The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-24
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY "a, 1866.
The sabbath for the Laborinu Glasses.

tion" should be canvassed only in the pulpit.
1t is, indeed, a question for the pulpit, for
the Church is concerned. But it is likewise
question for the press, for the 1UorLd is con-
cerned. In urging the claims of the Sabbath,
it should be remembered that there were, by
Gods direct appointment, three great para
disaical institutions, and that the Sabbath was
one OF them. The first in order is labor. The
second is rest on the holy Sabbath. The third
is matrimony. These are The three essential
conditions of human existence. If man
will not work, neither shall he eat. If man
90 not rest in the midst of his
Iabors, he will soon rest altogether from
his labors; and If he neither marry
nor are given in marriage, the race will be-
come extinct. No sane man will argue that
all things would so on prosperously if the
wheels of human industry should stop; nor
can we get many out of a mad-hOuSe who
would defend the abolition of marriage. How,
then, is it, that so many deny, if not in words,
yet in practice, the obligations of that other in
stitution of Heaven which lies between the
two, defended, it would seeem, by both, be-
cause more sacred than they? How can men
two of the divinites OF Paradise, and refuse
even ordinary respect to the most God-like OF
the three?
Before man iell, and sin entered our fair
earth; before the brothers CAIN and ABEL
quarrelled about religion, and brothers
blood cried to heaven for vengeance from
between the very horns of the altar-anterior
to all this, in an atmosphere OF perfect holi-
ness, while God was yet spending " the cool
of the day" in Paradise, walking as friend
with friend in company with its earthly lord
before the serpent stung our mother-was
the sabbath an institution OF earth. And as
it was before all religions which have so long
blessed or cursed mankind, so shall it remain
after all religions but the one that is true
shall have been swept away. Type OF what is
indestructible, whatsoever else Of earth may
be lost in tbs lapse of ages, the Sabbath shall
remain forever.
The first idea Of Sabbath, is that of rest
just as certain as the huge wheels and mas
sive bars of a machine will wear and tear
each other into destruction, if not repaired
bys the mechanic and fabricated by oil, will
man, with all his exquisite proportions, wear
down to premature death, if not refreshed
with sufficient and periodic rest. Above all
men living the working man should be jealous
Of the Sabbath. The rich may spend half the
summer in travel, at the springs, or by the
seaside But the laboreris ever at the wheel,
and such is the scantiness OF reward for his
toll and the greediness of many masters who
employ him, that if God did not legislate for
him, and in spite Of himself and his task-mas-
ters command him to rest one day in seven,
he would not live halt his days, but would
die, at once slave, drudge, and suicide. The
Sabbath is the worllingman's jubilee. 1t is
his great day of equality. Six days men seek
their level as before each other. On the Sab
bath they are equal or unequal as before God
Yea, the veriest menial chained to the wheel
may, on that day, raise his head in the pride
of an august ancestry and noble destiny, and
tell his cruel captors, II am nobler than you
all He only is a freeman whom the truth
makes free, and all besides are slaves"
We have often been struck with the advan-
tages of the Sabbath to the working classes
not only physically, but morally and inteIIec-
todlly. 1t is for the interest of the rich and
the independent that those who do their work
should be good citizens. They'are the thews
and sinews of humanity. They have minds as
well as hands. Divine Providence has often
honored them as class. BENJAMIN FRANK
LIN was a unit in their sum. And we generally
find that when God has got some great work
to accomplish--when He wants a man tc
arrest the Lightning fash, or to be an apostle
oil the Cross, BE chooses from among the con
it would seem, that genius is not the heritage
gregation OF the poor to show to His creatures
of riches, or the birth-right of princes, but
His own peculiar gift The Sabbath i,
the workingman's "learned leisure" 1t il
his 'groUe" and his "porch." The Church il
his great academy OF sciences-above all, O
the science of eternal life. The pulpit is hi
stronghold and defense, and when we conside
that in this land there are ten thousanC
preachers of every grade, and color, ant
name, plying their strength, and bringing
forth the results of the reading and study @
the week-nay, of their whole lives-ever
Sabbath day-when we consider this, we ar
overwhelmed with sense OF the condition t
which our country would be degraded with
out such appliances, and rejoice and Civ
thanks that one day in seven the doors of th
temple,of Mammon are shut and the gates {
the housesIof God are open.
Looked at in its bearings on the nation,
life, our Sabbath must be more than mere ce