62 Wisco7isin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



THE GEKMAN SUNDAY. 



BY RT. REV. W. E. ARMITAGE, D. D. 

 P. E. Bishop of Wisconsiu. 



I venture to present, as a topic of social science, one on 

 wHcli it would be easier for me to preach. But while I do 

 not for an instant concede tliat tlie Divine authority, and the 

 teaching and practice of the Christian Church, are not to be 

 quoted here, I recognize the wisdom and the value for our 

 present purposes of rather choosing authorities and proofs 

 from human and social history and experience. And, there- 

 fore, I shall hold in reserve what to many of us would be 

 more conclusive than what I offer ; but with the conviction 

 that if on this, as on any other subject, we could perfect our 

 social science — give the result of the widest induction and the 

 soundest deduction— we might expect it in the language of 

 that marvellous Book with which no perfected science has ever 

 found itself in discord. 



Europe inherited, no matter whence or how, the custom of 

 marking one day in seven fi-om all the others. And immigra- 

 tion brought that custom from Europe to our shores. It brought 

 with it also two distinct modes of observance, which we may 

 call the " English Sunday," and the " Continental Sunday." 

 The influx from the Continent during the last twenty years, and 

 the consequent strengthening of the latter mode, seem to have 

 caused many of those disturbed by it to overlook some very 

 obvious facts. The two modes of Sunday observance were 

 brought here in the earliest period of settlement. While the 

 English colonies, some of them under exacting religious con- 

 victions, enacted and practised the English mode, the French 



