the Lord's Day, and, it is to be feared, without the Lord!

The Abbé Gaume, Vicaire Général de Nevers, has written some interesting letters on the profanation of the Lord's Day in France. His style is very earnest, and one cannot help sympathising with him in many of his remarks. But his foundation is sadly insecure. He assumes that the Sabbath was communicated to man in the beginning, and that, after having been enforced from Sinai, and urged throughout Jewish history, it is identified in some unexplained manner with the law of the Lord's Day now. Putting this aside, it is instructive to find him arguing that all the revolutions and troubles which France has gone through for these seventy years are owing to neglect of the Lord's Day. And in answer to the economical argument, that to observe it would be a ruinous waste of one seventh of man's existence, he appeals confidently to the condition of England and of the United States. "Put the case at the very lowest, those countries are not the worse; their commerce, their marine, their industry, their agriculture are not impaired by the regard they pay to 'le jour sacré du repos."" (Voyez l'Angleterre et les ÉtatsUnis. Parce qu'ils continuent de témoigner le respect le plus édifiant pour le jour sacré du repos, ces deux peuples, auxquels nous ne le cédons sous aucun autre rapport, en sont-ils moins les deux rois de la fortune et de l'opulence? Leur commerce est-il moins florissant que le nôtre? leur marine moins puissante et moins belle? leur industrie moins avancée? leur agriculture moins intelligente? leur bien-être moins général et moins solide? Si le cadre vous paraît trop restreint, parcourez l'Europe entière, et j'ose de nouveau défier tous les chercheurs de citer un seul homme, une seule famille, une seule province, une seule nation, que la sanctification du dimanche ait appauvrie ou empêchée de s'enrichir).

In another part of his work, this writer gives a too flattering account of an English Sunday, and wishes that he could see the like of it in his own country.

Still these are only partial and ill-directed efforts; so ill-directed that they sometimes stir up the zeal of persons on the other side. (Louis Victor Mellet,426 the pastor of Yvorne, in the Pyrenees, has written against what he calls Sabbatism, and adopted instead of it the most extreme Ecclesiastical theory of Sunday.) Some time, it is to be feared, must elapse before any great and visible change take place. The majority of the Continental population cares little for the first day of the week as the Lord's Day. Romanists and those who differ from Rome are alike obnoxious to the charge of lightness in this matter. Paris, as we know, shows few signs of religion on Sunday, beyond the morning Mass, (in spite of the exception just mentioned). In Spain and Portugal,27 multitudes rush, on Sunday, from the confessional to the bull-fight. In reformed Geneva 428 it is, I understand, a fact that though for a long time plays were altogether forbidden, even in private houses, they are now freely permitted in theatres, and on Sundays. And as to Protestant Sweden,129 it is not more than three years ago that evidence was given in a trial before Lord Campbell, that on Sunday bills are presented and counting-houses open, and business transacted as usual. Towards the end, too, of the legislative session, the Diet sits frequently on Sunday, and after the morning service, the clergy are seen going in their robes to the hall where it is held.

To what may much of this be traced? In the case of the Church of Rome, I believe, to the fact that she has, in order to raise other festivals in estimation, lowered the Lord's Day to a mere Church ordinance, and having done So, is unable to induce her members to consider it anything but a Church Day, or more binding on their consciences

than many of her indefensible ordinances. She still teaches her children the Catechism drawn up by Bellarmine,430 and sanctioned by the Bulls of Clement the Eighth, A.D. 1558, and of Benedict the Thirteenth, A.D. 1728. That document, I should inform you, travesties the Fourth Commandment thus, "Remember to keep holy the festivals." (Ricordati di sanctificare le Feste), placing every other festival on an equality with the Lord's Day; and by the existence of more festivals than can possibly be observed, produces an irreverent use of all. Having thus lowered the Lord's Day, in vain does the Catechism afterwards enjoin among "the few Commandments which the Church has added to the Commandments of God," (quelli pochi, che ha aggiunto la Santa Chiesa), that men should "hear Mass every Sunday, and on all other appointed festivals," (Udir la Messa tutti le Domeniche, ed altre Feste comandate). In the case of those who disagree with Rome, I believe that the indifference with which their Reformers spoke of the obligation to observe any one day in particular, has issued in a disregard of the particular day which they chose. It is Luther's day. It is Calvin's day. It is the day which the former adopted out of consideration to the multitude; the day which the latter, after some hesitation, preferred for expediency's sake to Thursday. This it is; but it is not the Day of the Lord,-that on which His Humanity had its triumph; which, if the indications of Scripture and the practice and language of the Apostles and of the early Church are to have weight with us, is the Day of Praise of God, and of Love to man; and which, bringing Christian (not Jewish) Rest in its train, refreshes the whole man, body and soul and spirit; which is the People's Day because it is the Lord's Day.

LECTURE VII.

JEREMIAH VI. 16.

STAND YE IN THE WAYS, AND SEE, AND ASK FOR THE OLD PATHS, where IS THE GOOD WAY, AND WALK THEREIN, AND YE SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

Στῆτε ἐπὶ ταῖς ὁδοῖς καὶ ἴδετε, καὶ ἐρωτήσατε τρίβους Κυρίου αἰωνίους· καὶ ἴδετε ποία ἐστιν ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀγαθὴ, καὶ βαδίσατε ἐν αὐτῇ, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἁγνισμὸν (v. 7. ἁγιασμὸν) ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν.

(Conf. Matt. xi. 29, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν.)

OUR inquiries have at length brought us to England. We will suppose ourselves to-day to be tracing the stream of thought and practice amongst us, in reference to the Lord's Day, from the Reformation to the present time. Not that we can allude, even by name, to more than a few of the writers on the subject, or touch upon any but the most striking events connected with it. We may, however, be able to exhibit in a compendious form a succession of facts, the careful consideration of which may lead us to some practical conclusion.

Some important questions present themselves.

Is it possible to discover, in the fully authorized documents of the English Church, such definite statements about the Lord's Day as will favour decidedly, either the Sunday-Sabbatarian view on the one hand, or the purely Ecclesiastical view on the other?

Is it possible to frame such a Catena of writers in the English Church, as will, by the number of its links and the solidity of each link, serve as an adequate interpretation of those documents in one direction or the other?

If neither of these courses is possible, should not the acknowledged moderation of the English Church be an element in the discovery of her view? And may we not interpret her by antiquity, to which she has ever had regard?

Certain cognate questions will, by God's permission, be discussed in the concluding Lecture.

Something has been said already to the effect that Sunday-Sabbatarianism at any rate is not authoritatively sanctioned by the Church of England. For this I may perhaps refer you to the latter part of my Fifth Lecture. Nor is what was stated there invalidated by the existence of the document usually styled the Westminster Confession, 431 which was drawn up A.D. 1643. It was indeed examined and approved A.D. 1647 by the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, and ratified by Scottish Acts of Parliament A.D. 1649 and 1690. But it had nothing to do with England except during the abnormal period of the Great Rebellion, and was, de facto, ignored by the Savoy Conference. Its language is as follows:-"As it is of the law of nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so, in His word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual Commandment, binding all men, in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him; which, from the beginning of the world to the Resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and from the Resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued