11th and 18th of May 1828. On six out of eleven consecutive Sundays Cabinet Councils were held.1 But though the upper classes were devoting their Sundays to pleasure, and ministers were occupying them with business, large classes of the people, affected by the religious movement which Wesley had originated, were practising a stricter observ ance of the Sabbath. In 1809 Wilberforce himself remonstrated with the minister for fixing the commencement of the session on Monday, on the express ground that the members would be tempted to break the Sabbath. The remonstrance was successful; the meeting of Parliament was put off. This circumstance may possibly be accepted as an indication of the spread of stricter views respecting Sunday; and the spread of these views produced a reaction against them. People who differed from Wilberforce had no patience with his opinions. One of them wrote "The Saints!-the aping fanatics that talk Ali cant and rant, and rhapsodies high-flown- A Sunday walk, And shun God's work as you should shun your own." Such lines afford strong proof both of the reality of the Sabbatical movement and of the bitterness which it provoked.3 1 Authority for these statements will be found under the dates in Ellen borough's Diary, but almost the same thing could be said of any other eleven weeks during which Parliament was sitting comprised in the Diary. Ten years later the custom was abandoned, and Campbell, summoned to a Sunday Cabinet in 1847, noted in his diary that no Sunday Cabinet had been held for ten years. Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 227. 2 Wilberforce's Diary, vol. iii. pp. 397, 398. ... 3 It may be worth while adding that the "seven days week is a common heritage of the Asiatic and African peoples. It is found among the American tribes, . . . and in Africa with the Ashantees and the Gallas." The Egyptians had a decade or ten days week. "Still the seven days week was so well known to the Egyptians that Dion Cassius notes the naming of the week after the seven planets as an Egyptian custom.' Colenso on the Pentateuch, Part iv. p. 115. The seven planets known to the ancients were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon (ibid., p. 119), and cf. Rawlinson's Herodotus, Uk. ii. ch. lxxxii. note; Appendix, bk. ii. ch. vii. The Jewish idea of the Sabbath survived to the time of the Maccabees, for when " In truth, there was some reason for sober Christians disliking the Sabbatical legislation which the Puritans were favouring. In 1794 Parliament, objecting to the liberal interpretation which the Courts were placing on the statute of Charles II., passed an Act prohibiting the baking of bread, meat, and pies on Sundays, except between the hours of nine in the morning and one in the afternoon. The Act was slightly modified in 1821 and 1836;1 but the principle remained and remains on the Statute Book, and a large party in Parliament was anxious to proceed much further. Three bills were introduced in 1834 to promote the better observance of the Sabbath. A clause to allow games to be played in the open air during other hours than those appointed for divine service was only carried by a small majority. Bills of the same character were introduced in 1835, 1836, and 1837. The numerous measures of the period authorising the conSunday struction of railways gave the "Sabbatarians," if travelling. the term may be used without offence either to etymology or feeling, opportunities of raising the same question. The House of Commons was frequently occupied with discussing the question whether trains should run on Sunday, and whether third-class carriages should be attached to those Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabæus, fled from the persecution of Antiochus with a large following into the wilderness, his followers were attacked by the king's orders on the Sabbath. The followers, taking the strict view of the Sabbath, declined to fight, and were massacred, men, women, and children, on the spot (1 Maccabees ii. 38); and cf. another account of a Sabbath massacre of Jews in the less accurate 2 Maccabees v. 24, by that "detestable ringleader" (as the author calls him) Apollonius. The Jews had the good sense, after these two reverses, to see that the old view of the Sabbath doomed them to destruction. Therefore they decreed, saying, Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him; neither will we die all as our brethren that were murdered in the secret places" (1 Maccabees ii. 41), and cf. Josephus, Ant. Jud. xii. 6. 2. Probably this sensible law influenced the early Christian Church, in which rest from agricultural labour on Sunday was not even recommended until the sixth century. It has been shown also that the same view influenced England in Tudor times. But, alas! the English Church declared that the books of Maccabees, which the Council of Trent pronounced canonical, were apocryphal, and the Bible Society has ceased to print them. 1 For the Act of 1794, see 34 George III., c. 61; for the amendment to it, 1 & 2 George IV., c. 50, sec. 11; 6 & 7 William IV., c. 37, sec, 14. trains. And though general convenience ultimately prevailed over religious sentiment, and though it was concluded that, if trains were to run at all, there was no good ground for preventing poor persons travelling by them, we owe to these discussions the fact that, while in no country in the world is Sunday travelling more general than in England, in no country is Sunday travelling made more inconvenient.1 But the chief struggle for Sunday observance was fought on other questions. Strict Sabbatarians, on the one hand, were anxious that the Post-Office should decline to trans Sunday letters. act any business on the Sunday, while other men, more lax and more liberal, desired, on the contrary, to throw open museums and libraries on Sundays. The Sabbatarians achieved a victory. They succeeded in persuading the Postmaster-General to issue an order prohibiting the delivery of letters on Sundays anywhere. But the isolation to which this order condemned rural districts was so complete that it was hardly allowed to remain in force for a couple of months. Measures of this character may be traced long after they are reversed. The wealthiest and greatest city in the world still consents, on the first day of every week, to be almost com 1 In case any readers of this book should care to pursue this subject, it may facilitate their investigations if I add one or two references to some of the principal debates on the subject. In 1834 three bills were introduced into the House of Commons dealing with the Sunday question; one by Sir A. Agnew, rejected by 161 votes to 125 (Hansard, vol. xxiii. p. 356); one by Hesketh Fleetwood, rejected by 77 votes to 45 (ibid., p. 1177); and one by Poulter, which was carried by 52 votes to 12. Ibid., p. 1179. It was on this bill that the clause was engrafted authorising outdoor games. The clause was carried by 37 votes to 31. Ibid., vol. xxv. p. 194. This bill was reintroduced in 1835, and thrown out by 54 votes to 43. Ibid., vol. xxviii. p. 508. In 1836, on a bill of Agnew's, Roebuck threatened to propose an amendment rendering any one attending a club on Sunday liable to a fine of 10, closing Hyde Park and the Zoological Gardens on Sundays, and imposing a penalty of £100 on any clergyman and £200 on any bishop driving to church. Ibid., vol. xxxiii. p. 18. Opposition of this kind seems to have had effect, for the bill was thrown out by 75 votes to 43. Ibid., p. 1078. For the bill of 1837 see ibid., vol. xxxviii. pp. 541, 1227. Mr. Gladstone, in 1844, opposed a clause which it was proposed to engraft on a railway bill compelling all railway companies to run one third-class train on Sunday, and was beaten by 73 votes to 41. Ibid., vol. xxvi. p. 1190. The Bishop of London tried to restore the bill to its original shape, but the matter was ultimately compromised. Ibid., pp. 1674, 1720. pletely deprived of the means of communicating with the remainder of the kingdom.1 in Lent. Though the Sabbatarians were unable to carry all their measures, they proved strong enough to resist with success other contrary proposals. In 1840 Hume moved an address to the Crown for opening the British Museum and the National Gallery on Sundays; and his proposal was defeated.2 Sabbatical ideas ensured its rejection. The Sabbatarians have never taken the same interest in Lent which they feel in Theatres Sunday. Perhaps for this reason they did not care to enforce the strict rules which were applied to theatrical performances in Lent. From time immemorial no theatrical performance had been allowed at the Westminster theatres on Wednesdays or Fridays during that season. But in 1839 Duncombe carried a motion against the Government, condemning the restrictions.3 The ministry declined to abandon the old rule, and endeavoured to satisfy the public by sanctioning the performance of oratorios. But Duncombe was not satisfied; he declared the resolution of the Government to be an attempt to defeat the manifest object of the House of Commons. Before another Lent came the Lord Chamberlain gave way, and authorised the performance of plays except in Passion Week and on Ash Wednesday. But even this concession brought fresh defeat on the Government. Duncombe immediately proposed that lectures on astronomy should be allowed during Passion Week, and beat the Government by a large majority.5 Circumstances of this kind, which seem trivial and beneath notice, are in reality the signs and tokens by which the progress of human thought may be most easily traced. Three different movements were evidently in progress. One party, jealous of State interference and alarmed at the growth of scepticism, was endeavouring to found religion on authority, 1 The Post-Office order which took effect on the 23rd June 1850 will be found in Ann. Reg. 1850, Chron. 84. The order reversing it, in ibid. Cf. Hansard, vol. cxi. p. 484. 2 By 82 votes to 44. Hansard, vol. lv. p. 730. Hansard, vol. xlv. p. 1043. 3 The motion was carried by 92 votes to 72. Ibid., vol. xlvi. p. 229. 5 Ibid., vol. liii. p. 839. and unconsciously setting a current in motion which ever flowed towards Rome. Another party, angry at the Romanising tendencies of Tractarianism, was renewing the old puritanic modes of thought. A third party was endeavouring to reconcile faith with doubt, to found the Church on a broader basis, and to include in it men of various views, by enlarging its doctrines and limiting their application. Scotland. It has been attempted to show that these various movements may be traced to a variety of causes long antecedent to the nineteenth century. But, if any doubt still exist that the Oxford movement had its origin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it will possibly be removed if the student will compare the history of the ten years' conflict in Scotland with the history of the Tractarian reaction in England. The resembetween the blances ten years' conflict and the Trac tarian move In one sense, indeed, it seems absurd to suppose that the English High Churchman, whose whole aim was to identify the Church of modern England with primitive Christianity, could have any resemblance to the Scotch Presbyterian, who hated Rome, who hated episcopacy, who declined even to receive the Sacrament on his knees, and who would have preferred death to admitting the doctrine for which Newman ment. was contending. Those people who fix their gaze on the trappings of religion will never accept the position which it is proposed to establish. But those who can regard the outward form and expressions of public worship as the "leather or prunello," and can look for the thing itself beneath its clothes, will probably have little difficulty in concluding that the Tractarian movement in England and the Disruption controversy in Scotland were attributable to the same causes, were marked by the same characteristics, and were only followed by different consequences because of a radical distinction between the character of the two peoples. What was the double cause of English Tractarianism? The growth of doubt in the nation, and the interference |