CONSIDERATIONS, &e.

THE unusual efforts which have for some time been in progress to influence the public mind, touching the institution of the Christian Sabbath--the authority on which it is founded, the duties which it imposes, and the appropriate manner of its observance-have justly attracted to that subject much of the public attention. So long as this influence was attempted only by the force of considerations growing out of those various views which are presented to the human mind, either from reason or revelation, there seemed to be nothing in the question which was calculated to agitate community any more than from the discussion of many other questions in morals and policy, which are constantly presented to them through the pulpit or the press. It has been thought proper, however, to bring to bear upon this particular question a very different class of considerations. And the novel and extraordinary measures which have been put in a train of execution, to enforce those views of it which are entertained by a portion of the community, seem likely to bring it at last to a pretty serious crisis.

In some of those measures there is evidently, as to the parties engaged in them, so incongruous a mixture of religious--though misguided zeal-with the hope and calculation of worldly gain, that it is difficult to determine whether, in the end, zeal is to be the tool of worldliness, or worldliness the tool of zeal. The probability is that each will in its turn be both the instrument and the dupe of the other. And as to their practical effect no considerate and observing man, it is believed, from the developements which have already been exhibited, can doubt what is to be their ultimate results. What progress has been made within the last year in effecting their professed object of diminishing the number of those who occasionally travel on the Sabbath, or putting down such lines of stages or boats as run on that day, let the well known increase of both during that period answer. It is unnecessary to allude to those obstinate and embittered rivalships which this question has been the

means of getting up, or to those disreputable controversies and disorders to the annoyance of the peaceful traveller, which have toc often grown out of them. Equally painful is it to reflect upon the obvious and perceptible effect which is already discernable and daily increasing, of separating our whole community into two classes, distinct from each other in most of their social and business relations of life-each of which we suppose must soon, not only ride in separate stages and boats, but with equally good reason, must take lodging in separate taverns, worship in separate churchesand, if they value domestic peace, intermarry each with its separate caste. Then will again be built up that "wall of partition" which forbade the Jew to have any dealings with the Samaritan, but which we had been taught to believe had been long since happily broken down by the more liberal and enlightened views of the christian dispensation. If the church be indeed "the salt of the earth," by whose savor the world is to be "seasoned," how shall this be effected unless the members of each are brought into frequent, amicable and familiar contact with each other. But if the church elect to withdraw themselves within their own exclusive circle, the world must e'en be content, we fear, to sit down with the loss of their society-each standing upon the strength of their own resourcessustaining their own charities, and carrying on their own enterprizes. with their own means, in the best manner that they may. Is it then wished that "every tub should be left to stand on its own bottom," and be filled too from its own cistern?

In the midst, however, of all this unseemly scramble, the great danger, as it regards the moral sentiment of the community at large, is evidently this-that the contest will terminate in dividing them into the two deprecated classes of blind and relentless bigotry or scheming hypocrisy on the one hand-and open and scoffing infidelity, and a contemptuous disregard of any sort of religious observances on the other-and thus displaying to the world a scene of morals and of manners from which reasonable and considerate men will retire with loathing and disgust.

It may perhaps be thought that sufficient has already been written and published on this agitating subject. It is true that the pulpit has resounded with denunciations and the press teemed with tracts devoted to particular views of it. Most of these have, however, been conceived in a temper, and are obviously pledged to.

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purposes which are little friendly to the cause of deliberation and of truth. It is with the hope of discovering some common ground on which men whose intellect is not perverted by inconsiderate zeal, or blinded by passion or by interest, can unite, if not in their speculative views, at least in their practical conduct touching this interesting question, that a republication in this form of the following articles is thought expedient.

The first is from two late numbers of the Christian Examiner, published at Boston, being portions only of two much larger and very interesting articles on this subject. They are written with a spirit of sobriety, candor and intelligence, which should at least entitle them to a dispassionate perusal.

The second is from that eminent Christian moralist, Doct. Paley. It is almost needless to inform the public, that Doct. Paley was a man to whom the cause of Christianity is probably as much indebted for a lucid and eloquent display of the evidence of her truth and divine origin, as to any other advocate of the last century, that this short treatise on the institution and observance of the Sabbath forms a part of his great work on Moral Philosophy, a volume which has long been the standing text book in most, if not all the Universities and Colleges in our country. It was written in the retirement of the closet by one who was the ornament of the Church of which he was a member, under the influence of no partisan principles, and under the operation of no transient and inflammatory excitement of the day. And will it hereafter be believed that it was for the expression and avowal of sentiments and opinions in general accordance with those exhibited in the following pages, that large bodies of our respectable citizens have been denounced, from quarters where the voice of christian charity should alone be heard, as "worse than the heathen who perish," and as "infidels, scoffers and cavillers who presumed to raise their ruthless hands against the ark of the Lord ?" Verily may it be said of these men, that "they know not what manner of spirit they are of," nor can they have duly considered what the end of these things must be.

It may be remarked too, as not a little singular, that this long vexed question touching the authority and perpetuity of the Jewish Sabbath, and the duties and observances which necessarily appertain to it under the Christian dispensation, which has ever been a debateable one in the Church itself, should have been selected at

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this day as the chosen one upon which to try the new experiment of coercing heretics into orthodoxy by an appeal to their business and their purses. If the object was to raise a standard and furnish a rallying point for that "Christian party in politics" which has been so earnestly recommended by Doct. Ely, the late Moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, it would seem as though a less equivocal and more strongly marked one might better have been chosen.

The views presented by the following articles are, it is believed, substantially those of by far the greater portion of every religious denomination in our country,-excepting only one-as appears from their several publications on the subject,-notwithstanding the great address which has been used to draw the former into the schemes of the ambitious and aspiring sect through whose instrumentality they have been brought forward, by making a prominent use of the. names of such few individuals as could be induced to lend them, and in some cases, as it is said, without their authority or approbation.

It will hardly be deemed as an exception to this general position, that individuals of perhaps all religious denominations, and even of no denomination at all, are found engaged in some of the moneymaking projects to which this question has given rise, while they make a jest of the principle in private. For when capital or services are needed to carry into effect the worldly part of a religious proect, it is well understood that at this day no questions are asked, and no special moral qualifications are required on either side. And it was in accordance with this view of the matter that it was ately declared with much emphasis by a zealous professor in the Village of Utica," that he should think it his duty to travel exclusively in a six day line of boats or stages, if they were owned and run by the Devil himself!"-What are the world to think of such Christianity, such professors, and such converting ordinances? October, 1829.

NOTE.-Amongst the various publications to which this controversy has given rise, one has lately made its appearance which, for the gross misrepresentations of the sentiments and principles of his opponents, and for the miserable tissue of sophistry by which the author undertakes to maintain his strange positions is, it is hoped, without a parallel. It is published over the sadly misappropriate signature of "The Spirit of "76," and is unJerstood to be the production of the same Reverend gentleman who made a somewhat memorable figure on this question, in the village of Utica, a little more than a year since.

The whole composition is one of those strange concoctions of law, logic and theology, which might be expected from a man who had just so much of a smattering of each of them as was necessary to ensure the spoiling of the whole mixture.

As a specimen of the misrepresentations of the sentiments of his opponents take the following

"It is maintained," he says, by "the friends of Sunday mails," "That the government is not bound by the word of God, nor is it at liberty to know or respect his law.

"That congress have a right to pass laws requiring our citizens to violate the precepts of christianity.

"That the prevalence of religion through our country would endanger the liberties of the people."

Many pages are then occupied in fighting down with his medley of legal, logical and spiritual weapons, these men of straw of his own creation, which certainly have never been set up by any class of men in this country, or elsewhere, to our knowledge.

The following is his principal argument to prove that the government of the United. States have a right and are bound to pass laws to enforce the "law of God."

"Let it be remembered, [says he,] that the obligation of our government to obey the laws of God does not arise from the decree of an earthly potentate, but from the mandate of the GOVERNOR of the universe. JEHOVAH, in the second Psalm, as the King of Kings, calls upon the judges or rulers of the earth, not only to "serve the LORD with fear," but to "kiss the son," or embrace and acknowledge the SAVIOUR, "lest they perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little." Now who will dare contend that this command of the Almighty is not binding upon the government of the United States ?"

The legitimate conclusion which the writer would draw from this argument must then be this, that because "judges and rulers of the earth" are required, as individuals, to "serve the Lord with fear, to kiss the Son," &c. they are bound to make it by law the duty of every subject or citizen of the State to do the same thing. A strange and most unwarrantable conclusion, indeed, is this. And if this is not what is intended by the argument, there is nothing at all in it to any purpose.

His interpretation of that clause of the constitution which guaranties to every man the free exercise of his religion is that this guaranty is only in favor of those who shail profess the christian religion.

"Can we, [says he,] for a moment, suppose, that the framers of the constitution intended, by this guaranty, to give Mahomedans and Hindoos the free exercise of their religion in this country? If we do not give the constitution a construction which will embrace all religions, we must restrict it to the christian religion, and conclude that the men who formed our government meant to acknowledge the authority of the christian system. "What is there, then, [he triumphantly asks,] in the peculiar circumstances of our nation, or in the nature of our public institutions, which can absolve our government from its moral obligation to Jehovah ?"

Now it is precisely by reasoning of this sort, and by the exercise of such secular powers as are here advocated, that many a faggot has blazed, and many an auto de fe been celebrated in the annals of persecution. For if rulers are to tolerate only the christian religion, they must also see to it that it is only the correct and orthodox understanding of it which is permitted, and there are, we all know, many professing christian sects in this country to whom even the name of christian is denied by other predominating denominations. This is a construction of our constitution worthy only of the man who inculcated the same and other analogous doctrines in the pulpits of Utica a year since; but it is apprehended that it is far from such an interpretation of it as the great body of the christian community will either authorise or sanction. And it is a work distinguished by such disingenuous perversions, such lame sophisms, and such principles of religious toleration, that has been scattered with great profusion through the country, and recommended by a religious paper our vicinity as a desirable manual for every christian family. It is these considerations alone that entitle it to so special a notice.

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From the Christian Examiner, for May, 1829.

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We come now to the late measures adopted for enforcing a stricter observance of the Sabbath. These measures have been pursued with much zeal, and discussed with much heat; and, as usual in such cases, means and ends, motives and principles, have been confounded together. Let us, then, attempt to discriminate.