dogs,
who, when he opened his mouth at all, was almost sure to open it at the
men who were trying through evil report and good to express in their
lives the spirit of Him who so loved the world that He gave His Son to
die to redeem it. He bayed loud enough at the Abolitionists but not at
the abomination which they were attacking. He was content to leave it to
the tender mercies of two hundred years. No such liberal disposition of
the question of the Sabbath was he willing to allow. He waxed eloquent
in its behalf. His enthusiasm took to itself wings and made a great
display of ecclesiastical zeal beautiful to behold. "The Sabbath," quoth
the teacher who endeavored to muzzle the students of Lane Seminary on
the subject of slavery, whose ultimate extinction his prophetic soul
quiescently committed to the operation of two centuries; "the Sabbath,"
quoth he, "is the _great sun of the moral world_." Out upon you, said
Garrison, the LORD GOD is the _great sun of the moral world_, not the
Sabbath. It is not one, but every day of the week which is His, and
which men should be taught to observe as holy days. It is not regard for
the forms of religion but for the spirit, which is essential to
righteousness. What is the command, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
holy,' but one of ten commandments? Is the violation of the fourth any
worse than the violation of the third or fifth, or sixth? Nowhere is it
so taught in the Bible. Yet, what is slavery but a breaking and treading
down of the whole ten, what but a vast system of adultery, robbery, and
murder, the daily and yearly infraction on an appalling scale not alone
of the spirit but of the letter of the decalogue?

Mr. Garrison then passed to criticisms of a more special character
touching the observance of the day thus: "These remarks are made not to
encourage men to do wrong at any time, but to controvert a pernicious
and superstitious notion, and one that is very prevalent, that
extraordinary and supernatural visitations of divine indignation upon
certain transgressors (of the Sabbath particularly and almost
exclusively) are poured out now as in the days of Moses and the
prophets. Whatever claim the Sabbath may have to a strict religious
observance, we are confident it cannot be strengthened, but must
necessarily be weakened, by all such attempts to enforce or prove its
sanctity." This pious but rational handling of the Sabbath question gave
instant offence to the orthodox