Page images
PDF
EPUB

come in which the people were to feel the want of such religious help, and with the feeling of the want came the supply. The synagogue, when it once made its appearance, was soon found, not only in the principal cities and the lesser towns, but in almost every village and upland district where there were people enough to form a congregation on the Sabbath. These people chose from among themselves men who were to act as elders-some to rule, others to teach. These functionaries were, in our sense, laymen-certainly no regular provision was made for their maintenance. On them it devolved to see that the edifice was prepared to receive the congregation on the Sabbath, and to conduct the worship, which consisted of prayer and psalmody, with the reading of selections from Moses and the prophets, and generally some words of exposition or exhortation. We have no reason to suppose that the teaching in these services rose often above instruction of the most elementary kind. But this instruction came ame into action over the whole land, and over the whole land as constantly as the return of the Sabbath-day.*

What now was the effect of this custom? We see it in a change of national character the most memorable in history. Before the age of the synagogue, nothing is so conspicuous in the history of the Hebrews as the ease with which they are seduced, from time to time, into idolatry. However painful the consequences of the last declension might have been, the next temptation is almost sure to bring about a repetition of it. But after the synagogue worship becomes prevalent, the characteristic fact in the history of the Jewthat by which he is known and distinguished over the world-comes to be his deep, intense, unextinguishable hate of everything idolatrous. So that, while his proud neck, as that of a son of Abraham, might be brought to submit to the yoke of Cæsar, in things civil-let Cæsar attempt to bring the defilements of his heathen worship into connection with the worship of the Temple of Jerusalem, and every Jew is found prepared to become a martyr, if needs be, in resisting the abomination.

A good argument, by the way, for our late position, in the article on "The Ministry for the Times."

Be it admitted, then, that the pulpit teachings of this country are not always— we may say, not often-of the most profound or the most felicitous description. Very common-place, very unimpressive, no doubt, they often are. But these teachings have been so diffused as to come upon the mind of the whole nation, and so constant as to have been returning with every first day of the week. Now, were it possible to strike out of the national mind all the religious intelligence which has been thus built up in it, and along with it all that rightness and manliness of thinking and feeling generally, which have been, by this means, both directly and indirectly nurtured there; and could we but look at the mind of the country as denuded of all that has been thus made to belong to it, we should then see, to an extent now but little credible, what it is that we owe to the pulpit. Since the dawn of the Reformation, the pulpit has been the great popular educator. Leave it to the despots of the world to beguile their slaves into submission by holidays and raree-shows. It has always been their policy so to do. But our sickly infidels, and not a few of our still more sickly Christians, seem to have no eyes to see the company they are in, when they talk of doing some great thing for our people by treating them as children! Woe the day when such things shall content them. The knell of all we value will not then be far distant.

It is almost with a blush for some Protestants that we insert a translation of the letter addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his clergy, on this question, last Easter. It will suffice to show the feeling now growing up on this subject, even in France :

"Reverend Sir,-This day we celebrate the solemnity of solemnities, and the grand mystery which originated the Lord's day; and we select it as the occasion for drawing the attention of yourself and congregation to the observance of afflicted our country. a law, the violation of which has so fearfully

"You are aware of the work' in favor of the

Sabbath-rest, which some fervent Christians have for some time commenced in Paris. This important work' progresses. Its supporters daily increase, and pledge themselves neither to work nor to give work, nor to buy nor to sell on the Lord's day. There are symptoms of a happy change in the manners and the opinions of the public. The government sets the example, and favors the movement by putting a stop to all public works under their control. The old prejudices of irreligion have considerably

diminished. And if the liberty of Sunday be not sought for the purpose of sanctifying it, it is sought for the enjoyment of calm and relaxation. In fact, from one cause and the other, many districts visibly indicate that the Sabbathday is beginning to be respected.

It appeared to us, Reverend Sir, that the time has now arrived when we should assist this 'work in favor of Sabbath-rest,' which is of such paramount importance in a religious and social point of view. Our duty compels us to profit by every indication, however slight, in its favor; and that we should zealously and ardently try to cure, or at least to lessen and control, this frightful evil, which has desolated France for more than half a century.

"We have three powerful means at command -prayer, exhortation, and individual and local influence.

"Let us pray to God to free us from this scandal of so flagrant a violation of an essential principle of his law. Let us pray that he may enlighten men's minds to their true interests. Let us pray that the poor misguided people, who are so much maligned, but who are so dear to us, may understand that God has commanded that there should be a day of rest,' to preserve and uphold their dignity as men and Christians; to protect their souls and bodies against the evil effects of inordinate desires; from being sacrificed by their ignorance and their passions. Let us pray, and induce others to pray also.

·

"Let us pray to God to spare the people,-to bring them into the way of salvation, which is the fulfillment of his commandments. Let us add exhortation to prayer. The faithful themselves are unmindful of their Sabbath duties. They permit at times unnecessary work, and are not sufficiently scrupulous in ceasing to buy on the Sunday. We must raise a barrier against this torrent of the times, and not allow it to ingulf and destroy human souls.

"Can society exist without religion; religion without public worship; public worship without prayer? What must, in the end, become of men who never assemble to pray, to adore God, to hear the gospel, to learn their duties, and to be instructed regarding their very existence and after life? When they have broken every tie which connects them with God, how can they❘ respect their ties and duties to their fellowcreatures?

"The duties of religious society become the foundation of the duties of civil society, and a nation without religion is eternally unsociable.

"Tell your flocks, that the name of Frenchman, of which they are so justly proud, in the eyes of foreign countries, of both civilized and barbarous nations, is tarnished with the gloss of irreligion given to it by the neglect of public worship, and more especially by the desecration of the Lord's day. In all countries, whether under republican, aristocratic, or monarchical forms of government, the Sabbath-rest is respected. The republicans of the United States of America do not think their liberty is in any way lessened or endangered by their respect for keeping the rest of the Sunday. Liberty is warmly cherished in England, and yet they respect the holy law to which we invite attention. The Catholic and Protestant monarchies

which surround us also respect it. The countries of the East, to which we are conveying our armies, know and respect it. These Greeks, whom we are about to revisit; these Russians, whom we are going to fight; even the Turks whom we are going to support, are scrupulously exact in the observance of this law of keeping a day of rest. What was the greatest impediment to the consolidation of our conquest in Africa? It was the appearance of our religious indifference, the violation of the Sabbath day of rest, the absence of prayer, and of public worship; in a word, the examples set them by which we appeared to be a nation without a religion and without a God.

"The Church wishes well to the establishment of schools on behalf of the people, that their minds may be strengthened and enlightened. For this purpose it opens a great school on the Sunday, in which the moral, social, and spiritual duties are anxiously taught. How indispensable, then, becomes the Sunday-rest in this respect! Man must not be treated as a mere machine, a beast of burden. He needs weekly rest. Work, says the law of God, is a condition of thy being. During six days, till the land, and water it with the sweat of thy brow; make it feed and clothe thee. But the seventh day, rest thyself, hold up thy head, bear in mind thou art a man, and God has added an immortal soul to thy body. The food for this soul is not bread; it is truth and virtue. Leave for a while thy worldly cares, which engross and debase thee. Come and receive the food which I have provided for thy soul. Immortal being this earth is not thy country, it is the land of thy probation and exile; life is not the end and object, it is the way: recollect thy glorious destiny; and however rough may be the trial, hope and faith will uphold thy courage, and keep thee from sinking. Make, Reverend Sir, the workpeople understand how falsely they calculate when they think of increasing their week's earnings by Sunday labor. Explain to them how the wages become reduced in proportion to the increase of labor. With regard to the tradespeople who may fear to lose by the cessation of Sunday trading, urge them to come to a general agreement to close their shops simultaneously, and with mutual confidence. Their trade will be the same, while they will recover the liberty of a day of rest. Though we may not obtain all we desire, we must not abandon the work in favor of the Sabbath.

"Keep also in your view the conduct of the customer; because without buyers there could be no sellers; also the conduct of contractors toward the workpeople. Bad examples lead to imitations. Beg these two classes not to buy nor to give work on the Sunday, and not to compel the workpeople to labor on the Sunday, save under the most urgent circumstances.

"To diminish these evils will be a great advantage, and we must neglect no means in our power to attain this end. We must add to prayer and exhortation the aid of some permanent organization. Let us form parochial committees. They must be in communication, and act in concert with the Central Committee already in existence. Let every member try to increase the supporters,―let the tracts of the

committee be freely distributed among the people, and every support be given to the monthly journal called The Observer of the Sunday.' We labor for the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the preservation of society.

themselves for a pic-nic to the further suburbs of the town, where, if they are in luck, a cow may chance to have died; and if not, they stretch themselves at full length in the glorious sunshine, and sleep; not improbably dreaming at intervals of a canine festival, such as a dead buffalo might afford. Consequently, from these combined causes, Antioch on a Sunday is the perfection of calm, serene, tranquil enjoyment and beauty."

"You will read, Reverend Sir, this letter at high Mass on Easter Sunday. May the voice of the bishop, deriving strength from the solemnity of this great day, move with power and authority the hearts of the faithful as they crowd around the altars. May it appear to them as the echo of the voice of God, issuing this great commandment from the beginning of time, renewing it on Mount Sinai, and consecrating it on behalf of a Christian people, by the mys-THE Singhalese inhabitants of Ceylon tery of the resurrection !

"Accept, Reverend Sir, the renewed assurance of our affectionate devotion,

"+MARIE DOMINIQUE AUGUSTE,
Archbishop of Paris."

Protestants and Catholics are largely united in this effort. Of course their joint object is simply to do what may be done toward bringing the people to respect the first day of the week as a day of rest. They use, then, separate means for the purpose of disposing those who resolve not to labor on the Sunday to account it a day for worship. Only then does the day rise to its true uses, but many are its pleasant influences considered only as a day of rest. The following picture is taken from another and a very different region, (Evenings at Antioch, by F. A. NEALE,) and with this we must for the present leave the subject:

"Of all the seven days in the week Sunday is the one upon which to see Antioch to perfection not that the sun shines brighter, or that the sky is less cloudless, or the scenery more magnificent, or the birds more full of song; and yet, on many occasions, I have even imagined that Sunday seemed to bring with it a peculiar mild atmosphere of its own. But because there was an absence of all the noise, and filth, and turmoil of every-day business life on the Sabbath, and the poorest and meanest of the natives came out of their week's accumulation of filth, and flitted about the streets, if not gayly dressed, at least clean; and then the greater majority of the shops were closed, and the streets had undergone a Saturday night process of sweeping and purification; and the flies that infested the bazaars, finding that they are likely to be on short commons, have emigrated to the fields; and the very curs in the streets, muddy and lanky as they usually are, have unwillingly come in for a large share of the water-carriers' last evening's sprinkling, and consequently look quite clean and respectable. Then again they, too, or at least the majority of them, are aware that there will be a sad deficit in the commissariat department today-not so many bones and odds and ends to be picked up from the fragments of the day dinners of the shopkeepers. Hence they hold a council among themselves, and betake

every

THE DEMON-ORACLE OF CEYLON.

profess the Buddhist religion. As this, however, is too cold a faith to exercise much influence on any people, they have added to it a multitude of superstiborrowed from the natives of India. Of tions, the greater part of which has been these, one of the most interesting is that of the demon-oracle, or dehwahle. The affair is not carried to such an extent as about Bombay, yet it exercises a constant sway over the people. The belief on which it is based is simply this-that demons, some good and some bad, generally the spirits of long-departed kings, enter temporarilly the bodies of men, and thence utter oracular responses. At each village, therefore, there is a demon-temple, or dehwahle. On Wednesday, the people assemble there; the prophet, called kapoorahle, puts on the dress and ornaments of the god he is about to invoke; dances wildly to the sound of stormy music, amid the burning of fragrant gums; gives oracular answers to the questions put to him; and at last falls into a deep swoon. There can be no doubt that the prophets themselves are sometimes enthusiasts rather than deceivers. A friend of mine saw such a one quake and grow pale, when asked to put on the dress in order that he might be sketched; in fact, he would only put on the various articles of costume successively, saying that if he wore all at once, the god would punish him for doing so at any time except during the regular ceremonial.

The following is an account of a visit paid to the dehwahle of a very small village; it is extracted from a private journal:-This being Wednesday, there was of course a meeting at the dehwahle. Looked in during the forenoon; the kapoorahle was standing inside, the door being open.

His long disheveled hair hung down his back; the head had a constant jerking motion from side to side.

At short intervals, he uttered convulsive shrieks and sobs, or, looking upward, hissed out the sound, "Hush, hush!" in a very peculiar tone: this evidently was a call to the spirit. After a time, the bangles (bracelets) of the goddess were placed on his wrists; he then began to shake his hands violently, and to yell, and after a little while turned round. I observed that his face and arms were daubed here and there with turmeric, and that his eyeballs were turned upward, so that the pupils were invisible. His first query was:

66

Why has the raja [myself] come? "To see you," replied the headman of the village.

"That is well." After that he-or, as the natives would say, the goddess through him-talked a good deal about the said raja. At last a man, carrying a sick child, stepped forward, and mentioned the disease under which it was laboring.

"I will cure it!" was uttered, and papa went off contented. Some other sick persons appeared, and received similar comfort.

The more important ceremony, however, was to come off in the evening; and as I had signified my intention to be present, the villagers arranged everything as comfortably as they could. Till ten or eleven o'clock there was drizzling rain; and soon after, the hurly-burly began. On reaching the spot, I found six or eight musicians with drums, tam-tams, and cymbals. They kept time admirably; and to the sound of their own sweet strains leaped about with the agility and grace of so many giant frogs. The kapoorahle was so long of bedizening himself, that the kohrahle, (petty chief,) in the most disrespectful way, ordered the goddess to appear forthwith ; and all the tam-tams gave a ruff that would have awakened the Seven Sleepers. I bore it with heroic patience. In the meantime, we heard, inside the dehwahle, the tinkling of cymbals, and the sounds of other instruments, interrupted now and then by shrieks of maniacal laughter. At last the prophet appeared. On his arms were the inspiring bangles, and in each hand he carried a piece of colored cloth, folded up like a fan; with considerable ingenuity, he had made out of various colored cloths a sort of flounced gown, somewhat like the dress occasionally seen on Malabar women. The upper part of his body was uncovered,

and his long hair unbound; the nether integuments consisted of long tight drawers. As he came out, the kohrahle, begging pardon, said that it was very unlucky to remain seated. I explained, that being of another religion, I could not in any way be affected; but he looked so distressed, that I stood up. However, the goddess settled the matter by saying that the raja might sit; and sit he did.

The tam-tams now recommenced, and the kapoorahle began dancing, after the native manner, moving in a circle, with sidelong strides advancing his hands, with an undulating snake-like motion of the arm. When a quicker tune was played, he suited himself to the measure, executing a figure not unlike the "one, two, three, and a hop" of dancing-school days. In the height of his antics, the goddess, to my surprise and amusement, called most importunately for beetle, the native substitute for tobacco; and as none was forthcoming, alluded to that creature comfort in terms of marked reprobation of the bystanders. At last a quid was stuffed into her prophet's mouth; and after he had been well rubbed down

good cause was there for that-the dancing went on with as great vigor as ever. Occasionally, the man would stop, and looking upward, utter the peculiar hissing sound previously mentioned; and I observed, that however violently the head might be shaken from side to side, it seemed to have no forward or backward motion at all. At one time, an amusing strife arose between the tam-tam beaters and the goddess. According to the figure, the former were to walk backward in a circle, while she constantly advanced toward them; now the musicians declared, that on no account could they turn their backs toward the raja. The goddess remonstrated; and the matter was at last settled by a smaller circle, at some little distance, being formed, and by the tamtam beaters begging pardon each time they passed my chair of state. I sat it out for about two hours, in order to see the swoon at the conclusion, being determined to feel the man's pulse at the time; but learning that the prophet intended to exhibit his activity so long as I remained, I took pity on him, and went off to bed, soon after which the crowd dispersed.

I should have observed, that the kapoorahle's whole frame was occasionally convulsed with a curious quivering motion,

which it would be extremely difficult to imitate in cold blood. When a kapoorahle dies, it is the demon itself which selects the new prophet. The natives have considerable faith in the responses, although I have heard some of them say with a smile: "Sometimes things happen as was foretold." As to the dancing being involuntary, a good many are somewhat skeptical; yet, when disaster threatens their own families, one and all rush to the dehwahle. A long and painful discussion has being going on for some time in Ceylon, regarding the appointment of persons to manage the land belonging to these demon temples. Government insists upon having a more or less direct influence on these elections, and the opposing party maintains that a Christian government should not have anything to do with such matters.

[ocr errors]

ST. PATRICK-WHO WAS HE?

T is a common, and a no less great error for its being a common one, to suppose that St. Patrick, or Succathus, as he was originally called, was the first who preached Christianity in Ireland. Indeed his own words in his confession or letter to the Irish-a work universally admitted to be genuine-imply the very contrary. "I went," says he, addressing the Irish, 'everywhere on your account, even to the remotest parts of the island, where no one had baptized any before." Hence we may infer that in the more accessible parts of the country Christianity had been preached before the arrival of Patrick; and that "the apostle of Ireland," as he is called, only extended the gospel much more widely than it had been previously.* His name is associated with a thousand Christian monuments throughout all Ireland. His father was probably a Briton, named Calpurnius, a deacon, and the son of a priest or presbyter, Potitus; a plain proof that the doctrine of a celibate clergy was then unknown. His youth was spent in sore trials. Niall, King of Erin, in a ravaging invasion of Britain and Gaul, carried him away into slavery. "At the age of sixteen," writes Patrick himself, "I was made captive and brought into

Mention is made of an Irish missionary,

Cathalgus, who went forth to other lands, preaching the gospel, about the end of the second century, and at last settled in Italy, at

Tarentum.

Ireland: I was then ignorant of God; but it was there the Lord opened my heart to a sense of my unbelief, and comforted me, as a father doth a child." And then he adds this forcible acknowledgment of the wonderful ways in which God's sovereign grace "chooses men in Christ," and, when they are in darkness, “brings them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels prepared for honor." "At first a clown, an exile, illiterate, O how true it is, that before the Lord humbled me I was even as a stone lying in the depth of the mire, and he who alone is able came, and in his mercy lifted me up, and not only lifted me up, but set me on the top of the wall!" After five years' slavery, in which he often endured the extremities of hunger, cold, and nakedness, tending sheep on the sides of a mountain in Antrim, (Sleivmid,) he escaped from captivity. And such was the blessed effect of sanctified affliction to his soul, that, so far from harboring resentment against those who had done him so much wrong, he desired to give back good for evil, and to impart that gospel to his oppressors which had been so blessed to himself. The fact of the opportunity afforded him, during his captivity, of studying the language, habits, and feelings of the Irish, naturally directed his thoughts to them. But his parents and friends affectionately besought him not to leave them again after all the grief they had suffered for him already. Distracted thus between earthly and heavenly impulses, he knew not what to do, until in a dream he saw a man from Ireland named Victoricius, handing a letter thus inscribed: "A voice from the Irish ;" and at the same time he heard a voice of entreaty from the west: "We beseech thee, holy youth, come and walk still among us." This vision, the effect of the natural excitement of his mind on

the missionary project he had so much at heart, in God's providence determined him to go. Accordingly, once more he entered the bay of Dundrum, A. D. 432, no longer a slave, but a preacher of the freedom of the gospel. And it is a remarkable fact that his greatest number of conversions (twelve thousand, according to Nennius, a writer in the ninth century) was in that same Connaught, in which at the present day so many thousands are casting off the chains of Romish superstition. One work of his, called "The

« PreviousContinue »