Gentiles kept Sunday only; but gradually there were incorporated into it all the spiritual elements of the Sabbath.  In this point, as in all others, the underlying eternal meaning of the Law was recoined and reissued by Christianity; no jot or tittle of its spirit passed away.

In “The English Sunday,"[4] by Canon Bernard, you will find a short sketch of the history of the day; its universal acceptance through the decree of Constantine, which organized the popular custom of a weekly holiday; the resistance of Luther and Calvin to any idea of being bound by the Jewish Sabbath; the Anglican idea of Church Services combined with the Book of Sports; the Puritan idea of a day of retirement from worldly business and amusement; and, finally, the gradual acceptance of this last idea by the English national conscience, so that High Churchmen, like Law and Nelson, echoed the Puritan ideal, and the average business Englishman accepted it as the right thing.

I am convinced that the vigour of the nation and the health of our own souls depends on keeping Sunday,—­not only by going to Church, but by so arranging it that we get into an unworldly atmosphere, and have leisure for the thought and reading which develop our spiritual nature.

Such a Sunday is the development of the Fourth Commandment, keeping it in the spirit though not in the letter.

I am inclined to think that the Fourth Commandment is the most important of all:  if that is faithfully observed—­if we spend due time in God’s Presence looking at things as He does, judging ourselves by His standard—­then the rest of our lives must in time get raised to the level of those “golden hours;” we are as certain to improve as a person who regularly goes up into bracing air is certain to grow stronger.

Bishop Wordsworth’s hymn suggests the highest lines on which to take the subject, and I would ask, are you specially careful to come to breakfast full of sunshine on Sunday mornings, as on a “day of rest and gladness”?  Is it a cooling fountain to you?  Do you soak yourself enough in good thoughts to be more soothed and peaceful than you were on Saturday?  Was last Sunday a Pisgah’s mountain?—­did you cast so much as a glance at the promised Land, at what will make the true joy of Heaven, the being like Christ? did you seriously think over where you were unlike Him and where you could be more like Him in the coming week?  “New graces ever gaining:”—­did you gain any grace at all last Sunday—­or would this week have been exactly the same if Sunday had been wiped out?  Make up a prayer, for Saturday’s use, on the ideas in this hymn, or use the hymn in your prayers, as inspiration on Saturday night and as self-examination on Sunday night.

Sunday should, as the Warden of Keble says, be a day of new plans for using the coming week better than we did the last, and this implies quiet time for thoughtfully considering both the past and the coming week.  On Sunday we should breathe different air and see weekday vexations from a Sunday point of view.