the Greek Church may be learned from the following statements of Bremner: "In Russia it is impossible to escape being struck with the way in which the Sabbath is kept. People are everywhere busy at work in the fields, and the market-places, in all the provincial towns, are crowded with peasants selling potatoes, mushrooms, apples, turnips, cucumbers, etc., just as on the ordinary week-days. short, Sunday seems to be the great fair-day in most parts of Russia."3 Among the Nestorians there are various festivals in which, as on the Sabbath-day, they do not labour; but, as one of them said, "the Sabbath-day we reckon far, far above the others." In the Armenian churches "there are at least fourteen great feast-days in the course of the year in which all ordinary labour is suspended, and the day is more strictly observed than the Sabbath."4 The disregard of the true law of the Lord's day is proverbially prevalent in all Roman Catholic countries. The notorious practice of the body of Romanists in every region of the earth where they are to be found is to limit the sacred duties of the day to the time of mass. The remaining hours are devoted to secular business or to pleasure. The desecration is various in circumstances 1 The Jew, pp. 40, 41. 2 Anderson's Visit to Eastern Lands, p. 26. 8 Excursions in Russia, vol. ii. p. 291. 4 Coleman's Antiquities of the Christian Church (Lond.), p. 205. and measure, but what we have stated is the usual character of a Popish Sabbath. It is unnecessary, therefore, to fill our pages with illustrative cases. A few may suffice. In Madeira, when the priest's voice is silenced, and the candles are extinguished, the Sabbath is over. Multitudes parade the street with guitar and song, and the evening gathers in its votaries of gaming, and dancing, and folly. It is otherwise with the holiday, on which no work must be done, and the churches are full. Thus there is idleness where God has commanded toil, and profaneness where He has commanded rest. To the French Canadian people, the Sabbath, at least after those hours which the Church of Rome claims for her service, is a day of sport and pleasure; and with the dance, the chase, or at the tavern, do they often cheat away its sacred hours. Nor is the conduct of the priest less suicidal, for at the whist-table, or in equally unsuitable occupations, this "blind leader of the blind" not unfrequently gives to his people the example of trampling on the Lord's day.2 Among the 575,000 Roman Catholics in Lower Canada there is no holy Sabbath, and the afternoon of the day, both by priests and people, is made a season of recreation and pleasure. And the Sabbath with them is not considered half as sacred as their set holidays. The afternoon of the day is a peculiar time for trading and trafficking in horses and cattle.3 We have in another place cited the account of the Sabbath in Spain given by Mr. Meyrick, who states that to the poor man in that country it brings no rest, all in-door trades being carried on, and that to the rich it is a day of pleasure, of bull-fights and theatrical amusements. The author of Souvenirs of a Summer in Germany says of a Sunday which she spent in Brussels : "All the shops are open, stalls in the streets, etc., and the every-day business of life no way interrupted. While we were at breakfast, Guillaume came in to say, that if Monsieur wished to have his coat repaired, the ouvrier was outside and would have it done in an hour; and he seemed quite disappointed at not being allowed to take it. Shortly after, tickets were sent 1 State of Religion in Madeira, Christian Herald for 1843, p. 251. 2 Record of French Canadian Society. Rev. Joel Fisk, Christian Treasury (1851), 189. in for the theatre that night, with the compliments of the British Minister." The writer has spent Sabbaths in several continental towns, and must say that nowhere did he witness so utter a prostitution of the sacred day as in Paris, where the morning was signalized by the sale and reading of newspapers, the day by busy merchandise and labour, and the evening by crowded cafés and brilliantly lighted places of amusement. A correspondent writes in the Record newspaper in 1841: "In Paris, tailors, shoemakers, and all who supply articles of dress and ornament, are fully occupied on Sunday morning. Many of the working classes work on Sabbath, and rest during the week. This is the case, too, with those employed about theatres, shows, etc. The great majority of the French abstain on Sunday, as on every other day, from any religious act; and the few who differ are content to go and hear a mass. They do this on the way to the country, or at some village where they go for sport. They praise a man by saying he is a horse, and works on feast-days and Sunday." In the best de scription which we have seen of a Paris Sabbath, but which is too long for transcription here, it is mentioned that that day in the capital, and almost universally in French territory, the shops are open; the restaurants and coffee-houses are more than usually splendid; the theatres more numerously and eagerly frequented than on other days; that all the artisans work on Sunday and rest on Monday; that marriages invariably take place amongst the lower and the middle classes on the Saturday, because they have Sunday before them for rest or amusement; that balls are similarly given on Saturday, because after a night of dissipation they have Sunday for rest; that, in short, Sunday is the chosen day for military reviews, the inauguration of public buildings and public festivals; the day for excursions, balls, promenades, concerts, and festivities of all sorts."1 Let us now see how it is with the day of rest in foreign Protestant countries. The following account of a Sabbath in Berlin is too applicable to other parts of Protestant Germany: "The 1 Religious Condition of Christendom, pp. 393-305. "Ce bienfait est méconnu en France -comme il ne l'a éte nulle parte et jamais."-Montalembert, De l'Observ. des Dimanches, etc. p. 7. |