those who have
to work all the week. In New York an attempt was made to open the
Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday, and the pious people opposed
it. They thought it would interfere with the joy of heaven if
people were seen in the park enjoying themselves on Sunday, and
they also held that nobody would visit the Museum if it were opened
on Sunday; that the "common people" had no love for pictures and
statues and cared nothing about art. The doors were opened, and
it was demonstrated that the poor people, the toilers and workers,
did want to see such things on Sunday, and now more people visit
the Museum on Sunday than on all the other days of the week put
together. The same is true of the public libraries. There is
something to me infinitely pharisaical, hypocritical and farcical
in this Sunday nonsense. The rich people who favor keeping Sunday
"holy," have their coachman drive them to church and wait outside
until the services end. What do they care about the coachman's
soul? While they are at church their cooks are busy at home getting
dinner ready. What do they care for the souls of cooks? The whole
thing is pretence, and nothing but pretence. It is the instinct
of business. It is the competition of the gospel shop with other
shops and places of resort.

The ministers, of course, are opposed to all shows except their
own, for they know that very few will come to see or hear them and
the choice must be the church or nothing.

I do not believe that one day can be more holy than another unless
more joyous than another. The holiest day is the happiest day--
the day on which wives and children and men are happiest. In that
sense a day can be holy.

Our idea of the Sabbath is from the Puritans, and they imagined
that a man has to be miserable in order to excite the love of God.
We have outgrown the old New England Sabbath--the old Scotch horror.
The Germans have helped us and have set a splendid example. I do
not see how a poor workingman can go to church for recreation--I
mean an orthodox church. A man who has hell here cannot be benefitted
by being assured that he is likely to have hell hereafter. The
whole business I hold in perfect abhorrence.

They tell us that God will not prosper us unless we observe the
Sabbath. The Jews kept the Sabbath and yet Jehovah deserted them,
and they are a people without a nation. The Scotch kept Sunday;
they are not independent. The French never kept Sunday,