The Day of Rest

IN the hundred years of our hurrying, widening national life we have undergone many changes from the ways and the thoughts of our fathers, and in no case more than in our mode of observing the first day of the week. American love of liberty and action has been making continual assault on our religious traditions, and a casual observer might say that both tradition and religion have suffered in consequence. Yet it is a striking testimony to the hold of the institutions of the past on the American people that, after all these years, our restless energy still yields so much as it does to the claims of the Christian Sabbath, and retains comparatively inviolate a day of rest that may well be the envy of less favored peoples. It is perhaps equally striking testimony to the practical value of the day itself ; while the theologian, if so disposed, might find here a fresh illustration of the unfailing adaptability of the ancient laws of God to changing circumstances and advancing thought. For while our manner of daily life has been revolutionized during the past century, and there has been a change hardly less marked in our feeling as regards the first day of the week, we have not ceased to observe it.

We have at last nearly learned the meaning of the saying, “ The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” A rational appreciation of the secular day of rest has been supplanting the old idea of a day for religious observance alone. The “ Lord’s Day ” of our fathers has become preëminently man’s day with us, and in considering what is the right use of this day, and in taking legal measures for its protection, it is the needs of man, not the dues of God, that form the basis of our judgment. This would, in any case, be necessary in a civil state where the constitution forbids the law to interfere in matters of religion, even if reason did not demand it. But though some theologians may protest against such an idea, it is still true that by acting consistently with the highest view of his own needs, in Sabbath observance as in all else, man best performs his duty to God. If only the ideal of man’s good be set high enough, the most religious will find that in a study of human wants and the varying capabilities of different natures on the principle laid down in the New Testament, rather than in an unswerving following of the Hebraic law, lies the solution of the problem how best to use the seventh day. On this ground, too, all students of man’s welfare, of whatever religion or of no religion, can meet.

Thus, in resting the claims of the Christian Sabbath on human needs, I believe we have a firmer and a broader foundation for its observance and preservation than had our fathers in their unquestioning obedience to the supposed divine law. Yet while our views on this subject are more liberal, more enlightened, and more Christian than those they have superseded, it is still open to question whether we receive as much benefit from our Sunday freedom as our fathers derived from their stricter observance ; and though the answer be ready, that what was best for them would, under our changed conditions of life, be intolerable for us, it may still be worth while to consider whether our present Sunday observance has not lost much of that restfulness which is its chief benefit, and, in particular, whether it is as Christian toward our neighbor as it is generous to ourselves.

The Puritan kept Sunday in two ways : positively, by worship ; negatively, by abstinence from pleasure. Observance by worship we retain, but pleasure, no longer under the ban, has become for many the main object of the day. Few thoughtful people will be found to regret this change in popular feeling as to Sunday pleasures, as few will deny that we are in danger of overstraining in the effort to secure them. To overdo everything is an essential feature of the true American character, and is exhibited quite as much by the religious with their multitude of church services as by the irreligious in running after amusement. Still it is evident that in our diversified, complex modern life no single method of Sunday keeping could be either rightly prescribed by law, or wisely followed by all, or even by a majority, of our people.

Our modern Sunday, as distinguished from the Lord’s Day of the past, is in theory, and should be in fact, a day of rest, — a day for the suspension of regular vocations, and an opportunity for recuperation and improvement. All that promotes these two objects deserves the approval and encouragement of society. For those who framed our Sunday laws, with their out-door country life of physical toil, rest and worship formed the simple and best mode of Sabbath keeping, — that is, rest from labor combined with mental refreshment ; for with them intellectual life was chiefly of the spiritual, or at least of the theological sort. There are still many whose manner of life is such that this Puritan idea seems to them sufficient, and it is often hard for them to see why all others should not be satisfied with it. Yet physical exercise is just what many a tired brain-worker needs, — what his duty to make the most of himself for the good of society, that is to say what his duty to God, demands ; and whether he take this exercise on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback, who has a right to criticise him ? For multitudes in crowded cities fresh country air is more important than theology, and certainly is no enemy to pure religion; while many a manual worker has aspirations above his bench and tools which only the Sunday opening of art museums and reading - rooms can satisfy. That neglected institution, the home, may well contest with the church itself the right to the first place on the day of rest. Thus, as each welcome seventh day comes round, science and religion, home and field, all present their claims; and many a hard toiler must find in these short hours of Sunday time for all of recuperation, intellectual pleasures, family life, and communion with nature that his cramped existence knows. However much this perpetual crowding in every sphere of life is to be regretted, under the present social order it seems likely to continue for years to come, and we must make the best of it. At the same time, the increasingly rapid pace of our Western civilization makes the Sunday respite an ever greater benefit and a more urgent need ; while the preservation of this rest-day, and the protection of all in their right to enjoy it, are of the highest importance to the welfare of the individual and of the state.

While, then, the object of the Sunday laws of our fathers was to protect the Lord’s Day from desecration, with us their justification must be the protection of each individual in his right to his regularly recurring day of rest. Yet the laws which we use and abuse to-day are the mutilated remnants of those of old ; and it is partly because it was the ecclesiastical rather than the humane spirit that directed their composition and has resisted their modification, partly because the relations of man to man have been so vastly changed during the past hundred years, that a revision in a new spirit, on new principles, is needed. Neither must this revision be made in the careless, unconsciously selfish spirit that has modified or ignored the laws in the past. In insisting on liberty of action as well as of conscience, we overlook the fact that our manner of using our Sunday freedom often deprives others of theirs. A hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago, there was little danger of this. Then, nearly every man was his own master, and could work or not on Sunday, as he pleased. In our present social system, the employed are the multitude, the employers the few. The enlargement and concentration of industry have reduced to a small proportion of the whole community the number of those who can decide the question of Sunday labor for themselves. In this way it has naturally come about that the avarice of employers combined with the selfishness of the public has been gradually depriving more and more of the workers, and often the hardest workers, of their rest-day.

If our Sunday, then, is to be preserved, it must have the protection of the law.

Yet experience has shown clearly enough that law avails little without the support of public sentiment. That the great majority of the American people do appreciate their day of rest, and desire to protect it, I think is beyond dispute. The petition lately presented to Congress, known as the “ fourteen-million petition,”though it had by no means that number of actual signers, probably represented the sentiments of almost every one of those whose delegates or representatives signed it for them, as well as of those who personally affixed their names. The main support of this petition was from the churches and the working classes ; notably from those who, like the locomotive engineers, pray for the restoration of a Sunday already lost. The strongest support, too, came from those parts of the country where the greatest encroachments have already been made on the true liberty of the day.

This evidence that the people desire to preserve the American Sunday as a day of rest justifies such laws as experience proves needful to protect those who are not wholly their own masters in their right to its enjoyment. Of course the business of the law is merely to protect ; it has no right to compel any particular mode of Sunday observance. This circumstance affords the pretext for a very plausible attack on laws forbidding Sunday labor. Some one who is ambitious to outstrip his competitors, or more frequently one who wishes some personal service performed for him, exclaims : “Shall I be forbidden to open my store on Sunday if I want to ? ” or, “ Is it a crime for me to be shaved on Sunday morning, of all mornings in the week ? ” “ What right has the law to forbid a man to work on Sunday ? ” The law has no right in itself to forbid a man to work, but it has a right to say that no one shall be compelled to work ; and it must recognize the fact that compulsion is of two kinds, that of employers and that of competitors; while behind them both is the stronger compulsion of the public, selfishly demanding that certain services be performed for it, regardless of the rights of those who must perform them. Consequently, to protect those engaged in any occupation from the compulsion of competitors, and to protect employees from their employers, the law may forbid men to work; and to protect both employers and employed from the heedless selfishness of the public, it may require men to dispense with certain unessential personal services which necessitate the labor of others.

We are more thoughtless than really selfish in this matter. We do not wish our mere convenience on Sunday to cost another’s toil, but we too readily overlook the fact that for us to do what we please means that others, who have not our liberty of choice, shall not do what they please. Tonsor assures us that he is happy to accommodate us on Sunday morning, and we forget that his obligingness compels his ninety-nine reluctant competitors to open shop also ; or that very likely Tonsor himself, as head of his establishment, is enjoying a Sunday paper, while one of his employees makes us presentable for church. The fact that some work must be done on Sunday makes us careless in distinguishing between the essential and the unessential. Where we ought to study carefully to secure the greatest good to the greatest number, we too often ask for Sunday labor which confers a very slight and very doubtful gain on the many, with complete loss of the day to the not inconsiderable few. Still, if all work were to cease on Sunday, the day would be unendurable, and too full of discomfort to afford any benefit. Thus we must recognize the necessity of such exceptions to the law of universal abstinence from labor as shall give Sunday the highest possible value to society as a whole, even though certain classes be obliged, in consequence, to take their periodic rest on some other day of the week. The office of the law is first to protect, but also to promote, the true observance of Sunday, and whatever exceptions are permitted to the first object should be made only for the sake of the second ; not to permit avarice to add a little more to its gains, nor to meet every individual want or caprice of will, but to enable different classes of people to make the most of their day of rest. It is a difficult problem, but there are certain rules that may be laid down with some degree of dogmatism, while a survey of the field of Sunday labor as it is now carried on, with the above principles in view, may be profitable, and suggest possible opportunities for reform.

Labor may be grouped in three classes,—labor of production, of distribution, and of personal service. The problem before us has to do mainly with distribution and personal service; and it is the latter department that presents the most difficulties, and in which the greatest infringements of the principle of Sunday rest have been, and must in many cases of necessity be made. In general, production, in field and factory throughout the land, ceases every seventh day. The argument of necessity advanced in Germany — by the employer the necessity to meet foreign competition, by his employees the necessity to live — is seldom heard here. It is to be hoped it never will be tolerated. Sunday labor, like child labor, in factories should have no place in our civilization. Industries that cannot live without it should be allowed to die the death of the unrighteous ; better even be bolstered a little higher by the tariff than permitted to sustain themselves by exacting seventh-day toil!

Distribution continues on Sunday chiefly in railway freight traffic and in retail trade, the latter being often practically of the nature of personal service. It is not desire for profits nor the urgency of the public that primarily causes the running of Sunday freight trains. It is simply the convenience of it; in fact, the inconvenience of not doing it. The tracks are generally more clear of other trains on Sunday ; through freight is delivered to a road by its connections all day Saturday, and the business-like way seems to be to send it along instead of blocking the yards. It often takes weeks, as it is, to get a freight car half-way across the continent. The expense of caring for live-stock and the necessity for preserving perishable freight add to the complexity of the problem, though refrigerator and heater cars furnish some solution. Again, now that the movement of freight on Sunday has become universal, shippers are impatient of delay, and do not stop to inquire what causes it. For these reasons, some railway managers maintain that no reform is possible in the matter. Nevertheless, reform is exceedingly desirable, for Sunday freight movement means the employment of the great majority of train hands, as well as a multitude of switchmen, telegraph operators, and others.

It is worth a great deal of effort and thought on the part of railway managers if this labor can be abolished, and certainly shippers ought not to stand in the way of the commendable endeavors now making in that direction. Several of the trunk lines to the seaboard have lately made a great reduction in the number of their Sunday freight trains ; and now that the possibility of this has been demonstrated, public sentiment ought to insist that every road which is slow to join the movement, or seeks to profit at the expense of its more generous rivals, be compelled to fall into line. A law ought to be enforced forbidding all freight movement, except of those kinds which the experience of the through lines doing the least Sunday work has proved indispensable. No one will pretend that the observance of the day of rest is promoted in the least by Sunday freight trains. They serve no public good, they do private wrong to many, and, with the argument of necessity gone, there is no excuse for their further toleration.

The extension of the retail trade on Sunday is the inevitable result of competition, when once desire of gain has made a beginning. Neither the public nor the convenience of traders demands Sunday opening of stores ; but some one thinks he sees a chance to increase his sales or to get ahead of his rivals, and then all others in the same line must follow his example. In some parts of the country this Sunday opening of retail stores is almost universal, and has become not only oppressive to employees, but burdensome and unprofitable to employers as well. The evil is all the greater from the fact that the establishments which do business on Sunday are generally of the same class as keep open late into the evening and on holidays. Petitions of salesmen for relief and attempts of dealers to agree among themselves to close on Sunday are not infrequent, but without the aid of the law to “ forbid men to work ” success is difficult. Some avaricious individual only sees in the general desire for rest a chance to fill his own pockets by the labor of his clerks, and the attempt fails. If then the rights of the employees and of those employers who prefer rest to gain are to be protected, there is here especial need of the assistance of law, and of the insistence of public sentiment on its enforcement. Where the law cannot be invoked, public sentiment may yet accomplish something. A combination to boycott is illegal, but there is neither legal nor moral reason why individuals should not, in part at least, follow the example of an eccentric person— who, it is needless to say, lives in Boston — who refuses to buy in stores that keep open on holidays, or that display the words “ gents ” and “ pants ” in their advertisements. This Sunday retail trade not only cannot be defended as facilitating some right use of Sunday, the only true test; it has, except where it supplies prepared food, and can be classed with personal service, not even the plea that it is a public convenience, nor the pretext which factories might plausibly offer, of adding to the wealth of the community. It merely makes a transfer of wealth from one to another, and a transfer that might just as well be made at some other time. Of all the prevalent forms of Sunday labor, it is the most oppressive and has the least excuse.

The department of personal service is that which presents the greatest difficulty in the attempt to do away with Sunday work. The term covers not only the ministrations of household servants, but also those of steam and street railways (for passengers), of ministers and saloon keepers, barbers and police, custodians of museums and restaurant keepers, bakers and livery-stable men, mail distributers, and even the Sunday newspaper. Here, evidently, no one has a right to dogmatize, for in most of these callings some Sunday labor is a necessity ; and more must be performed if the day of rest is to have the fullest possible value to all conditions of men. In treating this part of the subject, too, unless we proceed very carefully, we are in great danger of convicting ourselves of heedlessness of the rights of our fellows. The subject is too often discussed from the wrong point of view. No one has a right to impose his own judgment on another’s conscience. The liberalminded man who persists in this or that action on Sunday, and the strict Sabbatarian who forbids him, alike err in judging the practice right or wrong by itself, instead of in its relations. The question is not what our duty to ourselves permits us to do, but what our duty to humanity permits us to require others to do. Though it seem temporarily to ignore religion, it is preëminently a Christian question, and the Sabbatarian places himself at a needless, not to say hopeless, disadvantage in accepting the terms of his opponents, and contending merely for the wrongfulness of an act considered by itself, and only from the religious point of view. Still, if society should collectively resolve to renounce certain of its Sunday indulgences for the sake of giving more of its members their day of rest, there might be some comfort in the reflection that, after all, it was not quite a wise use of the day that it had been wont to make. We are proverbially a hard-working people, and we often work hardest in the effort to enjoy our leisure. So those who will not listen to the suggestion of more religion may still be asked seriously to consider whether a little more rest on Sunday would not be endurable, and beneficial as well. Jones rises somewhat reluctantly Sunday morning, but, once up, he is resolved to make the most of his day of rest. After breakfast and a visit to the barber, he rests his weary mind by the intellectual treat afforded by the Sunday paper. Though this really leaves nothing in its line to oe desired, Jones still retains the habit of going to church, and an hour before the time of service drops his paper, with the sports only half read and the crimes just glanced at, to take a street car for some distant sanctuary. He stops to get his mail at the post-office, and improves the long homeward ride after church by reading such of his letters as he had not time to run through during the voluntary. The afternoon he devotes to a steamboat excursion, returning refreshed to his Sunday dinner. By a wise use of spare moments he has by this time nearly reached the literary department of his paper. In the evening, if there be no moral drama at the theatre, there is at least a Sunday concert, and Jones recognizes the importance of developing the æsthetic side of his nature. On his way home he grumbles a little to find no cigar store open, and wonders whether the consignment of freight he ordered on Saturday willb be on hand promptly Monday morning.

Now in all this Jones has done nothing reprehensible. However unwise may seem his use of the opportunities which Sunday offers, no one has a right to say that what he has done is wrong in itself. Yet the labor of seven classes of men, beside his pastor and his cook, was not quite sufficient to satisfy Jones’s desires on the day of rest. Jones is not a selfish fellow, either, nor unreasonable. He admits that it would be better for him to stay at home more, and to let business and the outside world alone on Sundays. Neither does he wish to make people work for him against their will ; but “the work would all be done, any way,” and he can hardly be expected to organize a movement to stop it. Perhaps not; but Jones is all of us, and if he would, in his collective capacity, take a little pains not to increase the present volume of Sunday work, and when the opportunity is presented to him by others would lend his influence towards diminishing it, in a short time quite a change would come about, and all would be the better for it. We might think twice before signing the petition for a special train to bring the Sunday paper, and when the barbers ask for a law forbidding them to work on Sunday we might suggest to our representatives to vote for it. There are movements enough on foot to bring about a great reform, if all humane but thoughtless people would only be careful not to oppose them. For instance, as already mentioned, several great railways are trying to reduce their Sunday business, and in New York a petition bearing the names of the mayor of the city and an ex-President of the United States asked that the street car employees be given one regular day of rest in every seven, and that it come half the time on Sunday. So reasonable a request deserves popular support, and, if need be, legal support as well. This petition, while recognizing the fact that the needs of society require the services of certain of its members on the general day of rest, embodies two principles which ought always to be observed in dealing with the problem of Sunday labor : (1) that every one should have a regularly recurring restday, — if not Sunday, then some other day of the week ; (2) that the common rest-day, Sunday, is the most desirable for all, and should be preserved for all, in part at least, whenever possible.

Again, we may well remember that to dispense with personal service causes no loss of wealth to society. There is therefore no excuse for allowing the amount of Sunday work in this department to be decided by those who get money by it. The decision must be made by weighing the relative interests of those who do it and of those for whom it is done; and any one who makes his employees work must show cause, not in his profits, but in the public need. So, too, it may be said that as a general rule the right of any to require Sunday toil from others for their own benefit is about in proportion to the amount of the week-day toil of those who make the demand. Here the club-lounger has no equal claim with the factory hand. Yet those who work least often assert most arrogantly the right to make others work for them under pretense of their own liberty, while the hardest toilers have the fewest facilities for enjoying their day of rest.

The forms of service for which exception to the rule of Sunday rest is demanded may be divided into three classes: first, and most justifiable, that which all agree is positively necessary ; second, with reasonable claims, that which by the labor of few promotes for many some beneficial use of the day ; third, and least excusable, that which carries along the ordinary business of the week, and interferes directly with the use of Sunday as a day of rest. The last class is generally defended on the plea of necessity. Household servants and police are of the first class ; street cars and suburban steam cars, ministers, library custodians, and livery-stable men are of the second, although it by no means follows that their services are always wisely availed of; railway service for travelers, postal service, and Sunday newspapers are of the third. Bakeries and restaurants belong in the first class or the third, according as they are or are not a necessity. Where work must be done, it may be rendered less burdensome in various ways. An estimable paper, whose powers of logical reasoning have probably been impaired by persistent advocacy of a protective tariff, asks why, if no one may be shaved by a barber on Sunday, every man should not be required to cook his own dinner on that day. Because it takes five times as much time and labor to shave five persons as to shave one, while Phyllis tells me that to cook a dinner for five takes little more time, and not more than twice as much labor, than for one. the case of the barbers Sunday rest is secured by distribution, in the case of the cooks by concentration, of labor.

As to the necessity of Sunday mails and Sunday traveling there must always be difference of opinion. The most which those who oppose them can do is to call constant attention to the great amount of labor involved, to seek to influence public sentiment in favor of reform wherever it is possible, and to demand some other day of rest for the Sunday toilers. Whatever individual opinions may be, all must admit that it is at least an open question whether Sunday passenger trains are indispensable to modern society. It is said in their defense that trans-continental passengers ought not to be required to stop over, and that any delay to those hastening to sick-beds would be cruel. But these two classes of travelers furnish an excuse for carrying twenty times their number, who might, with a little thought, arrange their shorter journeys for some other day. Railway managers have suggested various plans for curtailing the Sunday passenger business, but doubt whether the public is willing to consent to their adoption. For instance, with the exception of a single through train on trans-continental lines, all movement might be suspended for twelve hours of the day, beginning at eight in the morning. If night trains were allowed neither to arrive nor depart on Sunday, they would be able to make only five trips weekly ; but to meet this difficulty competing roads might be compelled to coöperate, one road starting no train on Saturday evening, and its rival none on Sunday evening. Then, if such as are thought necessary by day were to carry none but long-distance passengers, they would not be overcrowded. If no mails were assorted and distributed, to carry on passenger trains through mails, already made up, would require very little extra labor. In cases of special urgency the telegraph is always available. The full benefit from the stopping of freight trains cannot be secured to men employed along the line, unless passenger trains are also discontinued.

Of all claimants for Sunday trains, the least excusable is the Sunday newspaper. This “ institution ” stands almost alone among those we are considering, in that it has not been called into existence by a public demand ; but, starting purely with a view to profit, has sedulously labored and made others labor to create a demand where none existed. It must thus be classed as not necessary, and as not promoting any wise use of Sunday. When, using a fictitious public need as a pretext, it insists, for its own profit, not only that its printers shall work seven nights in the week, and newsboys and news-stands spread its circulation throughout the city on Sunday morning, but also that railway employees shall be called out to carry its all-important self scores or hundreds of miles away, will the thoughtful public grant it a good case ? When its ambition takes it to distant cities where local papers furnish the news hours earlier, the last excuse based on public needs vanishes. Still, there is little use in showing that no public need exists where the paper can show a too evident public patronage, and denunciation can avail nothing with those who do not share the denouncer’s point of view. Those who consider Sunday papers an evil have prospect of the most success by trying to stop their transportation on Sunday trains, by inquiring into the condition of those employed in their publication, and by personal influence in discouraging them. An enlarged Saturday evening edition would serve almost all the purposes of a Sunday issue, though it is not likely many people would be willing to pay an extra price for it.

Of those whose labor promotes Sunday observance, the minister and his assistants, the choir and janitor, are never called in question. Most nearly comparable to these are the attendants at museums and library reading-rooms. In all these cases, for every one who gives his labor, amounting often to mere presence, a hundred persons, sometimes perhaps several hundred, are furnished the means of enjoyment and improvement. The library has as good a right to open as the church, unless religious distinctions are to be tolerated. Evening amusements cannot show the same justification. They generally require more labor, and they are given in plenty after working hours on week days. That they are often an exciting and unwholesome ending of the day of rest is more true than admissible as argument.

The Sunday labor involved in passenger transportation in cities is very large. It is of two kinds, for street cars and for suburban trains, and it serves three general purposes: to carry churchgoers, those in quest of fresh air, and those who for social objects or any matter of pure convenience desire to go from place to place. Some of the church-goers think not only that cars ought to run for their convenience, but that it is quite reprehensible for others to use them. The church is too fond of forbidding pleasures contrary to its ideas, and demanding labor to serve its own observances. While none can question that it is the church which has preserved our Sunday so long, the truth remains that its habit of expecting special favors for itself has done great mischief to the cause of Sunday rest. Still, the religious use of Sunday is the highest use, and fairly claims the encouragement as well as the protection of law. It remains to be proved, however, that the cause of religion is benefited by Sunday street cars. People are enabled by them to attend churches more distant from their homes than would be possible otherwise, but that is not a self-evident gain to religion. There is a church of some sort, a Christian church, at every man’s door. If Dogmaticus must go where he can hear his pet doctrines proclaimed, why can he not fix his residence near by, in the first place ? As few but churchgoers use the cars in the morning, if these would only attend some church near home, most of the street-railway men could have the whole of Sunday morning free, and might go to church themselves. Church-goers say they have a much better right to this service than has the general public, but it is still remarkable for the church to take the attitude of declining to perform an act of Christian renunciation until the world has set it the example. I do not mean to maintain that religious people are not justified in using Sunday street cars; only that the cause of religion does not require it and is not benefited by it, and that the church-goers really belong on the same plane as others who use the cars for convenience only.

There is, however, a class who have a much better claim to consideration. In warm weather the cars are used by multitudes in search of fresh air and mild exercise, which they could obtain in no other way so cheaply or with so little effort. For many this is the only means available during the whole week for the enjoyment of pure air and the beauties of nature. Public parks would often lose half their benefit if the people could not reach them on Sunday. The ratio of those who work to those whom their labor benefits probably does not exceed one to a hundred, and the work is of such a character that it is easy to arrange for a regular period of rest for all engaged in it. Nevertheless, the public needs to be watchful to see that this is done. Suburban trains on steam railways and excursion steamers serve the same purposes as street cars, but the number of workers bears a larger proportion to the number benefited, and a uniform day of rest must be more difficult to secure for boatmen, and for the railway men employed along the line at stations, gates, and switches. Some think that a crowded steamboat excursion gives weariness and disgust rather than rest and pleasure, but they forget that for many the alternative is the crowded tenement. The suburban railway trains are at least a mixed blessing. They often deplete the rural churches, and all day long empty crowds from the city at points where there are no public grounds adequate to receive them. If such trains are to be run, they should be managed with a view to securing the greatest possible public benefit; and a suggestion which might in some places prove practicable is, that they be directed for the day by public authority, with a special view to the good of those who need them most, the fresh-air brigade. Trains might be run out of the city direct to points in the country where there is ample space and opportunity for lovers of nature to satisfy their desires without trampling the farmer’s grass or picking the suburban resident’s plums. The State, having a right to forbid Sunday trains entirely, must also have the right to regulate the whole business, including fares, with a view to promoting the public welfare, provided it do not cause any railway actual financial loss.

Of course, with cars and trains running for one class, all classes will use them alike. No distinction can be made. The universal sentiment requires Sunday street cars, and it is fortunate that they do not necessitate the loss of a regular day of rest to their employees. The need of suburban trains is less evident, and public sentiment is not so unanimous in demanding them. They are generally put on in response to petitions, and those who sign such petitions would do well to consider the question before them as a doubtful one. Finally, though street-car men can easily be given a uniform rest-day, there is probably no class more often deprived of it, or more subject generally to be ground down by oppressive terms. The public that calls for the labor of these men on Sunday has a special duty to be watchful of their treatment by their employers.

From the moral point of view, this whole question of Sunday labor is one of selfishness and sacrifice ; of our right to demand sacrifice of others, of our duty to make sacrifice for others. Practically it is a question of the greatest good to the greatest number. Whether viewed as a moral or as a practical question, there is no reason why Christian and atheist should not work together. Originally a matter of religion only, religion and its terms, Sabbath and Lord’s Day, ought to be avoided in all legal reference to Sunday. Their continued use gives opponents of the day of rest a pretext for attacking it as an ecclesiastical institution. Simply as protection to religion, Sunday laws are not justifiable. As necessary to enable a large class of people to rest according to the dictates of their conscience, they are more defensible. But their strongest foundation is on the broad ground of the rights and the needs of all men, regardless of religious belief. We all esteem the day of rest highly, and would be loath to lose it. We do not all use it alike, and we cannot expect all to agree as to what work is indispensable for the greatest public benefit. It does not seem too much, however, that every man should take the trouble to inform himself about those whose toil promotes his pleasure, and to use all his influence to obtain for them another rest-day, though it be not the best. This Christian institution, the “ Sabbath for man,” gives a most fitting opportunity for the exercise of Christian thoughtfulness, and will lose in value for none of us if our enjoyment of it be governed by the spirit of the Scripture, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Charles Worcester Clark.