On green hills far away:--
The sounds that breathe of Peace and Love,
On a sunny Sabbath day.

For somehow, though they call it wrong,
In church I cannot kneel
With half the natural thankfulness
And piety I feel
When out, on such a day as this,
I lie upon the sod,
And think that every leaf and flower
Is grateful to its God;
That I, who feel the blessing more,
Should thank Him more than they,
That I can elevate my soul
On a sunny Sabbath day.

Put on your shawl, and let us go;
For one day let us think
Of something else than daily care,
Or toil, and meat, and drink:
For one day let our children sport
And feel their limbs their own:
For one day let us quite forget
The grief that we have known:--
Let us forget that we are poor;
And, basking in the ray,
Thank God that we can still enjoy
A sunny Sabbath day.

What can be more natural,--what more plausible,--what more
rational,--what more pious? Yet it means forgetfulness of God,
forgetfulness of Christ, forgetfulness of duty, forgetfulness of
immortality. It means self, and sin, and ruin. And so it is with a
multitude of other sweet poems. One of the sweetest singers that ever
received a poetic soul from God, ignores Christ and Christianity. His
works are full of truth, but it is truth turned into a lie, and made to
do the work of sin and death. It is Satan clad as an angel of light.

Every day a Sabbath, means no day a Sabbath. All places holy, means no
place holy. All things worship, means nothing worship. All honest labor
religious, means no labor religious. Freedom means license, contempt for
virtue, enslavement to vice. Progress means falling back. Elevation
means degradation. Liberality means leniency to error and evil, and
severity towards truth and goodness. In short, darkness means light, and
light means darkness; good means evil, and evil good; bitter means
sweet, and sweet bitter. Reform means revolution, and renovation means
degradation, and all these charming things mean wretchedness and ruin.

We must not be understood as condemning all the sentiments uttered by
the great deceiver. Many of them are true and good. They are Christian.
Satan is too wise to preach unmitigated falsehood. He understands too
well the art of using truth so as to serve the ends of falsehood. It is
enough for hi