CRUSHED ON A SUNDAY.

BY E. P. ROWSELL.

VERY dreadful certainly, that of so many who but now were doubtless full of life and full of glee, some should be lying bruised and battered corpses, and others maimed and mangled in a manner almost too frightful to behold. Yes, it is very appalling, and the lesson to be learned from such a scene we would most gladly take to heart.

But is that lesson the lesson which would be suggested by the words "Warning to Sabbath-breakers, or God's Judgment manifested in the late Accident on the North Kent Railway," heading a placard in our oilman's window relative to a forthcoming discourse from a dissenting minister? Or again, has our own clergyman accurately described this calamity when he has told us that we must not be so short-sighted as to attribute the catastrophe to the carelessness or inefficiency of a railway official-we must look beyond this immediate cause, and remembering the wickedness of which these sufferers had been guilty in dishonouring God's day, feel no surprise at their punishment for breaking God's law? We purpose venturing a few remarks in reply to this inquiry. True, the subject is worn enough, and we have scarcely hope of saying upon it anything new, but the point at issue is so important and so serious, is debated still with so much earnestness, that a page or two may not be ill occupied by one more endeavour to arrive, concerning it, at a sound and satisfactory conclusion.

Now, in the first place, we cannot enter on the Scriptural argument. We have heard and we have read, we believe, all the reasoning which can be founded on the Holy Scriptures regarding this question. But we must candidly confess, without the slightest intentional irreverence, that we are always fearful of arguments based on Scriptural texts. It is difficult to speak our mind frankly on this point and to steer clear of an accusation of disrespect towards the Bible. Yet will you deny, reader, that you have often been staggered by apparent inconsistencies in the Bible, and then pained by the almost ludicrous manner in which some of our divines seek to remove these inconsistencies ? Words in the Bible are too often saddled with a meaning which would be regarded as preposterous if forced on them when used elsewhere. Our learned men never seem disposed to sit down quietly before an unintelligible or irreconcilable text. They cannot rest until they have coerced it into something like harmony with other texts. There must be nothing hid from the light of their intellects, and the things hard to be understood must be fought and wrestled with until their mystery is torn from them and they stand fully revealed.

Heaven forbid that I should not learn my duty, my faith, my hope, in the Bible. Let me draw near to it for comfort in this life and encouragement to look for a brighter and a better; but there are many questions, albeit connected with religion, answers to which are so doubtfully set forth in its pages, that I dash away the fetters which a few isolated texts seek to cast around me, and in the flood of light shed by its broad, noble

truths which can never be mistaken, behold a surer, safer elucidation of every mystery than could be accomplished by the minutest inquiry and the most laborious investigation.

What strangely different interpretations are put upon the same texts. Some years ago we heard a powerful discourse upon the words "Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." The text was used to sound an alarm to the careless and impenitent. Wheresoever sinful man should be found, there in an after day would be gathered the eagles. No escape-no possibility of flight-on the very spot occupied by the risen body would be found a minister of vengeance ready, nay, eager to hurl to destruction the eternally lost. Now what a vastly different meaning was given to this text by a divine to whom we listened some time after. According to his view," the body" here meant-not a miserable criminal, crouching before coming judgment, but the Blessed Saviour beneficently drawing all men unto him, and "the eagles," instead of representing terrible, avenging angels, signified good, holy men attracted to worship the Son of God.

Again, with what singular acuteness and force did we once hear a clever minister discourse on the extreme improbability of the sudden, instantaneous conversion of the dying thief on the cross. The very next sermon we heard on this subject was devoted to the showing the mercy of this one instance of clearly instantaneous conversion, and how grateful we should be for its occurrence. It is needless to multiply cases. The great truths of the Bible, they will stand fast for ever. The rock of man's salvation-every eye can see that. The sure hope to the faithful of everlasting life-no shadow rests on that. A broad flood of sunshine is upon the road to heaven. Oh, let us be content, and be thankful that the Bible teaches us so much distinctly and directly, and be satisfied with its only giving us the foundation upon which to settle minor and less important questions.

Putting aside, then, but without the slightest disrespect, the Scriptural argument, let us submit this question to the scrutiny of our reason, and dealing with it calmly and without prejudice, ascertain the conclusions to be arrived at concerning it.

Now, do Sunday excursion trains, and such like inducements to recreation on Sundays, turn from attendance at church any who would not otherwise be absent from the sanctuary? Those flaming posters in divers colours, describing marvellously cheap trips to places which the walled-up citizen delights to think of, do they seduce the regular worshippers at church from their holy and laudable employment? We say, unhesitatingly, that of all those who go systematically to church on the Sunday, there is scarcely one who is even tempted to break his custom under the pressure of any suggestion of pleasure, however enticing. The fact is, attendance at church, like so many other proceedings, is pretty much a habit. It may be a very good habit-a very right habit, if you please-but it is nevertheless a habit. Jones, who sits before us at church, would be shocked at the notion of going to Brighton on a Sunday; and inasmuch as he would be perfectly sincere in his avowal of horror, who shall blame Jones? But then Smith would denounce such a suggestion even more loudly than Jones; and Smith, we know, is a monstrous sinner, albeit that he is never absent from church, invariably holds a plate after charity sermons, and sings

with a fervour which draws the eyes of the whole congregation upon him. Mrs. James is a conscientious woman, and she, we do believe, comes to church for a good purpose; but then there are the Miss Landerses, who are quite as regular as Mrs. James-only their desire is to-Well, as they are young and pleasant, never mind. Then there's that old Biggs, the crossing-sweeper. Have we not often wondered at his regular appearance in church immediately all the pennies have been gathered in, and been astounded at the vigour with which he has joined in the responses and psalms? Yet in his doing this lies Biggs's unprecedented success as a sweeper. He is making a fortune by sweeping. The rector favours him -everybody favours him; the old ladies favour him especially. But he owes his good fortune entirely to attending at church, and getting a character thereby. Biggs is a vile old hypocrite; never mind that, he keeps up appearances, and is worthy of prosperity.

Depend upon it that cheap trains, or anything of the character, have little or no effect in taking from church those who are in the habit of going to church. We all have a clear and distinct motive for our attendance, very difficult indeed to set aside. Whether I attend because it is respectable to attend, or because I admire the preacher, or because it is an easy mode of whiling away a couple of hours, or because proximity to my friends the Miss Landerses is pleasant, or whether I go from the possession of a faint shadow (oh, reader, let us be humble-who has more?) of the feeling with which I ought to go,-still, irrespective of everything else, there is a chain upon me in the habit of my going, which will bear the strain of a multitude of seductive influences striving to draw me away.

Now let us turn to the question-who are these whom the flaming posters do fascinate, and who do go by Sunday excursion trains, and indulge in other modes of recreation on Sundays? Friend reader, you may start back if you like, but here is the fact-there is an immense multitude of human beings in this professedly Christian country who never enter a church, who have no idea of a church, who really hardly know anything with reference to matters which may be learned in church, beyond that some day or other they will die, and be put in a coffin, and

be buried.

Stirring up their intellects a bit, they may then venture a notion that if they do not during their lifetime do anything very bad, if they pay their way and do not defraud anybody, if they do not swear very much, do not often get tipsy, and are not dirty in their habits, then they may go to heaven; though, except that it is a place where there is no work to be done, their impression of heaven is the vaguest and mistiest that can possibly be conceived. Robinson, the little tailor hard by, puts on his blue coat on a Sunday and smokes an extra pipe after dinner; and that is his way of distinguishing the day. Higgs, the grocer, lies in bed the greater part of the day and reads the "Weekly Horrors." Wiggins, the lawyer's clerk, makes short trips into the country when he has the wherewithal, and stays at home smoking cheap Cubas when he has not. They are verily heathens, every one of them. Do we bear hardly on them? are we ungenerous when we say that these men have no religion? They have a sense of right and wrong, and they are very attentive to the law of the land. They are not by any means scoffers at religion, but they

look upon it, so to speak, as an extra thing, a sort of luxury, which people with leisure may very properly have regard to, but which is out of their way, their time is so completely taken up. Now what shall we do with men in such a benighted state as this? Supposing you had the power, would you take them by the throat, hurl them into the sanctuary, and bar their exit? Do you think any good would result from such a course? Do you imagine Robinson's heart would very freely absorb Divine truth, or Wiggins's intellect manfully grasp the doctrinal points which the rector would expound? Do you not rather think that at least in the immense majority of cases the result would be the reverse of that you would wish? Much we fear that the truth falling upon unwilling ears would only render more callous already cold and darkened hearts, and that this work, like every other work begun in the middle and not at the beginning, would not only end in failure, but would issue in a state of things worse than the last.

Now, surely it is something to get Nature to preach to these men. Robinson, who, poor wretch, is as completely a slave (or even more a slave in regard to the quantity of work which he performs) as any negro, whose head bends over documents the driest, the dreariest, and most wearisome, from the first thing on Monday to the last hour on Saturday, whose only recreation consists in a journey occasionally to serve a writ, shall I be hard upon Robinson when I say that his intellect is rather of Tom Thumb proportions, and the subject of theological inquiry would be about as palatable to him as a peremptory demand for his overdue rent? Yet poor Robinson is not a perfect blank; do not think that. Something of a heart he still has within him, and yet a few sympathies remain which may now and then be stirred. One of his poor little children died last year. He had six. Being needy, of course he has a large family, and five plump children, large eaters and requiring extensive garments, form his blessings. But this sixth child, who now is not, was a great contrast to the others. Poor little fellow! disabled from birth, what a martyrdom was his, and how patiently he bore it! On a tiny bed, in a room scarcely bigger up-stairs, lay that small, wasted, and wasting form, until the bonds were broken and the young spirit fled forth. The child had but one amusement during those years of suffering. As he lay by the window, his blue eyes fixed on the sky, and scarcely ever turned elsewhere it was his only pleasure. Robinson never looks upward now but he thinks of that poor boy, and marvels whether his child can see him, still toiling on below. And especially his heart glows when he has a fair, full view of the heavens above him, such as he may get on a Sunday when enabled to quit the bricks and mortar for a few hours, and enjoy the inestimable luxury of a roam some miles from town. Not the most eloquent sermon of which he could be an auditor could preach to Robinson with one-tenth part the force with which the blue sky preaches to him on a fine summer day. The poorest specimen of our race, who, alas! may know nothing of a mighty Creator from his word, may feel the existence of a loving Father from his works.

Not only is the blue sky eloquent, but the fields and the trees preach -the very silence preaches the deep calm preaches-the fresh air preaches the sense of freedom, the thankfulness for rest, preach. Robinson's intellect cannot soar very highly, and Robinson's heart is sor

rowfully contracted, but they may be reached through such influences as these, and, stirred and animated by them, there may come across his faint, worn spirit a gleam of heavenly brightness lighting the road to a heavenly home.

But take a lower grade still: take the mechanics, artisans, and labourers of the metropolis. A vast number of these, it is to be feared, not only do not go to church, but they employ the Sunday in modes most detrimental to their moral and social welfare. Robinson, just alluded to, would not do himself any mischief if left at home on the Sunday, he would merely reap no advantage from the day. But Barker, as a representative of quite the lower class, has, unhappily, a decided tendency to turn the day into a positive evil. Having nothing to do, and feeling very jaded and miserable, he suggests to himself to get drunk, and he does get drunk, and time still hanging heavily on his hands, he conceives the notion of beating his wife, and he does beat her accordingly. Then the neighbours, hearing her cries, run in, and a man interposes, and Barker fights the man, and gets sorely bruised, so that perhaps he can do no work on the Monday. Now, it is evidently absurd to take Barker to church while he is in such a state as this. How are we to raise Barker from this brutish plight? What ameliorating process shall we put in operation to raise and elevate him, so that we may hereafter find him in a condition which will give real hope of attendance in church proving advantageous? We do sincerely believe that here again we cannot do better than ask Nature for a sermon. Bright sun, broad heavens, green trees, preach to Barker. We would rather, certainly, he went to church, but even could we get him to church (which we could not) as he is now, he would nod over the prayers and snore during the sermop, and become more callous than ever. But in some moment, dear Nature, this poor creature may be stricken by thy teaching. The very happiness which he enjoys when witnessing thee is calculated to soften his heart. Here is something to be thankful for, and who is he to be thankful to? Once advance Barker as far as this, and thought leading to thought a fire may be kindled within him, which, with God's blessing, may never be put out.

Reader, do you know much about the courts and alleys in and about London? Pious lady, lying on a luxurious sofa, fanning yourself and complaining of the heat-pretty girl of twenty, district visitor, Sunday-school teacher, missionary fund collector, a perfect little saint in thy way-did you ever really examine the localities and dwellings of the poor about London? I declare to you that, except upon the score that God's goodness fits a man's back to the burden it is destined to bear, I am utterly unable to imagine how human beings can possibly exist in many of the inferior parts of the great city. Mercy! how stifling is the sensation which oppresses one even when hastily traversing them. How we hold our breath so that we may not inhale the abominable atmosphere into which we have entered. And if we, thus troubled only for a few minutes, shudder, shall we not deeply commiserate the life-long burden to be borne by those whose lot it is to know no other homes than these until they shall have been called to enter the common home of our race. They may, indeed, become very hardened and callous to sufferings which their