sheets. On me, for
example, Beethoven's Sonatas have a far more deeply religious
influence than much that has religious names and words. Music is to be
judged of by its effects."

"Well," said Bob, "if Sunday is given for our own individual
improvement, I for one should not go to church. I think I get a great
deal more good in staying at home and reading."

"There are two considerations to be taken into account in reference to
this matter of church-going," I replied. "One relates to our duty as
members of society in keeping up the influence of the Sabbath, and
causing it to be respected in the community; the other, to the proper
disposition of our time for our own moral improvement. As members of
the community, we should go to church, and do all in our power to
support the outward ordinances of religion. If a conscientious man
makes up his mind that Sunday is a day for outward acts of worship and
reverence, he should do his own part as an individual towards
sustaining these observances. Even though he may have such mental and
moral resources that as an individual he could gain much more in
solitude than in a congregation, still he owes to the congregation the
influence of his presence and sympathy. But I have never yet seen the
man, however finely gifted morally and intellectually, whom I thought
in the long run a gainer in either of these respects by the neglect of
public worship. I have seen many who in their pride kept aloof from
the sympathies and communion of their brethren, who lost strength
morally, and deteriorated in ways that made themselves painfully felt.
Sunday is apt in such cases to degenerate into a day of mere mental
idleness and reverie, or to become a sort of waste-paper box for
scraps, odds and ends of secular affairs.

"As to those very good people--and many such there are--who go
straight on with the work of life on Sunday, on the plea that 'to
labor is to pray,' I simply think they are mistaken. In the first
place, to labor is _not_ the same thing as to pray. It may sometimes
be as good a thing to do, and in some cases even a better thing; but
it is not the same thing. A man might as well never write a letter to
his wife, on the plea that making money for her is writing to her.
It may possibly be quite as great a proof of love to work for a wife
as to write to her, but few wives would not say that both were not
better than either alone. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the
intervention of