36 THE SABBATH. 



the best men then existing to civilise the rude society 

 around them. Violence is restrained by violence medi- 

 cinally applied. Passion is checked, truth and justice 

 are extolled, and all in a manner suited to the needs of 

 a barbarian host. But read in the light of our age, its 

 conceptions of the deity are seen to be shockingly mean, 

 and many of its ordinances brutal. Foolishness is far 

 too weak a word to apply to any attempt to force upon 

 a scientific age the edicts of a Jewish lawgiver. The 

 doom of such an attempt is sure, and if the destruc- 

 tion of things really precious should be involved in its 

 failure, the blame will justly be ascribed to those who 

 obstinately persisted in the attempt. Let us then cher- 

 ish our Sunday as an inheritance derived from the wis- 

 dom of the past, but let it be understood that we cherish 

 it because it is in principle reasonable and in practice 

 salutary. Let us uphold it, because it commends itself to 

 that " light of nature " which, despite the catastrophe 

 in Eden, the most famous theologians mention with 

 respect, and not because it is enjoined by the thunders 

 of Sinai. We have surely heard enough of divine sanc- 

 tions founded upon myths which, however beautiful and 

 touching when regarded from the proper point of view, 

 are seen, when cited for our guidance as matters of fact, 

 to offer warrant and condonation for the greatest 

 crimes, or to sink to the level of the most palpable ab- 

 surdities.* 



* Melanchthon writes finely thus: "Wherefore our decision is 

 this: that those precepts which learned men have committed to 

 writing, transcribing them from the common reason and common 

 feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as no less divine 

 than those contained in the tables of Moses." (Dugald Stewart's 

 translation.) Hengstenberg quotes from the same reformer as 

 follows: "The law of Moses is not binding upon us, though some 

 things which the law contains are binding, because they coincide 

 with the law of nature." See Cox, vol. i. p. 389. The Catechism 



