Puritanism followed and gave a literal meaning to the text, “Thou shalt do no work.”  Under her reign, all labor was suspended on the seventh day.  A strict watch was set upon the actions of the individual:  household duties were neglected:  fires were not lighted or food cooked.  The great world of activity stood still.

Rest so severe embittered men’s judgment, and the Sabbath became a day for prying into the derelictions of each other.  A rigid observance was placed upon men’s actions, and stringent laws were made to punish the offender against this enforced rest.

So tyrannous and exacting did the Puritan observers of the Sabbath become, that their rigid formulas created a rebellion in the minds of the succeeding generation, and so great has been the reaction, that in our day it has become a common assertion that “all days are alike,” and the steam-car and the horse-car, the coach, and the hack, ply their busy wheels through the streets of our large cities, and the church-goers travel thereon to their different sanctuaries.

“All days are alike to God,” says the reformer; “why should we observe the Sabbath more than any other day?” I will tell you why:  a concentration of the spiritual nature of men throughout Christendom necessarily creates a magnetic atmosphere through which spiritual beings can approach.  The sincere and devout worshippers in every land congregating in churches upon one day, send forth waves of magnetic light which extend into the world of spirits.  The music and the prayers are borne upward on this current, and great batteries are thereby formed that cannot but affect the souls in Paradise.  They respond to the music and the prayers, and worshippers in the churches feel their magnetic influences.  Those who are sincere in their religious faith say that they feel “heaven opened to them.”  Even those who attend church from fashion, or for the purpose of meeting their friends and neighbors, are there brought in contact with spiritual influences which could reach them in no other way.

The experience I have gained since my entrance into my spiritual home has given me more liberal ideas of the uses of the Sabbath, and taught me that to the working man it is a necessary day of recreation.  But I lift my voice against its becoming one of beer-drinking and boisterous sports.  The workman who is confined to the bench or the workshop, in the midst of a crowded city, for six days of the week, will certainly be benefited by seeking the green fields and healthful influences of the country; but on reaching that desirable Eden, let means be provided for his instruction; so, while sitting under the leafy trees, his mind may be benefited, and his bodily organism rested, rather than injured by feasting and rioting in the public gardens and parks.

Field preaching should become a regular institution of the Sabbath; and discourses instructing the mind in morals and sciences should be given in the tent, or under trees, in parks and woods set apart for that purpose.  Then would, the object of the Sabbath be attained.  As I have said, the spiritual nature is more open to the reception of truth on that day.