oof that his theories are put into practice in his house. Dinner and
time vanished with rapidity in that house, where everything breathes
love and happiness.

CHAPTER XLI.

I MOUNT THE PULPIT, AND PREACH ON THE SABBATH, IN THE STATE OF
WISCONSIN--THE AUDIENCE IS LARGE AND APPRECIATIVE; BUT I PROBABLY FAIL
TO PLEASE ONE OF THE CONGREGATION.

_Milwaukee, April 21._

To a certain extent I am a believer in climatic influence, and am
inclined to think that Sabbath reformers reckon without the British
climate when they hope to ever see a Britain full of cheerful
Christians. M. Taine, in his "History of English Literature," ascribes
the unlovable morality of Puritanism to the influence of the British
climate. "Pleasure being out of question," he says, "under such a sky,
the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness." In other
words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not
altogether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don't look it, many
Britons are not moral who look it.

But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic
"morality" which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of
America? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of America, the
same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing,
doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh
day.

Yet Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with
Protestantism; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant
than Martin Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ.

[Illustration: PURITAN LACK OF CHEERFULNESS.]

Luther taught that the Sabbath was to be kept, not because Moses
commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh
day's rest. He says "If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's
sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do
anything that will reprove this encroachment on Christian spirit and
liberty."

The old Scotch woman, who "did nae think the betterer on" the Lord for
that Sabbath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of
Anglo-Saxon Christian. But it is when these Puritans judge other nations
that they are truly great.

Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon
visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday.
Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion