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And yet has there not been, of late years especially, some forgetfulness of this? Has there not been, occasionally an almost ostentatious declaration that, certain religious offices ended, they may engage in well nigh any amusement, though their own servants, and the numerous attendants at the places which they frequent are thereby deprived of opportunities of Religious worship and reasonable Rest? It is to be feared that this is the case, not universally, indeed, or even generally, but in more instances than could be desired. At a recent session of an important organisation, the London Diocesan Conference, it was alleged that large dinner parties, cardplaying, tennis parties, smoking concerts, excursions to Hurlingham and Richmond by the Four-in-hand Club and others, steam-launches and boating parties up the river, dancings, and such like, in fact, reproductions on Sunday, of the doings of Fifty or Sixty years ago, are not unusual, on the part of some who form what is called "the fashionable world." Might they not, if such is the case, be asked to consider that these things are not a necessity, and, certainly, are not a necessity to them? And, granting that all these things are allowable in themselves, might not they, who can have them any other day, exercise on that Day, some care for those who are likely to be influenced by them, even at the cost of a little self-denial ?

Is it indeed ?

"O, but this is a return to Puritanism!" One has been accustomed to think that the well-known historic Puritan was a man who refused to allow others to do this or that, because this or that did not accord with his own views on enjoyment generally, or on Sunday enjoyment in particular. The man who acts in the spirit of the above suggestions

refuses to allow himself certain enjoyments on a certain day, because his liberty may be mistaken by those about him, and because he wishes to prevent them from being mulcted of their Religion and of their Rest. "We that are strong" said St. Paul, "ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good, to edifying. For even Christ," (he goes on to say,) "Christ" (the Lord of the Day) "pleased not Himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon Me." (Rom. 15, 1-3). And St. Paul pleased not himself, for he wrote to the Corinthians, Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." (1 Cor. 8, 12).

It is to be acknowledged, indeed, with devout thankfulness, that there are so many brilliant exceptions to what has been asserted as to thoughtless selfishness among the leisurely classes, that it should rather be said that those who are thus selfish are themselves exceptions to the general rule. There never was a time when, in the opulent parts of London the Churches were better' attended on Sunday, or when the affluent have done more both in London and throughout England to advance the religious and social benefit of the people. So that we would fain believe that, either what is complained of is confined to a few, or that, at the worst, it is but a temporary forgetfulness of self-denial on the part of those few which will sooner or later pass away. We would remember that the Sunday display of equipages and riders in Hyde Park, which excited so much turbulent demonstration, in the summer of 1857 or 1858, is now an affair of ancient history. Never

theless, it is not wonderful that the London Diocesan Conference should have noticed those exceptions, and have urged at the same time the importance of religious instruction of the children of the rich, in which parents, hitherto engrossed with other pursuits, might perhaps find an agreeable and natural Sunday occupation. It is worthy of remark in passing, that the Conference is not a merely Clerical Assembly, but one in which the Lay element is nearly double the Clerical; and yet, that by an assembly so composed, the Bishop of London was requested to issue a Pastoral on the employment of the Holy Day, somewhat after the manner of one of his distinguished predecessors, Bishop Gilson.

But Sunday and its due honour are matters of vital and permanent interest, not merely URBI, but ORBI; not merely to the City and Diocese of London, but to the whole Christian world. And so, at that Third great Decennial gathering at Lambeth, in 1888, attended by one hundred and forty-five Bishops of the Anglican Communion at home and abroad, the importance of the subject was insisted upon in grave terms, both in the Resolutions adopted by the Assembly, and in the Encyclical Letter by which those Resolutions were commended to the serious thought of Church people of every clime.

But it is time to pause.

The writer has done his best in this Preface and in that belonging to the Fourth Edition, which is now reprinted and should be read in connection with this, to bring down his History of Sunday, published Thirty years ago, to the present hour. He has been spared, by God's goodness, to an advanced stage of life, but this very fact and a severe illness last year, (though he has been mercifully restored from it,) warn him

that the end cannot be very far off. He feels, therefore, that it is most unlikely that he will be called upon to resume his pen upon this subject. If there is anything more that he would say it shall be expressed in the words of the saintly Bishop Ken, whose profession and prayer he commends to his brethren: Here is his profession :

"We Christians, O Lord God, following the moral equity of Thy command, and authorised by Apostolic practice, celebrate the Lord's Day, the First Day of the Week, in memory of Thy Resurrection from the dead, O most blessed Jesu, when Thou didst rest from the labours and sorrows of the New Creation!"

And here is his prayer:

"O may I ever remember Thy Day and Thee!"

This edition has been carried through the press by an able and learned friend, the Rev. C. J. Ball. It is, however, to be distinctly understood that the aid kindly given by Mr. Ball is purely editorial, and that he is not committed to, or responsible for, anything contained in the Text.

41, LEINSTER GARDENS, W.,

Easter, 1889.

N.B. For an "Excursus" on two Babylonian documents

in the British Museum, see the following pages.

b

“EXCURSUS” ON THE SUPPOSED (?) SABBATHS

AND THE WORD "SA-PAT-TUM" IN TWO

BABYLONIAN DOCUMENTS IN THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.

THOUGH the writer's connexion with the history of Sunday has now reached its termination, he may be pardoned for saying a few words about two remarkable cuneiform inscriptions, brought from Babylonia, which, at first sight, appear to bear upon the antiquity of the Sabbath. One of these is lithographed from copies of the tablet, in the original cuneiform character, in the fourth volume of the "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia," (the great work published by order of the Trustees of the British Museum), plates 32 and 33 (4 R. 32, 33) under the title, "Hemerology for the Month of the Intercalary Elul," (or second Elul). This volume came out in 1875. The other is transcribed in the second volume of the same work, which came out in 1866, (2 R. 32, 1, 16).* The writer mentions them because it is just possible that their contents may be supposed by some to impair his view, (which is that of the early Fathers), that the Sabbath was not known as an institution anywhere before the date of Moses, although the septenary division of the month was widely spread. It may be alleged that these documents

*The Five Volumes are usually cited as 1 R., 2 R., &c., because the prin cipal editor was Sir Henry Rawlinson.

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