Importance of the Sabbath.
"Let us now suppose, for a moment, that the Sabbath, and its exercises were universally abolished from the civilized world. What would be the consequences? The knowledge of the true God, which the institution of the Sabbath, more than any other means, has tended to perpetuate, would soon be lost, his worship abandoned, and religion and moral principle buried in the dust. In Pagan countries, where the Sabbath is unknown, the true God is never adored, the soul of man is debased and prostrates itself before the sun and moon, and even before demons, monsters, insects, reptiles, and blocks of wood and stone. "In France, where the Sabbath was for a season abolished, an impious phantom called the Goddess of Reason was substituted in the room of the Omnipotent and Eternal God; the Bible was held up to ridicule, and committed to the flames; man was degraded to the level of the brutes; his mind was assimilated to a piece of clay, and the cheering prospects of immortality were transformed into the shades of an eternal night. Atheism, scepticism, and fatalism almost universally prevailed; the laws of morality were trampled under foot; and anarchy, plots, assassinations, massacres, and legalized plunder became 'the order of the day.' "With the loss of the knowledge of God, all impressions of the divine presence, and all sense of accountableness for human actions, would be destroyed. The restraints of religion, and the prospects of a future judgment, would no longer deter from commission of crimes; and nothing but the dread of the dungeon, the gibbet, or the rack, would restrain mankind from the constant perpetration of cruelty, injustice, and deeds of violence. No social prayers, from assembled multitudes, would be offered up to the Father of mercies; no voice of thanksgiving and praise would ascend to the Ruler of the skies; the work of creation, as displaying the perfections of the Deity, would cease to be admired and commemorated; and the movements of Providence, and the glories of redemption, would be overlooked and disregarded.—The pursuit of the objects of time and sense, which can be enjoyed but a few fleeting years, would absorb every faculty of the soul; and the realities of the eternal world would either be forgotten, or regarded as idle dreams. In short, were the Sabbath abolished, or, were the law which enforces its observance to be reversed, man would be doomed to spend his mortal existence in an unbroken series of incessant labor and toil; his mental powers would languish, and his bodily strength would be speedily wasted. Habits of cleanliness, civility of deportment, and decency of apparel, would be disregarded; and the persons, and the habitations of the laboring classes, would soon resemble the filthiness and the wretched objects which are seen in the kraal of a Hottentot. Their minds would neither be cheered with the prospect of seasons of stated repose in this world, nor with the hope of eternal rest and joy in the world to come."—Dick's Philosophy.