IV
It is Sunday morning, and above earth's beauty shines the purest, softest sky this summer has yet gladdened us withal. My window is thrown open; I see the sunny gleam upon garden leaves and flowers; I hear the birds whose wont it is to sing to me; ever and anon the martins that have their home beneath my eaves sweep past in silence. Church bells have begun to chime; I know the music of their voices, near and far.
There was a time when it delighted me to flash my satire on the English Sunday; I could see nothing but antiquated foolishness and modern hypocrisy in this weekly pause from labour and from bustle. Now I prize it as an inestimable boon, and dread every encroachment upon its restful stillness. Scoff as I might at "Sabbatarianism," was I not always glad when Sunday came? The bells of London churches and chapels are not soothing to the ear, but when I remember their sound--even that of the most aggressively pharisaic conventicle, with its one dire clapper--I find it associated with a sense of repose, of liberty. This day of the seven I granted to my better genius; work was put aside, and, when Heaven permitted, trouble forgotten.
When out of England I have always missed this Sunday quietude, this difference from ordinary days which seems to affect the very atmosphere. It is not enough that people should go to church, that shops should be closed and workyards silent; these holiday notes do not make a Sunday. Think as one may of its significance, our Day of Rest has a peculiar sanctity, felt, I imagine, in a more or less vague way, even by those who wish to see the village lads at cricket and theatres open in the town. The idea is surely as good a one as ever came to heavy-laden mortals; let one whole day in every week be removed from the common life of the world, lifted above common pleasures as above common cares. With all the abuses of fanaticism, this thought remained rich in blessings; Sunday has always brought large good to the generality, and to a chosen number has been the very life of the soul, however heretically some of them understood the words. If its ancient use perish from among us, so much the worse for our country. And perish no doubt it will; only here in rustic solitude can one forget the changes that have already made the day less sacred to multitudes. With it will vanish that habit of periodic calm, which, even when it has become so largely void of conscious meaning, is, one may safely say, the best spiritual boon ever bestowed upon a people. The most difficult of all things to attain, the most difficult of all to preserve, the supreme benediction of the noblest mind, this calm was once breathed over the whole land as often as sounded the last stroke of weekly toil; on Saturday at even began the quiet and the solace. With the decline of old faith, Sunday cannot but lose its sanction, and no loss among the innumerable that we are suffering will work so effectually for popular vulgarization. What hope is there of guarding the moral beauty of the day when the authority which set it apart is no longer recognized?--Imagine a bank-holiday once a week!