to the ceremony from Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly; from Lesbos and Crete; from Ionia and the coasts of Asiatic Greece.As they approach, their crews are seen doing reverence to the sun, and the faint dulcet sound of flutes and hautboys melts along the wave. But what stately vessel is that hurrying from the east, whose numerous rowers make the waters sparkle with their gilded oars? It is the Paralos, or sacred bark of Athens. Hark! what a high and swelling symphony pours from the numerous band on board;-she approaches the shore of Delos, whose inhabitants flock to the beach, and as the band, and dancers, and choristers, debark, they are compelled, by immemorial usage, to rehearse their lessons, and chaunt their new hymn to Apollo. Other boats have now landed their crews in various parts of the island, and as they advance towards the temple with music, dancing, and singing, behold! the priests of Apollo, and a long procession of choristers, descending from Mount Cynthus, wind along the banks of the Inopus, chanting the ancient hymns composed by Homer and Hesiod when they visited the island. As, with their right hands pointed to the sun, the whole population celebrate the praises of Apollo, every face is lighted up with enthusiasm and joy; and while the air is loaded with the melody of pipes, timbrels, and lutes, and the nobler harmony of human voices, the god of day, slowly ascending in cloudless magnificence, seems, with his lidless eye of fire, to smile with complacency upon the homage of his worshippers.

Let me stop, Mr. Editor, for if I am suffered to proceed, I shall gallop to every province of Greece, and visit every scene of jubilee, from the great Olympic Games to the Feast of Adonis, which the Syracusan gossips of Theocritus were so anxious to witness. Suffice it, that a slight sketch has been attempted of a Sun-day among the people of Delos. Let us see how it has been celebrated by other nations. In Hebrew, the word Sabbath signifies rest; and the Jews fixed it on the Saturday, the last day of the week, to commemorate the completion of the work of creation, and the reposing of the Lord. It was not distinguished by a mere cessation from labour, but was enlivened by every species of rejoicing, they who took the most pleasure deeming themselves the most devout; and, amid a variety of puerile and superstitious ceremonies, they were particularly enjoined to lie longer in bed on that morning. If it were allowable to reverse the profane jest of the pork-lover, who wished to be a Jew, that he might have the pleasure of eating pork and sinning at the same time, I should be tempted to express a similar desire for the contemporaneous comfort of lying in bed and performing a religious duty. The Sunday, or Christian Sabbath, was appropriated to the first day of the week, in eternal remem-. VOL. III.

24

brance of the resurrection of Christ; but was not strictly solemnized as a period of cessation from all business until about the year 321, when Constantine ordered its more rigorous observance, and interdicted all prosecutions, pleadings, and juridical processes, public or private. Of all the blessings ever bestowed on the world, it may be questioned whether any have been attended with more beneficial consequences to morals, health, and happiness, than the institution of a seventh day of rest, without which the lot of mortality, to the mass of mankind, would be hardly endurable. What contemplation so kindly, social, and endearing, as to behold the great human family linked by religion in one domestic brotherhood, and reduced to one common level, assembling weekly under the same roof to pour forth their gratitude to God, their universal benefactor and father? And yet how various have been the temper and spirit, with which the Sabbath has been solemnized in different ages, Hluctuating from the sternest self-mortification and the most inexorable rigour, to the opposite extreme of irreverend and licentious hilarity. Well might Erasmus say, that the human understanding was like a drunken clown attempting to mount a horse; if you help him up on one side, he falls over on the other. The old Puritan, who refused to brew on a Saturday, lest his beer should work on the Sunday, was scarcely more ridiculous than the sceptical G. L. Le Sage of Geneva, who, according to his biographer, Prevost, being anxious to ascertain whether the great Author of nature still prescribed to himself the observance of the original day of rest, measured with the nicest exactitude, the daily increase of a plant, to ascertain whether it would cease growing on the Sabbath, and finding that it did not, of course decided for the negative of the proposition. By statute 1 Car. I. no persons on the Lord's day "shall as semble out of their own parishes, for any sport whatsoever; nor, in their parishes, shall use any bull or bear-baiting, interludes, plays, or other unlawful exercises or pastimes; on pain that every offender shall pay 3s. 4d. to the poor." In 1618, King James, on the other hand, was graciously pleased to declare, "That for his good people's recreation, his Majesty's pleasure was, that after the end of divine service, they should not be disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreations; such as dancing, either of men or women; archery for men; leaping, vaulting, or any other harmless recreations; nor having of May-games, Whitsun-ales, or Morrice-dances; or setting up of May-poles, or other sports therewith used, so as the same may be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or let of divine service." A statute, the 29 Charles II. enacts, "that no person shall work on the Lord's day, or use any boat or barge;" and by the non-repeal of this absurd law,

the population of London, on the only day when its labouring classes have leisure for recreation, are denied the healthy enjoyment of their noble river, unless they choose to subject themselves to a penalty of 5s.

Our own times have had their full share of this pendulating between extremes. To the lively Parisians nothing appeared more atrociously tyrannical, than that their lately restored sovereign should shut up the shops on a Sunday, and compel some little external reverence to the day, beyond the mere opening of the church doors for the accommodation of a few devout old women. His pious inflexibility, on this point, had very nearly occasioned a counter-revolution. "Eh! mon dieu," said the.. Frenchman in London, when he looked out of a window on a Sunday morning in the city, "what national calamity has happened?" The houses all shut up-the silent and deserted strects forming such a sepulchral contrast to their ordinary bustle-the solemn countenances of a few straggling passengers, and the dismal tolling of innumerable bells, might well justify this exclamation in a foreigner; nor would his wonder be diminished, upon learning that this was the English mode of exhibiting their cheerfulness and gratitude to Heaven. What would such a man say, especially when he reflected upon the Sunday theatres, dances, and festivities of France, were he to be told that, even in these times, the lawfulness of shaving on Sunday had been seriously discussed by one of our most numerous sects? The question was thus gravely submitted to the Methodist conference of 1807: "As it has been suggested that our rule respecting the exclusion of barbers, who shave or dress their customers on the Lord's day, is not sufficiently explicit and positive, what is the decision of the conference on this important point?" And thus reply that august body to the weighty interrogatory: "Let it be fully understood, that no such person is to be suffered to remain in any of our societies. We charge all our superintendants to execute this rule in every place, without partiality and without delay." Poor human nature! how often in thy failure to enforce these and other unattainable austerities, dost thou verify the lines of Dryden:

66

Reaching above our nature does no good,

We must fall back to our old flesh and blood." Is there no island of rest for thee between Scylla and Charybdis; must thou be forever bandied to and fro by the conflicting battledores of fanaticism and indifference?

It may not be unamusing, perhaps not uninstructive, to consider the mode in which some of the various classes of London society dispose of themselves upon the Sabbath.

The rational Christian goes to church in an exhilarating

ART. VI. Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance. By Jous FOSTER. 8vo. pp. 317. London, 1820.

[Edinburgh Review-Aug. 1820.]

The subject upon which we are now about to enter, has always appeared to us not only to be in itself of the greatest and most permanent importance of any which we have ever considered, but as that upon which it is most essential that right notions should be entertained by every class of the community. The question is as to the best practical means of Promoting the Education of the body of the People-in other words of improving, and in many cases, we might say, creating, the religious, the moral, and intellectual character of the nation. To this it is manifest that every other improvement is necessarily and intrinsically subordinate. Our individual enjoyments and our national prosperity-our freedom and our loyalty—our peace and our plenty our comforts and our renown-all obviously depend upon the rank which we may be enabled to hold as rational and moral beings; and our eternal as well as our temporal concerns must be mainly affected, in so far as human means are concerned, by the tenor of our early instructions. We most earnestly entreat all our readers, therefore, to favour us with their patient attention, in the exposition we are now to make; and seriously to consider, whether an opportunity has not now arisen, of conferring a greater practical benefit on the country than was ever in its choice before, and whether any man can be excused for withholding his countenance and support from the plans that have now been so nearly matured for that purpose. The inquiries of the Education Committee have laid the foundation of this plan. Our readers are aware, that Queries were addressed by that body to all the parochial clergy of England and Wales, respecting the state of Education in each rish and chapelry. Their answers were given with an alacrity and fulness, which, both in the Report of the Committee, and in Mr. Brougham's observations in the House of Commons, have been largely commended. So ready was their compliance with the requisition of the Committee, that the Chairman states himself to have received between two and three thousand letters in one day. From time to time new questions were proposed, and further information obtained.

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pa

It is impossible to deny the great value of the work thus completed. As a Statistical document it is in some degree new in its kind; for, instead of mere dry figures, it contains a map of the state of society, and of the moral state of the people. It

is a complete chart of the Education of the Island, in all its essential particulars.

Abstract of Tables showing the State of Education in England.

Endowments.-Number of schools*

Number of children

4,167

165,433

We have been favoured with the following statement of the

totals for Scotland:

Endowed schools, including parochial schools

Unendowed day schools, including society schools

Where there are taught

Where there are taught

1,144

65,533

2,412

110,770

-or about 1-4th less than 1-10th of the whole population of Scotland. But the returns for Edinburgh and the Islands are extremely defective, so that the average is certainly rather above 1-10th, as is stated by Mr. Brougham.

Among the topics which we think may now safely be passed over in entering upon this discussion, the benefits of Education must be reckoned as one Happily the season seems gone by for ever, when men could be found capable of denying, in a civilized nation, the policy of diffusing knowledge among the people. It is not indeed above twelve or thirteen years since some eminent persons thus lingered behind the times in which they lived; and, though gifted with genius to go before their age, preferred the doubtful fame of displaying ingenuity in support of an absurd paradox,-lavishing their eloquence in extolling the usefulness and safety of darkness in the most enlightened period of history, as their predecessors among the luxurious Romans, but in the decline of Latin taste, had employed their rhetoric in making the panegyric of rudeness and barbarity. But the case is now wholly changed; no persons, or next to none have openly denied the policy, and even the duty, of educating the people. If any still doubt it in their hearts, they are now

Including those on the National, and British and Foreign Plan.