108 



DISCUS SIOX ON SUNDAY OBSEE VANCE. 



home. What is it? The effect upon the mind is that somehow 

 the wheels of Ufe have been stopped for the moment and we 

 are allowed to look at things as they are. 



Employment is arrested. To some extent amusement is 

 arrested, and we are in another atmosphere. That atmosphere 

 of the English Sunday strikes some people as dull. But it does 

 not striKe us as dull. On the contrary, it is like new life to us. 

 We feel when the Sunday comes round that the mere fact that 

 we have thrown off the week is a recovery of ourselves. The 

 atmosphere of the day and the prevaihng sentiment in the com- 

 munity come to us as one of our best possessions. This day 

 that is given to us — the impression of which is so familiar to 

 us. I never can forget the feeling I had when I embarked on 

 the boat to return from India, after three months in India. It 

 really seemed like Heaven. I was on a P. and O. boat and the 

 first day on the vessel was a Sunday. Being on that boat, with 

 the silence and reverence that pervaded it, seemed an introduction 

 into another world ; and though the service on a steamship is not 

 always very inspiring and original — on that occasion the officiating 

 person was the Captain, who did not seem to take much interest 

 in it — yet I hardly ever went into a service which impressed me 

 so much. Certain of the hymns and the reading of the prayers 

 impressed me for the reason that I had been in a country where 

 Sunday was not. The first point about Sunday is that it is for 

 rest. That is the original institution as it came down to us from 

 Judaism. Therefore, what we want to secure in the use of it is 

 that we shall not be called upon to do anything which disturbs 

 the sense of rest. It is that rest which is the condition of religious 

 life. Therefore, from the purely human point of \'iew, whoever 

 or whatever deprives us of our rest is an enemy of society — an 

 unconscious enemy it may be, but an enemy whose faults should 

 be brought home to him that he may repent. You have to-day 

 a terrible violation of the great idea. Every centre of population 

 pours out its people on the day of rest in char-a-banc? and other 

 motors. They tear down the public roads, rush throucfh the quiet 

 villages, and disturb the peaceful prayers of men and women in 

 the countryside. They turn the country into the restlessness of 

 the city. It is a disturbance of our national life which, if we 

 were wise, we should try to prevent. In the life cf Bume Jones, 

 the painter, who in a true sense was a religious man — at any 

 rate it was his great point that he should die m the faith, but, 

 unhappily, he belonged to a type of Christianity v.-hich knows 

 nothing of Sunday — there is an account of the way he usually 

 spent his Sunday. William Morris would arrive at breakfast and 

 the breakfast would be made an intellectual strain. Then he and 

 Bume Jones would ,20 into the studio. Then friends would com^^ 

 in. Then there was talk — recreation as they thought it was. 



