Exodus 5

Exodus 5:1-23

ISRAEL’S BONDAGE. MOSES AND THE EXODUSExo_1:1 to Exodus 15:21.DR. J. M. Gray’s five rules for Bible reading: “Read the Book”, “Read the Book Continuously”, “Read the Book Repeatedly”, “Read the Book Independently”, “Read the Book Prayerfully”, are all excellent; but the one upon which I would lay emphasis in this study of Exodus is the second of those rules, or, “Read the Book Continuously”. It is doubtful if there is any Book in the Bible which comes so nearly containing an outline, at least, of all revelation, as does the Book of Exodus.

There is scarcely a doctrine in the New Testament, or a truth in the Old, which may not be traced in fair delineation in these forty chapters.God speaks in this Book out of the burning bush. Sin, with its baneful effects, has a prominent place in its pages; and Salvation, for all them that trust in Him, with judgment for their opposers, is a conspicuous doctrine in this Old Testament document.

God, Sin, Salvation, and Judgment—these are great words! The Book that reveals each of them in fair outline is a great Book indeed, and its study will well repay the man of serious mind.Exodus is a Book of bold outlines also! Its author, like a certain school of modern painters, draws his picture quickly and with but few strokes, and yet the product of his work approaches perfection. How much of time and history is put into these three verses:“And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the Children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:5-7).These three verses contain 215 years of time, and all the events that crowded into that period would, if they were recorded, fill volumes without end.

And, while there are instances of delineation in detail in the Book of Exodus, the greater part of the volume is given to the bolder outlines which sweep much history into single sentences.In looking into these fifteen chapters, I have been engaged with the question of such arrangement as would best meet the demands of memory, and thereby make the lesson of this hour a permanent article in our mental furniture. Possibly, to do that, we must seize upon a few of the greater subjects that characterize these chapters, and so phrase them as to provide mental promontories from which to survey the field of our present study.

Surely, The Bondage of Israel, The Rise of Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt, are such fundamentals.THE BONDAGE OF ISRAEL.The bondage of Israel, like her growth, requires but a few sentences for its expression.“Now, there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are more and mightier than we; Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pit horn and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the Children of Israel.

And the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour” (Exodus 1:8-22).There are several features in Egypt’s conduct in effecting the bondage of Israel which characterize the conduct of all imperial nations.The bondage began with injustice. Israel was in Egypt by invitation.

When they came, Pharaoh welcomed them, and set apart for their use the fat of the land. The record is,“Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Raamses, as Pharaoh had commanded” (Genesis 47:11).There they flourished until a king arose which knew not Joseph. Then a tax was laid upon them; eventually taskmasters were set over them, and those who came in response to Pharaoh’s invitation, “Come unto me and I will give you the good of the, land of Egypt, and ye shall eat of the fat of the land”, were compelled by his successors to take the place of slaves. It seems as difficult for a nation as it is for an individual to refrain from the abuse of power. A writer says, “Revolution is caused by seeking to substitute expediency for justice,” and that is exactly what the King of Egypt and his confederates attempted in the instance of these Israelites. It would seem that the result of that endeavor ought to be a lesson to the times in which we live, and to the nations entrusted with power.

Injustice toward a supposedly weaker people is one of those offences against God which do not go unpunished, and its very practice always provokes a rebellion which converts a profitable people into powerful enemies.It ought never to be forgotten either that injustice easily leads to oppression. We may suppose the tax at first imposed upon this people was comparatively slight, and honorable Egyptians found for it a satisfactory excuse, hardly expecting that the time would ever come when the Israelites should be regarded “chattel-slaves”.

But “he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much”. It is doubtful if there is any wrong in man’s moral relations which blinds him so quickly and so effectually as the exercise of power against weakness.Joseph Parker, in speaking of the combat between Moses and the Egyptian, says, “Every honorable-minded man is a trustee of social justice and common fair play. We have nothing to do with the petty quarrels that fret society, but we certainly have to do with every controversy—social, imperial, or international—which violates human right and impairs the claims of Divine honor. We must all fight for the right. We feel safer by so much if we know there are amongst us men who will not be silent in the presence of wrong, and will lift up a testimony in the name of righteousness, though there be none to cheer them with one word of encouragement.”It is only a step from enslaving to slaughter. That step was speedily taken, for “Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river” (Exodus 1:22).

Unquestionably there is a two-fold thought in this fact. Primarily this, whom the tyrant cannot control to his profit, he will slay to his pleasure; and then, in its deeper and more spiritual significance, it is Satan’s effort to bring an end to the people of God.

The same serpent that effected the downfall of Adam and Eve whispered into Cain’s ear, “Murder Abel”; and into the ears of the Patriarchs, “Put Joseph out of the way”; and to Herod, “Throttle all the male children of the land”; and to the Pharisee and Roman soldier, “Crucify Jesus of Nazareth”. It remains for us of more modern times to learn that the slaughter of the weak may be accomplished in other ways than by the knife, the Nile, or the Cross. It was no worse to send a sword against a feeble people, than, for the sake of filthy lucre, to plant among them the accursed saloon. Benjamin Harrison, in a notable address before the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in the City of New York years ago, said, “The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message, ‘We seek not yours but you,’ have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, and the feeble races wither before the breath of the white man’s vices.”Egypt sought to take away from Israel the physical life which Egypt feared; but God has forewarned us against a greater enemy when He said, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. * * Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him”. If in this hour of almost universal disturbance the sword cannot be sheathed, let us praise God that our Congress and Senate have removed the saloon—a slaughter-house from the midst of our soldiers, and our amended Constitution has swept it from the land.THE RISE OF MOSES.I do not know whether you have ever been impressed in studying this Book of Exodus with what is so evidently a Divine ordering of events.

It is when the slaughter is on that we expect the Saviour to come. And that God who sits beside the dying sparrow never overlooks the affliction of His people.

When an edict goes forth against them, then it is that He brings their deliverer to the birth; hence we read, “And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of the house of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son” (Exodus 2:1-2),That is Moses; that is God’s man! It is no chance element that brings him to the kingdom at such a time as this. It is no mere happening that he is bred in Pharaoh’s house, and instructed by Jochebed. It is no accident that he is taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It is all in perfect consequence of the fact that God is looking upon the Children of Israel, and is having respect unto them.Against Pharaoh’s injustice He sets Moses’ keen sense of right. When Moses sees an Egyptian slay an oppressed Israelite, he cannot withhold his hand.

And, when after forty years in the wilderness he comes back to behold afresh the affliction of his people, he “chooses to suffer with them rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” God never does a better thing for a nation than when He raises up in it such a man. We have heard a great deal of Socrates’ wisdom, but it is not in the science of philosophy alone that that ancient shines; for when Athens was governed by thirty tyrants, who one day summoned him to the Senate House, and ordered him to go with others named to seize Leon, a man of rank and fortune, whose life was to be sacrificed that these rulers might enjoy his estate, the great philosopher flatly refused, saying, “I will not willingly assist in an unjust act.” Thereupon Chericles sharply asked, “Dost thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to suffer?” “Far from it,” replied the philosopher, “I expect to suffer a thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly.” That day Socrates was a statesman of the very sort that would have saved Athens had his ideas of righteousness obtained.Against Pharaoh’s oppression He sets Moses’ Divine appointment.

There were many times when Moses was tempted to falter, but God’s commission constrained his service. When Moses said, “Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh?” God answered, “Surely I will be with thee”. When Moses feared his own people who would not believe in his commission, God answered, “Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, I AM hath sent you”. When Moses feared that the Israelites would doubt his Divine appointment, God turned the rod in his hand into a worker of wonders. And, when Moses excused himself on the ground of “no eloquence”, God replied, “Go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say”. With any man, a conviction of Divine appointment is a power, but for him who would be a saviour of his fellows, it is an absolute essential.Pastor Stalker, speaking to the subject of a Divine call to the service of soul-winning, said, “Enthusiasm for humanity is a noble passion and sheds a beautiful glow over the first efforts of an unselfish life, but it is hardly stern enough for the uses of the world.

There come hours of despair when men seem hardly worth our devotion. * * Worse still is the sickening consciousness that we have but little to give; perhaps we have mistaken our vocation; it is a world out of joint, but were we born to put it right? This is where a sterner motive is needed than love for men.

Our retreating zeal requires to be rallied by the command of God. It is His work; these souls are His; He has committed them to our care, and at the judgment-seat He will demand an account of them. All Prophets and Apostles who have dealt with men for God have been driven on by this impulse which has recovered them in hours of weakness and enabled them to face the opposition of the world. * * This command came to Moses in the wilderness and drove him into public life in spite of strong resistance; and it bore him through the unparalleled trials of his subsequent career.” How many times he would have surrendered the battle and left his fellows to suffer under Pharaoh’s heels, but for the sound of that voice which Joan of Arc heard, saying to him as it said to her, “Go on! Go on!”Against Pharaoh’s slaughter God set up Moses as a Saviour. History has recorded the salvation of his people to many a man, who, either by his counsels in the time of peace or his valor in the time of war, has brought abiding victory. But where in annals, secular or sacred, can you find a philosopher who had such grave difficulties to deal with as Moses met in lifting his people from chattel slaves to a ruling nation?

And where so many enemies to be fought as Moses faced in his journey from the place of the Pyramids to Pisgah’s Heights?Titus Flaminius freed the Grecians from the bondage with which they had long been oppressed. When the herald proclaimed the Articles of Peace, and the Greeks understood perfectly what Flaminius had accomplished for them, they cried out for joy, “A Saviour! a Saviour!” till the Heavens rang with their acclamations.But Moses was worthy of greater honor because his was a more difficult deed.

I don’t know, but I suppose one reason why Moses’ name is coupled with that of the Lamb in the Oratorio of the Heavens, is because he saved Israel out of a bondage which was a mighty symbol of Satan’s power, and led them by a journey, which is the best type of the pilgrim’s wanderings in this world, and brought them at last to the borders of Canaan, which has always been regarded as representative of “the rest that remaineth for the people of God”.THE EXODUS FROM EGYPTinvolves some items of the deepest interest.The ten plagues prepare for it. The river is turned into blood; frogs literally cover the land; the dust is changed to lice; flies swarm until all the houses are filled; the beasts are smitten with murrain; boils and blains, hail, locusts and darkness do their worst, and the death of the first-born furnishes the climax of Egyptian affliction, and compels the haughty Pharaoh to bow in humility and grief before the will of the Most High God (chaps. 7-12).There is one feature of these plagues that ought never to be forgotten. Without exception, they spake in thunder tones against Egyptian idolatry. The Nile River had long been an object of their adoration. In a long poem dedicated to the Nile, these lines are found: “Oh, Nile, hymns are sung to thee on the harp,Offerings are made to thee: oxen are slain to thee;Great festivals are kept for thee;Fowls are sacrificed to thee.”But when the waters of that river were turned to blood, the Egyptians supposed Typhon, the God of Evil, with whom blood had always been associated, had conquered over their bountiful and beautiful Osiris—the name under which the Nile was worshiped.The second plague was no less a stroke at their hope of a resurrection, for a frog had long symbolized to them the subject of life coming out of death. The soil also they had worshiped, and now to see the dust of it turned suddenly into living pests, was to suffer under the very power from which they had hoped to receive greatest success. The flies that came in clouds were not all of one kind, but their countless myriads, according to the Hebrew word used, included winged pests of every sort, even the scarabaeus, or sacred beetle. Heretofore, it had been to them the emblem of the creative principle; but now God makes it the instrument of destruction instead. When the murrain came upon the beasts, the sacred cow and the sacred ox-Apis were humbled. And ~when the ashes from the furnace smote the skin of the Egyptians, they could not forget that they had often sprinkled ashes toward Heaven, believing that thus to throw the ashes of their sacrifices into the wind would be to avert evil from every part of the land whither they were blown.

Geikie says that the seventh plague brought these devout worshipers of false gods to see “that the waters, the earth and the air, the growth of the fields, the cattle, and even their own persons, all under the care of a host of divinities, were yet in succession smitten by a power against which these protectors were impotent. When the clouds of locusts had devoured the land, there remained another stroke to their idolatry more severe still, and that was to see the Sun, the supreme god of Egypt, veil his face and leave his worshipers in total darkness.

It is no wonder that Pharaoh then called to Moses and said, “Go ye, serve the Lord”; but it is an amazing thing that even yet his greed of gain goads him on to claim their flocks and their herds as an indemnity against the exodus of the people. There remained nothing, therefore, for God to do but lift His hand again, and lo, death succeeded darkness, and Pharaoh himself became the subject of suffering, and the greatest idol of the nation was humbled to the dust, for the king was the supreme object of worship.He is a foolish man who sets himself up to oppose the Almighty God. And that is a foolish people who think to afflict God’s faithful ones without feeling the mighty hand of that Father who never forgets His own.One day I was talking with a woman whose husband formerly followed the habit of gambling. By this means he had amassed considerable wealth, and when she was converted and desired to unite with the church, he employed every power to prevent it, and even denied her the privilege of church attendance. One morning he awoke to find that he was a defeated man; his money had fled in the night, and in the humiliation of his losses, he begged his wife’s pardon for ever having opposed her spirit of devotion. Since that time, though living in comparative poverty, she has been privileged to serve God as she pleased; and, as she said to me, finds in that service a daily joy such as she at one time feared she would never feel again.

God’s plagues are always preparing the way for an exodus on the part of God’s oppressed.The Passover interpreted this exodus. That greatest of all Jewish feasts stands as a memorial of Israel’s flight from Egypt as a symbol of God’s salvation for His own, and as an illustration of the saving power of the Blood of the Lamb.The opponents of the exodus perished.

Our study concludes with Israel’s Song of Deliverance, beginning, “The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation”, and concluding in the words of Miriam, “Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea”. See Exodus 15:1-21. Such will ever be the end of those who oppress God’s people and oppose the Divine will.When one studies the symbolism in all of this, and sees how Israel typifies God’s present-day people, and Moses, their deliverer, Jesus our Saviour, and defeated Pharaoh, the enemy of our souls, destined to be overthrown, he feels like joining in the same song of deliverance, changing the words only so far as to ascribe the greater praise to Him who gave His life a deliverance for all men; and with James Montgomery sing: “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed Great David’s greater SonWho, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun.He comes to break oppression, To set the captive free,To take away transgression, And rule in equity.“He comes, with succor speedy, To those who suffer wrong;To help the poor and needy, And bid the weak be strong;To give them songs for sighing, Their darkness turn to light,Whose souls, condemned and dying. Were precious in His sight.”

Exodus 5:8-11

THE FOURTH VERSUS SABBATH Exo_5:8-11IN speaking this evening on the subject “The Fourth Commandment vs. Sabbath Breaking”, it is not my purpose to enter into any controversy with those who keep Saturday for the Sabbath. It would be easy enough to answer their arguments, but as useless as easy, for “when you have convinced some people against their will, they remain of the same opinion still”.THE SABBATHThe man who still supposes that God made the earth in six days of twenty-four hours each, beginning with Sunday morning and finishing with Friday night, and rested on Saturday, is too anachronistic to be worthy of reply. The man who supposes that we get our days—Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from God, or from Israel, and therefore that Saturday is to be kept as the Sabbath, is so ignorant of history that an argument with him would be wasted, for these terms are heathen and not Hebraic. Sunday is the Sun’s day, a day devoted to the worship of the sun; Monday is moon’s day; Tuesday, Tyr’s, god of marshall honor; Wednesday, Woden’s day; Thursday, Thor’s day; Friday, Frigga’s, and Saturday, Saturn’s day; so that every one of them smells of heathenism; and the man who would undertake to show that the order of Sunday as the first day, and Saturday as the seventh day, was the very arrangement of which God was speaking when He gave the Law, would have on hand a Herculean task.SUNDAY OR Again, a reading of the 23rd chapter of the Book of Leviticus shows us that in Israel two Sabbaths often came together, one immediately succeeding the other, and thereby the whole arrangement was changed, and the first day of the week was made the Sabbath, even as it is at this present time.One other thought for those who insist upon Saturday as the seventh day: How did God manage it with the two sides of the world? Surely He is not more interested in Asia than in America, and while it is Saturday here, it is Sunday over there; but, as I have suggested, it is useless to answer the man who has only one article of faith.You have heard of the Irishman, who, when he arrived in this country, was asked what were his politics, and replied, “Sure, and I’m agin the guvernmint.”As a citizen, I have no choice between days; one is as sacred to me as another.

But, as a Christian, the day that commemorates the resurrection of my Lord makes for me the sweetest Sabbath, and I celebrate it as such, and am glad that in this I have the example of the Apostles of Jesus Christ, who, on the testimony of the New Testament, did the same.Jesus Christ gave the best interpretation of the fourth commandment when He said,“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, so that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”.And I want to make my plea tonight for a Sabbath made for man.FOR HIS MUSCLEI believe the physical man requires one day’s rest in seven, but I think many people misinterpret the term “rest”. It is not a synonym of “sleep”, nor an equivalent of “indolence”.

How much we need to insist upon that fact!If you had gone through the streets of the city of Minneapolis this morning, taking a peep into the hundreds and thousands of homes, you would have noted that the most marked change from the custom of week days in many of them, consisted in the straggling line of breakfasters. The father makes himself hoarse calling the children to rise; the servant girls lose their patience while trying to keep the breakfast warm, and the community is growing a custom of Sabbath-wasting instead of Sabbath-keeping.One of the commonest excuses of professedly good people for remaining away from church is this of extra sleeping on Sunday. Doubtless there are some so situated that they need the additional rest, but usually the man who loves a dollar so well that six A. M. in the week finds him chasing it, but cares so little for the Church of God that he sleeps until after ten Sunday morning, needs regeneration.If you have imagined that God gave the Sabbath for sleep, you had better read the fourth commandment afresh.And yet one should rest from the usual employment of life. His muscles require it. Relaxation of the right sort means invigoration.

Mr. Peabody, a scientist of note, made observations that seemed to prove that even so dead a thing as a car-wheel would last longer and do the service of a greater number of days by resting from wonted revolutions one day in seven.

Shall men imagine themselves less liable to the wear of unremittant toil than the deadest and hardest thing that moves? No wonder our seven-day workers resort to stimulants! No wonder that Germany, the land of so little Sunday, is a net work of beer gardens. When you take away from the muscles of a man the divinely-prescribed tonic of rest, Satan will furnish him a substitute, but that substitute is a poor one, for while it stimulates, it also consumes, and life is greatly shortened.The world was interested in the long life of Mr. Gladstone. His health was so abundant and his vigor of body and mind so tenacious that many inquired of him the secret of his robust old age.

Years ago, in the “Review of Reviews”, he answered this question by telling a story. He said there was once a road leading out of London on which more horses died” than any other, and inquiry revealed the fact that the road was perfectly level; consequently the animals in traveling over it used only one set of muscles !

The application is easy. He hastens the untimely end of his life who does not break the dead level of secular employment by keeping the seventh day sacred to rest.There is both rest and recreation in a change. But the change should not be so violent as to stimulate the spirits unduly, nor yet so vile as to bring bitterness in the end.When I was pastor in Chicago, where my pastoral work often led me into the crowded and dirty districts, I came to think a properly conducted Sunday excursion which should carry the people into the country was no crime. To many of those people a day among God’s trees, breathing His pure air, and listening to some servant of His explain the Word, would be a benediction indeed. In a city like this, where room is ample, parks of the most beautiful sort within easy access, such an excursion is without any occasion whatever, and is worthy to be condemned. And, even there, I never knew of a Sunday excursion out of which there did not come cursing and bitterness.

Better to be shut up in a pest-house and breathe the poison of diseased air, than to go into the country on the Sabbath day astride a beer-keg and be brought home at night drunk and degraded. Henry Ward Beecher said truly enough, “German Sundays in which men gather together in beer gardens to drink are sinks in which men drain their passions, and their influence is not refining.” It is a good thing to rest one day in seven.

It is a good thing to go abroad and breathe the pure air, to give such respite to the muscles as will bring a blessing to the whole body, “for know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the living God”? But get that change in a Christ-like way.Again, going back to the statement of Jesus Christ, “The Sabbath was made for man”, I plead its usesFOR THE MINDOne of the saddest facts incident to shop-opening, and Sunday labor of all sorts, exists in the ignorance it imposes upon its subjects. The eight-hour day of some gives abundant opportunity for study, while the remittant toil of others furnishes the same. But there are thousands of men, in almost as many pursuits, who work early and late, from Monday morning until Sunday night, and call no day their own. With such, intellectual growth is out of question, and the mind, like the body, must be fed, or else it wastes away.Some years since, a gentleman passing near a coal mine in Pennsylvania, saw a field filled with mules. He inquired of a small boy what the animals were used for.

To this the boy replied, “Those are the mules that work all the week down in the mine, but on Sunday they bring them up into the light, because if they didn’t they would go blind.” It is a good deal so with man. Ceaseless toil destroys mental discernment, and dims the intellectual vision.When Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath”, He meant that every son of Adam should call this day his own, and be privileged to so employ it as to effect a self-improvement.

As one has said, “It is a day in which every man ought to be privileged to feel, ‘I am not a toiler; I am not a worker; I am not an underling; I am not an apprentice, nor a journeyman; I am not g man on wages; I am not a hired man; I am a man, and this day is my own. I have no taskmaster or overseer today. I belong to myself, to my wife, to my children, and to my neighbors in my generous nature. * * This is God’s day, and therefore it is mine, and my head goes up as high as it can reach. I am not to crouch today; I am to walk as free as the freest. I am to be as independent as the most independent.’ ” And, indeed, the Sabbath is such a day to the man who makes its sunny hours conserve the interests of his intellectual nature by high and holy thinking, profitable converse, and clean and helpful reading.Home life has not sufficiently emphasized this fact. The hateful Sunday newspaper has played the camel’s old trick in many a house, crowding out angelic occupants.

I am not pleading for a Puritan Sabbath. I don’t believe it is a sin for a boy to sing on Sunday, nor yet for one to whistle.

I doubt if it is wicked for a girl to giggle that day; and I don’t believe that God meant to have us make it a day in which boys and girls should be set to the Bible and made to spend all the hours in its study, or the task of committing some catechism or other.Henry Ward Beecher says he used to watch the sun until the hills west of his father’s house rose right up and were ready to hide it, and then in irrepressible exaltation, and to his mother’s insufferable grief, he used to cry out, “Oh, Charlie, look; it’s most down!” His mother—good woman in her way —held to the notion that Sunday was for committing Scripture and the longer catechism, and I don’t much blame the boys for getting tired of the task. I don’t believe that God ever meant that His Sabbath should be made a hardship for children.Isaiah speaks of our calling the Sabbath “a delight”, and it ought to be such. As I look back over my own life, I testify that to me it was such. If I could go back to the old Kentucky home tonight, and the Great God was willing to excuse father and mother from their places about His throne, that they might meet me there, I should be glad to bow before them and thank them both for making the Sabbath the most blessed day of my boyhood.In that country home we rested from the accustomed work. It was a day of best clothes. It was a day of church-going.

It was a day of social converse. It was a day of good books and papers.

It was a day of sweet Bible study, and I think now, sweet as is the present Sabbath, it scarcely surpasses that which the boy enjoyed twenty-five years gone. I plead for such a Sabbath for every boy, for every girl—a Sabbath for rest of body and building of brain.Dr. Talmage tells us that when he was going up Mount Washington, before the railroad had been built, on the way to the tip-top house the guide would come around to the horses, and when they were about to cross a very steep and dangerous place, he would stop them and tighten the girdles of the horses and straighten the saddles; and, “I have to tell you,” says Talmage, “that this road of life is so steep and full of peril, we must, at least one day in seven, stop and have the harness of life readjusted,” and our bodies and minds re-equipped.Sir Henry Taylor, the statesman, pled for at least one day in ‘seven; “Not exclusively”, he said, “for devotional exercises, but because of the advantage derived from quitting the current of busy thoughts and cutting out for himself a sort of cell for reading and meditation, a space resembling one of those bights in the course of a rapid stream where the waters seem to tarry and repose themselves for a while”; and he declares that “one who shall have been deeply imbued in his early years with love of meditative studies, will find that in such tranquillity the recollection of them will spring up in his mind with a light and spiritual illumination, as a bubble of air springs from the bottom of staid waters.” Christ knew that, touching mind, “the Sabbath was made for man”.I make my last pleaFOR HIS MORALSI think it is generally conceded that the Sabbath-keeping public is always the more moral public.England is better off than the continent, morally, by just as much as it more regards the Sabbath; and Canada is better off than America, morally, by just as much as it more regards the Sabbath. Seldom have I visited in a city where I was so favorably impressed with its moral atmosphere as when, years ago, I went for the first time to visit Toronto. When the Sabbath day came and I found all labor laid aside, I discovered the secret of the city’s character.No wonder Lord McCauley, in his speech before the House of Commons concerning the Ten Hours Bill, said, “The natural difference between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigor, and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not poorer, but rather because we have, through many ages, rested from our labors one day in seven.

A day is not lost while industry is suspended, while the plow lies in the furrow, while the exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory. A process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days.

Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up so that he returns to his labors on the Monday with clear intellect, with livelier spirit, with renewed vigor, and, McCauley might have added, with increased morals!The man who lives on the dead level of labor, who never has a day of respite therefrom, who knows few hours of converse with his own family, fewer still for good books, and absolutely none for the Church of God, is driven by that very circumstance to a lower and lower conception of life. His violation of the fourth commandment in its spirit, as surely as in its letter, will result in a disregard of the other nine, “for whosoever offendeth in one point is guilty of all”.I do not believe in such legislation concerning the Sabbath as imposes Sunday upon a man who believes in keeping Saturday instead; but I know that the rest of one day in seven is not only a fundamental of Christianity, but an indispensable prop to public morals. Emerson said, “Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence. It invites to the noblest solitude and the best society,” and I make bold to say that, to the ends of the world, and all ages considered, such a thing as good society without a Sabbath is unknown.But, after all, the morals in which I am most interested are those that result from having received Jesus Christ. He is indeed the Center, the Source, the Author and the Finisher of the morals of both letter and spirit. The man who lets Sunday pass over without seeking Him; the man who lets Sunday go by without considering His salvation; the man who, in the hours of the Sabbath, can forget His life, His death, His resurrection, His proffers of grace, fails to see the highest end of Sabbath-keeping.

Upon every remembrance of this day, I thank God that its solitude has effected the noblest thought, the highest aspirations, and God has employed that solitude to send men in search of eternal salvation.Dr. Boardman tells us that an English gentleman was inspecting a house in New Castle with a view to buying it.

The landlord, after having shown him the premises, took him to an upper window and remarked, “You can see Durham Cathedral from this window on Sundays.” “How is that?” asked the visitor. “Because, on Sundays there is no smoke from the factory chimneys.”Ah, beloved, on this day when you have not had to go about the factory; on this day when the smoke from its chimneys have not been in your eyes; on this day when you have been so far removed from that same smoke that the sky has not been clouded for you, have you looked for the Cathedral of God, for the City not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? And have you thought upon the Man of that city—the Man of Nazareth—who gave His life that you might live, and who, after His resurrection, ascended up on high to make ready for you a mansion, and who said, “J go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also”? Have you done that?One evening in Tremont Temple, Boston, a man arose and said, “Nearly twenty years ago now, I brought a poor drunken fellow into this church one night. He listened to the sermon. He was convicted of sin. That night he sought the Lord and was saved.

I do not know where he is now, but I thank God for that Sunday night, and for that salvation.” To the surprise and delight of every one, a man arose in the other part of the room, and facing the other said, “Yes, sir, it is so. I am your man.

You brought me in here. I sought the Lord that night and He has been my Saviour ever since. Thank God for that Sunday!”