Chapter XV: Advantage of Spending Sunday Well

WE have seen how to spend the day, united to God by devout sighs and aspirations and holy prayers, amidst all the employments of busy life.

Every week, by God’s appointment, there comes around a day especially devoted to His service, and the refreshment of our souls — the Sunday — when labor ceases, in great measure, to give place to devotion and innocent recreation.

What a blessing this is from God! We may compare it to the oasis in the desert. The weary traveller, in eastern countries, sometimes has to make his way through vast regions of barren, heated sand, with no springs of refreshing water, no trees to shade him from the sun, no cool breezes, often for many days, until he is ready to sink down from fatigue and exhaustion; his tongue parched with thirst; his blood on fire with the heat.

In these regions, scattered here and there, are beautiful spots, where clear, fresh water springs from the ground; where delightful fruits, oranges, lemons, dates, grow in great abundance, and the air is cooled by the water springs.

How these travellers long to find these spots! When the camels and other beasts of burden snuff the air from a distance, they forget their fatigue, they run with eagerness to quench their thirst at the cool fountains, and to enjoy the fresh grass. Their owners, with no less delight, stop a day, or several of them, to recruit their strength and cheer up their spirits, that they may be enabled to continue their way until they reach another of these refreshing places. So, they hope, finally, to get through the wearisomeness of the whole journey, and successfully gain all they had in view in setting out.

Our Sundays are to us such cool, delightful spots in the journey of life. The soul is weary of the dust and heat of the world. The soul is fatigued with having so many things to do, and longs for opportunity to rest in God; to satisfy the thirst it has for God. It longs for the cool fountain and the refreshing waters.

Where are they? In the house of God, in the very place where He dwells. There is the altar of God in the church, His house: the burning lights are around it, flowers decorate it, devout worshippers surround it, and all invites the soul to pray.

But what are all the lights and flowers compared to Him who is present in their midst? The Lord of Glory, the Blessed Saviour Himself, is there. He has come down on that altar to offer Himself for us; to pray to His heavenly Father by His wounds and blood most effectually for us, and to remain in the midst of us to hear our prayers and talk with us face to face.

Thus, the Sunday is the time, and the church is the place, for the soul’s weekly rest. The good girl, who longs for God’s love, will not pass it by. God in His mercy has commanded that we should take advantage of it. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” The church, of which the Lord said, “He that heareth you heareth me” (St. Luke x. 16), which is in Christ’s place, now that Christ has ascended into heaven, has changed this time of rest from the seventh to the first day of the week, in honor of the Lord’s rising from the dead on that day.

The Sabbath of the Jews has given place to the Christian Sunday, but the obligation of keeping one day in the week holy remains the same. We are bound, then, by the law of God to do so. But in what way are Christians required to keep the day holy, in order that they may not sin against this law? This question I will answer in the next chapter.