Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1852-1852, 1852-06-08
From the Spartan.
The Christian Sabbath.

The Christian SaDDatn.
The Institution of the Sabbath is at once a
proof of the goodness and of the wisdom of its
Founder Experience has demonstrated that la
boring men, as well as laboring animals, abso-
lutely require the Seventh day, as day of ply
sical rest. Without this interval of repose,
equal to a seventh part of their time, they would
wear out their physical energies, and destroy their
ability to labor in comparatively short period
of time Who knew so well the capabilities and
requirements of this finely wrought, and won
drous frame of ours, as He by whose wisdom it
was created
If the body thus requires the repose of sew
enth day to preserve its faculties in proper and
healthy state; much more does the mind require
this periodical release from exhausting action.
We have some facts which make showing fear
fully clear and convincing of the necessity of
this day of rest to mans intellectual faculties.
There are records of eminent professional cha
racters who wonld not forego their mental exer-
tions upon the Sabbath, who became insane,
even in the prime of life {" the over-wrought
brain," giving way from incessant action; the
machinery wearing out by interminable attrition.
The rest of the Sabbath is thus necessary to man,
both as rational and physical being. The
Sabbath is a merciful Institution.
But it becomes immeasurably more impor-
tant if possible, when considered in reference to
its uses, effects and influence upon man as
religious being, and upon Nations as religious
communities. It will hardly be stating the pro
position too strongly, to affirm, that without the
external religious ceremonies ofthe Sabbath: with
out the Church, the classes and juvenile schools
peculiar to the Sabbath: without the calm, the
quiet, and cessation from worldly and secular
labor, which now occur every seventh day, re-
minding man of the relation he sustains to his
Maker; in short, if every day to come were a
working day, and the Sabbath were stricken
from the list of Divine institutions: that man
that Natons-would soon cease to cultivate re-
ligious knowledge; and would become, a t best,
community of Deists, and repudiate, in practice,
the Christian faith
The only (nominalIy) Christian Nation that
las made the experiment Of aboishing the Chris
tian Sabbath, of which we have record, was the
Republic of France, during what was very prop
erly called-"The Reign ofTerror." The Sabbath
was abolished by orderof Government the Ma
tion became partly Dcistcal, and partly Atheis-
teal. To show their supreme contempt for that
Book, venerated by the civilized world, as Rev.
elation from Heaven,-a large concourse of peo-
pie, in the streets of Paris, attached a Bible to
the tail of an ASS and dragged it thus through
the city The scenes of carnage of widespread
legalized murder; Of wholesale executions OF
men and w'men for the offence of being sus-
pected of holding improper political opinions
of ruthless prescription Of the. Mobility; Of
banishment and death /; of the terrible ascen-
dency of the sword and the Guillotine, which
were enacted then in that troubled land, and by
that wild, infuriated, demented party in power
called the Government, have now become part
of the history of the 18th century, If her
crimes and her sufferngs were consequent upon
her abolition of the Sabbath-her profane and
and sacriligious attempt to sever the obligation
of man to the institutions of Religion; then the
example of France may never be copied by any
other people!
- The observance of the Sabbath sbinding alike
upon NatrufSs. families and individuals. Its pro-
fanation by either IS aver attended with evil
and visited, sooner or later, some form or 9th,
er, with Judicial infictions. A voiee>Stll sounds
with solemn warning: Remember the Sosseah
day to keep It holy"