But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic "morality" which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of America? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of America, the same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh day. Yet Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with Protestantism; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant than Martin Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ. [Illustration: PURITAN LACK OF CHEERFULNESS.] Luther taught that the Sabbath was to be kept, not because Moses commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh day's rest. He says "If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do anything that will reprove this encroachment on Christian spirit and liberty." The old Scotch woman, who "did nae think the betterer on" the Lord for that Sabbath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of Anglo-Saxon Christian. But it is when these Puritans judge other nations that they are truly great. Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday. Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion to find out during my second visit to America. I had been lecturing last Saturday evening in the pretty little town of Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and received an invitation from a minister to address a meeting that was to be held yesterday, Sunday, in the largest church of the place to discuss the question, "How Sunday should be spent." I at first declined, on the ground that it might not be exactly in good taste for a foreigner to advise his hosts how to spend Sunday. However, when it was suggested that I might simply go and tell them how Sunday was spent in France, I accepted the task. The proceedings opened with prayer and an anthem; and a hymn in praise of the Jewish Sabbath having been chosen by the moderator, I thought the case looked bad for us French people, and that I was going to cut a poor figure. The first speaker unwittingly came to my rescue by making an onslaught upon the French mode of spending the seventh day. "With all due respect to the native country of our visitor," said he, "I am bound to say that on the one Sunday which I spent in Paris, I saw a great deal of low immorality, and I could not help coming to the conclusion that this was due to the fact of the French not being a Sabbath-keeping people." He wound up with a strong appeal to his townsmen to beware of any temptation to relax in their observance of the fourth commandment as given by Moses. I was called upon to speak next. I rose in my pew, but was requested to go into the rostrum.