4. It is necessary for our Spiritual Health. Above all things it was ordained because it was indispensable to our spiritual growth. Our health, mental and bodily, depends upon the harmonious and complete development of all our faculties. The neglect of any power which belongs to the integrity of our nature leaves us stunted, deformed, liable to physical or mental disease, to subtle and overpowering temptations, such as daily
* A. Rowland. * Henry Ward Beecber.
ST. MARK III
consign multitudes to wretchedness ; and this must especially be the result if that faculty is suffered to decay for want of its proper nourishment, which, as many writers have had occasion to observe, constitutes the most special characteristic of man as distinguished from the brute. The religious instinct, the capacity and the desire of communion with the Divine, the reception and assimilation of spiritual truth — that, we must never for a moment forget, is the true distinctive mark of man ; man with the upward-looking eye, man with his intellect in proportion to its elevation conversant with abstract truth, man with a heart and conscience responding and testifying to the truth of the living God. It is for man specially, as such, man as a spiritual being, that the Sabbath was especially made, and so far as regards his noblest faculty, made not for its repose, for its suspension or temporary cessation from action, but for its active exercise, its perfect development, its continuous growth. The labourer, as such, whatever may be the field of his occupation, whether the toil and drudgery of manual work, or the far more exhausting struggle of intellectual efforts, ceases to be a mere labourer on the Sabbath day. The Lord of that day, who determines its obligations and dispenses its blessings, relieves him of the burden which he bears so long, and which but for Christ he would bear hopelessly until he lays down his worn- out frame in the quiet grave. But the inner man, the spiritual man, as such, far from ceasing to act, acquires the full conscious- ness of himself, the full use of all his powers, when he consecrates that day to the purposes for which it was bestowed.
Few of us may realise this fact thoroughly from our own experience ; all of us must be conscious how far we have been at the best from such a consecration of our Lord's own day ; but just to the extent that we have done it, or seriously attempted to do it, we can satisfy ourselves that it is so. It is simply unreasonable to suppose that any of our faculties will attain to their full and healthy development unless special care and special seasons be appropriated to their culture ; nor can one who trusts the Word of God, or tests that Word by the facts of inner experience or the accredited records of the past, doubt that, over and above the daily care which must
112 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
be bestowed upon the noblest and loftiest principle of our human nature, one-seventh portion of the week is asserted, and is found, to be an indispensable condition of its healthy growth.
^George Washington, at the beginning of the "War of the Eevolution, issued an order from which I quote: — "That the troops may have an opportunity of attending public worship, as well as to take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through, the general in future excuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays, except at the shipyards or on special occasions, until further orders. We can have but little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly."!
^ " I wonder how it is," said Farmer Denton, " that our Daisy seems so much happier on Sundays than on other days ! " Then Daisy spoke up from her seat on her father's knee. " You see, papa, Sunday is God's day, and I want to make it as nice a one for Him as I can." " Bless the child," said her father, " if it is right for you to do this, it is right for everybody else to do the same." ^
^ Every day a Christian should practise communion with God. He should be like the Yorkshireman who said he enjoyed religion every day. He had a happy Monday, a blessed Tuesday, a joyful Wednesday, a delightful Thursday, a good Friday every week, a glorious Saturday, and a heavenly Sunday.
Bright shadows of true Eest! some shoots of blisse;
Heaven once a week; The next world's gladness prepossest in this;
A day to seek Eternity in time ; the steps by which We climb above all ages ; Lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, And full redemption of the whole week's flight!
The Pulleys unto headlong man ; time's bower ;
The narrow way; Transplanted Paradise; God's walking houre;
The cool o' th' day! The creature's Jubile; God's parle with dust; Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh and flowres; Angels descending; the Eeturns of Trust; A Gleam of Glory after six-days- showres ! » J. H. Vincent. " H. S. Dyer, The Ideal Christian Eomt, 118.
ST. MARK 113
The Churche's love-feasts; Time's Prerogative,
And Interest Deducted from the whole; The combs, and hive,