The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-15 00:00:00

GREENWICH TIME.

TO Tlll3 EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SlR,—Much is now said about keeping Greenwich time.
I write to you to propose an improvement on this. The
meridian of Greenwich divides England into two very une-
qual parts. I, therefore, propose the meridian of Liver-
pool, as dividing the country much better, or, in other
words, keeping Liverpool time instead of Greenwich. If
Greenwich time is generally adopted, the inhabitants of
the West of Ireland will have to keep their clocks nearly
an hour too fast. If your readers will look at a map cif
Great Britain and Ireland, they will at once see the fair-
ness of my proposition.—l am, sir, &c. A. A.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SlR,—Your attention is respectfully requested to a pro-
posed Prize Essay, to be written by working men (adver-
tised in another column) to be devoted to the advocacy
of the Christian Sabbath. _ _

The sudden spread of railways has been attended by a
great outbreak of Sabbath traffic in the conveyance of
passengers. And the deserved reputation for Christian
worth of some men who have hitherto stood neutral on
this subject shows the necessity for an immediate and
earnest appeal to the word of God, to ascertain what is
the duty of all Christians, and to the views of the working
classes, to inquire whether they are willing to surrender
this sacred property, entrusted to them by their benefi-
cent Creator ? _

vv
The proposer of this essay is deeply convinced that the
Sabbath is, of all social institutions, the best gift of the
Almighty to all classes, but especially to the poor. It is
a sacred right of the people. To the working man the
Sabbath is an estate of time, a sacred property given him
by his maker for his whole well-being—physical, econo-
mical, moral, and spiritual. It is his 'day of emancipation.
A week of seven working days—sabbathless months or
years—mean perpetual vassalage and entire slavery. The
man who has no Sabbath has no period for the cultivation
of himself—in health, or mind, or heart or soul. He is
robbed of his home when robbed of the day God has
given him for the cultivation of the family affections,
without which home is hearthless, cold, dark and bitter.
By a perpetual encasement of sordid toil—a poisonous
Nessus robe, whose influences extend to his soul—the im-
mortal spirit of the man is unmanned, brutified, demo-
ralised, and destroyed.
It is submitted to the political economist whether the
preservation of one day in seven for rest be not the best
way of keeping up the efficiency of labour,—to the friend
of humanity, whether the Sabbath be not the most hu-
mane of institutions ; while there is confidently claimed
for it from the friend of the people, the admission, that
the Sabbath is the best of the rights of the people.
But, above all, the proposer of this essay would submit to
Christian men, who rightly place spiritual well-being
highest, whether the preservation of the Sabbath is not a
sine qua non to the progress of Christianity. To them
he would strongly recommend the perusal of a series of
Tracts for the Times, now in course of publication, the
object of which is to exhibit the infallible teaching of the
word of God on the subject. The authors belong to most
of the evangelical denominations ; the series may be re-
garded, therefore, as embodying the voice of the churches.
The crisis is imminent and immediate, and all-impor-
tant—therefore he most respectfully says to all, " Read,
and judge for yourselves."
A FRIEND OF THE WORKING MAN.