XXIV.

THE WAR ON OUR SABBATH.

THIS war upon our Sabbath is a foreign war. Will you give up the American Sabbath bequeathed to you by your fathers? What have you to say to the transatlantic comers who propose to Europeanize America? Are you cowardly enough to sit in sackcloth and ashes before the enemies of God while they impudently strike at our most sacred institution? Will you not defend it as long as there is any strength in your arm or blood in your heart?

"Woodman, spare that tree!

Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,

And I'll protect it now."

If foreigners will not assimilate with us as American citizens, if they do not admire our Sabbath and Christian institutions, if they want social incendiarism and sabbatic disorder, a go-as-you-please Sabbath, they are welcome to enjoy it by recrossing the At

lantic-the sooner the better, and that, too, with our warmest benedictions! But if they stay here, we demand the enforcement of that central truth of statecraft-the liberty of the individual subject to the sovereignty of the State-the subordination of individual rights and privileges to the general good; these are integral elements in a stable national life. Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island, opposite Castle Garden, holding in her right hand a torch, should hold in her left hand a volume containing the laws and customs of the land, and before the right hand be extended in welcome, require upon bended knee the left hand to be kissed as a token of submission to our laws, customs and institutions.

This secularization of the Sabbath is a plain violation of the statutes of our State. Every Sabbath-breaker is a criminal, and he who attempts to override the laws of the State insults every American citizen.

It is a war upon our political institutions. In countries where the Sabbath is most profaned, like Spain, France, Italy and Bavaria, society is grossly immoral. In Sabbath-observing England, Scotland and America, society is found in its highest moral tone. Pick out the hamlets or cities, or wards of

cities, where are the lowest moral conditions, and there just in proportion is the Sabbath desecrated. An eminent judge of the United States Supreme Court forcibly said: "Where there is no Christian Sabbath there is no Christian morality; and without this free government cannot be maintained." Blackstone says: "The Sabbath is of admirable service to the State, considered merely as a civil institution."

History's lesson is that morality and Sabbath-keeping walk hand in hand in inseparable affinity. Society is degraded as Christianity is corrupted; and Christianity is vitiated as the Sabbath is perverted. History most clearly proves that every nation and community has been prospered while it honored God's Sabbath, and that social order and the supremacy of the law have not been maintained where the Sabbath has been trampled on. Look abroad over the map of popular freedom in the world-Switzerland, Scotland, England and the United States, the countries which best observe the Sabbath, constitute almost the entire map of safe popular government.

Some years ago, De Tocqueville, the distinguished French statesman, was commissioned by his country for the purpose of studying the genius of our institutions. In

reporting to the French Senate, he said: "I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains, and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success,. until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul-elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave."

In the dark days of the French Revolution, "the shabbiest page of human annals," as Carlyle calls it, the Sabbath was trampled in the dust, and a tenth day of rest substituted without divine sanction; and so frightful did society become that the infidel authorities had to institute the holy Sabbath and public worship to save the metropolis and the country from utter desolation. France is yet reaping the sad fruitage of her folly, and she will never have a permanent republic until she quits her roaring, roystering and rollicking Sabbaths and devotes one day in every week to the recognition of God.

I believe that the security or disaster of American institutions depends upon the issue of the Sabbath contest. The end of the Sabbath would be for the United States the beginning of the reign of Mammon, Bacchus and Venus, and finally overwhelm us in temporal and eternal ruin. From such a fate may the God of Lexington and Gettysburg deliver us!

The Sabbath question is a question of life and death in regard to Christianity. The enemies of religion tried the sword and the fagot. They could not destroy the Gospel. Imperial power found its arm too weak to contend with God. Argument, ridicule and sophistry were all in vain. Christianity rose with augmented power and more resplendent beauty. The last weapon the enemy seeks to employ to destroy Christianity is to corrupt the Sabbath and make it a day of festivity. Voltaire truly said: "There is no hope of destroying Christianity so long as the Sabbath is kept as a sacred day." Dr. Philip Schaff says: "The Sabbath is the strongest bond that binds the different Protestant denominations." I congratulate our city that notwithstanding the complex character of our population we have escaped the invasion so well. But I call upon all Christian citizens