Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-01-23

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out the hymn:
"Welcome sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arlse.''
The text was: ",nd call the Sabbath q
delight. ."-Isaiah LvuI, 13. DR.. Talmage
said:
There is an element of gloom striking
through all false religions. Paganism is a
brood of horrors. The god of Confucius
frowned upon its victims with blind fate.
Mohammedanism promises nothing to those
exhausted with sin in this world but an
erte1nity of the same passional indulgence.
But God intended that our religion should
have the grand characteristic Of cheerful
ness. St. Paul struck the keynote when
he said: "Rejoics evermore, and again
say, rejoice" This religion has no spikes
for the feet; it has 40 hooks for the should
er; it has no long pilgrimages to take; it has
no funeral pyres upon which to leap; it has
no Juggernauts before which TO fall. Its
coed cheer is symbolised in the Bible by
the brightness of waters, and tbs redolence
of lilies, and the sweetness of music, ard
the hilarities of a banquet. A choir of sera-
phim chanted at rs induction, and pealing
trumpet, and waving palm, and Tapping
wing of archangel are to celebrate its
triumphs. 1t began its chief mission with
the shout: "Glory tG God in the highest p
and it will close It's earthly mission with the
ascription: "Halielujah, for the Lord God
reigneth.
But men have said that our religion is not
cheerful, because We have such doleful
Sabbath. They say: You can have your
religious assem- blageE, and your long faces,
and your shifting can't, and your psalm
books, and the Bibles. Give US the Sun
day excursion, and the horse-race, and the
convivial laughter. We have so much Joy
that we want to spread it all over the seven
days of the week, aud you shall not have
one of cur days of worldly satisfaction for
religious dolefulness." l want to show
these men-if there are any such in the
house this morning-that they are under a
great delus!oD, and that God intended the
fifty two Sundays of the year TO be hung up
like bells in tower, beating perpel ual
chime of joy and glory and salvation and
heaven; for want you TO carry out the
idea of the text, ''and call the Sabbath q
delight"
remark, in the first place, we are to find
in this day the joy Of healthy reposs. In
this democratic country we all have to work
some with hand, some with brain, some
with foot. If theie is in all this house
hand that has not, during the past year,
been stretched forth to some kind of toll,
let it be lifted. Not one, not one. You sell
the goods. You teach the school. You
doctor in the sick-roon. You practice at
the bar. You edit newspaper. You tan
the hides. You preach the gospel You
mend the shoes. You sit at the shuttle.
You carry the hod Of bricks up the ladder
on tho wall. And the one occupation is as
honorable as the other, provided God calls
you to it. ! care net what you do, if you
only do it well. But when Saturday night
comes, you are jaded and worn. The hand
capnot 10 skilfuily manufacture; the eye
=. ..,unt see as weliI the braip is not 50 clear;
the Judgment is Eot so well balanced. q
prominent manufacturer told ne that be
couId see a difference between the goods
which went ont of his establishment on Sat-
urday from the goods that went out on
Monday. He said: "They were very diff
ferent indeed. Those that were made in
the former part of the week, because of the
rest that bad been previously given, were
better than those that we're made in tho lat
ter part of the week, when the men were
tired out" The Sabbath comes, and it
hathes the soreness from the limbs, quieta
the agitated brain, and puts out the fires oi
anxiety that have been burning all the
week. Our bodies are seven day CLOCKS.
and unless on the seventh day they are
wound up, they run down into the grave
'Iha Sabbath was intended as savings
bank. into il We ere 30 gather the resources
upon which We ara to drsw ail.tha week
| That man who breaks the Sabbath robs hi:
own nerve, bis own muscle, his own brain
his own bones. He dips up the wine of hi:
own life, and throws it away. He who
| breaks the Lords day gives mortgage tt
disease and death upon his entire physica
estate, and at the n,ost unexpected momen
that mortgage will bs fo:eclosed, and thi
soul elected froE the premises. Every
gland, and pore, aud cell, and fuger-nai
demands the seventh day for repose. Tht
respiration OF the lungs, the throb Of th'
pulse in the wrist, tho motion of the bone il
its socket declare, 'Iiemember the Eahbatl
day, to keep it holy" There are thopsand
of men who have had their lives dashed ou
against the golden gates of the Sabbath. A
prominent London merchant testifies tina
thirty years ago he went to London. 81
says: 81 have during that time wstchet
minutely, and have noticed that the mel
who went to business On the Lords day, O.
opened their eouDting- houses, have sitE
out single exception, come to failure"
prominent Christian merchant in Bostol
SAYS: 81 find it dom pay to work On Sun
day. When l was d boy / noticed out OF
Long Wharf there were merchants VIII
loaded their yessels 90 the Sabbath day
keeping their men busy from morning IL
night, aud it is my observation that the
themselves came TO nothing-these mel
chants-and their children came TO nothing
1t doesn't pay" he says, "to work on tn
Sabbath"
appeal to your observation. Where al
the men who twerig years ago were Sat
bath breakers, and who have been Sabbat
breakers ever sirce? Without single e.
ception, you will tell me, they have com
either to financial or to moral beggary.
defy you to point ont single exception, an
you Gan tska thu whole world for your fiel'
! t. ka, RnauciAi -E,nral ~