>..*; vSli sr . ■ . FA- ••#• V. ^ r.; • • BOSTON SCHOOL OF PHARMACY 2' ,ton Ave. BOSTON, - MASS. NEW EBAGMENTS NEW FRAGMENTS BY JOHN TYNDALL, F.E.S. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1896, 171 T9? /?1b Authorized Edition, CONTENTS PAGB THE SAEBATH 1 GOETHE'S ' FARBENLEHRE ' . . .... 47 ATOMS, MOLECULES, AND ETHER WAVES .... 78 COUNT RUMFORD 94 LOUIS PASTEUR, HIS LIFE AND LABOURS .... 174 THE RAINBOW AND ITS CONGENERS . , . . . . 199 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE BIRKBECK INSTITUTION ON October 22, 1884 224 thomas young . . , 248 LIFE IN THE ALPS 307 ABOUT COMMON WATER 331 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMAS CARLYLE . . . 347 ON UNVEILING THE STATUE OF THOMAS CARLYLE . . 392 ON THE ORIGIN, PROPAGATION, AND PREVENTION OF PHTHISIS 398 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS 429 A MORNING ON ALP LUSGEN ....... 498 WWul 1880. THE SABBATH} IN the opening words of a Lecture delivered in this city four years ago,2 I spoke of the desire and ten- dency of the present age to connect itself organically with preceding ages. The expression of this desire is not limited to the connection of the material organisms of to-day with those of the geologic past, as set forth in the doctrines of Mr. Darwin. It is equally manifested in the domain of mind. To this source may be traced the philosophical writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer. To it we are indebted for the series of learned and laborious works on ' The Sources of Christianity,' by M. Kenan. To it we owe the researches of Professor Max Miiller in the domain of comparative philology and mytho- logy, and the endeavour to found on these researches a 8 science of religion.' In this relation, moreover, the recent work of Principal Caird3 is highly characteristic of the tendencies of the age. He has no words of vituperation for the earlier and grosser religions of the world. Throughout the ages he "discerns a purpose and a growth, wherein the earlier and more imperfect religions constitute the natural and necessary precursors of the later and more perfect ones. Even in the slough 1 Presidential Address delivered before the Glasgow Sunday Society. 2 Fermentation : Fragments of Science, vol. ii. p. 253, 3 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 2 THE SABBATH. of ancient paganism, Principal Caird detects a power ever tending towards amelioration, ever working towards the advent of a better state, and finally emerging in the purer life of Christianity.1 These changes in religious conceptions and practices correspond to the changes wrought by augmented ex- perience in the texture and contents of the human mind. Acquainted as we now are with this immeasur- able universe, and with the energies operant therein, the guises under which the sages of old presented the Maker and Builder thereof seem to us to belorg to the utter infancy of things. To point to illustrations drawn from the heathen world would be superfluous. We may mount higher, and still find our assertion true. When, for example, Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy Elders of Israel are represented as climbing Mount Sinai, and actually seeing there the God of Israel, we listen to language to which we can attach no significance. s There is in all this,' says Principal Caird, 'much which, even when religious feeling is absorbing the latent nutriment contained in it, is perceived [by the philosophic Christian of to-day] to belong to the domain of materialistic and figurative conception.' The reason is that the Christian philoso- pher of to-day has larger capacities and fuller knowledge than the Israelite of the time of Moses. What the one accepted as literal truth the other cannot accept save as a myth or figure. The children of Israel received without idealisation the statements of their great law- giver. To them the tables of the law were true tablets of stone, prepared, engraved, broken, and re-engraved ; while the graving tool which thus inscribed the law 1 In Prof. Max Miiller's Introduction to the Science of Beligion some fine passages occur, embodying the above view of the continuity of religious development. THE SABBATH. 3 was held undoubtingly to be the finger of God. To us such conceptions are impossible. We may by habit use the words, but we attach to them no definite meaning. 'As the religious education of the world advances,' says Principal Caird, ' it becomes impossible to attach any literal meaning to those representations of God and his relations to mankind, which ascribe to Him human senses, appetites, passions, and the actions and experiences proper to man's lower and finite nature.' To Principal Caird, nevertheless, this imaging of the Unseen is of inestimable value. It furnishes an objec- tive counterpart to religious emotion, permanent but plastic — capable of indefinite change and purification in response to the changing thoughts and aspirations of mankind. It is, moreover, solely on this mutable element that Principal Caird fixes his attention in estimating the religious character of individuals, or the point of pro- gress which has at any time been attained by nations or races in the religious history of the world. ' Here,' he says, 'the fundamental inquiry is as to the objective character of their religious ideas or beliefs. The first question is, not how they feel, but what th~y think and believe ; not whether their religion manifests itself in emotions more or less vehement or enthusiastic, but what are the conceptions of (rod and divine things by which these emotions are called forth ? ' These con- ceptions 'of God and divine things' were, it is admitted, once ' materialistic and figurative,' and therefore objec- tively untrue. Nor is their purer essence yet distilled ; for the religious education of the world still 'advances,' and is, therefore, incomplete. Hence the essentially fluxional character of that objective counterpart to religious emotion to which Principal Caird attaches most importance. He, moreover, assumes that the 4 THE SABBATH. emotion is called forth by the conception. There is doubtless action and reaction here ; but it may be questioned whether the conception, which is a construc- tion of the human understanding, could be at all put together without materials drawn from the experience of the human heart.1 The changes of conception here adverted to have not always been peacefully brought about. The ' trans- mutation ' of the old beliefs was often accompanied by conflict and suffering. It was conspicuously so during the passage from paganism to Christianity. Some of the Roman emperors treated the Christians with fair- ness. Adrian was one of these. e If anybody,' he says, writing to the proconsul of Asia, ' appear as accuser, and can prove that the Christians have broken the laws, let punishment be inflicted in proportion to the gravity of the offence. But, by Hercules ! if any should de- nounce a Christian slanderously, you must punish the slanderer still more severely.' This seems a very honest line for a pagan emperor to pursue. Some of his suc- cessors followed his example, but others did not. During the reign of Nero the cruelties inflicted on the Christians at Rome can hardly be mentioned without a freezing of the blood. According to Renan, the Antichrist of the Apocalypse was the Emperor Nero ; he being raised to this bad eminence by reason of his atrocities against the new religion. The mystic number 666, which Pro- testants have so often fa^ened upon the Pope, answers accurately to Nero's name and title. The numerical 1 While reading the volume of Principal Caird I was remindt d more than once of the following passage in Kenan's Antichrist : ' Et d'ailleurs. quel est l'homme vraiment religieux qui repudie complete- ment l'enseignement traditionnel a l'ombre duquel il sentit d'abord l'ideal, qui ne cherche pas les conciliations, souvent impossibles, entre sa vieille foi et celle a laquelle il est arrive par le progres de 6a pensee ? ' THE SABBATH. 5 values of the Hebrew letters added together make up this number. In his woik entitled 'L'Eglise Chretienne,' Kenan describes the sufferings of a group of Christians at Smyrna which may be taken as typical. The victims were cut up by the lash till the inner tissues of their bodies were laid bare. They were dragged miked over pointed shells. They were torn by lions ; and finally, while still alive, were committed to the flames. But all these tortures failed to extract from them a murmur or a cry. A youth named Germanicus, on this occasion, gave his companions in agony an example of super- human courage. His conflict with the lions called forth such admiration that the proconsul entreated him to have mercy on his own youth. Mercy was to be obtained by recanting ; but, instead of yielding, the youth pro- voked and excited the beasts, anxious to be torn to pieces, and thus removed from so perverse a world. His heroism simply exasperated his brutal persecutors, who, when he was despatched, demanded another victim. The Christians were called Atheists — a name then and long afterwards of terrible import. * Death to the Atheists ! let us seek Polycarp ! ' shouted the maddened crowd. Polycarp, the friend of St. John, and the principal personage in the Churches of Asia, was then resident at Smyrna. They sought, found, and arrested him. Those in power tried at first to coax him into apostasy, but threats and entreaties proved equally vain. « Insult Christ ! ' exclaimed Statius Quadratus. Polycarp replied : ' For eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has never wronged me — I am a Christian ! ' The grand old man felt a profound disdain for the roaring crowd around him. ' Give me a day,' said he to Quadratus, c and I will show you what it is to be a Christian.' 'Persuade the people,' retorted 6 THE SABBATH. Quadratus. 'I will reason with you* replied Polycarp, 6 because our precepts oblige us to show respect to those in authority ; but I refuse to plead my cause before a mob.' His resolution was made known to the crowd, who shouted for the lions. They were informed that for that day the beasts had finished their work. ' To the flames, then ! ' cried the people ; and the aged man was led to the stake. There he publicly thanked God for admitting him amongst those who had suffered death for his name. The fate of Polycarp reminds one of that of the Jew Eleazar, described in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Maccabees. The Apo- crypha, I would remark, ought to be bound up with all your Bibles ; it contains much that is beautiful and wise, and there is in history nothing finer than the description of Eleazar's end. The fortitude of the early Christians gained many converts to their cause ; still, when the evidential value of fortitude is considered, it must not be forgotten that almost every faith can point to its rejoicing martyrs. Even the murderers of Polycarp 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. The forces which, acting on a large scale, had differen- tiated Christianity from paganism, soon made them- selves manifest in details, producing disunion and opposition among those whose creeds and interests were in great part identical. Struggles for priority, THE SABBATH. 7 moreover, were not uncommon. Jesus himself had to quell such contentions. His exhortations to humility were frequent. s He that is least among you shall be greatest of all.' There were also conflicts upon points of doctrine. Among communities so diverse in tem- perament and antecedents differences were sure to arise. The point of difference which concerns us most had reference to the binding power of the Jewish law. Here dissensions arose 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 re- jection, 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 chiefest apostle. Are they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I. Are thpy of the seed of Abraham ? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ ? I am more ; in labours 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 sufferings he had endured. I leave it to you to compare this Christian hero with some of the ' freethinkers ' of our own day, who, ' more intolerant than the intolerance they de- precate,' flaunt in public their cheap and trumpery theories of the great Apostle and the Master whom he served. 8 THE SABBATH. Paul was too outspoken to escape assault. All in- sincerity or double-facedness — all humbug, in short — was 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, and was determined at all hazards 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, 8 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 liberal, not in name but in deed, he overthrew the Judaic preferences for days, deferring at the same time to the claims of conscience. ' Let him who desires 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 realise the commotion out of which this tran- quillity 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 docu- ments afloat at the time of compilation was a work of vast labour, difficulty, and responsibility. The age was THE SABBATH. 9 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 thereby- quickened and promoted. There were gospels and counter-gospels ; 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. When arguments or proofs were needed, whether on the side of the Jewish Christians or of the Gentile Christians, a document was discovered which met the case, and on which the name of an apostle, or of some authoritative contemporary of the apostles, was boldly inscribed. 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 pos- session 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 specula- tive Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and orthodox Christians of their day as fiercely as their successors the Agnostics — men who don't knoiv — are rejected by the orthodox in our own. The good Polycarp one day met Marcion, an ultra-Paulite, and a celebrated member of the Gnostic sect. On being asked by Mar- cion whether he, Polycarp, did not know him, Polycarp replied, ' Yes, I know you very well ; you are the first- born of the devil.'1 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 1 UEglise Chretienne, p. 450. 10 THE SABBATH. and unity, and out of the embroilment was slowly con- solidated that great organisation the Church of Kome. 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 famous city gave the Christian Church, established in her midst, such a decided pre- ponderance that it eventually laid claim to the proud title of ' Mother and Matrix of all other Churches/ With terrible jolts and oscillations the religious life of the world hasrun down 'the ringing grooves of change.' A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all events it was undiscovered. Some years ago I found myself in discussion with a friend who entertained the notion that the general tendency of things in this world is towards equilibrium, the result of which would be 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 durfror 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 towards 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 the fittest survive. In times of strife and commotion we may long for peace ; but knowledge and progress are the fruits of action. Some are, and must be, wiser than the rest; and the enuncia- tion of a thought in advance of the moment provokes dissent or evokes approval, and thus promotes action. The thought may be unwise ; but it is only by dis- cussion, 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. THE SABBATH. 11 Still one can hardly look without despair on the passions excited, and the energies wasted, over ques- tions which, after ages of strife, are shown to be mere fatuity and foolishness. Thus the theses which shook the world during the fmt 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, con- flicts, 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 educa- tion. 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 labours of in- tellect which this question has absorbed, and the amount of bad blood which 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 12 THE SABBATH. respiration free. He cared little for forms and ceremo- nies, which had ceased to be the raiment of man's spiritual life. To that life lie looked, and it he sought to restore. It was remarked by Martin Luther that Jesus broke the Sabbath deliberately, and even ostenta- tiously, 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 labour of carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. He 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.' No priestly power, he virtually declares, shall henceforth interfere with man's freedom to decide how the Sabbath is to be spent. Though the Jews, to their detriment, kept them- selves as a nation intellectually isolated, the minds of individuals were frequently coloured 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, 4 the seventh day is also an example from which you may learn the propriety of studying philosophy. As on that day it is said Grod 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 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 con- templation of his countrymen, as in the British Museum? Within those walls we have, as it were, epochs disen- THE SABBATH. 13 tombed — ages of divine energy illustrated. But the efficient authorities — among whom I would inclrde a short-sighted 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. Are the authorities logical in doing so ? Do they who thus stand between them and the public 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 6 the things that are made ' ? If they do — and they dare not affirm that they do not — I fear that Paul, with his cus- tomary plainness of language, would pronounce their conduct to be ' without excuse.'1 Science, which is the logic of nature, demands pro- portion 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 im- position, there are grave differences of opinion between learned and pious men. Some affirm that it was insti- tuted 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 de- parture. 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. Wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and 1 I refer, of course, to those who objeet 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 benefits to tens of thousands which in all probability would accrue. 14 THE SABBATH. hallowed 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 with a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. ' Therefore the Lord thy Grod commandeth 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 Grod 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 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 revela- tion. 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 irreconcilable antagonism to the facts of geology. With regard to the alleged ' proofs ' that Sunday THE SABBATH. 15 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, 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.1 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 recognise not only the wisdom but the necessity of some such institution, not on the ground of a divine edict, but of common sense.2 They contend, however, that it ought to be as far as possible a day of cheerful renovation both of 1 In 1785 the first mail-coach reached Edinburgh from London, and in 1788 it was continued to Glasgow. The innovation was de- nounced by a minister of the Secession Church of Scotland as 4 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 mul- titudes.'— Cox, vol. ii. p. 248. Even in our day there are clergymen foolish enough to indulge in this dealing out of damnation. 2 ' That public worship,' says Milton, ' is commended and in- culcated 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.' 16 THE SABBATH. 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, do I oppose its being employed as a day for the exercise of sacerdotal rigour. The early reformers emphatically asserted the free- dom of Christians from Sabbatical bonds ; indeed Puri- tan 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 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, 6 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 THE SABBATH. 17 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. ' There be two parts of the Sabbath day,' says Cranmer : 6 one is the outward bodily rest from all manner of labour and work ; this is mere cere- monial, and was taken away with other sacrifices and ceremonies by Christ at the preaching of the gospel. The other part of the Sabbath day is the inward rest or ceasing from sin.' This higher symbolism, as regards the Sabbath, is frequently employed by the Eeformers. It is the natural recoil of the living spirit from the mechanical routine of a w7orn-out hierarchy. Towards 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 Sabbath rules, God's judg- ments on Sabbath-breakers began to be pointed out. Then and afterwards ' 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. A Suffolk clergyman named Bownd, who, according to Cox, was the first to set forth at large 18 THE SABBATH, the views afterwards 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 towards noblemen. 'Concerning the feasts of noblemen and great personages or their ordinary diet upon this day (which in comparison may be called feasts), because they represent,' says the doctor, ' 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 directed towards this question was sure to be prolific. Instances accordingly grew apace in number and magnitude. Memorable examples of God's judgments upon Sabbath- breakers, and other like libertines, in their unlawful sports happening within this realm of England, were collected. In- numerable cases of drowning while bathing on Sunday were adduced, without the slightest attention to the logical requirements of the question. Week-day drown- ings 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 Lon- don, 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. Their profanation was thus nipped by a miracle in the bud, and they were brought to repentance. A Non- conformist 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 pedlar, 'fraught THE SABBATH. 19 with commodities ' on Sunday, drops into a river : God's retributive justice is seen in the fact. Wells travelled far in search of instances. One Utrich Schroe- tor, a Swiss, while playing at dice on the Lord's Day, lost heavily, and apparently to gain the devil to his side broke out into this horrid blasphemy : ' If fortune deceive me now I will thrust my dagger in the body of God.' Whereupon he threw the dagger upwards. It disappeared, and five drops of blood, which afterwards proved indelible, fell upon the gaming table. The devil then appeared, and with a hideous noise carried off the vile blasphemer. His two companions fared no better. One was struck dead and turned into worms, the other was executed. A vintner who on the Lord's Day tempted the passers-by with a pot of wine was carried into the air by a whirlwind and never seen more. 'Let us read and tremble,' adds Mr. WTells. At Tid- worth a man broke his leg on Sunday while playing at football. By a secret judgment of the Lord the wound turned into a gangrene, and in pain and terror the criminal gave up the ghost. You may smile at these recitals, but is there not a survival of John Wells still extant among you ? Are there not people in your midst so well informed as to 'the secret judgments of the Lord ' as to be able to tell you their exact value and import, from the damaging of the share market through the running of Sunday trains to the calamitous overthrow of a railway bridge ? Alphonso of Castile boasted that if he had been con- sulted at the beginning of things he could have saved the Creator some worlds of trouble. It would not be difficult to give the God of our more rigid Sabbatarians a lesson in justice and mercy; for his alleged judg- ments savour but little of either. How are calamities to be classified ? Almost within earshot of those who 20 THE SABBATH. note these Sunday judgments, the poor miners of Blan- tyre are blown to pieces, while engaged in their sinless week-day toil. A little further off the bodies of two hundred and sixty workers, equally innocent of Sabbath- breaking, are entombed at Abercarne. Dinas holds its sixty bodies, while the present year has furnished a fearful tale of similar disasters. Whence comes the vision which differentiates the Sunday calamity from the week-day calamity, seeing in the one a judgment of heaven, and in the other a natural event ? We may wink at the ignorance of John Wells, for he lived in a prescientific age; but it is not pleasant to see his features reproduced, on however small a scale, before an educated nation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding their strictness about the Sabbath, which possibly carried with it the usual excess of a re- action, some of the straitest of the Puritan sect saw clearly that unremitting attention to business, whether religious or secular, was unhealthy. These considered recreation to be as necessary to health as daily food ; and hence exhorted parents and masters, if they would avoid the desecration of the Sabbath, to allow to chil- dren and servants time for honest recreation on other days. They might have done well to inquire whether even Sunday devotions might not, without ' moral cul- pability ' on their part, keep the minds of children and servants too long upon the stretch. I fear many of the good men who insisted, and insist, on a Judaic observance of the Sabbath, and who dwell upon the peace and blessedness to be derived from a proper use of the Lord's Day, generalise beyond their data, applying the experience of the individual to the case of mankind. What is a conscious joy and blessing to themselves they cannot dream of as being a possible misery, or even a THE SABBATH. 21 curse, to others. It is right that your most spiritually- minded men — men who, to use a devotional phrase, en- joy the closest walk with God — should be your pastors. But they ought also to be practical men, able to look not only on their personal feelings, but on the capacities of humanity at large, and willing to make their rules and teachings square with these capacities. There is in some minds a natural bias towards religion, as there is in others towards poetry, art, or mathematics ; but the poet, artist, or mathematician who would seek to impose upon others, not possessing his tastes, the studies which give him delight, would be deemed an intolerable despot. The philosopher Fichte was wont to contrast his mode of rising into the atmosphere of faith with the experience of others. In his case the process, he said, was purely intellectual. Through reason he reached religion ; while in the case of many whom he knew this process was both unnecessary and unused, the bias of their minds sufficing to render faith, without logic, clear and strong. In making rules for the Community these natural differences must be taken into account. The yoke which is easy to the few may be intolerable to the many, not only defeating its own immediate purpose, but frequently introducing recklessness or hypocrisy into minds which a franker and more liberal treatment would have kept free from both.1 The moods of the times — the ' climates of opinion,' 1 'When our Puritan friends,' says Mr. Frederick Robertson, 'talk of the blessings of the Sabbath, we may ask them to remem- ber some of its curses.' Other and more serious evils than those recounted by Mr. Robertson may, I fear, be traced to the system of Sabbath observance pursued in many of our schools. At the risk of shocking some worthy persons, I would say that the invention of an invigorating game for fine Sunday afternoons, and healthy indoor amusement for wet ones, would prove infinitely more effectual as an aid to moral purity than most of our plans of religious meditation. 22 THE SABBATH. as Glanvil calls them — have also to be considered in imposing disciplines which affect the public. For the ages, like the individual, have their periods of mirth and earnestness, of cheerfulness and gloom. From this point of view a better case might be made out for the early Sabbatarians than for their survivals at the pre- sent clay. They were more in accord with the needs and spirit of their age. Sunday sports were barbarous ; bull- and bear-baiting, interludes, and bowling were reckoned amongst them, and the more earnest spirits longed not only to promote edification but to curb ex- cess. Sabbatarianism, therefore, though opposed, made rapid progress. Its opponents were not always wise. They did what religious parties, when in power, always do— exercised that power tyrannically. They invoked the arm of the flesh to suppress or change conviction. In 1618 James I. published a declaration, known after- wards as ' The Book of Sports,' because it had reference to Sunday recreations. It seems to have been, in itself, a reasonable book. Puritan magistrates had interfered with the innocent amusements of the people, and the king wished to insure their being permitted, after divine service, to those who desired them; but not enjoined upon those who did not. Coarser sports, and sports tending to immorality, were prohibited. Charles I. renewed the declaration of his father. Not content, however, with expressing his royal pleasure — not con- tent with restraining the arbitrary civil magistrate — the king decreed that the declaration should be published 1 through all the parish churches/ the bishops in their respective dioceses being made the vehicles of the royal command. Defensible in itself, the declaration thus became an instrument of oppression. The High Church party, headed by Archbishop Laud, forced the reading of the documents on men whose consciences recoiled THE SABBATH. 23 from the act. 'The precise clergy, as Hallam calls them, refused in general to comply, and were suspended or deprived in consequence. 'But,' adds Hallam, 6 mankind loves sport as little as prayer by compulsion ; and the immediate effect of the king's declaration was to produce a far more scrupulous abstinence from diver- sions on Sundays than had been practised before.' The Puritans, when they came into power, followed the evil example of their predecessors. They, the champions of religious freedom, showed that they could, in their turn, deprive their antagonists of their benefices, fine them, burn their books by the common hangman, and compel them to read from the pulpit things of which they disapproved. On this point Bishop Heber makes some excellent remarks. 'Much,' he says, 'as each religious party in its turn had suffered from perse- cution, and loudly and bitterly as each had, in its own particular instance, complained of the severities exer- cised against its members, no party h id yet been found to perceive the great wickedness of persecution in the abstract, or the moral unfitness of temporal punishment as an engine of religious controversy.' In a very dif- ferent strain writes the Dr. Bownd who has been already referred to as a precursor of Puritanism. He is so sure of his « doxy ' that he will unflinchingly make others bow to it. ' It behoveth,' he says, c all kings, princes, and rulers, that profess the true religion to enact such laws and to see them diligently executed, whereby the honour of Grod in hallowing these days might be main- tained. And, indeed, this is the chiefest end of all government, that men might not profess what religion they list, and serve Grod after what manner it pleaseth them best, but that the parts of God's true worship [Bowndean worship] might be set up everywhere, and all men compelled to stoop unto it.' 24 THE SABBATH. There is, it must be admitted, a sad logical con- sistency in the mode of action deprecated by Bishop Heber. As long as men hold that there is a hell to be shunned, they seem logically warranted in treating lightly the claims of religious liberty upon earth. They dare not tolerate a freedom whose end they believe to be eternal perdition. Cruel they may be for the mo- ment, but a passing pang vanishes when compared with an eternity of pain. Unreligious men might call it hallucination, but if I accept undoubtingly the doctrine of eternal punishment, then, whatever society may think of my act, I am self-justified not only in ' letting ' but in destroying that which I hold dearest, if I believe it to be thereby stopped in its progress to the fires of hell. Hence, granting the assumptions common to both, the persecution of Puritans by High Churchmen, and of High Churchmen by Puritans, was not without a basis in reason. I do not think the question can be decided on a 'priori grounds, as Bishop Heber seemed to sup- pose. It is not the abstract wickedness of persecution so much as our experience of its results that causes us to set our faces against it. It has been tried, and found the most ghastly of failures. This experimental fact overwhelms the plausibilities of logic, and renders per- secution, save in its meaner and stealthier aspects, in our day impossible. The combat over Sunday continued, the Sabbatarians continually gaining ground. In 1643 the divines who drew up the famous document known as the Westminster Confession began their sittings in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Milton thought lightly of these divines, who, he said, were sometimes chosen by the whim of members of Parliament; but the famous Puritan, Baxter, extolled them for their learning, godliness, and ministerial abilities. A journal of their earlier proceedings was THE SABBATH. 25 kept by Lightfoot, one of their members. On November 13, 1G44, he records the occurrence of 'a large debate' on the sanctification of the Lord's Day. After fixing the introductory phraseology, the assembly proceeded to consider the second proposition : 6 To abstain from all unnecessary labours, worldly sports, and recreations.' It was debated whether ' worldly thoughts ' should not be added. f This was scrupulous,' says the naive journalist, ' whether we should not be a scorn to go about to bind men's thoughts, but at last it was concluded upon to be added, both for the more piety and for the Fourth Commandment.' The question of Sunday cookery was then discussed and settled ; and, as regards public worship, it was decreed 6 that all the people meet so timely that the whole congregation be present at the beginning, and not depart until after the blessing. That what time is vacant between or after the solemn meetings of the congregation be spent in reading, medi- tation, repetition of sermons,' &c. These holy men were full of that strength already referred to as imparted by faith. They needed no natural joy to brighten their lives, mirth being displaced by religious exaltation. They erred, however, in making themselves a measure for the world at large, and insured the overthrow of their cause by drawing too heavily upon average human nature. 'This much,' says Hallam, Ms certain, that when the Puritan party employed their authority in proscribing all diversions, and enforcing all the Jewish rigour about the Sabbath, they rendered their own yoke intolerable to the young and gay ; nor did any other cause, perhaps, so materially contribute to bring about the Eestoration.' From the records of the Town Council of Edinburgh, Mr. Cox makes certain extracts which amusingly illus- trate both the character of Sabbath discipline and the 26 THE SABBATH. difficulty of enforcing it. In 1560 it was, among other things, decreed that on Sundays ' all persons be astricted to be present at the ordinary sermons, as well after noon as before noon, and that from the last jow of the bell to the said sermons to the final end.' In 1581 the Council ordained that ' proclamation be made through this burgh, discharging all kinds of games and plays now commonly used the said day, such as bowling in yards, dancing, playing, running through the high street of hussies, bairns, and boys, with all manner of dissolution of behaviour/ The people obeyed and went to church, but it seems they chose their own preachers. This galavanting among the kirks was, however, quickly put an end to; for in 1584 it was ordained 'that all freemen and freemen's wives in times coming be found in their own parish kirk every Sunday, as also at the time of the Communions, under the pain of payment of an unlaw for every person being found absent.' In 1 586 the Council ' finds it expedient that a bailie ilk Sunday his week about, visit the street taverns and other com- mon places in time of sermon, and pones all offenders according to the town statutes.' Vaging (strolling) in the High Gate was also forbidden. These restrictions, applying at first to the time of divine service only, were afterwards extended to the entire Sunday ; but sabbath profanation resembled hy- draulic pressure, and broke forth whenever it found a weak point in the municipal dam. The repairing and strengthening of the dam were incessant. Proclamation followed proclamation, forbidding tie practice of buying and selling, the opening of eating- and coffee-houses, and prohibiting such sports as golf, archery, row-bowles, penny-stone, and kaitch-pullis. The gates of the city were Ordered to be closed on Saturday night and not to be opened before four o'clock on Monday morning. At THE SABBATH. 27 the time these edicts were published the Provost com- plained of the little obedience hitherto given to the manifold acts of council for keeping the Sabbath. A decree on January 14, 1659, runs thus: — 4 Whereas many both young and old persons walk, or sit and play on the Castle hill, and upon the streets and other places on the Sabbath day after sermons, so that it is manifest that family worship is neglected by such, the Council appoint that there be several pairs of stocks provided to stand in several public places of the city, that whosoever is needlessly walking or sitting idly in the streets shall either pay eighteen-pence ster- ling penalty or be put in the stocks.' The parents of children found playing are fined 6d. a head. 'And if any children be found on the Castle hill after supper to pay 18