greater event, the consummation of the work of man's redemption. The change in the day could not, from the nature of the case, be made, until the event had occurred which it was to commemorate. We may well conclude, moreover, that our

1. The term Sunday is more generally used by Christians to designate the day than any other, and uniformity in this respect is a matter of considerable convenience, and therefore importance. It is used by the Roman Catholic Church, by the established Church of England, by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, and by the Lutheran Church in the United States and in Germany. A most respectable Methodist clergyman informs me, that this term is most generally used by the numerous denomination to which he belongs. The use of the other terms prevails somewhat extensively among Christians of other denominations among us. And yet, from the phrase "American Sunday School Union" in this country, which is chiefly under the direction of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, but is intended to unite all denominations in advancing its objects, and from other facts and circumstances known to me, I am disposed to conclude, that Sunday is more generally used, even by these numerous denominations, than either of the other terms above mentioned. It is believed, that more than three fourths of the entire population of the United States habitually use the term Sunday.

2. In examining the several terms from which a choice is to be made to designate the Christian day of sacred rest, no term seems, on the whole, to be so appropriate as Sunday. St. John calls it “the Lord's day " (Revelation, i. 10), and this term is therefore very suitable and proper; but it is not at present, if it ever has been, much used. The phrase, "the first day of the week," is objectionable, by reason of its inconvenient length. This reason applies, too, in some degree, to the use of the phrase," the Lord's day." The term Sabbath properly belongs to Judaism, and the tendency of using it is, to convey an erroneous impression, and to confound Christianity too much with Judaism. Bishop White says, "In the primitive church, the term 'Sabbatizing' carried with it the reproach of a leaning to the abrogated observance of the law." (Lectures on the Catechism, p. 65.) The phrase, "Christian Sabbath," applied by analogy to the day, has no advantage over the term Sunday, and is less convenient from its length.

3. It can be no just objection to the term Sunday, that it is of heathen origin, as long, at least, as we continue to instruct our children in the classical (heathen) writers of antiquity. "The early Christians," says Bishop White again, "conformed to the custom of their heathen neighbours, in the calling of the days and the months." (Ibid.) In truth, it began to be used very early by the primitive Christians. Justin Martyr, who lived at the close of the first and the beginning of the second century, says, "On the day called Sunday, is an assembly of all who live in the city or country, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read. (Sermons on the Lord's Day, by Daniel Wilson. London, 1831. p. 110.)

The term Sunday, then, has the considerable advantage of uniformity; it conveys no erroneous impression; it is easily pronounced; no just objection can be urged against its use; and it has the sanction of primitive Christian antiquity.

Lord, during the interval between his resurrection and ascension, instructed his apostles to make this change, and he certainly sanctioned it by meeting with his disciples on two successive Sundays, and absenting himself during the intervening week; and again in the visible descent of the Holy Spirit on the same sacred day.

3. The duties which constitute a suitable observance of Sunday. Before proceeding to the particulars of which this branch of the subject consists, it may be well to observe, that from the fact of the institution being derived through Judaism, and made, by its perpetual obligation, a part of Christianity, it does not result, that the penalties attached by the Hebrews to the violation of it are continued along with it. The penalties inflicted by the Mosaic law are not a part of the institution; they were only the means of enforcing its observance ordained by Moses, and are of the local policy which was discontinued at the advent of the Messiah.*

a part

It is observable, too, that no penalty is attached (in the Decalogue) to the violation of any one of the ten commandments; they are universally binding on the consciences of nations and individuals, but each nation is left to compel their observance by such penalties as it may deem fit, or by none at all. We of the present day, are no more required to punish a violation of Sunday by death, as did the Hebrews, than we are, like them, to punish imprecations on parents with the same penalty.† Respect for parents and the observance of Sunday are alike binding on the consciences of all men; but our tribunals of justice do not punish disobedience to parents, and our municipal laws enforcing the observance (in twenty-three of our States) of Sunday have fallen into very general neglect. If any specific penal sanctions had been made a part of the ten commandments, they must have been unfitted, by that circumstance, to be the supreme moral law, claiming the obedience of all men through all time; because such penalties, though they might have been very suitable to the circumstances of one nation, might also have been very unsuitable to those of another. Neither are all the duties of the

* Exod. xxxi. 14, 15.

Lev. xx. 9; Deut. xxvii. 16.

Hebrew Sabbath transferred to the Christian Sunday.* With these few explanatory remarks I proceed.

(1.) The first and most obvious duty appropriate to Sunday is a cessation from labor. This is a part of the fourth commandment, is of perpetual obligation, and has no connexion with the local and temporary Hebrew policy. The Sunday is a great and precious privilege. By this institution, those who labor with their hands are rescued from the severities and hardships of unremitting toil;-and those whose labor is chiefly of the understanding find in it a season of refreshment and renovation of strength and energy, of which they stand in equal need with those whose labor is performed by the hands.

Works of necessity and mercy, however, and the labor of attending and performing divine service, are recognised by the Saviour himself as suitable to the Jewish Sabbath, † and they are equally so to the Christian Sunday. The relief of Sunday to the laboring classes of mankind contributes greatly to the comfort and happiness of their lives, both as it refreshes them for the time, and as it lightens their six days' labor, by the prospect of a day of rest always before them. This could not be said of casual indulgences of leisure and rest, even if they occurred more frequently than Sunday. It is matter of experience, also, that days of relaxation which occur seldom and unexpectedly, being unprovided when they do come, with any duty or employment, and the manner of spending them being regulated by no public standard of propriety and established usage, they are usually consumed in sloth, or in rude, perhaps criminal diversions, or, still worse, in scenes of riot and intemperance. The Sunday is a day of rest and refreshment to the body and to the mind, but not a day of sloth and indulgence. The remark, moreover, must not be omitted, that it gives a day of rest and refreshment to the laboring animals, as well as to laboring man. Thus the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all the works of his hands."

(2.) But the Sunday includes much more than cessation from

*Levit. xxiii. 8, 42, &c.

Mark ii. 23-28; Mat. xii. 1 – 14.

Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, p. 253.

labor, and rest, and refreshment of the body and mind. We are required to keep it holy, that is, to set it apart from a common to a special and sacred use. This requires the appropriation of it to an attendance on public worship, and includes the more general duty, of employing it in every suitable way, for the purpose of moral and religious improvement. Religious assemblies under the name of "holy convocations," were accustomed to be held on the Hebrew Sabbath; and we have full evidence, that a compliance with the same custom was considered a personal and universal duty on the Christian Sunday from the beginning. Besides attendance on public worship, reading, meditation, private prayer, the instruction of children and servants, are the appropriate and important duties of Sunday. The latter class of persons, especially, must be instructed on this day, or they will, too probably, receive no instruction at all.

(3.) The appropriation of a part of the Sunday to the elementary moral and religious instruction of children, especially poor children, and of adults who stand in need of such instruction, and are willing to receive it, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest moral improvements of modern times. In Sunday schools, those humble seminaries of charitable education,many hundreds of thousands of children are nurtured in the ways of righteousness, not a few of whom would otherwise have been brought up in neglect, irreligion, and probably crime. These nurseries of education, morals, and piety are founded on the principle recommended by Solomon and sanctioned by all experience, of training up the child in the way he should go, that, when he is old, he may not depart from it. The experience of all times demonstrates, that the character of the man is built on the principles instilled into the mind of the child. In furtherance of the original plan, too, the conductors of Sunday schools, in this country, have very extensively instituted libraries of choice books for the instruction of the young under their charge; and they meditate no less an enterprise, than the elementary moral and religious education of the entire youthful population of the

* Exod. xii. 16; Levit. xxiii. 7, &c.

Heb. x. 25; John xx. 19, 26; Acts xx. 6, 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2; Rev. i. 10.

United States, and the furnishing them universally, by libraries, with facilities for reading, both on Sundays and other days, of the most useful and attractive kind. The philanthropic mind is filled with admiration when contemplating an enterprise so beneficial and comprehensive. Besides, the good effect of Sunday school instruction extends not only to the scholars actually taught, but to the teachers, the parents, and even the ministers and congregations in which they are organized and properly sustained. In this way, by thus vastly augmenting the usefulness of the day, a new and before unknown value has been given to the institution of Sunday itself.