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In several articles which we have laid before our
readers we have uniformly insisted upon the impropriety of the police
interfering with the observance or the non-observance of a day of rest,
since we honestly deem all such matters to be exclusively belonging to
conscientious convictions, not affecting the moral welfare of society at
large, and hence nowise referable for enforcement to the civil
authorities of the country. In other words, we would leave it to every
individual to observe a Sabbath or not merely upon the promptings of his
own conscience, and not allow the officers of government to interfere in
a matter which of right does not belong to their supervision; since the
general good of the commonwealth cannot be more injuriously affected by
the violation of this particular religious institution than any of all
the others which belong to the same department. But we contend, on the
other hand, that the institution of the Sabbath is to the Israelite of
the gravest importance; not so much because a day of rest is necessary
to his well-being, though this is undoubtedly true also, but because
the seventh day was instituted as one of the tokens of the covenant
between the God of heaven and earth and his chosen people, by the
observance of which they would prove their true allegiance to the Author
of their religion. But if one coming from abroad were to be transported
suddenly to the cities of America or to the villages where scattered
Israelites dwell, he would be very apt to imagine that but few Jews
could be discovered among the inhabitants; since by those who bear
Jewish names the Sabbath is not considered as sacred, but that,
on the contrary, it is actually the busiest portion of the week for all
practical purposes. And truly a long residence and a somewhat extensive
acquaintance with the habits of the Israelites of the western hemisphere
will not familiarize one to the open profanation of the Lord’s day which
we are constantly called upon to witness; and the longer one thinks of
the scandal thus given to the enemies of our faith, he must confess that
liberty of action has not improved our moral condition. The sincere
believer who, under adverse circumstances, produced by pressure from
without, and the great competition which exists in the crowded markets
of the Old World, has sacredly observed the Sabbath, and been happy
could he assemble around his simple board on the blessed eve of the
Sabbath all his household, and whatever guests his humble roof could
shelter—how must he feel when he beholds those who, since their arrival
in free countries, where no one can of right molest them for their
religion, where labour is freely rewarded by a much greater return than
abroad have acquired increased means, and are fast arriving at an ample
competence, treat the Sabbath as though no precept of the Decalogue
were given to enforce it, who labour thereon as on other days, and who
resort not to the house of prayer as in their days of lowly circumstance
and unrequited toil.
It requires no hypocrisy, no overstrained love of
observance to complain of such as these in the bitterness of anguish,
and to induce a lover of his people to petition for a new state of
bondage, if by such means alone the Israelites can be bound to their
God. And we speak with a full comprehension of the word when we
designate the Sabbath as emphatically a principal link in the bond of
union which attaches us to our Father. Every day is indeed one on which
He should be served; every hour should be devoted to his adoration;
amidst all our toiling, nay, in the midst of our amusement, He should be
present to our soul, so “that being on our right hand we may not be
moved,” or allured into the ways of sin. But for all that the Sabbath
appears to be peculiarly fitted for contemplation and a unison of
worship among all the children of God. On it labour should cease, it was
so ordained; and then all are to have leisure to unite, to flow together
in one stream to the house of God, there to pour forth one combined hymn
of praise to Him who sanctifies his people Israel with his holiness in
having given them a law which teaches them truth without disguise, and
grants them light without shadow and obscurity. The larger the assembly,
the more universal the rest, the more general the feeling of
brotherhood: the more will each individual feel the glow of enthusiasm,
and the strength of the impulse to learn to serve God with all his soul
and all his might; he will then truly experience the happiness of being
a member of a community where, laying aside all occupations calculated
to advance our merely temporal concerns, each one strives to prove that
he is above the paltry considerations of gain, and that he does rest
because God’s law bids him to labour only during six days, and to
sanctify the seventh.
But how does it stand with so very many in all the
free countries, not America alone, but France, Germany, and England
likewise? Do they honour there the Sabbath, so universally, that it
appears in reality the day of abstinence from labour? The time indeed
was when the desecration of this day was looked upon as the greatest sin
man could commit, when the Jew would have submitted to anything sooner
than transgress; but this state has unfortunately passed away, and men
now labour on this day, and hesitate not to avow their sin. They have
lost the shame of being discovered in contradiction to the divine
precepts. Nay, even so far have many gone that they refuse to take
Jewish boys in their employ if the stipulation be that the Sabbath’s
rest should be permitted to them, when at the same time Christians
are found to accord this privilege. It is therefore but proper that
papers devoted to the interests of Judaism should take notice of such
gross violation, and to endeavour to arouse the sense of the community
to the degeneracy of the times. It may be that our remarks, inoffensive
though they be, will be received with but little favour, that we shall
be accused of making a useless exposition to the world of our defects,
or perhaps worse yet, that we are merely writing an article to fill up a
vacant place in our magazine. We are prepared for all such charges, and
any others which may be brought against us. Nevertheless we will lift up
our voice to bear emphatic testimony against a system which not alone
condemns the adults themselves to perpetual labour, but fastens this
curse likewise upon the young Israelites. We shall be met with the
objection that Sunday is the recognised Christian day of rest among the
other inhabitants of the various countries named, that we have therefore
repose enough without regarding the seventh day. But this is in sooth
exchanging what God has taught for that which He never contemplated; and
it is not merely the day of leisure which the custom of the land and
enactments of civil assemblies demand, but the religious sanctification
which we need; and how can we arrive at such through the observance of a
day which is foreign to our faith, and the foundation of which is based
upon an assumption which we must totally reject as incompatible with the
views which we entertain in consonance with our whole education upon all
that concerns our permanent happiness and our hopes of salvation?
No Israelite has, accordingly, the remotest right
to say that he can content himself in this respect with the opinions of
his gentile neighbours; let him, if he thinks proper, keep his place of
business carefully closed on any day he pleases; let him respect the
prejudices of his friends by not even shocking their ears with the sound
of music, though in this we think he may carry his complaisance much too
far; but let him not think that this substituting what men have
arbitrarily invented for a divine enactment can satisfy the demand of
his religion. “Six days thou mayest labour, and do all thy work,” is the
permission of Scripture; yet it emphatically continues “but the seventh
day is the rest unto the Lord thy God;” evidently meaning that under any
circumstances that particular period of time must be devoted to
abstinence from labour, not because we may desire to remain idle, but
because it was designated as “a special mark of devotion and
sanctification in honour of Him who is truly the Lord our God. It is the
weekly testimony which all Israel are to bear to the sacredness of their
faith; and how can they accomplish this by resting on a day which has
not this significance for them? and how can they discharge their
conscientious debt by an appeal to opinions of all those who have not
the same interest in the divine legacy as contained in the law with
themselves?—The absurdity of the assertion is too glaring to merit even
a refutation, and we will not attempt it. We, therefore, repeat that
refusing the rest of the Sabbath to young Israelites is to fasten on
them the curse of perpetual labour; since only as a religious
institution can the Sabbath sanctify the spirit, confirm the faith, and
prepare the soul for its eternal rest in a world without labour or pain;
and no statute enactment, no general custom, can effect this for any day
not so hallowed by the evidence of the divine word, handed down by the
universal assent of our predecessors in the household of Israel; for
where the day is not observed from a religious motive, it becomes one of
ennui and listlessness; the time spent will hang heavily, and then men
will form associations to spend it in any manner save that of mental
elevation; and we think experience amply proves, that the Sunday, the so
much boasted rest of the Christians, is to many of them, though they
abstain from work, anything but a period of sanctification, and, in many
countries, we are tempted almost to say in nearly all, except, perhaps,
the United States and England and their dependencies, the first day of
the week is, despite its statute-hedged character, one of dissipation
and simple merry-making far beyond the other days. All this proves that
a religious day of repose, whereon the spirit is to be raised to God,
cannot be produced through any means other than religion itself; and
wherein does the Jew find this requisite? can it be in the imitation of
the ideas of those whom he deems erroneous in their conception of the
Deity? can it be in the silent assent to the truth of an event in
consequence of which the Sabbath of the Lord was repealed by the sinful
and arbitrary authority of men “in whom there was no spirit,”
which event he honestly believes never did take place? We will not
insult the good sense of our readers to attempt answering these
questions; they speak for themselves, and force every candid man to
confess that a Jew has done nothing to satisfy his religious duties if
he substitutes any day for the seventh.
But we fear that it may be a spirit of entire
unbelief which actuates many; they see before them the prospect of
acquiring wealth, and nothing standing in the way of this pursuit can
find favour with them. Nevertheless a Jew without any belief is
to our imagination something too absurd to be found in existence; there
are multitudes of professed infidels; but their heart, we say it in
charity, belies their tongue; they may speak of the progress of
enlightenment, of the uselessness of ancestral observance, of one day
being as sacred as the other; still in their souls they feel
differently, they dread to find their own expressed sentiments confuted
by the truth. We would call the attention of these to the moral
debasement which must ensue, if the religious barriers which now
surround us were all removed. If the Sabbath can be abolished in
practice by the simple assertion that it is useless or inconvenient,
then there is an end to all religion and moral; for by the same rule
every duty, every obligation, and every observance not watched over by
the Argus eyes of the civil power, will fall into disuse, they all
having the same foundation—responsibility to the Supreme. Teach
then, practically, to the young to violate the Sabbath, take them into
your workshops and counting-houses, place them on horseback or in
coaches, applaud their unwillingness to attend the house of God on that day, because you agree with them in not viewing it sacred: and you teach
them practically to disobey you whenever obedience might clash with
their pleasure or self-will; you absolve them from morality, from
kindness to the distressed, since in all these deeds the inclination has
to be conquered, equally as with the Sabbath, in obedience to the
unseen, but ever-present power of the Lord of all. Infidelity is the
poorest system for the moral government of individuals and the state;
there are not eyes enough to watch every movement; and unless men
are governed within themselves, if they do not dread the Open Eye
from above, it is in vain that you multiply statutes and heap up
penalties; human ingenuity will escape through the meshes of the law,
and human cunning will often defy all means of detection. Public opinion
is, in truth, a good corrector of intended wrong, where the perpetrator
might endanger his character or reputation; but destroy by a looseness
of moral this healthy tone, and you remove at once its efficacy; for
when immorality becomes fashionable, men will cease to hide in dark
corners what no longer carries with it any public disgrace. And we
contend that the relaxation of the rest of the Sabbath will work in the
Jew an abrogation of moral sentiment. It is one of the institutions of
the Ten Commandments, and “thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother;”
and “thou shalt not steal,” rest on the same basis; surely the two last
are eternal in their nature; and we see not how a Jew, even the
unbeliever can acknowledge otherwise than an equal obligation, so far as
the Decalogue is concerned, for all the duties therein enumerated.
And as respects the absolute gain, the matter of
dollars and cents, and pounds and shillings, we candidly believe, and
therefore maintain publicly that no one ever enriched himself, either in
America or elsewhere, by working on the seventh day. There appears no
blessing attendant on work thus and then done; and we will leave it to
those who have habitually violated the Sabbath, to say whether they are
any richer or at least more contented and happier than those who have
abstained from Sabbath labours, and been satisfied to exert themselves
on the days and periods allowed in the law. Only let them consider, that
in former years, when no Jew transgressed the Sabbath, they were as
wealthy in proportion as they now are, and this in countries where their
industry was circumscribed by a multitude of restrictions; and that
even now where they are most numerous, the countries where they are
subject to disqualifications, they rise in importance, through their
very indomitable spirit, the elasticity of character which recovers
itself after every application of outward force, and this
notwithstanding that the Sabbath is strictly observed. Can it then be
said that here and there, where industry can expand without control, it
is absolutely requisite that every hour must be devoted to gain? to
obtain by constant toil a sufficient amount of the precious metal, the
beautiful yellow gold, the brilliant silver? And then there are no
mishaps in business to those that so constantly toil, they are always
successful, there is no reflux to their tide of prosperity! Is this so,
or is the reverse the case? We do not rejoice in the downfall of any
man; but truth demands of every one to acknowledge that those who
violate the Sabbath are not the most prosperous merchants and mechanics,
and many who had accumulated fortunes, as they thought, and then forgot
the pious course they pursued when poor, have found to their sorrow that
they had sowed the wind and reaped the storm.
There are some who, when they commence business
when their means are very limited, excuse their violation of the law by
saying that they require all they can earn, every hour in the day, for
the support of their families; but that so soon as they are blessed with
success, they will then rest and be religious again. But though their
success comes, they put off the time of amendment from day to day: they
are not yet rich enough,—a little more—a few extra pounds have yet to be
obtained; and then when all they expected has come, oh! then they have
another excuse—their business is so extensive, so many require them to
be on the spot, either to consult, or to purchase, or to employ, that
now they would inflict a sort of public injury by refraining from their
employment. We do not deal in fictions; we state something very akin to
fact, even if not so to the very letter. And what does it prove? But
that people will find an excuse for doing wrong at the very time they
condemn themselves, and gloss over a palpable iniquity by shallow
pretences of intended piety or assumed necessity, when in truth the best
evidence of correct thought would be found in a straightforward, correct
course of life. No Jew need apologize to a gentile for keeping the
seventh day Sabbath: every one will acknowledge the propriety of the
Israelite’s adhering strictly to the letter of the law; and when he does
so, he need not fix a period more or less distant, when he will attend
to his religions concerns.
One of the principal reasons why so many violate
the Sabbath, when if left to their own convictions they would be
pious Jews, is that they fear their gentile neighbours, or
irreligious men of our own belief, would acquire more wealth, or draw
off their customers when these find their places of business closed.
Now, first, this fear is groundless; establish a good character in your
business, state at once that on such days you will not be diverted from
the path marked out by your faith: and you need not dread that the
respectable and good of all classes will leave you for anybody else.
There may be some pursuits where this may not be so; at least we will
take for it the word of those who permit themselves to violate the
Sabbath; but then we assert that no Jew should put himself in a position
where transgression would become necessary, though for ourself we have
an opinion that with some little care every pursuit could be so arranged
as to avoid this compulsion. Secondly, if even a comparative loss should
have to be incurred, we should reflect that we are Jews, and
consequently bound as God’s witnesses to submit to every inconvenience,
which must attach to us in consequence of our being Israelites. If in
olden times we could brave everything only to remain faithful, when we
encountered death, pillage, and insult in every shape, only to be left
in the possession of our name, shall we now refuse to make sacrifice of
a little additional wealth, which is at last not yet obtained, and
which, for all we know, will not be lost by our complying with the law?
Where is it written that the Sabbath-breaker is prosperous, the strict
Jew poor? We have examples enough, and so have all our readers, to
gainsay this opinion; and so on the score of expediency, no less than
morals, the Sabbath ought to be kept by all who are of our race.
In conclusion, for the present, we would call the
attention of our friends to the mortifying spectacle exhibited in so
many towns, of Jewish shops and stores being open on the days holy to
the Lord. A little union would soon obviate the fear of others gaining
while we are resting. Could not such a union of the faithful in Israel
be formed? Could not a society like that on Temperance be
established, each member of which should pledge himself to the other to
keep holy the Sabbath? Such a brotherhood would soon awaken a better
feeling of religion among our brethren, and a stranger arriving among us
would not be led to suppose that we are all infidels or that the Sabbath
is unknown among us. The houses dedicated to God would not then be
empty, because they who should be there are in their counting-houses or
workshops, and then a true union of hearts and interests would form us
into a strong community, able and willing to labour in the cause of
Heaven, and we should not bear the reproach of the gentiles that we have
forgotten our God, and then it would not be said with truth that by our
misuse of liberty we have proved that freedom destroys our national
adhesion, and that only in adversity Israelites cling to the God of
their fathers. |
