ple, and tends to do evil. Should all pursue it, the Sabbath would be destroyed; and the example of those who do pursue it is as really wicked as it would be if all others should imitate it. But my travelling is not on worldly business. I finished my worldly business at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon. May I not take the steamboat which starts at four, and get home at six o'clock on Sabbath morning, so as to be with my family, and attend public worship in my own church? If you may do so, every other man may do the same. The minister of the gospel may do it, in order to be with his family, and preach to his own church; and the minister with whom he exchanges may also do so. The clerk in a store may go home, and attend church with his parents. At six o'clock on Sabbath afternoon, he, and the minister who preached on exchange, may take the steamboat and go back again, two hundred miles, so as to be, the one in his store, and the other with his family, on Monday morning; for it is evidently no more really wicked to travel on the last part of the Sabbath than on the first. One part is as holy as the other. And the day is twenty-four hours long. Who cannot see that this would tend to destroy the influence of the Sabbath, to set in motion every steamboat and rail-car that could get patronage, and to deprive all the men who are employed on them of the rest and privileges the day? Those men have an inalienable right to the benefits of the Sabbath. And should they consult their true interests, they would not, for any amount of money, give up that right, or cease to enjoy the privilege. They cannot do it without curs ing themselves and their children. The evil will go down to their children's children. No friend of God or man can consistently aid in producing such evils. But does not every man who travels on board the boat or in the cars, on the Sabbath, do this? Does not he encourage the owners to run, and thus know

of

ingly become a partaker in their sins? Does he not lend his influence to keep those workmen in the practice of habitually profaning the Sabbath, greatly to their injury, and the injury of the community? Is this right? No, it is not right. It is a sin—a great sin against God and man.

"That might be the case," says one, "provided my stopping would lead to the stopping of the boat. But others will travel, if I do not; and, as the boat will run at any rate, I may go." So the rumseller says, The business is bad; yes, destructive. He would stop, if all others would. But, as rum will be sold, whether he sells it or not, therefore he may sell. But the question is, and that which is to settle the whole matter, Is it right? Is the example good? Would it be useful for others to follow it? Would it promote piety, morality, and religion? If not, it is wicked. Suppose that others will commit wickedness if he should not; will that justify him in committing it, and thus adding his influence to that of others in pouring the flood of desolation over the land? His object is, not the good of society, but the making of money. And, as others will make money by wickedness, therefore he will, and thus be as wicked as they.

And is it not so with the man who will travel on the Sabbath, or the first six hours of it, to get home to his family? Is not his great object to make money, or to save money, by doing his travelling on the Lord's day, and that he may have one more day to attend to business? Or is it not his own pleasure, in being with his family, which he seeks, above the glory of God and the good of mankind? "No," a man says, "it is not so with me. By being carried on Saturday night, while I am asleep, from New York to Boston, or a considerable portion of the way, and going the rest early in the morning in the cars, I can keep the Sabbath better than I could at a tavern, or

with a friend in New York." What is the meaning of this? Is it any thing more than, "I think I should enjoy the Sabbath better myself, and make it more useful to me"? "Yes," a man says, "my family need my presence. By being with them, I can lead them to keep the Sabbath better, and in a manner more useful to others." If that is the case, and it is on that account your duty to be with them, then it is your duty to go to them during the week time, and set them an example of keeping the Sabbath at the beginning, as well as in the middle, and at the end of the day. One part is as holy as another. By going home on Sabbath morning, you set the example of Sabbath-breaking, which they may follow after you are dead. You teach them that only a part of the Sabbath is to be kept holy; and is that the right way to induce them properly to observe it? You are found in company with the most notorious and shameless Sabbath-breakers, helping to deprive those employed of the rest and privileges of the Sabbath, that your family may the better enjoy them; and you are setting an example, which, if followed, would destroy the Sabbath itself. If you may travel the first six hours, or the first two, others, whose convenience, in their view, requires it, may travel the next two, of six; and others, the next. The whole day may occupied by different parties travelling to and fro, and the day become subject to general desecration. To such desecration, your example inevitably tends.

be

On the whole, instead of benefiting your family, or leading them, as they grow up, better to keep the Sabbath, it will operate powerfully the other way. The scream of the rail-car tells to all who hear it, that men are trampling on the Sabbath. This tends to break down its sacred enclosures, and lead others to, trample upon its holy hours. And when the pas sengers get out, it is seen that you are among That scream of the cars gave notice of

them.

your

arrival,

and your own conscience condemns you. Why else I did you wish to arrive in silence, before it was light? Why step so quietly along that private back way? Why hope that your neighbors would not see you, and that you might arrive before your children should be up? Why wish to have them meet you first in the stillness and quiet of the day, rather than coming in with your baggage from a distant journey? You know that it is wrong; hence the effort that you make to satisfy yourself and others, that in your peculiar case it is allowable. You acknowledge that it would, i on the whole, be better for the community if no steamboat or rail-car should run, and if all the workmen should be allowed to have the rest and privileges of the Sabbath.

"But THE MAIL, the mail must run on the Sabbath. Of course, somebody must go with it; and, if others. may go, why may not I?" This reasoning, if it were. sound, and the statement, if true, would not justify any one in travelling, except those who must aid in carrying the mail. But the statement is not true, and the reasoning is not sound. It is not necessary for the mail to go on the Sabbath. It goes far enough, and quick enough, during the week. What have men to do with moneyed letters, stocks, and markets, on the Sabbath? It is a violation of the day to go to the post-office for such letters; and it would be a violation of it to read them if a man had them on his table, or to occupy his thoughts about them. Sabbath was made and given to men for a different purpose a sacred and religious purpose. Men are: forbidden on that day to occupy their minds, no less than their bodies, about worldly things. After God has been so kind, in his providence, as to furnish steamboats, and rail-cars, and electric telegraphs, to send information all the six days with almost lightning speed, for men to rob him of the seventh, for the

The

purpose of conveying to merchants, from city to city, information about trade, is ungrateful: it is wicked, and it ought not to be suffered by a free people. It is wholly unnecessary. No mail leaves London, the mercantile metropolis of the world, on the Sabbath. None need to leave any city, town, or village. And when men obey God, none ordinarily will. A late postmaster-general acknowledged, that the running of the mails in the United States on the Sabbath is wholly unnecessary; that nothing but the cupidity of merchants creates the seeming necessity; and that the government would be glad to have them stop. It would save a vast amount of money, which, without increasing the revenue, is now paid out for Sabbathbreaking mails; and it would be better for the country if all should be stopped.

But, it is said, there are sometimes cases of sickness or death, where it is convenient, if not necessary, to have the mail on an emergency, which, if there were no mail on the Sabbath, would call forth an express, and it might be proper to send one. In such a case they might, on the Sabbath, should it be needful, use the telegraph, or send an express. The evil of so doing would be nothing, compared with the evil of an open, systematic, habitual violation of the Sabbath by the transportation of the mails for mercantile and moneyed purposes. No law of Congress requires such transportation. It is only a regulation of the postmaster-general, which becomes a law because he has adopted it. He can at any time annul it.

Within

the last ten years, more than eighty thousand miles of Sabbath-breaking mails in the United States have been stopped, and what were stopped at one time saved to the government more than sixty thousand dollars a year. They may all be stopped, when the people desire it; and all the great interests of the country be promoted. And while they run, nothing but the mail, and proper persons to attend it, need to go, or