Sunday

“ Saturday, moreover, is the day between Friday, the day of mourning, and Sunday, the day of joy—and the Holy Virgin is the mediatrix between God, Who is Eternal Beatitude, and man, who is subject to endless evils and miseries. Mary is the way to arrive at Jesus, and Saturday is a prelude to the solemnity of Sunday. Saturday is as a magnificent portal consecrated to the Mother of God, by which we enter the Sanctuary of God Himself. The Saints held this day in great esteem—on it they redoubled their pious exercises—and many begged, as a signal favour, that they might die on a Saturday. ”

“ The wickedness, to me, consists in making Sunday, which should be a delight, such a tedium, that, in after years, whenever the word strikes upon the ear, or the day returns, the first impulse is to shun and evade it. Oh, let Sunday be what the memory of "mother's room" is to us all—radiant with perfume of flowers and sunshine. The bright spot to look back upon, when old age sits in the chimney-corner, with the sweet psalm from voices hushed by death, or far removed, still sounding in the ears ”

“ How glad I am that we do not agree about Sunday. I think your view of ‘the Sabbath’ so entirely derogatory to all the dignity and beauty of Christianity, and I cannot understand any one not becoming an infidel, if they think God so mean as to suppose that He would consider ‘His day’ (though Sunday is only the Church’s day, all days are God’s days) dishonoured by walking with one’s intimate friends in a garden, or having tea in another garden with several persons, all infinitely better and wiser than oneself. ”

“ There are stifling, sticky, sweltering. Sundays in midsummer when one prays, if he can pray at all, for the night to come. And there are blustering, rainy, sleety, dismal, Sundays in the fall when the dead hours go in funeral procession by and the world seems a gloomy tomb. But a Sunday in blossoming time! That is different! The very milk wagons, as they clattered, belated, down the street rattled a cheery note of fellowship and good will. The long drawn call of the paper boy had in it a hint of the joy of living. And the rumble of an occasional passing cab came like a deep undertone of peace. ”

“ We prize Sunday as a Sabbath or rest day. But it is a physiological fact that the cessation from action that refreshes or rests some persons on that day, does not so operate on everybody. We would that Sunday should be a joy, a delight to all the people; that every man, woman, and child should anticipate its approach with pleasure. ”

“ The memory of my youthful Sundays is fragrant with wintergreens, black birch, and crinkle-root, to say nothing of the harvest apples that grew in our neighbor's orchard; and the memory of my Sundays in later years is fragrant with arbutus, and the showy orchid, and wild strawberries, and touched with the sanctity of woodland walks and hilltops. What day can compare with a Sunday to go to the waterfalls, or to "Piney Ridge," or to "Columbine Ledge," or to stroll along "Snake Lane"? What sweet peace and repose is over all! ”

“ Those Saturdays were Sabbaths for at least two little Christians among all the Jews, and did the holy Sabbath work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's and a sister's love.
Not even Sunday nights - the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow darkened the first waking burst of light on Sunday mornings - could mar those precious Saturdays. ”

“ There used to be such Sundays in America when people were young, and I suppose there are such Sundays there yet for children; but if you are no longer so very young you will be more apt to find them in England, where Sunday has been studying, ever since the Romans began to observe it, in just what proportion to blend the blue and white in its welkin, and to unite warmth and coolness in its air. ”

“ The phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself—that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it—is melted down into a week day. I can spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I can visit a sick friend. ”

“ The Sunday gave way to the week-day. There is nothing happening on the roads on the Sunday; the tramp is left with Nature, but directly Monday comes the work and life of the people reveal themselves, and adventures are more frequent. ”

“ I am prepared to affirm that, to the studious especially, and whether younger or older, a Sunday well spent—spent in happy exercises of the heart, devotional and domestic—a Sunday given to the soul, is the best of all means of refreshment for the mere intellect. ”

“ Sunday after Sunday I chime in their ears the beautiful old hymns that sweetly chide or cheer the hearts that truly listen and believe; Sunday after Sunday I look down on them as they pass in, hoping to see that my words have not fallen upon deaf ears; and Sunday after Sunday they listen to words that should teach them much, yet seem to go by them like the wind. They are told to love their neighbor, yet too many hate him because he possesses more of this world’s goods or honors than they ”

“ To-day, we will say, is Sunday, God's holy day! To-day, of all days in the week, God has chosen to be set apart for His worship. He has given you time to be so employed. He has given you an open church to go to. He has given you health and power to go, and yet perhaps you reject all, and never go at all. Don't you see that you have taken of things of God, that you have taken His gift of health, and His gift of Sunday rest--things given that they might be spent in His service, and in worshipping Him in His church. ”

“ At this council was brought forward—perhaps for the first time—the famous first-day argument now so familiar to all, that Sunday is proved to be the true Sabbath because that men are struck by lightning who labor on that day. ”

“ Another Sunday. Strange that the time, which should seem so endless, flies so rapidly! Miriam complains that Sunday comes every day; but though that seems a little too much, I insist that it comes twice a week. Let time fly, though; for each day brings us so much nearer our destiny, which I long to know.
Thursday, we heard from a lady just from town that our house was standing the day before, which somewhat consoled us for the loss of our silver and clothing; but yesterday came the tidings of new afflictions. ”

“ Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. ”

“ If it be asked, How could the title of Lord’s day be given to Sunday except by tradition derived from the apostles? the answer will be properly returned, What was the origin of offerings for the dead? And how did the sign of the cross come into use among Christians? The title of Lord’s day as a name for Sunday is no nearer apostolic than is the sign of the cross, and offerings for the dead; for it can be traced no nearer to apostolic times than can these most palpable errors of the great apostasy. ”

“ In some of the higher circles of life, accustomed to such rounds of pleasure, who does not know that the Sunday is lamented as the most cruel interrupter of their enjoyments?—No shopping in the morning—no theatre or route in the evening—Nothing but dull heavy church stares them in the face. ”

“ The long Sunday ended at last—a Sunday spoiled to many of the boys of Saint Dominic’s by distracting thoughts and cares—a day which many impatiently wished over, and which some wished would never give place to the morrow. ”

“ Sunday is the first in creation, in order, and in dignity. Some foolish men also say, that there are some kinds of animals which one should not bless; and say that they decline by blessing, and by cursing thrive, and so enjoy God's grace to their injury, without blessing, with the devil's malediction. ”

“ On Sunday, when the bells chime their invitation, all sorts and conditions of men meet in the dim romantic precincts of the ancient church, and there is much pleasant gossiping when morning and evening worship are ended. ”

“ All the world is deploring the secularizing of Sunday. Not only is churchgoing perfunctory or absent, but in all ranks of life there is a disposition to make it a day of rest and amusement—sometimes the amusement rather than the rest. ”

“ Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy, by the circumstance that men did not fast upon it, and that they prayed standing up, and not kneeling, as Christ had raised up fallen man to heaven again through his resurrection. The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect—far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. ”

“ The observance of Sunday is, like everything else in Christianism, borrowed from the heathens; and is merely a continuation of the Pagan festival that was held in the temples of the Sun, in adoration of that luminary, as the name attests beyond all contradiction; with this difference alone, that the Fathers, as if it were to make the thing more expensive and intolerable in their Scripture traffic, changed it into a weekly festival, substituting the triune machinery of the church for that of the temple. ”

“ In order that man should rest from work at least one day out of the seven, and dedicate it to the special service of God, and to the salvation of his own soul.
Why do we Christians keep Sunday as a holy- day instead of Saturday, which was the day observed under the Old Law?
The apostles kept Sunday, the first day of the week, as a holy-day for these reasons: 1. As the Sabbath was a memorial of the consummation of the work of the creation, so the Sunday was to remind us of the consummation of the redemption. 2. On that day Our Lord arose from the dead. ”

“ In brief, it would not hurt Society to spend its Sundays with more thought for others than Itself. For the bulk and mass of the British people—the people who are Great Britain—still adhere to the sacred and blessed institution of a “day of rest,” even if it be not a day of sermons. To thousands upon thousands of toiling men and women, Sunday is still a veritable God’s day, and we may thank God for it! ”

“ Holy Sunday is here merely a Christianised form of some of the older divinities, who did not scruple at the slightest provocation to vent their feelings and to punish their sub-ordinates without pity and without mercy. ”

“ Since the Sunday sabbath originated with the Roman power (the beast) , to whom will men yield homage when, knowing the facts, they choose to observe Sunday, instead of the Bible Sabbath, in deference to compulsory Sunday laws?
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” Rom. 6:16.
Notes.—“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.”—“Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,” page 213. ”

“ It seems to us that the only way to have Sunday properly observed is for those who are influential to make some little personal sacrifices, if need be, to attend the Sunday services, and do all they can to promote the most cheerful views of religion and make the services interesting. ”

“ Sunday is a day of rest in the eyes of the Constitution but not a day of religious worship. Constitutionally it is every one’s privilege to spend Sunday as he chooses. He may, if he wishes, go to Sunday-school, class-meeting, preaching, prayer-meeting, and preaching again, and thus employ all his time on Sunday in religious exercises ”

“ Another instance is ready at hand in the practical abandonment of the religious observance of Sunday. To Christians Sunday is the Lord's day, and is to be observed as such. It is not true that an hour in the morning is the Lord's day, and is to be given to worship, and that the rest of the day is given to us to do what we will with. ”

“ We have now presented every reason for the Sunday festival which can be found in all the writings of the first three centuries. Though generally very trivial, and sometimes worse than trivial, they are nevertheless worthy of careful study. They constitute a decisive testimony that the change of the Sabbath by Christ or by his apostles from the seventh to the first day of the week was absolutely unknown during that entire period. ”

“ Now send the reapers forth the next morning after the Sabbath, what day is that? why, it is Sunday in the morning; so we see in the anti-type the morning of the resurrection instead of being a holy day (and as the world will have it the Sabbath) it was the day for the laborers to go out into the fields to reap the spring harvest. ”

“ Then, as I say, the week shall illustrate the Sunday, and the Sunday shall glorify the week; and what men do and build shall stand true types, again, for the inner growth and the invisible building; so that if this outer tabernacle were dissolved, there should be seen glorious behind it, the house not made with hands,—eternal. ”