New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-27

poets to run any machine without cessation
for Oiing and the prevention of friction; il
he tries 1t the fatal crash is not long in com
ing Now, there is no Sabbath in Nature
simply because Nature does not need it. Bird
or beast never dies of OverwOrk or Worry
Oaks and naples viii contentedly stand naked
and idle all Winter, knowing just when their
new clothes will arrive and the fashion thereof
Comics and ants are feeble folk, who build
their houses in the rocks and prepare their
meat in the Summer but they take their time
to do it, are at ease and tranquil. SO much
have they to do, but no more no loftier pal
aces belonging to their neighbors can fret
them to uneasy ambition; they have no dover
to hoard for their daughters.
Now the Sabbath being instituted for Pc
culiar people, was adapted to their peculiar
temptations. They were from the first apt to
hoard, to set double tasks for themselves and
their slaves, just as their shrewd progenitor
Jacob did for the speckled and spotted cattle
that were for his own fold For this cause
the Sabbath was to be for them season of
absolute rest from work or money making.
Not that the gathering of mamma on the sew
enth day was any real crime in itself, but that,
forced to be idle, the Jew forced to think
of something above and beyond mamma.
| Here was the second meaning of this fractional
part of the week set apart by the all-wiss
Father of us all: not only to rest oyertasked
muscles and repair congested brains. but
to challenge us peremptorily, as we jog on
our commonplace, beaten way with the sum-
mons, Under which Kingp The traveller IN
old times, journeyng slowly home TO Thebes,
was apt to forget all else in the torpid warmth
and rich coloring of the lOw-lying meadows
and sluggish river beneath the yellow sky,
until monster took him by the throat and
babe him discover and give to her the secret
of his life or die. The meadow, says the old
story, was white with the bones Of those who
could not answer and persisted in that deadly
wreste.
| New Workers know no more about the secret
of their lives than ancient Thebans. IL is apt
| to be to one as to the other, a thing of course
natural, not to be wondered at or questioned !,
an ordinary succession of nights and mornings,
spent no doubt by the practical Theban in
planning how to have his share of the Persian
brides, or in sneering at the idle fellows who
won 0lympian games while industrious men
drudged at home unrewarded; by us over
newspaper, leuScI, OF ulHheT. GOI US, COO, lnofo
are luckier men to gibe at and Persian
gold to win. There is. however, no Sphinx
to take the New-Yorker by the throat.
to demand whence he came and where
he is going and what dread Presence lies be-
hind work or game, luck or failure. TO-mor-
row the challenge comes to us in the gentler
fashion of tolling bell and hower-decked
affairs and sweet hymns, waited through the
city streets on the ;ght September air Last
Sunday the challenge helped to stay and calm
a madness which would have dragged the
country into ruin; tomorrow it will bring tn
each individual the awful question of the
Sphinx and he who cannot read the riddle
of his own life will meet with worse than
death in its memorable failure.