BY THE LATE REV. ANDREW SYMINGTON, D.D., REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PAISLEY.*
(Continued from page 433.)
* This article is taken from a volume entitled “The Christian Sabbath,” published in 1850. The general argument is equally applicable to the present time.—ED.
IT may be well, before closing this part of our argument, to advert to the extent of the sin and evils of Sabbath mails. The moral character of an act, or course of action, is the same, whether viewed in a single instance or in a multitude of instances; but in the latter case, the offence against God, and the danger to society, affect more strongly the obligation to endeavour after the removal and subsequent prevention of the evil; as the widespread prevalence of a malignant disease, more than a single insulated occurrence, affects the duty of society to employ means of removal and prevention. There is reason to apprehend that the evil complained of is seldom contemplated in its wide-spread extent. Reflect on the fact. Cast your eye over the map of the British isles, and look northward and southward, and eastward and westward, and how few are the spots where the sin of which we speak is not enacted fifty-two Sabbaths in the year! Think on the number of offices, and the attendance required in many of them; the letters and packages sent to be forwarded; the mails received; the sorting, stamping of letters, sealing of bags, and other services connected with the forwarding of mails; the delivery of letters called for or sent out to be delivered by runners; then think on the number of children, servants, apprentices, news-room keepers, and others calling at the offices. Then take into account the conveyance of the mail, the stable-boys, hostlers, coachmen, and guards, and horses, that are employed; the attendance of porters and waiters at the different stages; the number of persons employed in conducting the mail trains, and the servants, porters, and coachmen in attendance at the termini and the intermediate stations. And after all this, call up into your thought the multitude of individuals supplied in their houses, hotels, and reading-rooms, and the occupations that follow. The amount is appalling. Even of persons directly and immediately employed about the Post Offices, the number is great. In Edinburgh upwards of a hundred persons are on duty in the Post Office on the Lord’s day, and letters and newspapers are called for in thousands. In Glasgow upwards of fifty are known to be similarly employed. Extend the calculation to populous and busy England, where the Sabbath has not been held so sacred. In the city of London, though the General Post Office be shut, several hundreds of persons are employed on the Lord’s day in the London district and mail coach offices. In Liverpool and Manchester upwards of a hundred are regularly employed on the Sabbath; and in the other large business places in proportion. Transfer the calculation to Ireland. In the General Post Office of Dublin alone upwards of a hundred are employed on the Sabbath. Direct your calculation to the wide extent of the British colonies, whither the evil takes its range. Upon the whole, reflect upon the persons employed in serving the mail, conducting the business of the offices, conveying it, and employed in consequence of its supplies, and the amount will be told, not in hundreds, nor in thousands, nor tens of thousands, nor in hundreds of thousands, but in thousands of thousands manifold. If there be sin and evils in the Sabbath mails, they are numerous and wide-spread on an alarming scale; and to all regarding the subject in the light in which we are constrained to view it, there is a loud and solemn call for faithful remonstrance, earnest appeal, and enlightened and persevering effort.
If we have succeeded in establishing the sin and evils of Sabbath mails, two inquiries arise:—At whose door do this sin and these evils lie? and, By what means shall they be removed? The sin, of course, must lie at the door of the legislature, or company originating and authorizing these mails—at the door of those who conduct them, and of those who avail themselves of them without any call of necessity or mercy; at the door also of those who abet and vindicate them, and of those who, acknowledging the evil, sit still in apathy and indifference, without protestation against it, or effort to have it removed. And what is to be done, or what can be done? It is not to grieve in secret, and satisfy ourselves with expressions of deep regret to Christian friends, or to make an occasional reference to it in prayer to God, or even to write a tract or a book. It is our duty to give a distinct and emphatic testimony against the sin—to keep ourselves clear, to the utmost of our power, from all participation in the sin and evils—to employ our influence, as parents, masters, ministers, rulers, as well as private individuals—to instruct and impress others in our respective spheres—to remonstrate with influential individuals as we have access—to address ourselves respectively, argumentatively, and firmly to companies—and, so far as the sin has the sanction of Government, to petition and memorialize—to co-operate in all sound measures—and that we prosecute these measures unweariedly, not yielding to discouragement from opposition, or from the scoff or from cold-breathing apathy—and to do all this in the spirit of humble and prayerful dependence upon God, who has the hearts of all men and all influences in His hand, and, as the river of water, turneth them whithersover He will.
Under these views, we now address ourselves to the sound economist, the patriot, the philanthropist, and the Christian. We make an appeal in behalf of the servants connected with the postal establishment. These servants are thousands in number, and, with the exception of a partial release during the hours of public worship, and the exemption lately granted them from money-order transactions, they drudge in the routine of the duties of the other days of the week. In their case there is a regular systematic encroachment upon the rest of the seventh portion of time—a rest allowed to other public servants—a rest necessary to the physical well-being of man, according to the soundest medical science—a rest, too, acknowledged in the law of the land, as well as granted in the benevolence of God. In their behalf, therefore, we make an appeal to justice against a wrong inflicted upon them in the deprivation of a well-founded right which others enjoy. And we make our appeal to mercy. Is it not a drawback upon the pleasure of a generous and benevolent mind that persons should be drudging in exhausting labours on a day of rest to all others? They know it and feel it, and it is undeniable that to them release would be a boon of great value. Irrespective of the Divine interposition, it can be shown that a periodical respite from labour is requisite for the well-being of the physical system; and the wisdom and goodness of God in appointing a portion of time for this may be fully vindicated. In view of the presumptuous proposal in France to reduce it from a seventh to a tenth, well may the labouring man say, “Let me fall now into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hands of man.” And shall no pity be shown to wives and children who are deprived, by Sabbath occupation, of the society of husbands and parents, and of the advantage and pleasure of leisurely domestic intercourse to unite them more closely in the bonds of virtuous affection? We urge our appeal also on the score of liberty—yes, civil and religious liberty—civil liberty to enjoy exemption from labour on the Sabbath, a liberty to which the parties concerned have a right by the laws of God and man; and religious liberty, liberty to appropriate time for worshipping God in private and in public. We are not speaking, because not thinking, of forcing men to the performance of religious duties, or compelling attendance on religious ordinances; but we are pleading for liberty to those who deem it their duty to worship God in a season generally appropriated to it; and we protest against the invasion of religious liberty by deprivation, by legislation, and by a virtual compulsion of multitudes to do what is wrong; and this, too, in many cases, in the first instance at least, contrary to their religious convictions. And we urge our plea on the score of public morals, persuaded from the nature of the case, and assured by observation and satisfactory information, that the Sabbath mail operates with a baneful influence on the virtue and morals of society, by diminishing respect for the Sabbath, and breaking in upon attendance on religious ordinances. Is it not matter of fact that those districts where the first day of the week is kept sacred are distinguished by a less amount of crime, and by peace and good order? We ask the patriot, the economist, and the philanthropist, whether our appeal to justice, to mercy, to liberty, and to morality, be not well founded, or can be anything on our part than disinterested? We beg to ask, in a country where mails are delivered six days in a week, What privation would be inflicted—what injury would be done to business, to politics, to science, to any interest whatever of individual or society—by a discontinuance of Sabbath mails? We deprecate opposition, if there can be such, on the mere principle of not making a concession to the professors of religion.
We beg also to remind our readers of some important connections in which this particular aspect of the Sabbath question stands. You cannot fail to observe that it is placed in very close connection with the still agitated question of Sabbath trains, the alleged necessity of the case, and the apparent reservations made for it in the Acts of Parliament, and the fact of many railway trains being already employed on the Sabbath, being adduced in all adverse pleadings. When we reflect on the flood of immorality and ungodliness which Sabbath railway trains are diffusing over society in the places where they run, on the threatened extension of this evil, and this too by legislation, and on the certain results of the greater extension, it is of importance to anticipate and preclude any advantage that may be taken from the Sabbath mail in subsequent argumentation. Besides, it is not to be overlooked that the question of Sabbath mails is exciting interest in different parts of England, as well as Scotland, at present, and that the opportunity should not be lost, when, in influential quarters, there is manifested a disposition to seek and to grant the desiderated reformation. Unanimous, extensive, and persevering application is required at the present time, and is not without some prospect of success. But there is not a day to be lost.—The agitation of the question in America, the able and well-founded pleadings on the subject from the press, and the practical effect which these pleadings are producing in the restraint of Sabbath profanation, particularly in the matter of Sabbath travelling, demand the approbation, sympathy, and co-operation of the mother country.—Besides, the discontinuance of Sabbath mails might exert an influence in aiding suppression of other abuses that presently obtain, and in the prevention of others to which there is manifested a growing tendency. It is believed that in certain departments of commercial and legal business, in the printing of newspapers, in different departments of the arts, and great public works, infractions are made on the Sabbath which are altogether unjustifiable; and that they, too, are operating with a demoralizing influence on the persons implicated. The petitions presented lately to the legislature to protect tradesmen and shopkeepers in England from opening their places of business on the Lord’s day, show strongly the evil tendency of the present time, from the eager pursuit of business and competition of those engaged in it, and give additional urgency to our appeal against the Sabbath mail, which ministers so largely to these evils. Its discontinuance might be the means of suppressing some existing evils, and preventing other threatened profanations.
Our appeal addresses itself to Christians as members of the Church, and interested in her spiritual good. The eager pursuit of business, the love of money, and the “pride of life,” are making inroads upon the spirituality and devotion of the members of the Church, occupying time, engrossing conversation, secularizing the spirit, and greatly unfitting for the profits and pleasures of the Holy Sabbath. Many, it is confidently hoped, maintain a conscientious and strict separation from commercial business, and from all connection with Sabbath mails on the Lord’s day. But there is reason to fear that in other cases the temptation is too strong, and that, covertly or more openly, occasionally or statedly, encroachments are made on the Sabbath; and that in this case much injury is done to spirituality of character, while an unfavourable influence is put forth on children, domestics, and servants, even though the evil be kept in some measure from the public eye. Concern for the revived and invigorated spirituality of the Church of God calls us to earnest efforts to have the insinuating temptations of Sabbath mails taken out of the way.
In conclusion, we urge our argument by regard to our national peace and prosperity. We reckon it neither superstitious nor fanatical to refer to the moral indications of Providence in our recent commercial distresses and other sufferings, and to the present commotions of Europe. We have referred above to the moral character of Providence, and feel ourselves called loudly at the present time to “learn righteousness.” It may be justly inquired, whether our profanation of the Sabbath by secular business, by civil recreations, and abounding immoralities connected with them, does not stand connected with our late suffering in the manufacturing, and commercial, and monetary departments, involving capitalists, merchants, and men of property and wealth in embarrassment, and followed with the destitution and moral degradation of a great part of the population. Cast your eye on the historic page, and let the desolation of maritime and wealthy Tyre, and the howling ships of Tarshish, admonish of sin and danger. Was there not a cause? Yes. Tyre’s merchandise and hire were not “holiness unto the Lord.” Call up unto remembrance the desolation of ancient Jerusalem, read in history the exact fulfilment of the prophetic word, and inquire into the cause. Not the grasping power of haughty Babylon, but the holy displeasure of Him who places high and chief in the indictment of Jerusalem’s crimes—”They polluted my Sabbaths.”* Look abroad to Paris and to the Continent, where the Lord’s day is habitually devoted to secular business and pleasure, and often selected, as if for marked desecration and contempt, for every great public demonstration and festivity, and inquire whether this one prevailing sin does not stand in connection, morally and judicially, with the immorality, ungodliness, infidelity, atheism, confusions, murders, which have been working of late with so appalling effect? And, in the light of the prophetic page, cast your eye forward to the near-coming future, when in the judgment to come in one hour on the mystic Babylon, “the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn; for no man buyeth of their merchandise any more: and every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, shall stand afar off, and cry, and weep, and wail.”† Then, as in the days of old, “one post shall rise to meet another, to show that the city is fallen;”‡ and carry the tidings to the ends of the earth. Alas for that devoted pursuit of merchandise, and gain, and misappropriation of wealth, to which the Sabbath mail has so extensively ministered! Let us hear the voice of warning. If our land is to be saved amid the present and coming wrecks of nations, and our swift electric telegraphs not charged to tell our own fall in the antichristian ruin, it must be by some specially-redeeming consideration. And what is this? Not wealth, not arts and sciences, not political freedom in its most unexceptionable form, not the most enlightened economic legislation, not the most penetrating acumen of far-seeing statesmen, not armies and navies, nor the prowess of soldiers and sailors, can save our land. Our disease is a moraine—inward, deep, and wide-spread; and the remedy must correspond to it. “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” “At what instant I speak concerning a nation, to pluck, and to pull down, and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil I thought to do unto them.” “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach (ruin) to any people.” The holy Sabbath unites in it the interests of God and man, of individuals and communities; it binds together the whole moral law; and from its very nature, and from the history of its workings, is the best defence of religion and morality, the grand conservatory of universal righteousness. While it proves to the Christian a season of great spiritual good, and an earnest of everlasting rest, the practical respect of it brings with it a temporal blessing, as its violation exposes, in this respect, to a curse. It sets before us, in the sacred Scriptures and in the page of history, “the blessing and the curse.” Encouraged by the one and awed by the other, let us turn our foot away from every profanation of the Sabbath, and in the discontinuance of Sabbath mails, “Holiness unto the Lord” shall be inscribed on the bells of our horses, on the front of our mighty locomotives, and on the prows of our gallant steamers; and by an abandonment of the evils connected with Sabbath mails, and other congenial profanations, our people shall be “Holiness unto the Lord,” and our merchandise and our hire shall also be “Holiness unto the Lord.”
“If thou shalt turn thy foot from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” “But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”*
* Jer. xx. 12-24.
† Rev. xviii. 11, 17.
‡ Jer. li. 31.
* Isa. lviii. 13, 14; Jer. xvii. 27.