Memorials of the sea. Sabbaths in the Artic regions

Front matter

LIBRARY OF CO?(GRESS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

MEMORIALS OF THE SEA.

Contents

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Chapter I. — General Testimonies of Nature and Providence TO THE Divine Institution and Perpetuity OF the Sabbath ....... 3

Sect. 1. Introduction 3

Section I. — Introduction

Though the institution of the Sabbath is found recorded in the fore-front of the appointments of God, embodied among the ten precepts of the moral law, and repeatedly enforced by Moses and the Prophets ; yet its perpetuity of obligation, is, with many persons amongst us, unhappily questioned. Whilst the nine other commandments of the Almighty are acknowledged to be of universal authority — as constituting the plain and undisputed rule of man's obedience — this one, though given before any of the associated words, is now strangely held by some professing Christians, as an appointment binding only upon the Jews, but not upon themselves ! And although our Lord, as He himself declared, " came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil ; "

whilst he denounced those who should break one of the least commandments, and teach men so/' — yet this command, thus generally confirmed and guarded, is venturously asserted, by many, to be now annulled !

But it comports not with the object of this publication to controvert the question after the laborious and learned methods in which, in modern times, it has been taken up, and, in different instances, we regret to add, most perniciously pursued. For the obvious tendency, and observable effects, of the specious arguments and special pleading employed in support of the views which we deprecate, may be perceived to be, not only to undermine and break down the authority of the fourth commandment, but to justify and encourage that lamentable desecration of the Lord's day so greatly and injuriously prevalent throughout the land. Considering the subtle and far-fetched reasonings of some of the impugners of the perpetuity of the Sabbath, — the masculine efforts of mind of others in explaining away the common sense of the Word of God, or in confounding the natural understanding of man, — one cannot but lament such applications of learning as have too often produced an undue prejudice on the minds of sincere Christians, against those high attainments and superior powers of intellect which, when faithfully and correctly directed to God's glory, stand forth as the most noble endowments of our species. Were such the necessary tendencies of superior attainments, — as some timid and tender-minded persons, among our

DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 5

more pious population, misguided by incidental examples of the perversion of learning, have mistakenly imagined, —then, indeed, one might envy rather the faculties of a little child, or be willing to "become a fool," so as to " be wise " in the comprehension of the Word of God in its simplicity and truth.

According to the simple tenor of the sacred Scriptures, if left unperplexed by critical reasonings, and unprejudiced by human dogmas, the command plainly remains with us of unabated obligation to " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." But it is not merely an obligation ; it is an appointment full of wisdom and mercy. Yet to natural feeling, the law of the Sabbath must necessarily be burdensome, and, if strictly enforced, will seem an objectionable ordinance. This, indeed, is an intelligible consequence of the deterioration of the faculties and affections of humanity by the fall, — that men should be inclined to suppose, that any of the commands of God, which present a bar to their natural desires or unhallowed pleasures, are at once grievous and unnecessary ; and, therefore, that they should be disposed to deal with them, even by the most vain reasonings or subtleties, so that their consciences may find quiet in the imagined abrogation, or mitigation of strictness, of the ungenial precept. But in our consideration of the Divine government, it is most important to be borne in mind, that God neither appoints any observance, nor gives any command, without a special object. He lays no arbitrary demands upon his people ; he denies them no real blessing which they are in a condition to receive ; he vexes them by no useless burden, nor unnecessary restriction ; but he requires them to keep his commandments and statutes for their good. And this is one of his gracious statutes, involving most essentially the good of mankind — " Keep my Sabbaths : I am the Lord your God."

On this ground even, the seeking of good, — greatly inferior though it be as a motive of obedience, to that of a sense of obligation due to the command of the great God, our Father, — we may obtain a very powerful, and, we trust, a persuasive plea, for the consecration of a seventh part of our time as a sabbath, that it may he well with us, and that a hlessing may rest upon the land in which we dwell. In evidence of these effects being really derivable from a reverent observance of the sacred day of the Lord, it is only necessary, with a candid and spiritually enlightened mind, to mark the frequent, and ofttimes manifest providential attestations which are occurring around us. For God doth bear continual witness to His own appointment, that the Sabbath is no peculiar law for the government of a peculiar people; but that it is part and parcel of the constitution of nature, and of the order of Providence. And nature itself bears testimony that the Sabbath is an actual law of Creation; and if so, then must it be as perpetual in its obligation as the existence of nature in its general constitution.

Among the various arguments derivable from observation of nature and Providence, in relation to

TESTIMONY OF XATTRE TO THE SABBATH. < the law of the Sabbath, we may notice, briefly, the following: — the testimony borne to the law of the Sabbath by its influence on the physical condition of nature, and on the moral condition of man, with the testimony of Providence, not unfrequently yielded, as. to a curse on Sabbath desecration, and as to a blessing on its conscientious observance.

Section II. — The Testimony home to the Laic of the Sahhath, hy its Influence on the Physical Condition of Nature.

In the fruitfulness of the soil of the ground, and in the physical vigour of both the lower animals and man, we find the most manifest and beneficial influence from particular periods of rest, alternating with longer periods of laboiu'.

For the refireshment and in vigor ation of the earth. periodical fallows are not only useful, but, if we would expect to elicit the best condition of fertility, essential. Of this experimental fact, the most eminent and intelligent agriculturists give the appropriate testimony, that where the practice of fallows prevails, '-'the farmer's produce and profits are found to be far superior to where fallows are omitted.'"' And why? Because the constitution of the earth was made subject to the law thus experimentally elicited, being designed for a periodical portion of rest ; and this portion was strictly defined when Jehovah issued the decree to Israel, — ^'Six years thou shalt sow thy land,

SABBATHS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

and shall gather in the fruits thereof ; but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still."

In regard to the physical condition of the animals employed in domestic labour^ experience bears witness to a similar law, requiring for their health and strength the rest of a Sabbath. Take/' for example, " that fine animal, the horse, and work him to the full extent of his powers every day in the week, or give him rest one day in seven, and it will soon be perceived by the superior vigour with which he performs his functions on the other six days, that this rest is necessary to his well being." Of this corroborative fact, the experience and observation of one of the most successful coach proprietors in the kingdom, afford very striking evidence. Speaking with him on the management of his well regulated business, he made this remark in respect to the number and period of employment of his horses, — * that he found it requisite to have a spare horse in every six, not only for supplying the place of any that might be sick, but, chiefly, for giving each horse a day's rest once every week ! For he found,' he added, ^ that when the horses were worked continually, though employed only for an hour's stage to and fro daily, they were rapidly worn out ; it was but economy, therefore, in horses, to give them a weekly rest ! '

In the effect of continuous labour on the physical condition of man, the existence of the same law is clearly observable. The frame of the labourer who is without his sabbath of rest, either breaks down

TESTIMONY OF NATURE TO THE SABBATH. 9 througli the pressure of Ms unceasing toil, or sinks into premature decay ; whilst the man of study, who applies closely every day of the week in continuance, discovers, sooner or later, by painful experience, that his laborious diligence has been but improvident draughts upon the resources of nature. Of this latter effect of continuous efforts of mind, we have numerous and obvious examples among the learned professions. *The premature death of medical men from continued exertion, especially in warm climates and in active service, has been frequently observed ; and among the more active of the Clergy, who have neglected the substitution of another day of rest in compensation for the Sabbath, many have been seen to be destroyed by their duties on that day.' And it has been shown by some of the most eminent among Christian physicians, that, in a medical sense, as well as in a religious, the Sabbath, as a day of rest, is a most beneficial institution. It is held " as a day of compensation for the inadequate restorative power of the body under continued labour and excitement." And its rest, physiologically considered, has a "sustaining, repairing, and healing power."* The experimental result of a conscientious observance of this sacred institution on our bodily frame, therefore, witnesses, to the present day, to the obvious fitness of the declaration of our Lord, that "the Sabbath was

* This observation, -with some other quotations in this section, is derived from the very intelligent evidence of Dr. Farre, before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the observajice of the Lord's Day.

b2 made for man.'' It further attests, that the Sabbath is not an arbitrary institution, nor a mere judicial regulation, nor a ceremonial observance designed for the Jews only, but an "appointment necessary to man.''

Thus, it appears, that Nature, in its physical constitution, bears a special and multifarious testimony to the perpetuity of obligation, and beneficence of character, of the divine injunction, — " Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest ; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed."

Section III. — TJie Testimony to the Law of the Sahhath, from its Influence on the Moral Condition of Man.

In this have we another description of perpetually recurring testimony to the law of the Sabbath. For both observation and experience yield the most marked indications of the existence of an inseparable relation betwixt the due regard of the Sabbath, and the moral condition of mankind. Hence are there but few particulars in the practice of a Christian, which more strikingly indicate the personal acquirement of real religion than the habitual conscientious observance of the Sabbath. And as with individuals, so with nations, the manner in which this divinely appointed day is kept, is found to afford a fair com-

Moral influence of the sabbath.

parative estimate of national piety. That such, indeed, must have been the case, from the earliest ages of the world, we may infer from this declaration of J ehovah himself — " Hallow my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God." If this, then, was an appointed sign in ancient times, betwixt Israel and Jehovah, the analogy of our mutual faith would itself indicate, that the Lord^s day with us, must continue to be also a sign between the Gentile believer and his God — between the Christian and his Saviour.* And the closest observation and experience elicit the general proposition, — that the sanctifying of the Sabbath (not the mere formal or ceremonial observance) may, in any country, or age of the world, be regarded as a spiritual barometer, exhibiting, by its fluctuations, and comparative height, the state of the moral atmosphere wherever it is observed.

Such, indeed, is the natural consequence of the Divine appointment of the Sabbath; for all the appointments of a God infinitely wise and good, must have a relation and tendency to good. Being originally designed, not only to commemorate a rest, but to be a sanctified rest from labour in order to personal and spiritual edification; the conscientious observance of it necessarily becomes a sign — a sign distinguishing

* As the discussion of the question of the Sabbath on the usual grounds, falls not within the intention of this publication, it is not requisite to go into the reason for the change of the day from the seventh to the first. It is sufficient for our object, and, I ap2:)rehend for all the purposes for which the Sabbath was designed, that one-seventh portion of our time be set apart for rest and spiritual improvement.

"between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not."

In truth, the present welfare and eternal happiness of man are most intimately and inseparably involevd in the right improvement of God's holy day. Physically speaking, its observance, as we have shown, is necessary to the weal of the body ; but religiously considered, it is still more essential to the welfare of the soul. Were men, then, as much in earnest about their immortal spirits, as they are about the gratification or prosperity of their perishing bodies, how differently would that sacred day, expressly designed and wisely calculated for spiritual edification, be spent ! We should not then see the great mass of the world working with unwearied diligence from daylight till dusk for the perishing things of time, and stinting the labour for the soul, if they labour at all, to two or three meagre, listless hours of the Lord's day. We should not then find them strenuously contending for the abolition of the Sabbath, or denying its continued obligations, or questioning and rejecting its holy sanctions ! We should not then hear so many complainings respecting the restraints of the Sabbath, nor find the continued adoption, in spirit and action at least, of the language of the prophet — " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" We should not then see the sacred repose of the Sabbath converted into a rest of sloth and indolence ; nor the observance, which is a sign

MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH. 13

between God and his people, bearing the sign of the Prince of this world; nor the momentous occupations of the Sabbath pursued with careless indifference j nor the time due unto the Lord, and claimed by him as his own, stolen from Him to be given to business and self; nor the sacred hours of His holy day prostituted to worldly indulgences or carnal enjoyments. No ! were mankind in earnest about their moral weal, and religious advancement, as essential requisites for future glory, they would account the Sabbath a peculiar blessing ; they would consider it as the day of their special happiness ; they would improve it with lively diligence in seeking for spiritual gifts and graces; they would be most careful to " remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

Not only, however, doth the moral elevation of man hold an essential relation to a right improvement of the Sabbath; but his temporal happiness and welfare are found, in no small measure, to be involved in a due regard to this divine appointment, so as to call for its strictest and most godly observance.

It is a popular objection to a strict keeping of the Sabbath, that it deprives the poor labourer, borne down by six days' severe toil, of his only opportunity for necessary recreation for the good of his health. But we have a twofold answer, derived from general experience, to this popular reasoning. The first is, the simple fact, that the pious poor, who conscientiously and strictly regard the Sabbath, are not less healthy or less happy, but as a body much more so, than those who take the free and unrestricted use of Sabbath day recreation. And the next answer is the notorious truth, that the Sabbath recreations of the labouring classes are, in the great majority of instances, at once subversive of happiness, and prejudicial to health. For their prevalent infringement of the sanctity of the Sabbath is found by experience to generate more intemperance, sensuality, and lewdness, than mere recreative indulgence on any other equal portion of the week.* And in E-oman Catholic countries where the Sabbath, as to its greater portion, is professedly given up to purposes of recreation, it is found to be the day which largely exceeds all the rest in the practice of immorality and vice, instead of being improved, as it is designed, for '^the promotion of true religion and virtue." And if we might take Paris, when Catholicism was most predominant, as an example, the result of actual investigation was this — that there was decidedly more gambling on the Lord's day than on any other day of the seven, with good grounds for believing, that there was more dissipation, and sensuality, and sinful indulgence, on that fearfully profaned day, than in all the remainder of the week together !

The testimony to the law of the Sabbath, from its influence on the moral condition of men, as elicited in the evidence given before the " Select Committee of the House of Commons on the observance of the

* The evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the due observance of the Lord's day — especially that in reference to steam-boats and tea-gardens— aflfords many corroborations of these statements.

MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH. 15

Lord's day/' is so decisive in its cliaracter, that I conceive it advantageous to give here a few extracts in support of the foregoing observations.

Mr. Wontner, the keeper of Newgate, stated, that " he had heard many prisoners express their regret that their crimes had originated with a breach of the Sabbath;" that *^he had known them caution their relatives and friends to observe the Sabbath, tracing their own crimes to their non-observance or breach of the Sabbath ; " and that " nine-tenths of the prisoners coming under his care did not value the Sabbath, or were not in the habit of attending a place of worship."

Mr. Benjamin Baker, who had been in the habit of visiting the prisoners in Newgate for the previous twenty years, stated that " he had almost universally found the prisoners who became impressed with a sense of their unhappy condition, lamenting their neglect of the duties of the Sabbath;" that they almost universally considered Sabbath-breaking as the leading cause of their transgressions ; and " that the deviation from the Sabbath led them on, step by step, into that degree of crime which had brought them" to their lamentable condition. Mr. Baker had attended the execution of not less that 350 criminals, "and nine out of ten," said he, "have dated the principal part of their departure from God to the neglect of the Sabbath ; that," he added, "has certainly been the case ! "

The Eev. David Ruell, Chaplain of the New

Prison, Clerkenwell, stated, that 100,000 prisoners, at the lowest calculation, had passed under his care ; ^^that he had had many opportunities of learning from the prisoners themselves the courses which had led them into crime, and generally found that the neglect or gross violation of the Sabbath was one;" that " he had in many cases heard prisoners regret that they had been so regardless of the Lord's day;" and, in reference to the method of Sabbath violation he stated his impression that "by far the greater number desecrate the sacred day from taking their own pleasure.^' As to the inseparableness of crime and Sabbath-breaking, he said, I do not recollect a single case of capital offence where the party has not been a Sabbath-breaker, and in many cases they have assured me that Sabbath-breaking was the first step in the course of crime!" To the question, "Have confessions to that effect been frequent?" he answered, — " Frequently have they acknowledged it, and in some cases they have requested me to warn others against it from their example. Indeed I may say in reference to prisoners of all classes, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, they are persons who have not only neglected the Sabbath, but all other ordinances of religion. So powerfully is my mind impressed with the subject, that I cannot forbear adding my conviction that Sabbath-breaking is not only a great national evil, but a fruitful source of immorality among all classes, and pre-eminently of profligacy and crime among the lower orders."

CUESE OX SABBATH DESECRATION.

Section IT. — The Testimony of Providence as to a Curse on Sabbath Desecration.

Ix manifold respects the course of an unerring Providence bears continual witness to the truths^ that there is a blessing on conscientious Sabbath obseryance, a curse on its yiolation. Of this latter truth the voluntary account of thousands of suffering transgressors, and the dying words of many criminals, afford, as we have seen, striking and convincing evidence. Xumbers of miserable creatures who have paid the forfeiture of their lives for their manifold crimes, have been constrained to confess, that the vicious practices, which brought them to ruin and to the gallows, commenced, and were fostered, by their neglect or abuse of the Sabbath. Nor are we without manifold warnings of other kinds, crying to us as a voice from Heaven, — " "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day ?" — "Eemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" whilst the warnings, we may perceive, seem to realize the fulfilment of the solemn language of the Psalmist, where he says — It is time for Thee, Lord, to work : for they have made void thy law." The curse, indeed, on the violation of the Sabbath, may be discovered in all its modes. If we calculate the number of lives which have been lost among persons seeking their pleasure on the Lord's day — among those who have been lost in sailing-boats, or have been maimed or killed in coaches and other conveyances — among those who have been drowned whilst skating, or otherwise amusing themselves on the ice, — a proportion, I believe, much greater than arithmetically due to a single day, will be found to have met their death whilst pursuing their unhallowed pleasures on the Sabbath.

A very remarkable testimony was given under the Levitical dispensation, of Providential judgment, in the seventy years captivity of the J ews, for the violation of the Sabbath. What portion of guilt in this matter related to the desecration of the hebdomadal Sabbath we are not informed; but the chastisement referred to is connected, in the Scriptures, with the neglect of the septennial repose of the ground. It had been commanded the Israelites as a nation, to give the seventh year of their land a Sabbath of rest unto the Lord;" but, in case they should transgress, and walk contrary to their God, it was judicially declared that they should be scattered among the heathen for their chastisement; and " then," it was added, "shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth desolate and ye be in your enemies' land ; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest, because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it."

Notwithstanding this special warning, which had been put upon record by Moses in the book of Leviticus [chap. xxvi. 34-35], Israel did defraud the land of its Sabbaths, and the poor of its spontaneous produce. Then was the sore judgment fulfilled to very letter ; for the Jews were carried away captive

CURSE ON SABBATH DESECRATION. 19

into Babylon, because of their transgressions, until tbe land," as it is strikingly written, "had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years." [II Chronicles xxxvi. 21]. And this, probably, was the very amount of time of which her fields had been defrauded of their portion of rest.

If such, then, was the visitation of the Jews for their violation of a judicial precept of the Sabbatical Institution ; it would be prudent in those who are in the habit of oiFending ^ after the similitude of their transgression,' through the neglect of the permanently authoritative weekly Sabbath, to consider, whether they likewise, in their temporal weal, will not be made to pay the penalty? Would to God that the great multitude of persons of all grades and professions, who violate, for purposes of emolument or pleasure, the sanctity of the Lord's day, — the Christian's Sabbath — would carefully weigh the consequences, and they would probably find that their expected gains were in reality loss, and their supposed enjoyments unreal ; whilst for these they brave the wrath of God and bring down a curse on their pleasures and on the work of their hands! For however little the great mass of the world may think of the sin of violating the Sabbath, and however venial Sunday trading or pleasuring may be considered among men, there is good reason for believing that our eternal happiness is as much perilled by the wilful, habitual desecration of the Sabbath, as by the transgression of some of the commands of highest acknowledged importance in the decalogue. And if, as some imagine, the Sabbath may be neglected or broken without the charge, before God, of sin, then could we bring forward the strongest reasons for the repugnant and dangerous conclusion, that idolatry and blasphemy, theft, and adultery — the laws against which have no higher authority — may be committed without sin !

Section V. — The Testimony of Providence as to a Blessing on the conscientious Observance of the Sabbath.

Having touched upon the experimental manifest tations of evil to man, both physically and morally, as well as in regard to his temporal happiness and prosperity, from Sabbath desecration; we now proceed more particularly to remark upon the special acknowledgments of Providence, in accordance with the promises of Scripture, of a blessing on the reverential and scriptural observance of the sacred day of the Lord. For thus the word of Jehovah declares, — "Blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." And thus also is it graciously promised, in the LViiith of Isaiah, — " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not

BLESSING ON SABBATH OBSERVANCE. 21

doing thine own waySy nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

Such then are the assured blessings attached to a conscientious and sanctified observance of the Sabbath, — delight in the Lord, — temporal dignity or respect, — and temporal prosperity or sufficiency of sustenance; and, behold, how strong the assurance on which these blessings rest, — "the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it ! "

And that such blessings, either wholly or in part, in a greater or less degree, are actually bestowed upon those who keep the Sabbath from polluting it, and remember it to keep it holy, — the experience of all good men, who have been enabled to make the experiment, abundantly proves. Such, for example, was the oft-recited experience of the celebrated Lord Chief Justice Hale, who has publicly testified the singular comfort and advantage which he derived from the due observance of the Sabbath. " I have found," says he, " by a strict and diligent observation, that a due attention to the duty of this day, hath ever had joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my time ; and the week that hath been so begun, hath been blessed and prospered to me; and, on the other side, when I have been negligent of the duties of this day, the rest of the week hath been unsuccessful and un-

22 SABBATHS IN THE ARCTIC EEGIONS.

happy to my secular employments ; so that I could easily make an estimate of my successes in my own secular employments of the week following, by the manner of my passing of this day : and this I do not write lightly or inconsiderately, but upon a long and sound observation and experience."*