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Show THE SABBATH DAY. It is with a feeling of great rejoicing that we welcome the manifesto which has been issued in England with reference to Sunday rest. The Catholic Cath-olic Archbishops of Westminster, together with the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury and the President Pres-ident of the Free Church Council, representing the Nonconformist Klement. have joined hands to secure se-cure for every worker in England rest from, his labours on that day and also an opportunity of serving his God. In a word, the main purpose of this alliance is to safeguard the sanctity of the Sunday, that day especially set apart by Almighty God for His service and for the repose of mankind. man-kind. It is time indeed that this evil of Sunday work should be grappled with, for employers in England were following in the footsteps of these employers on the Continent and making Sunday as much a day of grinding toil as any other day in the week. Nothing could be more to the purpose than the words of the manifesto. The words are: "1. It is essential to the physical, industrial and moral efficiency of the nation to preserve one day in the seven as a day of rest, to which every man is by divine law and by human necessity justly just-ly entitled. ''2. That, having regard to the statutes and laws of Great Britain, and to the immemorial usage of Christendom, the weekly day of rest should remain re-main and be "Dies non jurisdicus' the Lord's day, commonly called Sunday. That it is the duty of the state to safeguard safe-guard the highest interest of the people by such legislation as shall, as far as possible, secure for all classes of the community their Sunday rest, and to reduce all Sunday labour to the minimum consistent with the exigencies of necessity and mercy.'' There is no doubt about it that Sunday toil works sad havoc with the morals of men and has also a baneful effect upon their bodily health. From week's end to week's end they 6lave away in the mines, the factories, the workshops and the field, and the thought of God and the hereafter never comes before their mind. The faith which they once had grows dim and is finally extinguished; every ev-ery pure and lofty sentiment perishes in their hearts, and they become for the most part atheists. Then leaving aside religion, the service of God altogether, the continual drag of work upon them enfeebles the powers of the body, and they become be-come worn and decrepit before their time. Canada has done a great deal for the worker with regard to Sunday rest. Within the past few years the parliament passed an act the special aim of which was to put an end to those- abuses connected con-nected with Sunday trading, and for the short time of its working it has effected an amount of good. Of course, it is not the intention of those who drew up the manifesto to make of the Sunday a day of gloom, such as we had in the Puritan times, or such as we remember to have seen lately in Scotland, Scot-land, where it was considered an awful'thing to play any instrument of music in the home on the Sabbath. What the Church wishes is that when the first solemn obligation of man to his God, namely, of offering prayer, praise and thanksgiving, thanksgiv-ing, has been fulfilled, the Sunday should be one of cheerfulness and innocent amusement. Every working man in England and every working work-ing man. too, throughout .the world will welcome the endeavor of this alliance to secure for them what they are entitled to by all laws divine and human. We earnestly hope that this cause of social so-cial reform which those dignitaries have taken up may prove a success. |