The other argument, which may be denominated the physical or secular, is a great favorite with writers and speakers of a certain class, who would be thought to be friends of the observance of the Sabbath, and all moral institutions connected with it, and yet would prefer to advocate them on grounds less strictly religious. These dwell much on the physical advantages of a day of rest. They enter into calculations respecting the maximum time of human and animal exertion, and the minimum period of relaxation required to counterbalance its effects upon the physical system. It is with them mainly a problem of political economy,--a question of production,--of prices,--of the increase or diminution of individual or national wealth. In these respects the value of the Sabbath is carefully measured by statistical tables. Figures "which can not lie" prove it to be a very useful institution, and the divine wisdom is greatly lauded in the contrivance of such an admirable means for preserving a healthful equilibrium in the industrial and business world. We would, however, by no means speak slightingly of such supposed ends, or of such an argument in support of them. "Does God take care for oxen?" The language of the Apostle is not an ironical negative, as some might suppose, but an _a fortiori_ argument to show his higher care for man, and above all, for man's spiritual well-being. We may rationally suppose that higher purposes are harmoniously conjoined with lower in the divine mind. It is not unworthy of the author of the universe to have established such a harmony between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The Bible plainly speaks of things which "have the promise both of this life and of that which is to come," and among these the right observance of the Sabbath would doubtless hold a distinguished place. It is the great connecting bond between the political and the religious, between social virtue and the individual devoutness, between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace,--in short, between all secular and all spiritual moralities. We can not well conceive of either squalid poverty or debasing vice in a community distinguished for its intelligent reverence of the Sabbath. Such reverence, however, could not well exist or long be maintained, where the secular utilities, true and valuable as they may be, are the only or even the chief motives appealed to. The temporal loses not only its moral excellence, but its power even for temporal good, when wholly severed from the spiritual.