112 



DISCUSSION ON SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 



and does not mean otiier sorts of work. There can be no doubt 

 of the truth that worknig a fresh set of nerve centres is a great 

 rehef to those that are overworked, but it is not the same rehef 

 as a complete rest of all of them. Therefore, rest must ever 

 remain rest. Now this rest is of a many-sided character. AU 

 through each day we have continual little rests from our labour in 

 our meal times and the pauses in our work. We have a rest 

 every twelve hours in the alternation of day and night. Those 

 who turn nie;ht into day, and try and work the twenty- four hours, 

 do far less work than those who follow the law of systole and 

 diastole appointed by day and night. Then there is this weekly 

 rest, which cannot be altered, though man in his superior wisdom 

 to this eternal law has thought fit to try to do so. One day in 

 ten doe:3 not seem enough. To do without it altogether is to 

 commit slow suicide. For some inscrutable reason which, I 

 think, we have not at all as yet fathomed, one day in seven seems 

 to be the right amount of rest required by our being. Then there 

 is the annual rest of holidays, and so on, which used to be so 

 entirely ignored. The physician I succeeded boasted very much 

 that he had not taken a holiday for thirty years. That would now 

 be considered a matter for concealment rather than approbation. 

 In the war, as Dr. Horton has pointed out, desperate efforts were 

 made to do away with the essential principle of Sunday Observ- 

 ance, by proving that men could work advantageously seven days 

 a week. It was found to be an absolute fallacy and an impossible 

 plan to carry out. Most men could hardly have a greater change 

 on Sunday than finding themselves inside a church, chapel or 

 mission hall — or wherever they may be — to worship God ; for 

 there is not much room for that practice in the week. So that at 

 any rate it involves a change. Then there can be no doubt that 

 in the week they are almost entirely employed with mundane 

 matters, and affairs of time and sense. What, therefore, can be a 

 greater change than to be occupied with spiritual matters on 

 Sunday? I am purposely putting this, not on spiritual grounds, 

 but on medical grounds ; I am purposely putting it on grounds 

 which the man in the street is able to appreciate without spiritual 

 instinct or insight. There are higher grounds, but these may not 

 be for all ; therefore, I put it on the lowest grounds. You may 

 have a mind, you may be clothed with a body, but the spirit is 

 yourself. Now, I think this law of change, of spiritual nourish- 

 ment, is a law that can be based on physical and medical grounds. 

 But we, as the Victoria Institute, who believe in the divine 

 authority of Scripture, can appeal at once, of course, to the direct 

 authority of God for our meeting here this afternoon in support of 

 Sunday Observance. And Christians, of course, value this day 

 beyond expression in words, as giving them an opportunity for 

 that communion with the Divine, and with things unseen, that is 



