Year: 1864




/ Prom Letter 70 franklin Joa.s, MeehaIic.l


/ My desire il to give you one or tw.
good reasons for going to chcrch, uhicl
do not depend upon the authenticity o
Christianity, or upon the sacred characte,
of the Christian Sabbath At ell.


My first reason is, that unless ! mar
puts himself into fine shirt. polished
boots. and good clothes once week, and
goes ont into the public, be is almost Ger.
tain to sink into semi.barbarism. You
know that unless you do this on Sunday
you cannot do it ut oil, for you labor al
the week. There is nothing like isolation
to work degeneration in . man. There
is nothing like standing alone, with nc
place in the machinery Of society, to tone
down ones self-respect. You must be
aware that You are in sympathy with So
eiety. You are looked upon as an out
slider, because you refuse to come into
contact with society on its broadest and
bsst ground. l tell you it is . good
thing for man to wash his face clean.
and put on his best clothes, and walk to
the house of God, with his wife and chill
dren, on Sunday, whether he believes in
Christianity or not. The church is the
place whore, at the least, good morals are
inculcatcd, and where the vices Of the
community are denounced. You can af-
ford to stand by so much Of the church,
and, by doing 90, say. "Here am |, and
here are mine, with stake in the vel
fare of society, and an interest in the
good morals of society"


Ny friend. this little operation gone
through with every Sunday, would give
you self-respect. help you to keep your
head above water, and bring you into
sympathy with the best society the world
possesses. A man needs TO beautify him !.
self with good clothes, occasionally, to as
sure himself that he is not brother to the
beast by the side of which he labors dur
ing six days of every seven and he
needs particularly TO feel that he has place
and consideration in clean society.


Another reason why yos should go to
church on Sunday is, that you need in
teliectual nourishment and stimulus
which you can only get thsre. suppose
that you do not often consider the fact,
that the greatest amount Of genuine think
ing in the world 10 done by preachers.
suppose you may have reflected that, in
tho midst of all this din OF business, and
clashing of various interests--in the
midst of the clamors and horrors of war,
the universal pursuit Of amusements, and
the vanities and inanities of fashion, and
the indulgence Of multitudinous vices
there is class Of self-denying men, Of the
best education and the best talents and
habits, who, in their quiet rooms, are
thinking and writing upon the purest and
noblest themes which can engage any
mind. Among these men may be found
the finest minds which tie age knows
the most splendid specimens of intellec-
tual power that the world contains.


The bright consumma.e flower of our
American college system is the American
ministry. Among these men are many
who are slow-stupid, if you insist on it:
but there is not one in a thousand OF
them who does not know more than YOU
do. You can learn something Of them
all, while some Of them possess more
brains and more available intellectual
power than you and all your relatives
combined. tell you that, if you suppose
the American pulpit to be contemplate,
yoa are very much mistaken. You have
stayed away from it for ten years. During
all these ten years | have attended its
weekly ministrations, and / have better
right TO speak about it than you have, be-
cause | know more about it. / tell you
that | have received more intellectual
nourishment and stimulus from the pulpit
than from all other sources combined; vet
my every day pursuits are literary, while
yours are not.


There is something in the pursuits Of
working men-I mean OF men who follow
handicraft-whioh renders some intsllec.
tuai feeding on sunday peculiarly neces-
sary. You work all day. and when you
get home at night, you can do nothing
but read the news and indulge in neigh
borhood gossip. You are obliged to rise
early in the morning, and that makes it
necessary that you should go to bed early
at night. You really have no time for
intellectual culture except on Sunday,
and then you are too dull and tired to sit
down to book. You always go to sleep
over any book that taxes your brain At
all. You know that there is nothing but
the living voice which can hold your at
tehtion, aud you know that that voice can
only be heard in the pulpit.


The working man who shuns the pull
pit on the Sabbath, voluntarily ralenq ulsh-
es the only regular available intellectual
nourisnment of his life. You need not
tell me that the pulpit has no intellectual
nourishment for you. | know better
Philosophy, casuistry, history, metaphys-
les, science, poetry--shese all arcat home
in the pulpit. All high moralities are
taught there. There are more argument
and illustration brought to the support
and enforcement of religious truths, than
all the other Intellectual magazines Of the
iworld have a command; and, quarrel
with the fact as you may. you must go to
church on Sunday, and hear preaching,
or be an intellectual starvelng. Your
brain is just as certain to degenerate
your intellect is just as certain to grow
dull--under this habit of staying at home