288. A Joyful Sabbath

A Joyful Sabbath

Isa_58:13 : ’93And call the sabbath a delight.’94

There is an element of gloom striking through all false religions. Paganism is a brood of horrors. The god of Confucius frowned upon its victims with blind fate. Mohammedanism promises nothing to those exhausted with sin in this world but an eternity of the same sensual indulgences. But God intended that our religion should have the grand characteristic of cheerfulness. St. Paul struck the key-note when he said: ’93Rejoice evermore, and again I say, rejoice.’94 This religion has no spikes for the feet; it has no hooks for the shoulder; it has no long pilgrimages to take; it has no funeral-pyres upon which to leap; it has no Juggernauts before which to fall. Its good cheer is symbolized in the Bible by the brightness of waters and the redolence of lilies and the sweetness of music and the hilarities of a banquet. A choir of seraphim chanted at its induction, and pealing trumpet and waving palm and flapping wing of archangel are to celebrate its triumphs. It began its chief mission with the shout: ’93Glory to God in the highest!’94 and it will close its earthly mission with the ascription: ’93Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!’94

But men have said that our religion is not cheerful, because we have such a doleful Sabbath. They say: ’93You can have your religious assemblages and your long faces and your sniffling cant and your psalm-books and your Bibles; give us the Sunday excursion and the horse-race and the convivial laughter. We have so much joy that we want to spread it all over the seven days of the week, and you shall not have one of our days of worldly satisfaction for religious dolefulness.’94 I want to show these men that they are under a great delusion, and that God intended the fifty-two Sundays of the year to be hung up like bells in a tower, beating a perpetual chime of joy and glory and salvation and heaven; for I want you to carry out the idea of the text, ’93and call the Sabbath a delight.’94

I remark, in the first place, we are to find in this day the joy of healthful repose. In this democratic country we all have to work’97some with hand, some with brain, some with foot. If there is in all this house a hand that has not, during the past year, been stretched forth to some kind of toil, let it be lifted. Not one, not one. You sell the goods. You teach the school. You doctor in the sickroom. You practise at the bar. You edit a newspaper. You tan the hides. You preach the Gospel. You mend the shoes. You sit at the shuttle. You carry the hod of bricks up the ladder on the wall. And the one occupation is as honorable as the other, provided God calls you to it. I care not what you do, if you only do it well. But when Saturday night comes, you are jaded and worn. The hand cannot so skilfully manufacture; the eye cannot see as well; the brain is not so clear; the judgment is not so well balanced.

A prominent manufacturer told me that he could see a difference between the goods which went out of his establishment on Saturday from the goods that went out on Monday. He said: ’93They were very different indeed. Those that were made in the former part of the week, because of the rest that had been previously given, were better than those that were made in the latter part of the week, when the men were tired out.’94 The Sabbath comes, and it bathes the soreness from the limbs, quiets the agitated brain, and puts out the fires of anxiety that have been burning all the week. Our bodies are seven-day clocks, and unless on the seventh day they are wound up, they run down into the grave. The Sabbath was intended as a savings-bank; into it we are to gather the resources upon which we are to draw all the week. That man who breaks the Sabbath robs his own nerve, his own muscle, his own brain, his own bones. He dips up the wine of his own life, and throws it away. He who breaks the Lord’92s day gives a mortgage to disease and death upon his entire physical estate, and at the most unexpected moment that mortgage will be foreclosed, and the soul ejected from the premises. Every gland and pore and cell and finger-nail demands the seventh day for repose. The respiration of the lungs, the throb of the pulse in the wrist, the motion of the bone in its socket declare: ’93Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’94

There are thousands of men who have had their lives dashed out against the golden gates of the Sabbath. A prominent London merchant testifies that thirty years ago he went to London. He says: ’93I have during that time watched minutely, and I have noticed that the men who went to business on the Lord’92s day, or opened their counting-houses, have, without a single exception, come to failure.’94 A prominent Christian merchant in Boston says: ’93I find it doesn’92t pay to work on Sunday. When I was a boy I noticed, out on Long Wharf, there were merchants who loaded their vessels on the Sabbath day, keeping their men busy from morning till night; and it is my observation that they themselves came to nothing’97these merchants’97and their children came to nothing. It doesn’92t pay,’94 he says, ’93to work on the Sabbath.’94

I appeal to your observation. Where are the men who twenty years ago were Sabbath-breakers, and who have been Sabbath-breakers ever since? Without a single exception, you will tell me, they have come either to financial or to moral beggary. I defy you to point out a single exception, and you can take the whole world for your field. It has either been a financial or moral defalcation in every instance. Six hundred and forty physicians in London petition Parliament, saying: ’93We must have the Sabbath kept. We cannot have health in this city and in this nation unless the Sabbath is observed.’94 Those in our own country have given evidence on the same side. The man who takes down the shutters of his store on the Sabbath brings down the curse of Almighty God. That farmer who cultivates his ground on the Sabbath day raises a crop of neuralgia and of consumption and of death.

During the Civil War, it was found out that those public works which paused on the seventh day turned out more war material than those which worked all the seven days. Mr. Bagnall, a prominent iron merchant, gave this testimony: ’93I find we have fewer accidents in our establishment and fewer interruptions, now we observe the Lord’92s day; and at the close of the year, now that we keep the Sabbath, I find we turn out more iron and have larger profits than any year when we worked all the seven days.’94 The fact is, Sabbath-made ropes will break, and Sabbath-made shoes will leak, and Sabbath-made coats will rip, and Sabbath-made muskets will miss fire, and Sabbath occupations will be blasted. I will place in two companies the men in this community who break the Sabbath and the men who keep it, and then I ask you who are the best friends of society?

I suppose that the mere philosopher would say that the Sabbath light comes in a wave current, just like any other light; but it does not seem so to me. It seems as if it touched the eyelids more gently, and threw a brighter glow on the mantel ornaments, and cast a better cheerfulness on the faces of the children, and threw a supernatural glory over the old family Bible. Hail! Sabbath light! We rejoice in it. Rest comes in through the window or it leaps up from the fire or it rolls out in the old armchair or it catches up the body into ecstasy, and swings open before the soul the twelve gates which are twelve pearls. The bar of the unopened warehouse, the hinges of the unfastened store window, the quiet of the commercial warehouse seem to say: ’93This is the day the Lord hath made.’94 Rest for the sewing-woman, with weary hands and aching side and sick heart. Rest for the overtasked workman in the mine or out on the wall or in the sweltering factory. Hang up the plane, drop the adze, slip the band from the wheel; put out the fire. Rest for the body, for the mind, and for the soul.

Welcome, sweet day of rest,

That saw the Lord arise;

Welcome to this reviving breast,

And these rejoicing eyes.

Again I remark, we ought to have in the Sabbath the joy of domestic reunion and consecration. There are some very good parents who have the faculty of making the Sabbath a great gloom. Their children run up against the wall of parental lugubriousness on that day. They are sorry when Sunday comes, and glad when it goes away. They think of everything bad on that day. It is the worst day to them, really, in all the week. There are persons who, because they were brought up in Christian families where there were wrong notions about the Sabbath, have gone out into ruin. A man said to me: ’93I have a perfect disgust for the Sabbath-day. I never saw my father smile on Sunday. It was such a dreadful day to me when I was a boy, I never got over it, and never will.’94 Those parents did not ’93call the Sabbath a delight,’94 they made it a gloom. But there are houses where the children say through the week: ’93I wonder when Sunday will come!’94 They are anxious to have it come. I hear their hosanna in the house; I hear their hosanna in the school. God intended the Sabbath to be especially a day for the father. The mother is home all the week. Sabbath-day comes, and God says to the father, who has been busy from Monday morning to Saturday night at the store, or away from home: ’93This is your day. See what you can do in this little flock in preparing them for usefulness and heaven. This day I set apart for you.’94 You know very well that there are many parents who are mere sutlers of the household; they provide the food and raiment; once in a while, perhaps, they hear the child read a line or two in the new primer; or if there be a case of especial discipline, and the mother cannot manage it, the child is brought up in the court martial of the father’92s discipline and punished. That is all there is of it. No scrutiny of that child’92s immortal interests, no realization of the fact that the child will soon go out in a world where there are gigantic overwhelming temptations that have swamped millions.

But in some households it is not that way; the home, beautiful on ordinary days, is more beautiful now that the Sabbath has dawned. There is more joy in the ’93good-morning,’94 there is more tenderness in the morning prayer. The father looks at the child, and the child looks at the father. The little one dares now to ask questions without any fear of being answered: ’93Don’92t bother me’97I must be off to the store.’94 Now the father looks at the child, and he sees not merely the blue eyes, the arched brow, the long lashes, the sweet lip. He sees in that child a long line of earthly destinies; he sees in that child an immeasurable eternity. As he touches that child, he says: ’93I wonder what will be the destiny of this little one?’94 And while this Christian father is thinking and praying, the sweet promise flows through his soul: ’93Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’94 And he feels a joy, not like that which sounds in the dance or is wafted from the froth of the wine-cup or that which is like the ’93crackling of thorns under a pot,’94 but the joy of domestic reunion and consecration.

I have some statistics that I would like to give you. A great many people, you know, say there is nothing in the Christian discipline of a household. In New Hampshire there were two neighborhoods’97the one of six families, the other of five families. The six families disregarded the Sabbath. In time, five of these families were broken up by the separation of husbands and wives; the other by the father becoming a thief. Eight or nine of the parents became drunkards, one committed suicide, and all came to penury. Of some forty or fifty descendants, about twenty are known to be drunkards and gamblers and dissolute. Four or five have been in State prison. One fell in a duel. Some are in the almshouse. Only one became a Christian, and he, after first having been outrageously dissipated. The other five families that regarded the Sabbath were all prosperous. Eight or ten of the children are consistent members of the church. Some of them became officers in the church; one is a minister of the Gospel; one is a missionary to China. No poverty among any of them. The homestead is now in the hands of the third generation. Those who have died have died in the peace of the Gospel. Oh, is there nothing in a household that remembers God’92s holy day? Can it be possible that those who disregard this commandment can be prospered for this life, or have any good hope of the life that is to come?

Again, we ought to have in the Sabbath the Christian assemblage. Where are all those people going on the Sabbath? You see them moving up and down the street. Is it a festal day? people might ask. Has there been some public edict commanding the people to come forth? No, they are only worshipers of God, who are going to their places of religious service. In what delicate scale shall I weigh the joy of Christian convocation? It gives brightness to the eye and a flush to the cheek and a pressure to the hand and a thrill to the heart. You see the aged man tottering along on his staff through the aisle. You see the little child led by the hand of its mother. You look around and rejoice that this is God’92s day, and this the communion of saints. I look upon the Church of God as one vast hosanna. Joy dripping from the baptismal font, joy glowing in the sacramental cup, joy warbling in the anthem, joy beating against the gate of heaven with a hallelujah like the voice of mighty thunderings. ’93Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion.’94 It is the day and the place where Christ reviews his troops, bringing them out in companies and regiments and battalions, riding along the line, examining the battle-torn flags of past combat, and cheering them on to future victories. Oh, the joy of Christian assemblages!

I remark also, we have in this day the joy of eternal Sabbatism. I do not believe it possible for any Christian to spend the Lord’92s day without thinking of heaven. There is something in the gathering of people in the church on earth to make one think of the rapt assemblage of the skies. There is something in the song of the Christian church to make one think of the song of the elders before the throne, the harpists and the trumpeters of God accompanying the harmony. The light of a better Sabbath gilds the top of this, and earth and heaven come within speaking-distance of each other, the song of triumph waving backward and forward, now tossed up by the church of earth, now sent back by the church of heaven.

Day of all the week the best,

Emblem of eternal rest.

The Christian man stands radiant in its light. His bereft heart rejoices at the thought of a country where there is neither a coffin nor grave; his weary body glows at the idea of a land where there are no burdens to carry, and no exhaustive journeys to take. He eats the grapes of Eschol. He stands upon the mountain-top, and looks off upon the promised land.

With what revulsion, and with what pity we must look out on that large class of persons in our day who would throw disparagement upon the Lord’92s day. There are two things which Christian people ought never to give up; the one is the Bible, the other is the Sabbath. Take away one, and you take both. Take either, and farewell to Christianity in this country, farewell to our civil and religious liberties. When they go, all go. He who has ever spent Sunday in Paris or Antwerp or Rome, if he be an intelligent Christian, will pray God that the day may never come when the Sabbath of Continental Europe shall put its foot upon our shores. I had a friend in Syracuse who lived to be one hundred years of age. He said to me in his ninety-ninth year: ’93I went across the mountains in the early history of this country. Sabbath morning came. We were beyond the reach of civilization. My comrades were all going out for an excursion. I said: ’91No, I won’92t go; it is Sunday.’92 Why, they laughed. They said: ’91We haven’92t any Sunday here.’92 ’91Oh, yes,’92 I said, ’91you have. I brought it with me over the mountains.’92’93

There are two or three ways in which we can war against Sabbath-breaking usages in this day; and the first thing is to get our children right upon this subject, and teach them that the Sabbath day is the holiest of all the days, and the best and the gladdest. Unless you teach your child under the paternal roof to keep the Lord’92s day, there are nine hundred and ninety chances out of a thousand it will never learn to keep the Sabbath. You may think to shirk responsibility in the matter, and send your child to the Sabbath-school and the house of God; that will not relieve the matter. I want to tell you, in the name of Christ, that your example will be more potential with them than any instruction they get elsewhere; and if you disregard the Lord’92s day yourself, or in any wise throw contempt upon it, you are blasting your children with an infinite curse. It is a rough truth, I know, told in a rough way; but it is God’92s truth, nevertheless. Your child may go on to seventy or eighty years of age, but that child will never get over the awful disadvantage of having had a Sabbath-breaking father or a Sabbath-breaking mother. It is the joy of many of us that we can look back to an early home where God was honored, and when the Sabbath came it was a day of great consecration and joy. We remember the old faces around the table that Sabbath morning. Our hearts melt when we think of those blessed associations, and we may have been off and committed many indiscretions and done many wrong things; but the day will never come when we forget the early home in which God’92s day was regarded, and father and mother told us to keep holy the Sabbath.

There is another way in which we can war against the Sabbath-breaking usages of the country at this time, and that is by making our houses of worship attractive, and the religious services inspiriting. I plead not for a gorgeous audience-chamber; I plead not for grained rafters or magnificent fresco; but I do plead for comfortable churches, home-like churches. Make the church welcome to all, however poorly clad they may be, or whatever may have been their past history; for I think the Church of God is not so much made for you who could have churches in your own house, but for the vast population of our great cities, who are treading on toward death, with no voice of mercy to arrest them. Ah! when the prodigal comes into the church, do not stare at him as though he had no right to come. Sometimes a man wakes up from his sin, and he says: ’93I’92ll go to the house of God.’94 Perhaps he comes from one motive, perhaps from another. He finds the church dark and the Christian people frigid (and there are no people on earth who can be more frigid than Christian people when they try), and the music is dull, and he never comes again.

Suppose one of these men enters the church. As he comes in he hears a song which his mother sang when he was a boy; he remembers it. He sits down, and some one hands him a book, open at

Jerusalem, my happy home,

Name ever dear to me.

’93Yes,’94 he says, ’93I have heard that many times.’94 He sees cheerful Christian people there, every man’92s face a psalm of thanksgiving to God. He says: ’93Do you have this so every Sunday? I have heard that the house of God was a doleful place. I have really enjoyed myself!’94 The next Sabbath the man is again in the same place. Tears of repentance start down his cheek; he begins to pray; and when the communion-table is spread, he sits at it, and some one reaches over and says: ’93I am surprised to find you here! I thought you didn’92t believe in such things.’94 ’93Ah!’94 he says, ’93I have been captured. I came in one day, and I found you were all so loving and cheerful here that I concluded I would come among you. Ah! you cannot drive men out of their sins, but you can coax them’97you can charm them out.

I would to God that we could all come to a higher appreciation of this Sabbath heritage! We cannot count the treasures of one Christian Sabbath. It spreads out over us the two wings of the archangel of mercy. Oh, blessed Sabbath! They scoff a great deal about the old Puritanic Sabbaths, and there is a wonderful amount of wit expended upon that subject now’97the Sabbaths they used to have in New England. I never lived in New England, but I would rather trust the old Puritanic Sabbath, with all its faults, than this modern Sabbath, which is fast becoming no Sabbath at all. If our modern Sabbatism shall produce as stalwart Christian character as the old New England Puritanic Sabbatism, I shall be satisfied and I shall be surprised.

Oh, blessed day! blessed day! I should like to die some Sabbath morning when the air is full of church music and the bells are ringing. Leaving my home group with a dying blessing, I should like to look off upon some Christian assemblage chanting the praises of God as I went up to join the thousands of thousands standing around the throne of Jesus. Hark! I hear the bell of the old kirk on the hillside of heaven. It is a wedding-bell, for behold, the Bridegroom cometh! It is a victor’92s bell, for we are more than conquerors through him that loved us,

Oh, when, thou city of my God,

Shall I thy courts ascend?

Where congregations ne’92er break up,

And Sabbaths have no end.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage