authors, philosophers, and wits whatsoever, and Heaven forbid we should ever be deprived of their existence! We are always more or less in the position of Shakespeare’s “melancholy Jacques” and ready to say, “A fool, a fool, I met a fool i’ the forest! as I do live by food I met a fool!” and when we chance on company with this simple friend of all men should we “Pelmanise” or “Roth” him? Never! He is too valuable an asset to the world! TO SAVE LIFE OR DESTROY IT? A CHALLENGE TO CERTAIN CLERGY (_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_) Does the Christian Church profess to follow the teaching of Christ? Or the Law of Moses? That is to say: Is it Christian or Jewish? If Jewish, its “sabbath” should be kept on Saturday, in conformance with the rest of the Jewish world; if Christian, then, according to Christ, we may, if necessity compels, do imperative work on Sunday. But a section of our clergy are up in arms at the idea of “profaning the Lord’s Day” by allowing labour of tillage and planting the land on Sundays, for the necessities of the nation’s food. Where do these contentious persons get their authority? Not from their divine Master! Their spirit is that of the Scribes and Pharisees who “watched” Our Lord--“whether he would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against Him.” The world has not outgrown that contemptible spirit. “That they might find an accusation” is often everybody’s aim and clearest business! “Then said Jesus unto them--I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil?--to save life or destroy it?” And when the hypocrites could not answer Him, He healed the afflicted man who had sought His aid, whereat those who had “watched” Him, so says the Gospel narrative, “were filled with madness and communed one with another what they might do to Him.” But, despite His scorn of their narrow sectarianism, “He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” No true servant of Christ can find the least excuse in any one of the Divine Teacher’s commands for a rigidly sectarian observance of Sunday. A seventh day’s rest was wisely and rightly instituted by Moses for the relief of the Israelites when they had been worked as slaves by their Egyptian taskmasters; but Christ never incorporated its observance as any part of the instructions He gave to His disciples. “What man shall there be among you,” He said, “that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much, then, is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore, it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.”