ty of common life, that is forbidden. It were a
sacrilegious mockery to make God the author of a law that fosters
laziness and favors the sluggard. Another extreme that common sense
condemns is that the physical man should suffer martyrdom while the
soul thus communes with God, that promenades and recreation should be
abolished, and social amenities ignored, that dryness, gloom,
moroseness and severity are the proper conditions of Sabbatical
observance.

In this respect, our Puritan ancestors were the true children of
Pharisaism, and their Blue Laws more properly belong in the Talmud than
in the Constitution of an American Commonwealth. God loves a cheerful
giver, and would you not judge from appearances that religion was
painful to these pious witch-burners and everything for God most
grudgingly done? Sighs, grimaces, groans and wails, this is the homage
the devils in hell offer to the justice of God; there is no more place
for them in the religion of earth than in the religion of heaven.

Correlative with the obligation of rest is that of purely positive
worship, and here is the difficulty of deciding just what is the
correct thing in religious worship. The Jews had their institutions,
but Christ abolished them. The Pagans had their way--sacrifice;
Protestants have their preaching and hymn-singing. Catholics offer a
Sacrifice, too, but an unbloody one. Later on, we shall hear the Church
speak out on the subject. She exercised the right to change the day
itself; she claims naturally the right to say how it should be
observed, because the day belongs to her. And she will impose upon her
children the obligation to attend mass. But here the precepts of the
Church are out of the question.

The obligation, however, to participate in some act of worship is
plain. The First Commandment charges every man to offer an exterior
homage of one kind or another, at some time or another. The Third sets
aside a day for the worship of the Divinity. Thus the general command
of the first precept is specified. This is the time, or there is no
time. With the Third Commandment before him, man cannot arbitrarily
choose for himself the time for his worship, he must do it on Sunday.

Public worship being established in all Christian communities, every
Christian who cannot improve upon what is offered and who is convinced
that a certain mode of worship is the best and true, is bound by the
law to participate therein. The obligation may be gr