Part 19 (1/2)
”But,” said Bob, ”Sabbath-keeping is the iron rod of bigots; they don't allow a man any liberty of his own. One says it's wicked to write a letter Sunday; another holds that you must read no book but the Bible; and a third is scandalized if you take a walk, ever so quietly, in the fields. There are all sorts of quips and turns. We may fasten things with pins of a Sunday, but it's wicked to fasten with needle and thread, and so on, and so on; and each one, planting himself on his own individual mode of keeping Sunday, points his guns and frowns severely over the battlements on his neighbors whose opinions and practice are different from his.”
”Yet,” said I, ”Sabbath days are expressly mentioned by Saint Paul as among those things concerning which no man should judge another. It seems to me that the error as regards the Puritan Sabbath was in representing it, not as a gift from G.o.d to man, but as a tribute of man to G.o.d. Hence all these hagglings and nice questions and exactions to the uttermost farthing. The holy time must be weighed and measured.
It must begin at twelve o'clock of one night, and end at twelve o'clock of another; and from beginning to end, the mind must be kept in a state of tension by the effort not to think any of its usual thoughts or do any of its usual works. The fact is, that the metaphysical, defining, hair-splitting mind of New England, turning its whole powers on this one bit of ritual, this one only day of divine service, which was left of all the feasts and fasts of the old churches, made of it a thing straiter and stricter than ever the old Jews dreamed of.
”The old Jewish Sabbath entered only into the physical region, merely enjoining cessation from physical toil. 'Thou shalt not _labor_ nor do any _work_,' covered the whole ground. In other respects than this it was a joyful festival, resembling, in the mode of keeping it, the Christmas of the modern church. It was a day of social hilarity,--the Jewish law strictly forbidding mourning and gloom during festivals.
The people were commanded on feast days to rejoice before the Lord their G.o.d with all their might. We fancy there were no houses where children were afraid to laugh, where the voice of social cheerfulness quavered away in terror lest it should awake a wrathful G.o.d. The Jewish Sabbath was inst.i.tuted, in the absence of printing, of books, and of all the advantages of literature, to be the great means of preserving sacred history,--a day cleared from all possibility of other employment than social and family communion, when the heads of families and the elders of tribes might instruct the young in those religious traditions which have thus come down to us.
”The Christian Sabbath is meant to supply the same moral need in that improved and higher state of society which Christianity introduced.
Thus it was changed from the day representing the creation of the world to the resurrection day of Him who came to make all things new.
The Jewish Sabbath was buried with Christ in the sepulchre, and arose with Him, not a Jewish, but a Christian festival, still holding in itself that provision for man's needs which the old inst.i.tution possessed, but with a wider and more generous freedom of application.
It was given to the Christian world as a day of rest, of refreshment, of hope and joy, and of wors.h.i.+p. The manner of making it such a day was left open and free to the needs and convenience of the varying circ.u.mstances and characters of those for whose benefit it was inst.i.tuted.”
”Well,” said Bob, ”don't you think there is a deal of nonsense about Sabbath-keeping?”
”There is a deal of nonsense about everything human beings have to deal with,” I said.
”And,” said Marianne, ”how to find out what is nonsense?”--
”By clear conceptions,” said I, ”of what the day is for. I should define the Sabbath as a divine and fatherly gift to man,--a day expressly set apart for the cultivation of his moral nature. Its object is not merely physical rest and recreation, but moral improvement. The former are proper to the day only so far as they are subservient to the latter. The whole human race have the conscious need of being made better, purer, and more spiritual; the whole human race have one common danger of sinking to a mere animal life under the pressure of labor or in the dissipations of pleasure; and of the whole human race the proverb holds good, that what may be done any time is done at no time. Hence the Heavenly Father appoints one day as a special season for the culture of man's highest faculties. Accordingly, whatever ways and practices interfere with the purpose of the Sabbath as a day of wors.h.i.+p and moral culture should be avoided, and all family arrangements for the day should be made with reference thereto.”
”Cold dinners on Sunday, for example,” said Bob. ”Marianne holds these as prime articles of faith.”
”Yes,--they doubtless are most worthy and merciful, in giving to the poor cook one day she may call her own, and rest from the heat of range and cooking-stove. For the same reason, I would suspend as far as possible all traveling, and all public labor, on Sunday. The hundreds of hands that these things require to carry them on are the hands of human beings, whose right to this merciful pause of rest is as clear as their humanity. Let them have their day to look upward.”
”But the little ones,” said my oldest matron daughter, who had not as yet spoken,--”they are the problem. Oh, this weary labor of making children keep Sunday! If I try it, I have no rest at all myself. If I must talk to them or read to them to keep them from play, my Sabbath becomes my hardest working day.”
”And, pray, what commandment of the Bible ever said children should not play on Sunday?” said I. ”We are forbidden to work, and we see the reason why; but lambs frisk and robins sing on Sunday; and little children, who are as yet more than half animals, must not be made to keep the day in the manner proper to our more developed faculties. As much cheerful, attractive religious instruction as they can bear without weariness may be given, and then they may simply be restrained from disturbing others. Say to the little one, 'This day we have n.o.ble and beautiful things to think of that interest us deeply: you are a child; you cannot read and think and enjoy such things as much as we can; you may play softly and quietly, and remember not to make a disturbance.' I would take a child to public wors.h.i.+p at least once of a Sunday; it forms a good habit in him. If the sermon be long and unintelligible, there are the little Sabbath-school books in every child's hands; and while the grown people are getting what they understand, who shall forbid a child's getting what is suited to him in a way that interests him and disturbs n.o.body? The Sabbath-school is the child's church and happily it is yearly becoming a more and more attractive inst.i.tution. I approve the custom of those who beautify the Sabbath school-room with plants, flowers, and pictures, thus making it an attractive place to the childish eye. The more this custom prevails, the more charming in after years will be the memories of Sunday.
”It is most especially to be desired that the whole air and aspect of the day should be one of cheerfulness. Even the new dresses, new bonnets, and new shoes, in which children delight of a Sunday, should not be despised. They have their value in marking the day as a festival; and it is better for the child to long for Sunday, for the sake of his little new shoes, than that he should hate and dread it as a period of wearisome restraint. All the lat.i.tude should be given to children that can be, consistently with fixing in their minds the idea of a sacred season. I would rather that the atmosphere of the day should resemble that of a weekly Thanksgiving than that it should make its mark on the tender mind only by the memory of deprivations and restrictions.”
”Well,” said Bob, ”here's Marianne always breaking her heart about my reading on Sunday. Now I hold that what is bad on Sunday is bad on Monday,--and what is good on Monday is good on Sunday.”
”We cannot abridge other people's liberty,” said I. ”The generous, confiding spirit of Christianity has imposed not a single restriction upon us in reference to Sunday. The day is put at our disposal as a good Father hands a piece of money to his child,--'There it is; take it and spend it well.' The child knows from his father's character what he means by spending it well, but he is left free to use his own judgment as to the mode.
”If a man conscientiously feels that reading of this or that description is the best for him as regards his moral training and improvement, let him pursue it, and let no man judge him. It is difficult, with the varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or are not religious books. One man is more religiously impressed by the reading of history or astronomy than he would be by reading a sermon.
There may be overwrought and wearied states of the brain and nerves which require and make proper the diversions of light literature; and if so, let it be used. The mind must have its recreations as well as the body.”
”But for children and young people,” said my daughter,--”would you let them read novels on Sunday?”
”That is exactly like asking, Would you let them talk with people on Sunday? Now people are different; it depends, therefore, on who they are. Some are trifling and flighty, some are positively bad-principled, some are altogether good in their influence. So of the cla.s.s of books called novels. Some are merely frivolous, some are absolutely noxious and dangerous, others again are written with a strong moral and religious purpose, and, being vivid and interesting, produce far more religious effect on the mind than dull treatises and sermons. The parables of Christ sufficiently establish the point that there is no inherent objection to the use of fiction in teaching religious truth. Good religious fiction, thoughtfully read, may be quite as profitable as any other reading.”
”But don't you think,” said Marianne, ”that there is danger in too much fiction?”
”Yes,” said I. ”But the chief danger of all that cla.s.s of reading is its _easiness_, and the indolent, careless mental habits it induces. A great deal of the reading of young people on all days is really reading to no purpose, its object being merely present amus.e.m.e.nt. It is a listless yielding of the mind to be washed over by a stream which leaves no fertilizing properties, and carries away by constant wear the good soil of thought. I should try to establish a barrier against this kind of reading, not only on Sunday, but on Monday, on Tuesday, and on all days. Instead, therefore, of objecting to any particular cla.s.s of books for Sunday reading, I should say in general that reading merely for pastime, without any moral aim, is the thing to be guarded against. That which inspires no thought, no purpose, which steals away all our strength and energy, and makes the Sabbath a day of dreams, is the reading I would object to.
”So of music. I do not see the propriety of confining one's self to technical sacred music. Any grave, solemn, thoughtful, or pathetic music has a proper relation to our higher spiritual nature, whether it be printed in a church service-book or on secular sheets. On me, for example, Beethoven's Sonatas have a far more deeply religious influence than much that has religious names and words. Music is to be judged of by its effects.”
”Well,” said Bob, ”if Sunday is given for our own individual improvement, I for one should not go to church. I think I get a great deal more good in staying at home and reading.”