neld Aug. 3d, 1664, providing that "from henceforth all Englishmen presenting a certifficat, under the hands of the ministers or minister of the place where they dwell, that they are orthodox in religion, and not vitious in their lives, or that they are in full communion with some church amongst us, it shall be in the liberty of all and every such person or persons, being twenty-fower years of age, householders and setled inhabitants in this jurisdiction, to present themselves and their desires to this Court for admittance to the free dome of this Commonwealth." - Ib. vol. iv. pt. 2d., pp. 117-18.

From the foregoing, it plainly appears

III. Why such Sabbatical laws were enacted and enforced. The church was, ex officio, legislator for the State. The State laws, at that period, were the product of an aristocracy, a privileged class; and this aristocracy rested not only on church-membership, but on membership in a church established, supreme, exclusive, persecuting all other sects, and enforcing civil penalties against them. Baptists and Quakers, and dissenters of various other sorts, were whipped, fined and banished. The legislators being necessarily members of this dominant church, and elected by men who were voters because they were church members, - took up systematically the practice of com- ' pelling conformity to their religion by law. Severe penalties were enacted against even the utterance of private opinion against any one of the principal articles in their creed; observance of the SundaySabbath was required by this creed ; and every person in health was compelled to attend the Sunday services where this creed was taught, and to follow the church custom of keeping Sunday as a Sabbath, regardless of the fact that that custom had no sanction from the Bible.

It was during the period while this church-aristocracy was dominant in Massachusetts that the above-quoted Sabbatical laws were made. Portions of them have been pruned off, at successive periods, by the advance of civilization, a better understanding of religion, and a better acquaintance with the Bible; but the prohibition of labor and travel enacted by those persecuting bigots still remains; there yet remains, too, in the public mind - misled by erroneous statements of the teachers of religion the false idea that the Bible enjoins this Sunday-Sabbatism; and there is, as I have said, a large class of people who use these antiquated and ill-founded laws for the oppression of the poorer classes, preventing, to a great extent, such recreation and improvement as these might obtain from the use of street cars and the opening of Reading-rooms and Libraries on Sunday.

It is now for the people of this generation to consider

1. Whether, as we approach the end of the 19th century of Christianity, it be not time for the laws of New England to secure to its people the amount of liberty set forth by the Christian law, at its very beginning, as the right of every Christian, namely, freedom from all claim of observance of days?

Jesus violated the fourth commandment Sabbath, defended his disciples when they were accused of violating it, commanded a Jew, in one recorded instance, to violate it, reproved nobody for violating it, commanded nobody to obey it, and enjoined no other Sabbath.

Paul said to his Christian converts, Let no man judge you in regard to the Sabbath; he declared these converts free from "the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones," that is, from the whole of that Hebrew decalogue to which the fourth commandment belongs; he laid down the rule of perfect individual freedom in regard to observance of days, thus - "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;" and yet he treated the very wish to Sabbatize as a suspicious circumstance, showing imperfect knowledge of the Christian system, for he said to the Galatians, "Ye observe days; I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain."

In the matter of Sabbatism, I say we ought to stand where Jesus and Paul stood, understanding that the Christianity which they taught makes no requisition of that sort, and appoints no day to be observed in any manner, by any person.

2. It is time for us to consider whether the admitted benefit of our custom of pausing one day in seven from mere money-getting labors, a custom which nobody wants interfered with, cannot be secured without making a false pretence in regard to the claims of Christianity; and also without opening the way for interference with such exceptional labor as true regard for human welfare demands. The small proportion of labor to benefit involved in lighting the gas in city streets on Sunday evenings is so evident that nobody objects to it. Why should any one complain of the similarly small proportion of labor to benefit involved in Sunday horse-cars and a Sunday Reading-room? considering how many thousands have time neither to ride nor to read but on that day.

on.

These two things, I say, should be forthwith considered and acted

CHARLES K. WHIPPLE.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

[We are favored with the following friendly letter. In laying it before the reader, we have to confess that we are not competent to conduct a controversy. If we endeavor to explain, we make the case no whit clearer. We will say from time to time what we feel like saying, hoping in the long run both to correct our errors, and reinforce any truth we may chance to have spoken. There is no haste. Open to conviction, we would yet change our opinions without fixing the precise date. We wish to be fair, not ungrateful, and always practical. But we can not be caught up by a sense of duty, and made suddenly to "reflect" and agree upon a modification. The good sense of others will readily dispose of whatever is said. If we were right in the "Note" referred to, we rejoice to have written it; if wrong, we still rejoice, if we have provoked a more fortunate statement from another. — ED.]

MY DEAR FRIEND :- I read with great surprise your paragraph in THE RADICAL for August, page 760. You say:

66

... •

We cannot be fettered by obligations to honor men. It is time to let Jesus rest. His fame has become a grievance the free spirit avoids.. . Jesus is made a stumbling-block to the generation. As such, he impedes progress and must be removed. . . . . Is this your real feeling, or only a momentary burst of impatience? I earnestly beg you to reflect upon the significance, and especially upon the spirit, of these sentences. I know you will be glad to have me speak my impression frankly; let me say, (charging these vices wholly on your words, not on you), they sound to me inexpressibly ungrateful and treasonable: proposing, as I understand them, that we should turn away from a friend to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, because our relation to him is made by others troublesome or suspicious. Would you suggest thus turning our backs on the memory of our beloved Parker? Are you of such stuff that when any friendship should be made a burden and a bore, you would desert, and "cut" your friend? I know you better ! Yet such is the import of this paragraph.

Is it not? Let us see. You are offended with the narrowness and grieved with the obtuseness of some who insist on forcing their interpretation of Jesus' nature and work, and their terms of expression on you, and me, and the liberal body. So are many beside you— not all "Radicals," but some Conservatives," if we must use these bad party-names; not all "young" men, but some of our most honored old men ; compeers of Channing, who resist this warping of the Unitarian denomination from its traditional and sacred position of

individual, intellectual and moral fr with you, "Let us be free: religiou Christology is the only permissible te about Jesus, it is sympathy with hi truth but its avenue; the glory is God to make men religious, whatever thei conclusions on each other, but with t coercion. In freedom only can ther But your demand is denied by certa ipsedixits, and poorly anathematize th these, with feeble arrogance, are fain this brother, to whom we owe more th - who certainly worked hard and which you and I hold sacred, and no legacy to us, did he not?— the ri the deepest and most practical pri which we have received from any sou was love; whose heart brimmed with tion; this man and friend of ours, the their exclusive patronage, away from me, they misinterpret, mystify, mispl opinion they do make their distorte block" in the path of progress.

But now, on our part, because this sacred Man of Galilee, works, throug this mischief, are you and I to turn real Jesus, the real historical person forbid! He is not a "stumbling-blo make him so. Nor is his true "fam forever. Let us be patient. Your more than the ostrich accomplishe Whatever is true and noble let us st For one, I say, I will as soon blot ou desert the friendship of my father, f to escape some personal inconvenien ease the way for my theology.

It seems to me you cannot mean t your words. Christianity is not a co is not a book of pretty fables, or an tinct, intelligible system of religion phy, which separates itself of its own companiments and mythological ac

resists the partizan gnosticising of eighteen centuries. For myself, I believe it can be shown to be all-comprehensive and permanent : that is, that Jesus' system embraces the entire circuit of fundamental religious, moral and spiritual principles, which (whatever may be elaborated from them, or, if you prefer, alongside of them), cannot themselves be worn out, or outgrown, but shall suffice for every stage of spiritual development and for all spiritual relations.

Now you may not say quite as much: yet at least, no man can study Jesus' expressed thought in itself, or the history of civilization and of mental and moral development, and not acknowledge the greatness of the system or its gigantic effects in the world. Must we then necessarily, for the purposes of truth, retain his personal memory in connection with the system? I do not claim so the system can stand alone, and does, and will, for it is true. But I do say, that commonest gratitude demands affectionate fealty to him from those who accept his work. It is the simplest dictate of affection and reverence to hand down in honor the name of one by whom, as an avenue of God's working power, the world has been blest so richly. I seem to be saying very little, do you dissent ? If so, shall we blot out all good men's memories as they die?

But further than this. I consider your suggestion as unwise as it is ungrateful. I will not dwell on the life and character of Jesus as the best illustration of his ideas; nor on the natural tendency of men to attach their thought about a leader or exponent, and the consequent expediency of retaining so holy an ideal man as Jesus. I will say nothing of the value of personal magnetism as a force in the training of the vast majority of minds; nor even of the value of an example, if we can have one, of the realization of our ideals. I only urge, first, that the theology and anthropology of Christendom are so inextricably entangled in the question of the nature of Jesus, that you cannot disentangle them; and second, that even if you could, you would only be sacrificing the very best object of analysis, and the very most favorable field of discussion in this whole department of thought. I do not fear to challenge you to produce a better illustration of human nature; a better example of human character; a fuller illustration of the development and working of the religious sentiment; or a more palpable instance of the influence of present Deity. I do not stop to discuss the possibility of finding another as good. I think you will readily concede we can find no better instance. Well, then, is not Jesus also the most available? I should prefer on grounds of barest convenience to retain him as the centre of thought and interest which he now is, ready to hand. It seems to me that