We would confidently test the truth of these positions by an appeal to practical experience. There is exhibited now and then, a vast deal of sentimental philanthropy in decrying what are called the religious abuses of the Sabbath. It proceeds generally from those who would confine themselves to the physical or purely secular view. Great stress is laid on mere bodily relaxation. Utter vacancy, too, of mind, or what is worse, mere pleasure-seeking is held forth as the source of refreshment from past labors, and of recovered strength for those to come. The toil-worn mechanic is invited to the place of popular amusement, or to convey himself and his family to some scene of rural enchantment and festivity. We are pointed for appropriate examples to the parks of London, and the boulevards of Paris. The Sabbath, they say, is a noble institution; but then there should be great care to guard against the perversions of Pharisaic or Puritanical bigotry. It may be well to give a part of the day to the services of religion; but then, the purest religion consists in admiring God's works in the natural world; and the poor laborer who can take his wife and children on a ride to Bloomingdale, or indulges them with a walk in the Elysian Fields, is performing a more acceptable service than he who makes the Sabbath a weariness by confining himself to his own dwelling, or spending any considerable part of it within the still more gloomy walls of some religious conventicle. We would not impeach the motives or the philanthropy of those who talk in this style. Doubtless they are sincere; for there is certainly an extreme plausibility in such a view of the matter, especially as respects that class who have no other day of relaxation. There are parts of the picture, too, to which the sternest Sabbatarian would take no objection, if in any way they could be practically separated from the rest. Pure air is certainly favorable, not only to the physical, but to the moral health. The observation of nature, to say the least, is not opposed to devotion, although it requires some previous devotion to make that observation what it ought to be, or to prevent its being consistent with the most profane and godless state of the mind and heart. Where these can be enjoyed without danger of perverted example, or other evils, which, in respect to our crowded city population are almost inseparable from such indulgence, he must be a bigot indeed who would deny them to the poor, or regard them as a desecration of the Sabbath.