The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1858-11-03
shall we have IA Day Of Rest!

The Sabbath question is earnestly DIS
cussed in Great Britain, increased intimacy
with the Continent having given rise to
party friendly to the holiday Sunday OF Ber-
lin md Paris. The Edinburgh Witness pre-
sents the ISSUE in forcible light. We ex-
tract the closing paragraph OF it's article, as
furnishing TODD for thought on this side OF
the Atlantic:
W.ooked at in it's bearing upon national
life. il il advisable that the observance OF
the sabbath which has hitherto prevailed in
Great Britain should be superseded by that
mode Of spending the day which is instituted
in Continental cities ? Wordsworth alludes,
in one Of his famous prefaces, to those CON-
ditions of excitement by which the pubic
mind in his day was stimulated and blunted.
These conditions have since been aggravated.
We live in an atmosphere OF excitement.-~
The air seems to ring around us. Our sell
ence, our commerce, our locomotion are all
at fever heat. IL ever there was time IN
which rest was required to cool the burning
brow and soothe the throbblng heart or the
nation, it is now: To describe the HE OF
men in the Continental capitals, we know OF
no form of speech SO expressive as this:
they sit down to eat and drink, and rise up
to play. The idea that leisure can have any
/ other purpose than amusement: that man
! can be desired or expected to exhibit, habit
uaily or socially, any tokens OF reverence ior
q Being higher than himself, seems 70 nave
/ died out of tho public mind. Not TO DO
/ amused, not to be excited, is not TO live. IL
il startling TO note the comment on TINS state
of things afforded BY Partisan Statistics
When fountains OF passion and "oriuiiness
have been drunk to the dregs, when the sy-
80 ..1n
course is had at once TO suicide, Man hav-
ing made himself bubble to be blown about
by the winds Of earth, the breeze fails and
the buhble bursts. Paris, as French jour
naist once remarked, is the capital OF sui
eide: and ii is the capital Of suicide mainly
because parisians have lost the capacity to
rest, and look upon themselves only as pieces
Of ingenious mechanism for the assimilation
Of worldly pleasures. 1t 10 too much TO sag
that tho Sabbath, as representative, IN III
secular ASPECT, of that greater stability anc
power Of repose, on the one hand, and thai
nobler conception Of man as being no
merely of earth and time, on the other, b'
which the British character is distinguished
from the French, ought not and will not b.
permitted to pass from among our nationa
: institutions The observance OF tho Sab
, bath is an element in the national life Will
with which we cannot dispense. Its inhu
ence pervaaes tho nation, reaching ever
. those who are opposed to it. II gives Ger
r tain concentration, GOODNESS, and compact
ness to intellectual and practical energy.
r preserves healthful, natural tone to feeling
: in which simple pleasures retain their powe
TO crafty. There is in it something oppose
G to revolutionary heat, to hightiness and
|. fickleness. We are far from denying tina, th
n duty Of Sabbath observance may be miscon
i ceived and caricntured, but we are assure
that, as between men so between nations, tn
capacity Of repose is a sure test of charae
ter and we trust that Great Britain ma
long DO known among European nations {
i capable of resting and worshippiug on tt
10 Sabbath