for drunkenness, compared with ten years ago. The prosecutions in the year which ended in August, 1883, were 2116; in the year which ended in August, 1893, 1123, the decrease being 993!" Onward, Christian soldiers," and though you may not wear the same arms or uniform, and may differ in your method of attack, you shall be more than conquerors. Faith, hope, and charity, these three, religion and reason, example and help, self-respect and common sense, the removal of temptation, the reward of virtue, and the punishment of vice, shall overcome evil with good.

VI.

OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY.

Causes of Disregard and Desecration Who are Most to blame ?Differences of Opinion as to the manner of Observance - The Opening of Galleries and Museums - The Bishop of New York and Dean Stanley on the Subject — Cremation: not Popular in England - When Expedient - Discontinued by the Romans when converted to Christianity - Funeral Reform.

THE observance of Sunday is another subject of discussion which causes great searchings of heart. The disregard and desecration of the Lord's Day may be readily traced to their sources self-indulgence, ignorance, and indifference. The chief culprits, as it seems to me, are they who, having the most influence from their prominent position, their wealth, and authority over others, and the least excuse for profanation, professing and calling themselves Christians, faring sumptuously every day, and living at their ease, will make no pause in their pursuit of pleasure for worship or for rest, but must have their coaches in the Park and their barges on the Thames, their billiards and tennis, their banquets and concerts, so that on Sunday, as on every other day, their men-servants and maid-servants and their cattle may do all manner of work. The Irish preacher, who expressed his belief that such people were the lineal descendants of those who perished in

ness.

the flood, was constrained to modify his statement, when he was reminded of their extinction, and he did this adroitly by his plea that, although he could not prove the pedigree, there was a strong family likeThe gambler must have his cards and roulette, read his sporting paper, and study his betting-book —without compunction, except in one remarkable instance, when the apology was more quaint than convincing. A clergyman called upon the wife of a professional bookmaker, and reminded her that her husband had promised to be in church on the preceding Sunday, but had not made his appearance. Well, sir," she said, "the fact is, he was obliged to go from home on a little racing business, but he left word that he should be with you in spirit."1

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There is some excuse for the toilers, who rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, or for those who have never been taught by example or by instruction to remember the Sabbath day, and to keep it holy, some excuse when they spend the only day at their disposal in idleness or amusement; but there is no defence for those libertines, who neither fear God nor regard man,

1 I have given in "The Memories of Dean Hole" some quaint examples of these startling combinations, made in ignorance, between religion and sport, but I omitted an incident, which occurred near to my home, and to one whom I knew intimately. He was the vicar of a mining district, had been stroke of his University boat, and was a famous boxer. A collier came to him, and informed him in confidence, that he had made an engagement to fight a brother workman, and that if he, the vicar, would undertake to train him, he on his part would promise, if he won the battle, to "gie 'im a pound for the new church winder."

who serve Mammon, and, like the Cretans, only sacrifice to self.

But even among those who deplore this indifference, and are anxiously contending against it, among those who are unanimous in their reverence of Sunday, as a day which the Lord has made, for the relief of our necessities and for the setting forth of His own glory in creation and redemption, we find that, although thus far united, they differ in their ideas as to the best method of observance, and therefore in their schemes and suggestions for persuading others. They differ as to the spirit in which we should regard Sunday, whether it should be a day of gloom and austerity, or a day of cheerfulness and joy, and so they become adverse and polemical, and Gallio, who careth for none of these things, politely declines to listen to arguments which contradict each other.

Again, in this matter, as in the matter of temperance, it is the Company of Extremists (limited) who block the way. There is the strict, stern Sabbatarian, who forgets that the Christian's Sunday has far more gracious associations and fewer restrictions. than the Sabbath of the Jew, that the Fourth Commandment must be kept in the spirit on the first day of the week, and not in the letter on the seventh. The Son of Man declared that He was Lord also of the Sabbath, but the Jews, and the Pharisees, whom He denounced as hypocrites, more especially sought to kill Him, because He performed miracles of mercy, and taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, bade one man to stretch forth his

withered hand, and another to take up his bed and walk.

There is no limit to the combination of fanaticism and hypocrisy. Cannibalism is said to have been practised in the court of King Ethelforth, and Gwrge, a Welshman, had a male and female Kymry killed for his own eating (only certain portions being selected) daily, except on Saturday, when he slew two of each, so that he might not be guilty of breaking the Sabbath. In our own time a man, drunk with whiskey, has been heard to reprove a companion for whistling on the Sabbath.

The severe Sabbatarian grimly declines to cooperate with those who would multiply inducements, and remove obstacles, to the better observance of the Lord's Day. If he is asked, Do you not think that by certain relaxations we might refine the taste, exalt the desires, and lead the minds of some of our fellow-men, break up the fallow ground, and soften it to receive the heavenly seed; and that if we can persuade a man to admire the beautiful colours of a butterfly's wing, or the plumage of a bird, or the marvellous mechanism of a shell, and to desire to know about Him who made these, to look through nature up to nature's God, to be moved by concord of sweet sounds, shall we not be far more likely to lead him from the museum, the library, the gallery, to a place of worship, than from the bar of a drinking saloon? Too often the answer is, "Oh, you want to make all days alike, to get in the thin edge of the wedge, and to introduce the Continental Sunday. You will create additional