No waveless calm along the deep, When its fever-pulse is still; No visitings of dew-like sleep To eyelids worn with ill." _F. C. Boyce._ The word "Sabbath" means _rest_. And such indeed God intended Sunday to be. "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God[#]." Our Saviour indeed teaches us that the stern and strict way in which the Sabbath was kept by the Jews was an unnecessary and painful discipline. He told the people it was quite lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, even though that good might be misinterpreted and misunderstood. He taught us that Sunday was a day sacred to God, and not to man, and that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath[#]." You know the old words-- "A Sabbath well spent Brings a week of content," and if you will try to put that old maxim into force, you will find as you give up the Sunday to God and His service, so surely will He be with you during the week. For now the old Jewish Sabbath has given place to the Christian Sunday--our Lord chose "the first day of the week" on which to rise from the grave, and the Church has fitly chosen the first day of the week as the best on which to meet together to worship her ascended Lord. [#] Exod. xx. 8. [#] S. Mark ii. 7. Sunday was never meant to be a dreary day, or a wretched day, any more than it was meant to be a working day, or a drinking day. And if you give the day to God, be sure He will give you plenty of amusement, and plenty of happiness. His is no wearisome service, His is no tiring Sunday task, but in His worship you will find peace, and His service is perfect freedom. Sunday, again, is most valuable to working men as a _day of rest_. During the great French Revolution, those who were at the head of affairs determined that they would neither fear God nor regard man; and so they passed a law to the effect that none should pay any heed to Sunday, to its services, its lessons, or its rest. And what was the consequence? Why, these ungodly men, looking at it only from a worldly point of view, found that it was quite impossible for the body or mind of man to keep on working day after day, and week after week. And so the plan failed, and Sunday came to be restored again. You must have felt the need of Sunday rest, after the week’s toil sometimes too; you must have felt ready to cry out, in the words of the Postman’s song, "We ask one day in seven, ’Twas ours since time began-- Sent by the love of heaven, In pity for toil-worn man."