TESTIMONY OF A CLERK.

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Lecture Linth.

THE CLAIMS OF THE SABBATH UPON MERCHANTS.

A FEW days since, stepping into one of our great commercial houses, the floor of which was covered with boxes of merchandize awaiting transportation, I said to one of the clerks, calling him by name, "What would you young men do without a Sunday?" "What would we do?" he replied, "we could not do at all. It would be impossible for us to get on without Sunday in the other portions of the year; and not to have it at this season, would break us right up at once. It is indispensable to us," he added, "for physical rest, and a great deal more so that our minds may get repose from this care and anxiety which are so crushing to us. His appearance gave emphasis to every word he uttered. I had seen him at the commencement of "the season," and marked his fine, bright countenance and his elastic step. Again, in the interval I had seen him, and heard him say, on a Saturday afternoon -"I have not been in

my bed until one or two o'clock, a single night this week." And now his cheek was blanched, he had become very thin, and his whole aspect and gait were stamped with lassitude and exhaustion.-I have cited him as a witness on this subject, because while he is a very estimable young man and a most faithful and efficient clerk, he is not, I believe, a professor of religion: and with a certain class of persons, this circumstance may impart additional weight to his testimony. But in truth, it would not be requisite to select witnesses in order to establish the necessity of a weekly rest. You would be safe in going at random into any of our Counting-Houses, or in polling the entire mercantile community on this question:- there could be but one response to the question, "Is Sunday essential to the proper prosecution of commercial business?” This, however, is but a partial statement of the truth. The Sabbath is not essential to the merchant only, but to men of every occupation, and of all climes and kindreds. This is the teaching alike of the Bible, of science, and of experience.

Our Saviour has affirmed it in that much-perverted saying, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2: 27.) As the word Sabbath means a rest, this language implies that man requires a day of rest. He who "knew what was in man," foresaw that he would need a weekly respite

from labour. Had he been differently constituted, or differently situated, this might possibly have been dispensed with; or instead of one-seventh, some other portion of his time might have been demanded for repose. But as he is, he must have a "rest-day"; and so his bountiful Creator has given him one. To quarrel with the Sabbath, therefore, is for a man to quarrel with his own constitution. And the people who declaim so much about this institution as an invention of "priestcraft," would be more rationally employed in inquiring how and why they came to be created with a physical and moral frame-work which would soon shiver to pieces without a Sabbath. If "priestcraft" has invented the Sabbath, it deserves for once their thanks rather than their maledictions. Let us hear an eminent scientific authority on the subject:

"As a day of rest," says Dr. Farre, in his testimony before a Committee of the House of Commons, "I view it as a day of compensation for the inadequate restorative power of the body under continued labour and excitement. A physician always has respect to the preservation of the restorative power, because, if once this be lost, his healing office is at an end. If I show you from the physiological view of the question, that there are provisions in the laws of nature which correspond with the divine commandment, you will see from the analogy that 'the Sabbath was made for man' as a necessary appointment. A physician is anxious to preserve the balance

of circulation, as necessary to the restorative power of the body. The ordinary exertions of man run down the circulation every day of his life; and the first general law of nature by which God (who is not only the giver, but also the preserver and sustainer, of life,) prevents man from destroying himself, is the alternating of day with night, that repose may succeed action. But although the night apparently equalizes the circulation well, yet it does not sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long life. Hence one day in seven, by the bounty of Providence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect by its repose the animal system. Take that fine animal, the horse, and work him to the full extent of his powers every day in the week, or give him rest one day in seven, and you will soon perceive, by the superior vigour with which he performs his functions on the other six days, that this is necessary to his well-being. Man, possessing a superior nature, is borne along by the very vigour of his mind, so that the injury of continued diurnal exertion and excitement on his animal system, is not so immediately apparent as it is in the brute; but in the long run he breaks down more suddenly; it abridges the length of his life and that vigour of his old age which (as to mere animal power) ought to be the object of his preservation. I consider, therefore, that in the bountiful provision of Providence for the preservation of human life, the Sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been sometimes theologically viewed, simply a precept partaking of the nature of a political institution; but that it is to be numbered amongst the natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act. This is said simply as a Physician, and without reference at all to the theological question but if you consider further the proper effect of

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real Christianity-namely, peace of mind, confiding trust in God, and good-will to man-you will perceive in this source of renewed vigour to the mind, and through the mind to the body, an additional spring of life imparted from this higher use of the Sabbath as a holy rest."

The principle elucidated in these philosophical observations, has been recognized by the worst enemies of the Sabbath. So thoroughly satisfied were the French Theophilanthropists, of the necessity of a day of rest, that when they abolished the Sabbath they replaced it with a decade, making every tenth day a holiday.

It follows from the argument just presented, that the Sabbath could have been no mere local or transitory enactment. The nature of man remaining unchanged, a restorative "rest-day" would be equally essential under all dispensations and among all nations. Accordingly, there are distinct traces of such an institute from the creation to the exodus: under the theocracy it was formally incorporated in the decalogue: the Saviour confirmed its authority: and from his ascension until now, Christendom has recognized it as an ordinance of God. The change from the seventh to the first day of the week (a point which the limits of this service forbid my entering into here), does not affect the essence of the institution. The vital thing that which was originally