HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 83, 7 April 1881, Page 4

HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY.

BY PBOrESSOR BLICKIE. 1. Though the observance of certain recurrent periods of rest in this working world is natural and beneficial, the observance of one day in seven for this purpose is of Jewish and not of Christian obligati©n, and can in no sense be regarded as a divinely appointed ordinance belonging essentially to the framework of Christianity, 2. The Lpid'B day is an observance of the BftftW Of &JssoW festival, regfe'Pg co

natural propriety, apostolic authority and early Christian practice ; and for these reasons obligatory on all professing Christians. 3. As a religious festival the direct demands of the Lord's day are satisfied by the practice .of religious worship and meditation ; indirectly, and as conducive to the religious end, abstinence from all unnecessary work is enjoined on this day ; not, however, by divine institution, but from the nature of the case, first by ecclesiastical, then by civil authority; but innocent recreation on this day is not forbidden by any law, human or divine. He then proceeded, in an elaborate argument, " How to spend Sunday" : — -1. In all Christian countries a considerable part of the Lord's day ought to be devoted to religious exercises, religious worship in the Church, and religious training in the family. 2. Advantage will wisely be taken of the general tone and temper of this religious festival in a religion po essentially moral ns Christianity to apply part of this day for the purpose of moral selfreview ; that is to cay, on Sundays a man might make a serious survey, retrospective aDd prospective, of the part which he is playing in the great drama of life, and specially endeavor to repent heartily of the faults and follies of the past week, and firmly resolve to do belter for tbe week to come. I think it an excellent plan also to map out on Sunday evening the general course of action for the following week, and resolve emphatically that the week shall not run its course afc random without s me well-marked point of progress being registered. (3.) Next to the study of tbe Bible in a more broad, continuous, and intellectual fashion than is necessary for purposes of devotion, the best sort of teaching for Sunday is unquestionably biography — biographies, of course, of great, noble, generous, and genial men who have devoted their lives to the service of humanity and the progress of society. Along iwith this, of course, all poetry and philosophy might be profitably read which tends to purify the passions and to elevate the platform ot human life, as the works of iEchylus, Plato, Marcus Antonius, Epictetus, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and hosts ot others. (4.) The rest and repose which the practice of Christian countries enjoins on tbe Lord's day, proceeding as it does partly from the necessities of religious service, partly from the demands of our physical constitution^ implies mainly a cessation from all work, or, generally, the daily business of each man's life, and this not only in outward act but in inward thought, not only the remission of shop attendance and professional work, but aB much as possible the dismissal of shop imaginations from the thoughts and shop dis-j course from the tongue. A wise man ought to look on every Sunday as a golden day of liberation from the sorrowing influence and cramping supremacy of uninterrupted professional work. Of course, there are certain ministrations whicb society requires, whioh must be performed on Sunday as well as Saturday ; but the more these ministrations can be curtailed, on tbe day of rest the better. Especially must it be borne in mind that Sunday is tho poor man's day, and the working man's day, and all employers of labor ought to make it a point of conscience to reduce to a minimum the hours of labor exacted on that day from the sons of toil. (5.) This consideration, of course, applies also to the recreation which is allowable and profitable on the Sunday, as distinguished from the week day amusements. All recreations and amusements ought to be avoided that tend to rob the working classes of that rest which their bodily frame requires, and that leisure which is necessary for a participation in acts of religious service. Large dinner parties, for instance, ought specially to be eschewed; but innocent games — such as cricket, croquet, lawn tennis, billiards, backgammon, or chess — should be free to all who care for them. To working men of an active mind and an intellectual turn tbe pursuit of scientific studies in the hours not necessarily given to religious exercise may often be the best recreation, for tbe works of God are as plainly as worthy of study as the "Word of God, and vast numbers of persons who have no opportunity of studying science on tbe week days should not bo deprived of the opportunity which the Sunday's rest affords for this valuable increment to their human culture. In connection with this, of course, it is needless to mention that all public museums of science and art, botanic gardens and other fields of intellectual recreation, should be open to the public on Sunday for a certain limited time. To grudge any slight amount of easy ministral attendance, which this might necessitate on tho part of the keepers and officers of such storehouses of scientific material, implies a painful scrupulosity of observance more allied to the Jewish Pharisaism so reprehended by our Saviour than to the

rational Christianity which would have approved itself to the great practical intellect of St. Paul.