istian was the golden day, and all its
associations, and all its thoughts, words, and deeds, were so entirely
distinct from the ordinary material of life, that it was to him a sort
of weekly translation--a quitting of this world to sojourn a day in a
better; and year after year, as each Sabbath set its seal on the
completed labors of a week, the pilgrim felt that one more stage of his
earthly journey was completed, and that he was one week nearer to his
eternal rest. And as years, with their changes, came on, and the strong
man grew old, and missed, one after another, familiar forms that had
risen around his earlier years, the face of the Sabbath became like that
of an old and tried friend, carrying him back to the scenes of his
youth, and connecting him with scenes long gone by, restoring to him the
dew and freshness of brighter and more buoyant days.

Viewed simply as an institution for a Christian and mature mind, nothing
could be more perfect than the Puritan Sabbath: if it had any failing,
it was in the want of adaptation to children, and to those not
interested in its peculiar duties. If you had been in the dwelling of my
uncle of a Sabbath morning, you must have found the unbroken stillness
delightful; the calm and quiet must have soothed and disposed you for
contemplation, and the evident appearance of single-hearted devotion to
the duties of the day in the elder part of the family must have been a
striking addition to the picture. But, then, if your eye had watched
attentively the motions of us juveniles, you might have seen that what
was so very invigorating to the disciplined Christian was a weariness to
young flesh and bones. Then there was not, as now, the intellectual
relaxation afforded by the Sunday school, with its various forms of
religious exercise, its thousand modes of interesting and useful
information. Our whole stock in this line was the Bible and Primer, and
these were our main dependence for whiling away the tedious hours
between our early breakfast and the signal for meeting. How often was
our invention stretched to find wherewithal to keep up our stock of
excitement in a line with the duties of the day! For the first half
hour, perhaps, a story in the Bible answered our purpose very well; but,
having despatched the history of Joseph, or the story of the ten
plagues, we then took to the Primer: and then there was, first, the
looking over the system of theological and ethical teaching, commencin