He who would seek to enslave and degrade the working man, could not more effectually accomplish his object, than by persuading him to regard and occupy the Sabbath as a day which he might spend in amusement. Were the Lord’s day blotted out, or spent in mere recreation--were the sons of toil no more to enjoy or avail themselves of its rich provisions for their instruction and elevation--not only should we soon see religion disregarded, that blessed light of heaven, that sunshine of the sky which is chasing the shadows of ignorance, and dissipating the mists of error and superstition; which is awakening man to spiritual life, arousing to healthful activity in him all the springs of moral feeling and intellectual energy; not only would this morning beam be shut out from the sons of toil, those glad tidings which Jesus so frequently preached to the poor in the weekly assembly upon the Sabbath-day, be put without the reach of working men--but we should soon see them deprived of those civil institutions which secure to them personal liberty, and degraded to a condition of mere vassalage. Let no one be startled when I affirm that it is the Sabbath which has bestowed upon the labouring population the civil privileges they enjoy, and raised them to the position they occupy; that it is the Lord’s day which is the great, the everlasting bulwark of human freedom. It is that moral force which intelligence and virtue bestow upon a people, which unlooses effectually the iron grasp of the oppressor; which makes their voice heard clearly and distinctly in the legislation of their country, and blots pernicious, partial, and unjust laws out of the statute-book; and it is, as we have already seen, the knowledge of God obtained from revelation, which awakens man’s dormant powers of mind, which leads him onward and upward in virtue and intelligence.