RESPONSIBILITIES OF SABBATH WHALING. 247 



to hold that sacred day obliterated, and the way 

 opened for any and all degrees of moral depra- 

 vation to which that sin is the natural ini- 

 tiation. 



Let ship-owners, as they fear God and have 

 a regard to the judgment, separate themselves 

 from this iniquity by positively instructing their 

 agents not to whale on the Sabbath day. We 

 call upon captains and officers to exercise the 

 manly independence and regard for their rights, 

 to say that they will not sail except in Sabbath- 

 keeping ships; and we call upon the men to 

 stipulate beforehand that they shall be allowed 

 the rest of the Sabbath. We call upon the 

 editors of respectable journals, in whaling ports 

 and elsewhere, to discuss the propriety of this 

 practice. We ask religious men and good citi- 

 zens there to express, in the intercourse of 

 private life, their sense of the wrongfulness of 

 so plain a desecration of the Christian Sabbath. 



It is everywhere popular, at this day, to 

 praise our Puritan ancestry, and, under God, to 

 ascribe our liberty, and everything that is dear 

 to us, to their high principles, and their consci- 



