

THE SABBATH. 41 



while others, from elevated platforms, recited to listeii.-- 

 ing groups poems and passages from Goethe and 

 Schiller. Through this crowd of military men passed 

 and repassed the girls of the city, linked together with 

 their arms round each other's necks. During hours of 

 observation, I heard no word which was unfit for a 

 modest ear; while from beginning to end I failed to 

 notice a single ease of intoxication.* 



It may appear uncivil and inappropriate for a person 

 invited to come amongst you as I have been to seek to 

 establish contrasts with other countries unfavourable to 

 your own ; but let me take an extract from an account 

 of Scotland written by a Scot, a short time prior to the 

 date of my visit to Dresden. " A tree," says this writer, 

 u is best known by its fruits. What are these in the 

 present instance? The protracted effort to enforce a 

 stern Sabbatical observance per fas et nefas has no 

 doubt evoked an exceedingly decorous state of affairs 

 on Sunday; but in a great measure only so far as 

 external appearances are concerned. Puritanism with 

 its uncompromising demands has had a sway of three 

 centuries in Scotland; and yet at this moment, in pro- 

 portion to the population, the amount of crime, vice, and 

 intemperance is as great, if not in some details greater, 

 than it is in England. But the most frightful feature 

 of Scotland is the loathsome squalor and heathenism of 

 its large towns. The combination of brutal iniquity, 

 filth, absence of self-respect, and intemperance visible 

 daily in the meaner class of streets of Edinburgh and 

 Glasgow fills every traveller with surprise and horror." 



Here indeed we touch the core of the whole matter 



* The late Mr. Joseph Kay, as Travelling Bachelor of the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge, has borne strong and earnest testimony to 

 the " humanising and civilising influence " of the Sunday recre- 

 ations of the German people. 



