I am not sure that in such an enquiry as this history is of much avail. I do not find that those who search into the past to write the history of it ever discover much that is of use to-day. It seems to me that in tracing an idea, or a law, or a custom, historians are satisfied with giving an account of its growth or decay as if it were the life of a tree. They do not enquire into the why of things. They will tell you that an idea came, say, from the East and was accepted generally. They do not say why it was accepted. And to have traced a modern belief back into the far past is to them sufficient reason for its presence, forgetful that whatever persists, whether a law or an idea or a belief, does so because it is of use. Living things require a sanction as well as a history, and therein lies their interest. And what I am writing now is of the sanctions of religions.

Still, there is sometimes an interest, if but a negative one, in the history of an observance or belief. It is useful sometimes to trace an observance back, if only to show that the reason generally given for its retention is not and cannot be the real one. Of such is the history of the observance of Sunday, or the Sabbath, in England and Scotland.

We have discovered from the inscriptions at Accad, upon the Euphrates, that in the time of Sargon, 3,800 years B.C., the days were divided into weeks of seven days, named after the sun and moon and the five planets, as they are now in places. And there were, moreover, "Sabbaths" set apart as days of "rest for the soul," "the completion of work." There were five of these Sabbaths in Chaldea every lunar month, occurring on the 7th, the 14th, the 19th, the 21st, and 28th of the month. That is to say, the new moon, the full moon, and the days half way between were Sabbaths, with the addition of a fifth Sabbath on the 19th day. On these days it was not lawful to cook food, to change one's dress, to offer a sacrifice; the king may not speak in public or ride in a chariot, or perform any kind of military or civil duty; even to take medicine was forbidden. It was a day of rest. And this was 3,800 B.C., nearly 2,000 years before Abraham lived, 2,300 years before Moses and the Ten Commandments, almost contemporary, according to the Bible records, with Cain and Abel. The day was already called the Sabbath. It had existed already for no one knows how long, probably thousands of years; it was a day of rest, and it was observed much as was subsequently the Jewish Sabbath. Without doubt the Jews only adopted a custom known to more civilised nations ages before, and they gave to it the sanction of their religion, as they and many other people have done to many matters. There is everywhere a strong tendency, if possible, to give religious sanction to every observance. The stronger emotions attract to themselves the lesser. So have the Jews and Mahommedans adopted sanitary precautions, the Hindus sanitary and marriage laws, and Christianity marriage laws also in their faiths. So did my friend mentioned in the preface include all civilisation in his religion.

The observance of the Sabbath arose not from a religious command transmitted by Moses, but as the result of observation and custom thousands of years before, that a day of rest was needed for man.

When they reached a certain standard of civilisation all peoples seem to have had such a day set apart. It was a want that arose out of the keener struggle for existence, a mutual truce to the war of competition. But the day itself varied. The Greeks divided their lunar month into decades, having thus three festival days in a month. The Romans, we are told, divided it into periods of eight days, though I do not know how they managed their arithmetic or got eight into twenty-nine without some awkward remainder. And in the farther East it was usual to celebrate the full moon and the new moon and the days half way between as days of rest. A lunar month consisting of sometimes twenty-nine and sometimes thirty days, the period between rest days was sometimes six days as in a week, and sometimes seven days. Thus among the Burmese, although there are, as usual, seven days named after the sun, moon, and planets, the rest day goes by the day of the month, not by that of the week, just as it did with the Accadians. For in the East a month remains a month; it is the life of a moon. It begins with the new moon and ends with the fourth quarter, and is easily reckoned by any villager. With us in the North the age of the moon has ceased to be of any importance. Our life after dark is indoors, where we have lights and the moon is of no use to us. Our houses are lit artificially, and very few Europeans could tell at a moment's notice how old the moon is.

But in the East it is not so. With them the night is the time for being out of doors, and when they go to their houses it is only to sleep. The nights are cool after the hot day, and on the full moon nights the world is full of light. The night of the full moon, when the scent of flowers is on the still air and all about is full of magic, is one of the great beauties of this world. But of it we know nothing in Europe.

Therefore in colder climates the month by the moon was abandoned, and reckoning the year by the sun took its place. And as civilisation progressed it was inconvenient to be uncertain about which was the day of rest, so it became the custom to make it every seventh day, regardless of the moon. This seems to have obtained first in Egypt and to have spread over the civilised world, the seventh day being the Sabbath. But it still remained a day of rest, unassociated, except by the Jews, with religion.

The early Christians kept no Sabbath. They kept the first day of the week as a day of rejoicing, to celebrate the rising of Christ. Indeed, the Jewish Sabbath was considered as abrogated, and the first day of the week was kept, much as it is now kept on the Continent, as a day of rest, of rejoicing, of relaxation after work.

So it was observed till the Reformation.

The Reformers, whatever they altered, did not alter this. They gave no command to return from Christian observance of the day to Jewish observance, and all over the Continent, among those of reformed churches as among those of the Catholic church, Sunday is the day of rest, of worship, and of relaxation.

It was so, too, in England and Scotland.

The change back to the Jewish Sabbath seems to have come with the Puritans and to have been introduced by them to Scotland. And this is but one example of how Puritanism was practically a rejection of Christianity and a return to the codes of Judaism, which suited those iron warriors much better than Christian ethics.

In England the feeling has been tempered, but among the Scotch, who are in so many ways like the old Jews, it took root, it flourished, and it is the Jewish Sabbath both in name and observance that we see now there.

Why was there this reversion? For what reason has the Jewish Sabbath appealed more nearly to the Scotch than the Christian Sunday? What feelings were those that caused this?

If you turn to the people who have done this and look into their characters you will note one strong and marked instinct. It is the dislike to art of all kinds, to painting and music, to dancing and acting, their strong distrust of beauty and gaiety. They are a sober people, hard and stubborn and dour, to whom art and amusement appeal, as a rule, not at all; and when they do appeal it is too strongly. They would not have organs in their churches and cards were to them the devil's picture books. They had in them then, they have now, no single fibre that responds to the lighter and brighter things of this world. Their very humour is grim. Have they, then, no idea of pleasure? Do they never enjoy themselves? It would be a mistake of the greatest to suppose that. They, too, as all other men, have their times for relaxation, for enjoyment, for mental rest and refreshment. Only that what gives pleasure to them is different from what gives pleasure to other people. They take their pleasures sadly; the chords of their hearts are tuned to other keys than that of gaiety and art. These latter they cannot understand, they awaken either no echo or far too strong an echo; and, like all men when they cannot understand a thing, they hate it. There is no medium in these matters that appeal to the emotions. You must either like or hate. You may see this always. Either you enjoy Wagner's music or you abominate it, either you appreciate old masters or they are to you daubs, either you are in tune to laughter or it seems to you the veriest folly.

The Scotch take their amusement and their relaxation on the Sabbath as other people do on the Sunday. They rest from work, they attend divine service, and for relaxation they awaken those gloomy and fanatical thoughts which give them pleasure. For these are to them pleasure, just as much as gaiety is to other people.

Do not doubt that it is real pleasure to them. Men's hearts are tuned to many keys, and there is a minor as well as a major. It is true that it is difficult for those who rejoice in light and sunshine, in gaiety and humour, who revolt from grey skies and shaded days, from gloomy thoughts and dreams of hell, to realise that there are men to whom these are in harmony.

Most of us would forget hell if we could, would banish the thought if it arose, but some love to dwell upon it, to repeat it, to preach of it. The idea thrills them as blood and massacre do others. Some men would go miles to avoid seeing an execution, others would go as many miles to see it. Emotions are of all sorts, and what to some is horrible is to others attractive.

"Will the doctrine of eternal punishment be preached there?" asked the owner of a large room suitable for meetings to one who would have hired it to preach there. And when the answer was that the subject would not be touched on the room was refused. "Ay, but I hold to that doctrine," he repeated to every objection.

Widely, therefore, as the Continental Sunday and the Scotch Sabbath differ in appearance, they arise from the same causes, they result in the same effects.

They are caused by the desire for bodily rest, for soul nourishment, for mental relaxation, necessities of mankind, and each people so frames its conception of the proper way to keep the day as to attain those ends. For "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," and men adapt their religious teaching to suit their necessities.