, on the margin of the canal, just above
Central Street Bridge. I rubbed my eyes, half expecting that I was the
subject of mere optical illusion; but a second look only confirmed the
first. Around me were solemn, go-to-meeting faces,--smileless and
awful; and close at hand were the delving, toiling, mud-begrimed
laborers. Nobody seemed surprised at it; nobody noticed it as a thing
out of the common course of events. And this, too, in a city where the
Sabbath proprieties are sternly insisted upon; where some twenty pulpits
deal out anathemas upon all who "desecrate the Lord's day;" where simple
notices of meetings for moral purposes even can scarcely be read; where
many count it wrong to speak on that day for the slave, who knows no
Sabbath of rest, or for the drunkard, who, imbruted by his appetites,
cannot enjoy it. Verily there are strange contradictions in our
conventional morality. Eyes which, looking across the Atlantic on the
gay Sabbath dances of French peasants are turned upward with horror, are
somehow blind to matters close at home. What would be sin past
repentance in an individual becomes quite proper in a corporation.
True, the Sabbath is holy; but the canals must be repaired. Everybody
ought to go to meeting; but the dividends must not be diminished.
Church indulgences are not, after all, confined to Rome.

To a close observer of human nature there is nothing surprising in the
fact that a class of persons, who wink at this sacrifice of Sabhath
sanctities to the demon of gain, look at the same time with stern
disapprobation upon everything partaking of the character of amusement,
however innocent and healthful, on this day. But for myself, looking
down through the light of a golden evening upon these quietly passing
groups, I cannot find it in my heart to condemn them for seeking on this
their sole day of leisure the needful influences of social enjoyment,
unrestrained exercise, and fresh air. I cannot think any essential
service to religion or humanity would result from the conversion of
their day of rest into a Jewish Sabbath, and their consequent
confinement, like so many pining prisoners, in close and crowded
boarding-houses. Is not cheerfulness a duty, a better expression of our
gratitude for God's blessings than mere words? And even under the old
law of rituals, what answer had the Pharisees to the question, "Is it
not lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?"

I am naturally of a sober temp