sibilities of life. Their influence is every way pernicious, giving rein to disorder, and disregard for all law, human and divine. In the light of the Christian Sabbath ordinance, they must be condemned as flagrant offences against the welfare of society, both in church and state. The specious pretexts by which they are upheld are only worthy of their heathen origin and Pagan name. The Christian Sabbath is not a holiday for riot, and noise, and public pageantry, even though it were guised in Romish ceremonies or funeral solemnities. The poor and friendless laboring classes may sometimes find a pitiful relief in this uncertain and transient excitement, but they will invariably pay for it in subsequent animal depression, and the utter prostration of the moral sense. It is all very fair to talk about going forth to feel the balmy air, and bask in the clear sunlight; about opening libraries, and furnishing art galleries, and the like, for the gratification and improvement of the lower orders, but let us not for this purpose conspire to cheat both God and man out of that day which is consecrated to our Redeemer's worship, and to the paramount interests of the human soul!

3. There is another prevalent form of Sabbath abuse, from which continual evil flows, and that is the work and travel of those who, in official station, or in a wide connection of industrial, commercial, or governmental affairs, plead necessity from lack of time or pressure of business. It is possible that exceptional cases may exist for such a deviation from ordinary Sabbath law, but, at the very best, it is an evil without any other palliation; and where submission to it is voluntary or habitual, it becomes an offence against the Lord's Day. That there is a stolidity of conscience and a laxity of practice in this regard, widespread and increasing, is obvious to the most careless observer. The whole usage is wrong and pernicious. It is subversive of the very intent and spirit, as well as the letter, of the Sabbath law. It perverts the Sabbath to improper uses, and prepares the mind for other and grosser forms of Sabbath violation.

At this point we may hold the government of the nation and corporate bodies responsible for every causeless infraction of the Sabbath law, either by themselves or those whom they employ; whatever can be avoided out of respect to the divine authority of this Christian ordinance, men in every condition

are bound to avoid. Whether in legislation or its execution this principle holds good, and its wanton contravention will produce unmixed evil with the growth of the country and the advance of civilization. Certain great forms of public demands have come into existence, requiring arrangements for the running of cars and the movement of vessels, for telegraphic operation, for mail transportation, and the transmission of intelligence. It is most difficult to draw the exact line of necessity about transactions of so wide a scope and so complicated a casuistry. But this one thing is plain, the principle of the Sabbath law remains, and there can be no case of rational and beneficent exertion for which it does not provide, while its sanction is withheld from all needless, selfish, or sordid application or employment of the day.

Nor are we clear that even in the church itself there has not grown to be an excessive and exhaustive labor. The necessity for preaching is as great as ever. The pulpit is more in demand than ever, but the quantity of ministration, especially in the centres of population, has been largely compensated by the changed circumstances of society. Books, periodicals, newspapers, and Sabbath-schools have, to a great extent, supplemented the work of the Gospel's ministry. Attendance upon Sabbath preaching, morning and evening, in addition to all the other duties which have their claim upon us, has become in many cases burdensome, if not impracticable. In this intense life and exacting civilization, both body and mind all the more need rest, while the demand of home life and family religion are likely to suffer neglect as well on the Sabbath as on other days of the week. Meanwhile, the labors of the Christian ministry have been augmented in many other directions. Their hands are full of appropriate work aside from pulpit preparation. And when to this is added the growing custom of Sabbath funerals, may it not be a question of the reduction of sermons to be preached on the Sabbath to the stated congregation, and of the discountenance of Sabbath funerals which but too frequently amount to a mere Sunday display.

be

Demoralization.

Upon a review, therefore, of the whole situation, can there any doubt of the tendency to Sabbath desecration, and of

the moral deterioration it inevitably involves? We have already seen the connection of this most beneficent ordinance of Heaven with the highest welfare of human nature; and we think there is no doubt that the most upright men among us— those of the deepest religious convictions, and the purest daily lives, other things being equal-are those on whom in childhood was impressed by a pious parentage the sanctity of the Sabbath, and the fidelity of its observance. There is a wondrous connection, as all experience and observation show, between the influence of this hallowed day, and the varied welfare of humanity. When, therefore, it is prostrated, wantonly and wickedly trampled under foot, we may expect nothing but an outbreak of irreligion, infidelity, vice and pollution on every hand. Its general disregard would be like the opening of Pandora's box. It would be hoisting the flood-gates of iniquity, to deluge the land with all forms of immorality, all deeds of turpitude and shame. The very permanence of society would be thus endangered, and the people would be fitted for such calamities and wars, as have been so often the sad maturity of human infatuation. History is full of examples of the most solemn warning. And it is no wonder that when men like Luther, the ruling spirit of the Reformation, came to tell the people of Central Europe that they are at liberty to trample down this ordinance of God—all the licentiousness of a continental Sunday should be the result-or that when men like Prof. Hopkins, eminent in the church of our own time, come to tell Americans that there is no express divine authority for the Christian Sabbath, all the grosser elements of society should hail the announcement, and prepare themselves with greater freedom for a carnival of Sunday pleasure, low and unrestrained! Such, I am sure, is not the doctrine of the holy prophets and apostles. Such is not the will of Christ himself, the Head of the church and the supreme Lawgiver of the world!

The Appeal.

When, therefore, we come to read in God's word, the blessings which fall on the keepers of the Sabbath, and the curses which overtake all those who habitually neglect or dishonor it; when to the voice of the written Revelation is joined the

testimony of nature, and of man himself, the evidence of individual experience, and of national prosperity, the support of historic demonstration, and of providential care; do we not find the strongest motives to a united and earnest effort to rescue the Christian Sabbath from profanation, and to defend it from all assaults? When we recall the attitude of the founders of the Republic, the noble words they uttered for the Sabbath, and their warnings against its popular demoralization; when we remember the recent attempt to blot out the Sabbath during the progress of that grand Centennial Exposition, which is designed for a memorial alike of the birth of the Republic, the mighty deeds of our fathers, and of all the triumphs of the first great century of our national existence; an attempt which was happily frustrated by the energies of the most noble and Christian men of the country; and when, at this moment, we are reminded of the convention of European Protestants, at Geneva, during this very year, to consider in what way they may bring back their nationalities to the simple doctrine of the New Testament, upon the question of the Christian Sabbath; must we not, in all this, find a new incitement and a fresh encouragement in every honest effort to maintain the sanctity of the Lord's day, and to impress upon our government, and upon all classes of our people, an immanent sense of its overwhelming importance?

Let us then hear no more and have no more of that vain liberalism, which virtually surrenders the battle before it is begun. But let the Christian ministry and the Christian church, let every patriot and every philanthropist, join hands together in this divine cause, and let the resolution be, never to quit the work of Sabbath Reformation, till everywhere the day shall be sincerely acknowledged, and held with reverence in every heart.

If the Sabbath of the Christian is such as we have described it, we may well feel that it is the sheet-anchor of our individual, social, and national prosperity. Its faithful observance will not alone be pleasing to God, which is the highest consideration, but will also surely entail his gracious Benediction on us, and on our children, and children's children, to the latest generations.

Art. VI.-PRESENT FACILITIES FOR EVANGELIZING THE

WORLD.

By the Rev. R. G. WILDER, late Missionary to India.

An impression is widely current that missionaries engaged in evangelizing heathen nations at the present time, labor at serious disadvantage compared with the Apostles, and their immediate successors. A recent writer, the Rev. G. H. Rouse, of Calcutta, India, has developed this idea at some length in the July number (IX) of The Indian Evangelical Review, and his sentiments are so generally entertained, that there is the more reason for noticing them, in speaking of present facilities for prosecuting this evangelizing work. In noticing them, however, we desire to do so, not at all in the spirit of controversy, but entirely in the interest of the work itself. The writer referred to states his proposition as follows, viz.: "The early preachers of the Gospel enjoyed many great advantages, as compared with the preachers of the present day." And in specifying these advantages, he mentions, first, "The power of working miracles." And after giving a somewhat extended list of apostolic miracles, and dwelling on their startling and convincing effect, he removes all ambiguity, and renders his view complete and distinct by saying, "We have no such power; therefore, we cannot be surprised if our success is not equal to that of the Apostles."

On this we remark:

I. It was the special disadvantages of those early preachers that made this power of working miracles in their case proper and, in a measure, necessary. Had they possessed all the facilities of the present day, and this power of working miracles superadded, we might then speak of it as a positive advantage. But such was not the case. The very fact that God gave them, and not us, this power of working miracles, justifies the inference that God saw a special reason for bestowing on them this gift. And though we may not be able to comprehend this reason in its full extent, we can see, in the special circumstances of the case, enough to justify its bestowment on the preachers of that age, rather than on those of any subsequent age.