66 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



and the. other days, among the Latter retaining certain great 

 festivals, but very jealous for the paramount authority of the 

 Sunday. They were not agreed among themselves about the 

 ground of its obligation, and as discussion went on about it, 

 Luther, and even Calvin, and others were drawn into giving 

 their authority to what seems to us lax observance of the day, 

 in their fears of the people's relapsing into unreformed prac- 

 tices, or adopting views of their own opponents. For instance, 

 Luther's saying, quoted from his Table-talk, " If anywhere the 

 day is made holy for the mere day's sake, if anywhere any one 

 sets up its observance on a Jewish foundation, then I order you 

 to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do 

 anything that shall remove this encroachment on christian liber- 

 ty." And what he counselled, he seems to have done — and as it 

 was a convenient mode of proclamation of reformed views and 

 j^ractices, one in harmony with the national instinct for out- 

 door enjoyment, whatever the previous Sundays have been 

 among the throng of holy days, the German Sunday now was 

 established with all the honors, and with all the earnestness, 

 of the leaders of the Eeformation. 



Very sad, sometimes, are the evidences of human weakness, 

 even in the case of great men, and of whole nations. We may 

 wonder and lament that they did not reach the divine truth, 

 instead of supposing that they found it in the contradiction of 

 errors ; but so it was. The religious earnestness of the time 

 probably prevented immediate evils from their laxity, if we so 

 regard it. But they bequeath it to less earnest generations, 

 with the sanction of their great names, and with national pride 

 associating them with it. So when you undertake to waive 

 away, or condemn the Grerman custom as a mere instance of 

 infidelity, or actual hostility to the christian religion, you are 

 very likely to array in its defence every German who hears 

 you, from the mere instincts of patriotism. Whereas the Ger- 

 mans in this country are as much divided on the questions 

 about the day, as we are divided ourselves between the Puri- 



