The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-01-08 00:00:00

cially a Christian government—to consult in its enactments
the good of the soul in preference to that of the body: and
that the soul cannot but be endangered by a Sabbath spent
in a total neglect of all religious duties, and polluted more-
over by the drunken revels of a puthouse, is a truth which
few will h hardy enough to deny. Picture to yourself for a
moment the pure, the holy, the heavenly joys which arise in
'the soul of the pious Christian, when he unites his voice with
that of an assembly of the faithful, in singing the praises of
his great CI eater, and celebrating the wonders of His re-
deeming mercy and love-in humbly confessing his manifold
sins and transgressions—and in receiving the blissful testi-
mony of God's Holy Spirit, that his prayers are accepted at
the throne of grace; —and then carry yourself, in imagina-
tion, on the morning of the Sabbath, within the walls of the
tavern—oh! what a difference wi►l you find there! Instead
of bending before the throne of Almighty Power, for grace
to enable him to -go through the duties of the Sabbath in a
manner acceptable to God and profitable to himself, behold
the wretched votary of luxury and sensuality hastening with
the early dawn to pour down his throat the soul-destroying
cup, which, taken at such an early hour, must have a still
greater effect in clouding his faculties, and unfitting his soul
for those holy and heavenly exercises which constitute the
truest happiness of. the sincere and pious Christian, and the
performance of which he ever cons►ders an inestimable pri-
vilege; instead of a painful duty. Now will any prince, prime
minister, or magistrate say that the man who thus commences
the Sabbath is likely to reverence it during the remainder
of the day?—and if he be not, is not the inference to be
drawn unavoidable ? Let every dram-shop, beer-house,
and public-house be closed during the whole of the Sab-
bath ;—let none be allowed to be open on that holy day
except what come strictly under the denomination of
inns, and afford nightly accommodation for travellers, and
let them be prevented from drawing ale or spirits on the Sab-
bath till after morning service. If men are determined to
spend the Sabbath in drunkenness they still will have the
means, they may purchase the enticing fluid on the Saturday
and consume it in their own houses. I would even allow the
public-houses to sell ale during one hour on Sunday, say from
twelve to one—not to be consumed on the premises. But it
is the bounden outy of every christian government strictly
to prohibit those disgraceful scenes which are exhibited every
Sabbath in the public-houses of this country. lam ready to
schnit that the exchequer would stiffer a little from such
regulations; but surely some means might be adopted to sup-
ply the deficiency ;. and what a system of finance must that
be which depends for its success on the encouragement of
drunkenness, immorality, and the profanation of God's holy
Sabbath. In the remarks which I have now offered to your
notice, I have confined myself entirety to the awful desecra-
tion of the Sabbath which is now permitted by law, and pu-
nishable by the same law when committed, though scarcely
ever nunished. But surely it would be by much the most
rational and christian mode of conduct to prevent the sale of
intoxicating liquors altogether on the Sabbath, except to
those who are sojourners in the houses, where nightly accom-
modations are provided. In very many instances, I firmly
believe that they who now waste the Sabbath in idleness and
drunkenness would bless the friendly hand which rescued

them from the seducing temptation. Indeed, I have myself
often heard a confirmed drunkard declare that he wished
there were no public-houses; and it is not difficult to con-
ceive his feelings—his conscience tells him that drunkenness
is not the road to Heaven, and he would fain emerge from
the dreadful thraldom in which he has hitherto been held
captive. But, alas, the temptation to sin is too great for
him to withstand. By a long indulgence in the vice, it. has
become as it were a second nature. His companions, in
whose company he has been in the habit of indulging in it,
entice him away, and the Sabbath scarce dawns upon him ere
he finds himself seated with them in one of those haunts of
wickedness which, to the shame and disgrace of our country,
are allowed to open their doors to him on that holy day, and
retain him there, busily engaged in the service of sin and
Satan, till tha bells of the christian temple announce that the
hour is arrived for the commencement of that holy and
heavenly service in which he has now rendered himself to-
tally unfit to be a partaker. Surely a moment's reflection
must show our rulers that the barbarous, Gothic, and un-
christian practice ought to be abolished • that laws framed by
Christians should allow no customs which it is unbecoming
the christian character to indulge in, and that there can be
no better means of consulting the peace and prosperity of the
realm than by withholding froM the labouring classes every
temptation to waste in drunkenness and idleness that holy
Sabbath which was ordained fur a very different purpose,
even the fitting and preparing our souls for the enjoyment of
those pure and heavenly delights, of which we hope to become
partakers during the endless ages of a happy eternity, when
the scene of the present life shall be closed.—l remain, sir,
your most obedient servant,

PHILANTHROPOS.

SUNDAY TRAVELLING ON RAILWAYS.

ADDRESS TO ALL DIRECTORS AND PROPRIETORS OF

RAILWAYS.

GENTLEMEN,—ImpeIIed by a solemn sense of duty, the
committee of the North Staffordshire Lord's Day Observance
Society again respectfully address y.ou concerning your tra-
velling trade on that day.
The Decatogue being that moral and unrepealed law,
which God has promulgated for the obedience of man; and
" remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," being one of
its commands; the Diviue Saviour, moreover, having de-
clared, " the Sabbath was made for man," and by his own
example, and by. that of his apostles, and the primitive
church, having authorized this religious rest to be observed
on the first day of ever y week ; therefore the most eminently
pious men, of every Christian age, have concluded the Lord's
day to be of Divine appointment, and of perpetual obliga-
tion.
The Sabbath resting upon this Divine basis, and its ob-
servance being confessedly subservient to the purposes of
God's moral government, and promoting the best interests
of mankind, we cannot wonder that the wrath of God fol-
lowed fearfully upon its gross pollution by. the Jewish na-
tion;* nor that immorality the most debasing, and calami-
ties the most severe, have distinguished every Christian
country remarkable for its desecration.—Can, then, Great
Britain, pre-eminently blessed as she is from on high, rea-
sonably expect to escape similar judgments if she contract
similar guilt ?
Now it is not to be denied that to a great extent she has
already thus sinned against her God, nor that in very influ-
ential quarters there is a disposition to it,volve our beloved
country in the most flagrant and systematic violation of the
Sabbath; and especially, in justification of the present ad-
dress, we believe it can tie proved, that our greatest Sabbath
desecration is now being perpetrated by the Sunday Railway
Travelling Traue,—tne realest, Decalitre or the vast extent
of its operations, which ramify, or soon will do so, into most
districts of the kingdom,—the greatest, also, because it has
the effect of perpetuating guilt like to its own, in other im-
portant companies—coach and omnibus masters being vir-
tually obliged to run their conveyances on Sundays, as those
of the railways run; and canal proprietors and carriers con-
tinuing the yoke of Sabbath slavery upon thousands of boat
and wharf-men, not a little influenced, we fear, in doing so,
by the evil example of their rivals of the railway trade,—the
greatest, lastly, because the Sabbath desecration on railways
is, in some respects, more national than any other, supported
as they are by an unprecedented portion of our mercantile
and monied influence; and their vast concerns being, more
perhaps than those of any other trade, the subject of legis-
lative, and, therefore, of national sanction.
However gross then and manifold may be our other Sab-
bath sins, a fearful aggravation of them is chargeable upon
the railways of the land, for your directories have, as it were,
overspread our country with a practical perversion of the
words of our Lord, that t" the Sabbath was made fur man;"
and every where, in awful opposition to Jehovah, you are
preventing the people from " Remembering the Sabbath to
keep it holy."
It seems, therefore, imperative that, in all affectionate
plainness of speech, e e charge home upon you this enormous
guilt, even as openly as you are perpetrating it throughout
the kingdom—the sight and sound of your Sabbath-Trains in-
viting simple villager?, iis well as more sophisticated towns-
men, to rebel against their God :—it seems imperative that,
since the heaviest judgments have invariably followed upon
national Sabbath violations' and that your system involves
you add the country in such violations to an alarming extent,
we should contend with you, as Nehemiah the civil ruler of
Israel did with God's ancient people, saying, " What evil
thing is-this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath ? Did not
your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil
upon us, and upon this city ? yet ye bring more wrath upon
Israel by profaning the Sabbath.l
Motives of expediency have been often urged upon you :
—it has been unanswerably argued that, as operatives in
Sunday trades must be less conscientious, and more demoral-
.ized than observers of the Sabbath, so there is reason to fear
that your .Sunday servants are placed in such a cruel posi-
tion, that they must deteriorate in moral worth, and conse-
quently become less trustworthy.
But we would influence your minds by what ought to be a
vastly more effective lever than mere commercial expediency;
and that is, the principle of Christian patriotism ; and the
fulcrum upon which we would rest that lever is the word of
God.

God hath commanded us to "Remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy," the substance of which command is ever
obligatory :—God bath sooner or later fearfully punished all
nations, it privileged as our own, which have ventured to
violate the Sabbath :—We are now grievously and growingly
doing so; and as companies, comprising. or about to coin-
prise the greatest influeuce—Government itself only excepted
—you the railway companies are committing, sanctioning,
and perpetuating a perilous amount of Sabbath desecration.
—As plainly then as we have felt it our duty to declare to
you your sin, and its certain ruinous consequences, so ear-
nestly would we implore you to re-consider the course you
are now pursuing.

* Ezekiel, 20th chapter, 13, 16, 23 to 27 verses.
t " The Sabbath was made fur man, and not man for the
Sabbath."—Mark,-c. ii, v. 27.
It was made for man at all limes—in his innocency even—
(Gen.' c. ii, v. 2, 3)—and, therefore, more particularly for
hint, because most needed, since his fall into sin.—lt was
made for the whole of man, as a being formed of soul and
body; most especialiy for his soul, as a religious rest, to pre-
pare him fur eternity; but also us a rest for his body, to pre-
serve it in time.

Hence it is plain that, while works of necessity, piety, and
mercy are allowed, nay required. by the Sabbath law—for
" man was not made for the Sabbath,"—all other works on the
Lord's day are transgressions of that law, not only because
opposed to the Divine will, but because endangering the
well-being of both soul and body, for " the Sabbath was made
for man."
A multitude of facts prove that Sabbath-breakers are less
prepared for the next world, and far less useful and happy in
this, than Sabbath observers; and the most eminent profes-
sional men testify that this periodical relatation of the Sabbath
is necessary to the mental and physical, as well as to the moral
constitution qf man. See, for instance, extracts from Dr.
Farre's evidence before a committee of the House of Com-
mons.—" 'The Sabbath was made for man' as a necessary
appointment."—" 'Om, day in seven,' by the bounty of Provi-
dence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect by
its repose the animal system."—" A human being then is so
constituted that he needs a day of rest, both from mental and
bodily labour?—Certainly."
1: Read Jeremiah, 17th chapter, from 17th verse.—" And
it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith
the. Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this
city on the Sabbath day, hut hallow the Sabbath day, to do
no work therein ; then shall there enter into the gates of this
city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne ot David, rid-
ing in chariotsand on horses, they and their princes, the men
of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city
shall remain for ever."

" And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from
the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin,
and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the
south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-
offerings, and incense, and br►nging sacrifices of praise into
the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me,
to hallow the Sabbath day, and not bear a burden, even en-
tering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then
will 1 kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour
the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched."

GREAT WESTERN STEAM-SHIP.—The Directors of the
Great Western Steam Navigation Company have issued a
notice, that, in causequence of the state of the tide, the Great
Western cannot be hauled into Pembroke Dock, to refit, at
present, which will cause her to be detained beyond the time
appointed far her sailing twelve days, and that she will sail
on the 31st, instead of the 19th, of this month. The sailing
of the Liverpool was, we believe; purposely fixed so far off as
the 6th of February, that there should lot be an improper
interference with the Great Western. The postponement of
the day of the sailing of the latter steamer will, however, bring
her into almost direct competition with the farmer, and de.
prive each company, but particularly, the Transatlantic
Steamship Company, of the lair chance of return for their
enterprise,,.-Albion.