point to its rejoicing martyrs. Even these Smyrna murderers had a faith of their own, the imperilling of which by Christianity spurred them on to murder. From faith they extracted the diabolical energy which animated them. The strength of faith is, therefore, no proof of the objective truth of faith. Indeed, at the very time here referred to we find two classes of Christians equally strong -Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians-who, while dying for the same Master, turned their backs upon each other, mutually declining all fellowship and communion. Thus early the forces which had differentiated Christianity from paganism made themselves manifest in details, producing disunion among those whose creeds and interests were in great part identical. Struggles for priority were not uncommon. Jesus himself had to quell such contentions. His exhortations to humility were frequent. "He that is least among you shall be greatest of all." There were also conflicts upon points of doctrine. The difference which concerns us most had reference to the binding power of the Jewish law. Here dissensions broke out among the apostles themselves. Nobody who reads with due attention the epistles of Paul can fail to see that this mighty propagandist had to carry on a lifelong struggle to maintain his authority as a preacher of Christ. There were not wanting those who denied him all vocation. James was the head of the Church at Jerusalem, and Judeo-Christians held that the ordination of James was alone valid. Paul, therefore, having no mission from James, was deemed by some a criminal intruder. The real fault of Paul was his love of freedom, and his uncompromising rejection, on behalf of his Gentile converts, of the chains of Judaism. He proudly calls himself "The Apostle of the Gentiles." He says to the Corinthians, "I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I. Are they of the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft." He then establishes his right to the position which he claimed by recounting in detail the Are sufferings he had endured. I leave it to you to compare this Christian hero with some of the "freethinkers' of our own day, who flaunt in public their cheap and trumpery theories of the great Apostle and the Master whom he served. 66 Paul was too outspoken to escape as sault. All insincerity and double-facedness-all humbug, in short-were hateful to him; and even among his colleagues he found scope for this feeling. Judged by our standard of manliness, Peter, in moral stature, fell far short of Paul. In that supreme moment when his Master required of him "the durance of a granite ledge" Peter proved unstable as water." He ate with the Gentiles, when no Judeo-Christian was present to observe him; but when such appeared he withdrew himself, fearing those which were of the circumcision. Paul charged him openly with dissimulation. But Paul's quarrel with Peter was more than personal. Paul contended for a principle, determined to shield his Gentile children in the Lord from the yoke which their Jewish co-religionists would have imposed upon them. "If thou," he says to Peter, "being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as the Jews?" In the spirit of a true liberal he overthrew the Judaic preferences for days, deferring at the same time to the claims of conscience. "Let him who decsires a Sabbath," he virtually says, "enjoy it; but let him not impose it on his brother who does not." The rift thus revealed in the apostolic lute widened with time, and Christian love was not the feeling which long animated the respective followers of Peter and Paul. We who have been born into a settled state of things can hardly realize the primitive commotions out of which this tranquillity has emerged. We have, for example, the canon of Scripture already arranged for us. But to sift and select these writings from the mass of spurious documents afloat at the time of compilation was a work of vast labor, difficulty, and responsibility. The age was rife with forgeries. Even good men lent themselves to these pious frauds, believing that true Christian doctrine, which of course was their doctrine, would be with a friend who entertained the notion thereby quickened and promoted. that the general tendency of things in There were gospels and counter-gos- this world is toward an equilibrium of pels; epistles and counter-epistles-some frivolous, some dull, some speculative and romantic, and some so rich and penetrating, so saturated with the Master's spirit, that, though not included in the canon, they enjoyed an authority almost equal to that of the canonical books. The end being held to sanctify the means, there was no lack of manufactured testimony. The Christian world seethed not only with apocryphal writings, but with hostile interpretations of writings not apocryphal. Then arose the sect of the Gnostics-men who know -who laid claim to the possession of a perfect science, and who, if they were to be believed, had discovered the true formula for what_philosophers called "the absolute." But these speculative Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and orthodox Christians of their day as fiercely as their successors the Agnostics-men who don't know-are rejected by the orthodox in our own. The martyr Polycarp one day met Marcion, an ultra-Paulite, and a celebrated member of the Gnostic sect. On being asked by Marcion whether he, Polycarp, did not know him, Polycarp replied, "Yes, I know you very well; you are the firstborn of the devil."'* This is a sample of the bitterness then common. It was a time of travail-of throes and whirlwinds. Men at length began to yearn for peace and unity, and out of the embroilment was slowly consolidated that great organization the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome had its precursor in the Church at Rome. But Rome was then the capital of the world; and, in the end, that great city gave the Christian Church established in her midst such a decided preponderance that it eventually laid claim to the proud title of "Mother and Matrix of all other Churches." With jolts and oscillations, resulting at times in overthrow, the religious life of the world has spun down "the ringing grooves of change." A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all events it was undiscovered. Many years ago I found myself in discussion * " L'Eglise Chrétienne," p. 450. peace and blessedness to the human race. My notion was that equilibrium meant not peace and blessedness, but death. No motive power is to be got from heat save during its fall from a higher to a lower temperature, as no power is to be got from water save during its descent from a higher to a lower level. Thus also life consists, not in equilibrium but in the passage toward equilibrium. In man it is the leap from the potential, through the actual, to repose. The passage often involves a fight. Every natural growth is more or less of a struggle with other growths, in which, in the long run, the fiest survives. Some are, and must be, wiser than the rest; and the enunciation of a thought in advance of the moment provokes dissent and thus promotes action. The thought may be unwise; but it is only by discussion, checked by experience, that its value can be determined. Discussion, therefore, is one of the motive powers of life, and, as such, is not to be deprecated. Still one can hardly look without despair on the passions excited, and the energies wasted, over questions which, after ages of strife, are shown to be mere foolishness. Thus the theses which shook the world during the first centuries of the Christian era have, for the most part, shrunk into nothingness. It may, however, be that the human mind could not become fitted to pronounce judgment on a controversy otherwise than by wading through it. We get clear of the jungle by traversing it. Thus even the errors, conflicts, and sufferings of bygone times may have. been necessary factors in the education of the world. Let nobody, however, say that it has not been a hard education. The yoke of religion has not always been easy, nor its burden light—a result arising, in part, from the ignorance of the world at large, but more especially from the mistakes of those who had the charge and guidance of a great spiritual force, and who guided it blindly. Looking over the literature of the Sabbath question, as catalogued and illustrated in the laborious, able, and temperate work of the late Mr. Robert Cox, we can hardly repress a sigh in thinking. of the gifts and labors of intellect which this question has absorbed, and the amount of bad blood it has generated. Further reflection, however, reconciles us to the fact that waste in intellect may be as much an incident of growth as waste in nature. When the various passages of the Pentateuch which relate to the observance of the Sabbath are brought together, as they are in the excellent work of Mr. Cox, and when we pass from them to the similarly collected utterances of the New Testament, we are immediately exhilarated by a freer atmosphere and a vaster sky. Christ found the religions of the world oppressed almost to suffocation by the load of formulas piled upon them by the priesthood. He removed the load, and rendered respiration free. He cared little for forms and ceremonies, which had ceased to be the raiment of man's spiritual life. To that life he looked, and it he sought to restore. It was remarked by Martin Luther that Jesus broke the Sabbath deliberately, and even ostentatiously, for a purpose. He walked in the fields; he plucked, shelled, and ate the corn; he treated the sick, and his spirit may be detected in the alleged imposition upon the restored cripple of the labor of carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. crowned his protest against a sterile formalism by the enunciation of a principle which applies to us to-day as much as to the world in the time of Christ. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." He Though the Jews, to their detriment, kept themselves as a nation intellectually isolated, the minds of individuals were frequently colored by Greek thought and culture. The learned and celebrated Philo, who was contemporary with Josephus, was thus influenced. Philo expanded the uses of the seventh day by including in its proper observance studies which might be called secular. "Moreover, he says, the seventh day is also an example from which you may learn the propriety of studying philosophy. As on that day it is said God beheld the works that He had made, so you also may yourself contemplate the works of Nature." Permission to do this is exactly what the members of the Sunday Society humbly 66 claim. The Jew, Philo, would grant them this permission, but our straiter Christians will not. Where shall we find such samples of those works of Nature which Philo commended to the Sunday contemplation of his countrymen as in the British Museum? Within those walls we have, as it were, epochs disentombed--ages of divine energy illustrated. But the efficient authorities-among whom I would include a shortsighted portion of the public-resolutely close the doors, and exclude from the contemplation of these things the multitudes who have only Sunday to devote to them. Taking them on their own ground, we ask, Are the authorities logical in doing so? Do they who thus stand between them and us really believe those treasures to be the work of God? Do they or do they not hold, with Paul, that the eternal power and Godhead" may be clearly seen from "the things that are made?" If they do--and they dare not affirm that they do not-1 fear that Paul, in his customary language, would pronounce their conduct to be "without excuse. "'* 66 Science, which is the logic of nature, demands proportion between the house and its foundation. Theology sometimes builds weighty structures on a doubtful base. The tenet of Sabbath observance is an illustration. With regard to the time when the obligation to keep the Sabbath was imposed, and the reasons for its imposition, there are grave differences of opinion between learned and pious men. Some affirm that it was instituted at the Creation in remembrance of the rest of God. Others allege that it was imposed after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and in memory of that departure. The Bible countenances both interpretations. In Exodus we find the origin of the Sabbath described with unmistakable clearness thus: "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 * I refer, of course, to those who object to the opening of the museums on religious grounds. The administrative difficulty stands on a different footing. But surely it ought to vanish in presence of the public benefits which in all probability would accrue. it." In Deuteronomy this reason is suppressed and another is assigned. Israel being a servant in Egypt, God, it is stated, brought them out of it through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm. "Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." After repeating the Ten Commandments, and assigning the foregoing origin to the Sabbath, the writer in Deuteronomy proceeds thus: "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. But in Exodus God not only added more, but something entirely different. This has been a difficulty with commentators-not formidable, if the Bible be treated as any other ancient book, but extremely formidable on the theory of plenary inspiration. I remember in the days of my youth being shocked and perplexed by an admission made by Bishop Watson in his celebrated"Apology Apology for the Bible," written in answer to Tom Paine. 'You have,' says the bishop, "disclosed a few weeds which good men would have covered up from view." That there were "weeds" in the Bible requiring to be kept out of sight was to me, at that time, a new revelation. I take little pleasure in dwelling upon the errors and blemishes of a book rendered venerable to me by intrinsic wisdom and imperishable associations. But when that book is wrested to our detriment, when its passages are invoked to justify the imposition of a yoke, irksome because unnatural, we are driven in self-defence to be critical. In self-defence, therefore, we plead these two discordant accounts of the origin of the Sabbath, one of which makes it a purely Jewish institution, while the other, unless regarded as a mere myth and figure, is in violent antagonism to the facts of geology. 66 With regard to the alleged "proofs" that Sunday was introduced as a substitute for Saturday, and that its observance is as binding upon Christians as their Sabbath was upon the Jews, I can only say that those which I have seen are of the flimsiest and vaguest character. "If," says Milton, on the plea of a divine command they impose upon us the observances of a particular day, 64 how do they presume, without the authority of a divine command, to substitute another day in its place?" Outside the bounds of theology no one would think of applying the term 'proofs" to the evidence adduced for the change; and yet on this pivot, it has been alleged, turns the eternal fate of human souls.* Were such a doctrine not actual it would be incredible. It has been truly said that the man who accepts it sinks, in doing so, to the lowest depth of atheism. It is perfectly reasonable for a religious community to set apart one day in seven for rest and devotion. Most of those who object to the Judaic observance of the Sabbath recognize not only the wisdom but the necessity of some such institution, not on the ground of a divine edict, but of common sense. They contend, however, that it ought to be, as far as possible, a day of cheerful renovation both of body and spirit, and not a day of penal gloom. There is nothing that I should withstand more strenuously than the conversion of the first day of the week into a common working day. Quite as strenuously, however, should I oppose its being employed as a day for the exercise of sacerdotal rigor. The early reformers emphatically asserted the freedom of Christians from Sabbatical bonds; indeed, Puritan writers have reproached them with dimness of vision regarding the observance of the Lord's Day. The fourth Commandment," says Luther, "literally understood, does not apply to us Christians; for it is entirely outward, like * In 1785 the first mail-coach reached Edinburgh from London, and in 1788 it was continued to Glasgow. The innovation was denounced by a minister of the Secession Church of Scotland as contrary to the laws both of Church and State; contrary to the laws of God; contrary to the most conclusive and constraining reasons assigned by God; and calculated not only to promote the hurt and ruin of the nation, but also the eternal damnation of multitudes."-Cox, vol. ii. p. 248. Even in own day there are clergymen foolish enough to indulge in this dealing out of damnation. Our "That public worship," says Milton, “is commended and inculcated as a voluntary duty, even under the Gospel, I allow; but that it is a matter of compulsory enactment, binding on believers from the authority of this commandment, or of any Sinaitical precept whatever, I deny." other ordinances of the Old Testament, all of which are now left free by Christ. If a preacher," he continues, "wishes to force you back to Moses, ask him whether you were brought by Moses out of Egypt? If he says no, then say, How, then, does Moses concern me, since he speaks to the people that have been brought out of Egypt? In the New Testament Moses comes to an end, and his laws lose their force. He must bow in the presence of Christ.' "The Scripture," says Melanchthon, "allows that we are not bound to keep the Sabbath; for it teaches that the ceremonies of the law of Moses are not necessary after the revelation of the Gospel. And yet," he adds," because it was requisite to appoint a certain day that the people might know when to assemble together, it appeared that the Church appointed for this purpose the Lord's Day." I am glad to find my grand old namesake on the side of freedom in this matter. As for the Sabbath," says the martyr Tyndale, we are lords over it, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need; or may make every tenth day holy day, only if we see cause why. Neither need we any holy day at all if the people might be taught without it." Calvin repudiated the frivolities of false prophets who, in later times, have instilled Jewish ideas into the people. Those," he continues," who thus adhere to the Jewish institution go thrice as far as the Jews themselves in the gross and carnal superstition of Sabbatism." Even John Knox, who has had so much Puritan strictness unjustly laid to his charge, knew how to fulfil on the Lord's Day the duties of a generous, hospitable host. His Master feasted on the Sabbath day, and he did not fear to do the same on Sunday. Toward the end of the sixteenth century demands for a stricter observance of the Sabbath began to be made-probably in the first instance with some reason, and certainly with good intent. The manners of the time were coarse, and Sunday was often chosen for their offensive exhibition. But if there was coarseness on the one side, there was ignorance both of Nature and human nature on the other. Contemporaneously with the demands for stricter Sab A bath rules, God's judgments on Sabbath-breakers began to be pointed out. Then and afterward "God's Judgments" were much in vogue, and man, their interpreter, frequently behaved as a fiend in the supposed execution of them. But, of this subsequently. Suffolk clergyman named Bownd, who, according to Cox, was the first to set forth at large the views afterward embodied in the Westminster Confession, adduces many such judgments. One was the case of a nobleman who for hunting on the holy day was punished by having a child with a head like a dog's. Though he cites this instance, Bownd, in the matter of Sabbath observance, was very lenient toward noblemen. With courtier-like pliancy, which is not without its counterpart at the present time, he makes an exception in their favor: "Concerning the feasts of noblemen and great personages or their ordinary diet upon this day, because they represent in some measure the majesty of God on the earth, in carrying the image as it were of the magnificence and puissance of the Lord, much is to be granted to them." Imagination once started in this direction was sure to be prolific. Instances accordingly grew apace in number and magnitude. Memorable examples of God's judgments upon Sabbathbreakers, and other like libertines, in their unlawful sports happening within this realm of England, were collected. Innumerable cases of drowning while bathing on Sunday were adduced, without the slightest attention to the logical requirements of the question. Weekday drownings were not dwelt upon, and nobody knew or cared how the question of proportion stood between the two classes of bathers. The Civil War was regarded as a punishment for Sunday desecration. The fire of London, and a subsequent great fire in Edinburgh, were ascribed to this cause; while the fishermen of Berwick lost their trade through catching salmon on Sunday. A Nonconformist minister named John Wells, whose huge volume is described by Cox as the most tedious of all the Puritan productions about the Sabbath, is specially copious in illustration. A drunken pedler, "fraught with commodities" on Sunday, drops into a river; |