The rise in the Evangelical movement that led to the disruption of the Established Church in Scotland in 1843 had a marked influence in the political and social structure of the country for many years afterwards. The lot of the working man in the larger cities, and especially in Glasgow held little relief from endless toil and grim accommodation and well-intentioned efforts to improve these conditions were aimed at curtailing the availability of the great evil of alcohol and preserving the Sabbath, the one day in the week when no work was expected. The culmination of the efforts against alcohol was the Forbes-Mackenzie Act of 1853 that closed public houses at 11:00 p.m. on weekdays and all day on Sundays, though hotels were allowed to serve bona fide travelers on that day.

The preservation of Sunday as a day in which no work was expected had a long history in the country. Sir Andrew Agnew, M.P. for Wigtownshire at the time of the Reform Act in the 1830s was a strict Sabbatarian who attempted to introduce a ban on all secular labour on Sundays. His efforts earned him a pointed essay, “Sunday Under Three Heads,” by no less than Charles Dickens. He died in 1849. In the same year, in Glasgow, the Glasgow Working Men’s Sabbath Protection Society was begun with John Henderson of Park, William Graham M.P., William Kidston, and James Campbell of Tullichewan as honorary presidents. The main argument was that the preservation of the Sabbath ensured that the working man would have one day free from toil each week to pursue his physical and spiritual renewal. The “Henderson Testimony,” published in 1849, collected essays by William Steward, a warehouseman at Annfield Pottery, Joseph Kirsop, a Hatter from Ronald Street, James Lemon, a Glasgow Postman, William Lyle, a Potter at Annfield Pottery, and Thomas Gregory, an Operative Mason as a tribute to John Henderson of Park just north of Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, as a means of promoting the Sabbatarian cause. By 1853, one of the leading lights in the movement was Mr. Matthew Cullen, a Chartist who was also involved in efforts to promote trade unions and other social reforms.

 

Park, Renfrewshire, overlooking the Clyde and the home of John Henderson

Against this background, there was reaction among the more progressive elements in society. In April 1853, a meeting was held in the Mechanics Institute in Canning Street in the Calton, and a short editorial comment in the Glasgow Sentinel of April 30, 1853 sums up the mood of the times in the city.

“The Ultra-Sabbatarians.—From the report of a public meeting which appears in our columns to-day, it will be seen that an effort is about being made in Glasgow to save the character of the city for liberality and common sense. For some time past, Glasgow has been looked upon as the head-quarters of the ultra-Sabbatarians; and so active and unscrupulous have the leaders of this faction become, that it has been believed on the south side of the Tweed that our great commercial and manufacturing city was gone over irrecoverably to the disciples of Sir Andrew Agnew and his puritanical successors. The fact that all the railways but one, as well as our magnificent river, being sealed on the Sabbath-day against anything in the shape of a passenger train or a steamboat, served to confirm this opinion, and, in conjunction with the recent returns obtained by Mr Joseph Hume, to lead strangers to the conclusion that we, Glaswegians, were the hopeless slaves of either the drunkenness of fanaticism or the drunkenness of whisky. For the honour of the city, so shamefully compromised, it was time, therefore, some resolute and courageous men came to the rescue, to call forth the really liberal and enlightened opinion of a large portion of the public who groan beneath the Jewish yoke imposed upon them into activity.

“The Thursday night’s meeting in Calton was a movement in this direction; and the response which was given to the originators of that meeting by the large assembly present shows that the working men of Glasgow, when fairly and honestly appealed to, can distinguish between common-sense and clap-trap. It further indicates that the friends of a reasonable system of Sabbath observance, not one of asceticism, mortification, and gloom, have only to take the platform manfully against these knights of the rueful countenance to discomfit them, and check their bigoted crusade against the harmless recreation of the people.

“The conservators of sabbatical stolidity, however, will not be easily conquered. They have the organization of the clergy behind their backs, and can poison with the virus of the odium theologicum when reason and argument fail. They can array on their side the vested interests of Synod and Presbytery, and all those formalists who consider Christianity to consist in certain ceremonial observances, and not in a living faith in its great and glorious truths. And to serve their purpose, they have established a recruiting service with the object of imposing and misleading the working men of this city. Under the specious plea that the least relaxation of the present mode of keeping the Sabbath would lead to a general system of Sunday labour, through Mr. Matthew Cullen and a few others, who style themselves the Working Men’s Sabbath Protection Society, they are endeavouring to excite public opinion in their favour. The machinery, therefore, to be combated is powerful; and it will be backed by wealth; for too many of our rich men think that

“The fear of hell’s the hangman’s whip, To keep the wretch in order,”

“not that knowledge and an enlightened perception of duty is the truest safeguard of a community. They will, however, fail, as they did in Canning Street Hall. The working classes have only to be told that in no country in Christendom are the same Sunday restrictions put upon them as here; that without relaxation and recreation on that day, it is impossible to keep up their physical stamina to the point of health; that, though conveyances on river and highways have been running on Sunday from time immemorial in England, for the convenience of the public, it has never resulted in a general system of labour; and neither in Europe nor America has such a result been brought about, or is at all probable. These things only require to be plainly and openly stated, to cut the feet from under these “protectors of the Sabbath,” and open the eyes of the working classes to the pretences of those who would frighten them, by an imaginary evil, into continued submission to what is proved to be a positive tyranny, and injurious to their health, morals, and happiness as a class.

“With these remarks, we beg the Agnewites to re-consider their position, and seeing they have neither Scripture, church authority, philosophy, nor common sense in their favour, to retire from the field of battle; for assuredly, if they continue, though they may occasionally, by better organization, snatch a temporary victory, they will ultimately suffer certain and irretrievable defeat.” Glasgow Sentinel April 30, 1853

A week or so after this meeting, on May 7, a notice of another meeting to be held in the Tontine Hotel appeared.

A New Steamboat Company for Sunday Sailing

“New Sunday Steamboat Association.—An adjourned meeting of gentlemen favourable for granting to the public a reasonable amount of railway and steamboat accommodation on the first day of the week was held at the Tontine Hotel on Friday evening last, with the object of starting a first-class steamer on the Clyde. After a lengthened discussion as to the best mode of establishing the principle for which the parties had met, the following resolution was passed unanimously as the basis of an association for giving effect to the same:—“That the parties present agree to pay whatever subscriptions they may decide upon advancing towards giving practical effect to the scheme of a Sunday steamboat into the hands of a committee elected from among their number, with the object of creating a guarantee fund for the purpose of arranging with a steamboat company to run a boat on the morning of each Sunday from the Broomielaw, returning in the evening; the committee so appointed giving a conditional receipt for the several subscriptions received, and engaging, in the event of their functions ceasing, to pay back, rateably, to each subscriber any monies remaining in the said committee’s hands, after deducting all legitimate expenses for working the guarantee. It is further declared that no responsibility shall be incurred by the subscribers beyond the amount of their respective advances, nor by the committee beyond the guarantee funds lodged in their hands.” This being resolved upon as the basis of the association, a committee was appointed to carry the resolution into effect. The general determination of those present also was that the boat should be conducted upon strictly temperance principles, so as to afford no reasonable ground for reproach on this head. Before the meeting broke up, £250 was subscribed towards the guarantee fund on the basis set forth in the resolution. Sheets will be issued immediately for extending the subscription.” Glasgow Sentinel May 14, 1853.

In the same issue of the paper, an advertisement for a steamer appeared.

Advertisement for Steamer to run on Sundays

Speculation on which steamer would be enticed into the arrangement must have been rife. On June 3, the owners of the new steamer Reindeer that was engaged on the Kilcreggan and Kilmun station that year issued a denial that they would be involved.

Reindeer not the Sunday Steamer!

In early July, it was announced that the Gareloch steamer, Emperor, was to conduct the Sunday trade.

“Steamboat Accommodation for Sunday.—On reference to our advertisement columns, it will be seen that the committee organized to afford a reasonable amount of Sunday accommodation to the public, have secured the Emperor, lately on the Gareloch station. Since last year she has been thoroughly overhauled and refitted, and is now pronounced, by competent judges, to be almost as good as new. Her Sunday trip is to Greenock, Gourock, Dunoon, and Kilmun. We learn that she is likely to be well patronized. It is the intention of her proprietors to run her on five other days of the week, giving those on board a day as an equivalent for the Sunday engagement. No serious opposition is anticipated, but the committee are quite prepared to resist all attempts at coercion or intimidation, come from what quarter they may.” Glasgow Sentinel, July 9, 1853.

Emperor (Williamson)

The Emperor was a smallish steamer of just over 62 tons, built in 1843 by Tod & M‘Gregor for the Gareloch trade of M‘Kellar and Henderson. She was not a particularly notable craft.

Advertisement for first sailing on Sunday

In fact, as the newspapers reported, there was considerable opposition. The Glasgow Constitutional wrote a leader on the Sabbath desecration and the Glasgow Sentinel railed against the hypocrisy of the “men who have seized upon the whole line of coast on the finest estuary” for their summer residences and were more concerned with their property values should the Sunday sailing be established, than the health and recreation of the artisans and shopkeepers of Glasgow.

The Emperor was to sail at eight o’clock from the Broomielaw and at that time, many thousands had gathered to witness the event with a large contingent of police under the direction of Mr M‘Farlane the superintendant of the river police who was under instruction to facilitate the boarding of intending passengers. At five minutes past the hour, the Emperor sailed with about 300 on board and for some way down the river, the banks were lined with the curious. At Greenock, there was a small crowd and about twenty joined the company while as many debarked. At about half-past ten o’clock, the Emperor reached Gourock where there was a larger crowd, around 500, led by Major Darroch intent on intimidating the pier-master, known as the “Laird”, from providing any assistance to the steamer and taking the steamer’s ropes. The “Laird” was not to be intimidated, however, and the passengers were landed although they were besieged by some in the crowd, led by the “mad” Mr. Drummond, who were distributing religious tracts. A number of passengers also joined at Gourock and the Emperor sailed on to Dunoon.

Dunoon around 1860

At Dunoon, the steamer drew up neatly at the pier and the ropes were soon secured to allow about a hundred passengers ashore. The gates to the pier were locked by M‘Nicoll the pier-master who nevertheless made about 10/- assisting passengers ashore. Large crowds lined the shore and were encouraged to resist the landing. Most of those who landed made a cursory walk to the gate and then re-embarked but a few jumped on to the shore where, despite encouragement to the contrary, the police refused to intervene. A number of passengers were landed in small boats before the Emperor proceeded to the dilapidated pier at Hunter’s Quay where there was no obstruction. At Strone and Kilmun piers, again the gates were locked and those wishing to go ashore were landed in small boats. Intimidation was used to frighten the boatmen from using their boats and the publicans from supplying refreshments to the excursionists. For the most part, this intimidation was resisted. The Emperor then proceeded to Ardentinny where the remainder of the passengers , about sixty, were landed in the large ferryboat and spent a pleasant two hours at the hostelry where the landlord, Mr Banks, was most hospitable.

At three o’clock, the bell was sounded for the return and the journey was retraced, embarking the morning’s passengers and some new comers. At half-past five, Gourock was reached where again there was some jostling and tracts declaring damnation to all who patronized the Emperor were distributed. As she approached the Broomielaw in the evening, the Emperor was greeted by a huge crowd, estimated to be twenty thousand, cramming both sides of the river and Broomielaw Bridge. The crowd was respectful and the passengers were helped through the throng by the attending police. The day had been fine and the excursionists delighted with their trip down the river. There were no reports of drunkenness or disorderly behaviour.

“The Sunday Steamer.—On Sunday last the Emperor steamer went her second trip. The day, like nearly the whole of the previous week, was wet and disagreeable, and in consequence, the turn-out was thinner than on the Sunday before. Nearly a hundred, however, availed themselves of the conveyance, while more than double the number returned in the evening. The passengers were landed at Gourock as is usual on other days, and beyond the performances of Mr Drummond on the pier there was nothing of an out of the way character. That worthy, however, continues to hold forth and distribute his papers with great zeal, though no great attention is paid to his proceedings. We observed that Major Darroch and the others who made themselves officious on the first Sunday had the good sense and discretion to stay away. At Dunoon and the other, for the present, closed piers, the passengers were landed in large boats specially engaged for the purpose, so that no difficulty was experienced. No incident of special interest characterized the steamer’s return. We notice that the editor of the Constitutional states he counted only twenty-nine on the deck of the Emperor on the passage down in the morning. He forgets, however, to add that a heavy shower was falling at the time, and that all who could obtain accommodation had gone below. The Editor, who, we understand, lives in a cottage somewhere between Greenock and Gourock, when he next reports progress, should learn to be more candid and less ingenuous, else people will say he is more in love with the cause of his faction than the truth. We notice, by the advertisement elsewhere inserted, that on to-morrow the Emperor, besides calling at Greenock, Gourock, and Dunoon, intends visiting Helensburgh, and sailing up the Gareloch, where good landing accommodation is provided near to the head.” Glasgow Sentinel, July 23, 1853.

On the way up river, the Emperor called at Bowling. As Captain M‘Kinlay brought the steamer into the eastern pier, the pier-man was seen walking to-and-fro with a long pole, threatening anyone who would land there. When the vessel came closer, the pier-man vainly used the pole to push against the paddle box to keep the steamer off but the pole fell between the quay and the steamer. Some wags on board threw the pier-man some pennies while others threw Peter Drummond’s tracts at him. The pier-man, defeated, went around like one demented, kicking the coins and papers into the river to a chorus of laughter from some of those on board.

An account of the third Sunday is taken from the conservative paper that was generally regarded as having strong ties to the Free Church, the Scottish Guardian.

“The Sabbath-Breakers in the Gareloch.—The Emperor steamer sailed from Glasgow, on Sabbath last, to Greenock, Gourock, Dunoon, and the Gareloch. Although the weather was unfavourable there was a large number of people on board, perhaps about 200. They did not land at Dunoon, so far as we have heard, the vessel being advertised not to return to that place. Neither did they land at Helensburgh or Roseneath, where the state of the tide would have rendered it difficult; and at neither place would they have found any one to fasten their cables. About 50 went ashore at Row. At Gareloch-head the vessel arrived at two o’clock. The Emperor was laid alongside the wooden pier, where there is a pontage of a penny for each passenger during the week, but the gates not having been opened, most of the party, except a few women, who were put ashore in the steamer’s boat, clambered over first one barrier and then another, and betook themselves to lounging about. The congregation had just left the Established Church as the party landed, and met them swaggering with an elated air along the road. Scarcely any of the party had the appearance of working men. Their conduct was very audacious, and in a more populous place would probably have provoked forcible resistance. Finding the pier still closed against them on their mustering from the roads and public-houses at the ringing of the bell, a process which was repeated and prolonged to the most offensive possible degree, a sealing ladder was brought from the steamboat, and being fixed within the high-water mark, the men ascended to the pier, whilst the women were taken were take on board in the boat. Mr Andrew Paton made himself conspicuous on the occasion by his activity, he being the only member of the Sabbath-breaking steamboat proprietary who has had the courage to appear publicly in the matter. None of the villagers lent the party any assistance, or showed them any countenance. By them and the residenters in the place the intrusion was felt to be an insult to their best feelings, and the disquiet it occasioned was such as would very soon render the village of Gareloch-head intolerable to visitors who resort thither on account of its tranquility, and the respect shown to the Sabbath by the generality of its inhabitants.” Scottish Guardian, July 1853.

Another account appeared in the Greenock Advertiser.

“The elements appear adverse to the success of the Sunday pleasure steamer. On Sabbath week rain poured the whole day, making the trip as unpleasant as it well could be. During the night of Saturday last and Sunday, a strong gale blew from the south-west. The lower part of the river and the firth were consequently during the day a mass of foam, and the steamer pushing its solitary way up and down the river, and hopping over the waves like a cork, conveyed to the minds of onlookers ideas very unlike pleasure or comfort for those on board, even if much of those is to be obtained on any day from a trip in a crowded steam boat compared with what may be enjoyed by a quiet walk in the country. The Emperor had a considerable number of passengers on board, as many, it is said, as 300 on her return to Glasgow. At Garelochhead some confusion and noise were occasioned by the gates of the pier being closed against the passengers, and many of them scaling the barricades. In all likelihood the question of the right of the tacksmen to keep the gates at the various piers shut on Sundays, and of the passengers forcibly landing at them notwithstanding on that day, will, at the instance of one or other party, form an immediate subject of litigation.” Greenock Advertiser, July 26, 1853.

The editor of the Scottish Guardian was Mr William Keddie who advocated active steps to resist the Sabbath steamer. He had described the Glasgow Sentinel as a “Socialist Print”, a “Chartist Paper” and a “Communist Journal.” Consequently, the editor of the Glasgow Sentinel refuted many of the points in the Guardian’s account: a person had been engaged at Helensburgh to catch the ropes but the weather prevented the steamer calling at the quay; Roseneath was not an advertised call; the ringing of the bell was less prolonged than it would have been during the week as the excursionists were readily to hand on the roads where they conducted themselves with propriety or in the two respectable inns, where the “landlords gave the passengers a civil reception, and will be glad to see them back again;” many of the residents welcomed the passengers and indeed some invited them into their houses.

The reaction to the Emperor spawned meetings of Sabbatarians at Greenock, Gourock and Rothesay and indeed most of the larger watering places around the Firth where various proposals on how to respond to the Sunday steamer were entertained. The Working Men’s Sabbath Protection Society led by Matthew Cullen and others was active in a number of locations, and at meetings in Glasgow, the rhetoric was reaching a fever pitch. A Mr Kilpatrick was particularly vocal. He described the Sunday excursions as taking “all the moral scum, impertinent foppery, and rabid infidelity of Glasgow beyond the city.” He issued a call to name the owners of the vessel so “that we may teach our children to hate their conduct.” Letters to the editor of the various papers abounded, letting off some of the steam. The Presbytery of Glasgow of the Established Church met and a committee was commissioned to draft a remonstrance to the owners of the steamer. The response which appeared within a couple of weeks was guaranteed to inflame the passions. Both the remonstrance and response were later published as a pamphlet, price, one penny.

The Sunday Steamer

The next segment is the full text of the publication.  It is rather long and is really an argument about the meaning of the Sabbath, but a useful document of the time.

“The Sunday Steamer.

“Remonstrance of the Established Presbytery of Glasgow, with the Answer of the Steamer Emperor.

“Published by Wm. Love, 20 St Enoch Square

“Remonstrance by the Presbytery of Glasgow

“To the Owners and Conductors of the Steamboat Called the Emperor

“Gentlemen,—At a meeting of the Presbytery of Glasgow, held on the 3rd day of August, 1853, it was moved and unanimously agreed to, that a committee be appointed to prepare a remonstrance against the practice of running steamboats on the Lord’s-day for the purposes of pleasure and recreation, and to address it to the owners and conductors of the Emperor, which has for some time been employed in plying between various ports and places on the river Clyde on that day. In obedience to the above appointment, we beg leave, with all the respect which is due to you as men and citizens, but at the same time with the solemnity and earnestness which becomes us as members of Christ’s Church, and office-bearers in it, to direct your attention to this most painful subject, and in name of the body whom we represent, to offer our united and indignant protest against the practice which you have introduced, and which we not only condemn and denounce as a flagrant profanation, but deplore and deprecate as a national calamity. On your motives we do not pronounce,—we adopt the most favourable interpretation of which your conduct is susceptible, and willingly concede to you all the credit which you claim of a desire to promote the health and comfort of our industrious and labouring population; but we must be allowed to say that you have attempted to confer this benefit upon them at the expense of their dearest interests, and by the sacrifice of their most precious privileges. Other forms of Sabbath desecration for the most part admit of its partial observance; but that which you have created amounts to a virtual abrogation of the sacred ordinance, and practically excludes it from the statute-book of Heaven. Scotland has hitherto been distinguished from all other countries by a regard to the sanctity of the Lord’s-day, but the course on which you have entered threatens to deprive of this, its ennobling attribute; and the effect, if persisted in, will be to send a withering blight over the piety of our family circles, over the purity of our Christian churches, and over the prosperity of our beloved land, by sapping the foundations of public morality, and in weakening the safeguards of private character. We believe that the laws of our country have provided a remedy for the evil of which we now complain; but we feel entitled to expect that the voice of public opinion, now so emphatically expressed, will as it ought, prove effectual in preventing its continuance. And we appeal to other and higher considerations. Not only have the religions feelings of the community been outraged and deeply offended by the grievous abuse now referred to, but the claims of the holy Sabbath have been trampled on, and treated with contempt, while the authority of Him who is Lord of the Sabbath has been resisted and set at naught. We therefore call upon and entreat you, as you dread His wrath or desire His favour to abandon a course of procedure so full of dishonour to Him, and so fraught with disastrous consequences to the people of this land. Nor can we do so without expressing a fervent prayer that, by the blessing of God Almighty, this remonstrance will lead you to cease from the evil; and that henceforth “keeping the Sabbath from polluting it, the Lord will bring you to His holy mountain, and make you joyful in His house of prayer.”

“Signed in name and by authority of the committee, this 11th day of August, 1853., James Barr, D.D., Robert Gillan, Convener.

“Reply to the Glasgow Presbytery of the Established Church of Scotland

“Gentlemen,—On behalf of the owners of the steamboat Emperor, I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of the remonstrance agreed to by your body at your meeting of August 3, and submitted on your behalf by the Rev. Dr Barr and the Rev. Robert Gillan. We feel sorry that any act of ours should have called forth animadversion in such a quarter, or that you should have felt it to be your duty to characterise any conduct of ours as you have done. Had such a document come from laymen, we would have passed it by unnoticed, as an uncalled for act of interference with the proceedings and opinions of men possessing as undoubted a right to judge and act for themselves, in the matter of Sabbath observance as any of the remonstrants. But considering that you are members of an extensive ecclesiastical corporation, professing to represent, and undoubtedly representing, a considerable section of the public holding views in opposition to ours on the question under consideration, and that with a great proportion of these Sunday travelling is looked upon as something opposed to Christianity and the authority of the Scriptures, we have been induced to give a special and extended answer to your remonstrance.

“You set out with declaring that “the practice of running steamboats on the Lord’s-day, for the purposes of pleasure and recreation” and, by implication, the running of the Emperor on the Sunday—is “a flagrant profanation” and a “national calamity.” You do not profess to judge our motives—you express yourselves willing to concede all the credit which we claim, of a desire “to promote the health and comfort of the industrious classes”; but you declare this attempt to benefit them to be “at the expense of their dearest interests, and by the sacrifice of their most precious privileges.” “Other forms of Sabbath desecration (you say), for the most part, admit of its partial observance, but that which we have created amounts to a virtual abrogation of the sacred ordinance, and practically excludes it from the statute-book of heaven.” Other portions of your remonstrance assert “the claims of the holy Sabbath” to have been “trampled on and treated with contempt; while the authority of Him who is Lord of the Sabbath has been resisted and set at nought.” In all these, and similar passages, it will be seen, are founded on the assumption that the “holy Sabbath” is such an observance as you teach it to be; so before dealing with the consequences you allege will follow from the desecration complained of, we will discuss a little the preliminary question.

“With all due deference to your superior learning and biblical research, laymen as we are, we beg to deny the premises with which you set out. We also have examined the Scriptures; and find therein no authority for the Sabbath observance you would impose upon us. You will doubtless appeal to the fourth commandment as a statute, unrepealed by the second dispensation which set aside the old Jewish system; but we ask upon what authority do you insist on the literal observance of that law, or why, having accepted that in its integrity, you have rejected other portions of the Levitical law equally imperitive, and have even changed the Sabbath-day from the seventh to the first day of the week? The order for the Jewish Sabbath is contained in the 20th chapter of Exodus, and was commanded to Jews as well as all strangers within their gates from thenceforth for ever. Moreover, there is ordered by the Levitical system, not only a Sabbatical day, but a Sabbatical year, and a Sabbath of Sabbatical years, or the fiftieth year of jubilee. The day of atonement (Lev. xxiii., 27-32) was to be a “Sabbath of rest unto you,” and “ye shall affict your souls by a statute for ever.” The fifteenth day after the Sabbath of first fruits was to be “a holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no servile work therein; it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations” (Lev. xxiii., 21). On the tenth day of the seventh month, and on the fifteenth and twenty-second of the same, “ye shall do no servile work therein,” and “it shall be a statute for ever in your generations” (verses 27, 35, 36, 41). “Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years shalt thou prune thy vine-yard, and gather the fruit thereof, but on the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the Lord; thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard” (Lev. xxv., 2, 3, 6). With respect to the weekly Sabbath, it is further laid down that” on it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle” (Exodus xx., 8). And it is further declared that no cooking is to be performed on Sabbath (Exodus xvi., 5, 22, 30), and that “ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day” (Exodus, xxxv., 3). In Exodus xxxv., 2,. we moreover read, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a Sabbath of rest to the Lord; whoever doeth work thereon shall be put to death.”

“The foregoing passages furnish a fair summary of the Jewish Sabbatical law, which, if the fourth commandment is to be considered as unrepealed, should be rigidly enforced as a whole. To be consistent, no fire in this city should be allowed to smoke on the Sabbath day, no cooking should be permitted, not only should every kind of handicraft be suspended, but menial service be entirely dispensed with, and every violator of the law should be subjected to capital punishment. The seventh, not the first day of the week, moreover, should be the one insisted upon for observance; and, as the completion of the whole, we should have the year of jubilee and the other Sabbatical institutions referred to carried out; “for ever.” Such is the logical conclusion to which you are inevitably driven if you found the Sabbath observance you seek to impose upon us on the Mosaic Law, unless, indeed, you furnish precise evidence that all the portions of the Sabbatical law excepting that contained in the Decalogue were expressly repealed by the founder of Christianity; and this leads us to the second stage of this preliminary inquiry, namely, whether Christ or his apostles set aside the Jewish dispensation with the special exception of the observance of the weekly Sabbath-day, and authorised the changing of that day to the one at present kept?

“But little inquiry is necessary to settle this point in an opposite sense to the one you maintain in your remonstrance. Christ, so far from favouring the Sabbatical theory prevailing among the Pharisees and other Jews of his time, sets himself in express terms against it. He taught that it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day, which many doubted; that it was lawful for purposes of charity or necessity to work on the Sabbath-day—a doctrine denied by the Pharisees and he went beyond this, for he permitted his disciples to pluck and eat ears of corn on the Sabbath-day, when walking in the fields—an act which does not appear to have been one of charity or necessity, and a direct violation of the letter of the law, for the gathering of manna on the Sabbath had been expressly forbidden, and the law prescribed that the food to be eaten on the Sabbath should be provided and prepared on the previous day. Christ further tells the Pharisees that “the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark ii. 27). But the most remarkable passages in the teachings of Christ, on the subject of the Sabbath, are those in which—so far from excepting the Fourth Commandment from the general abrogation of the Jewish ritual, which you contend to have taken place through the second dispensation—he expressly puts it aside. To the question asked of him, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” Jesus answers, “Keep the commandments.” The young man inquired which. Jesus said, “Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother. And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matt. xix: 17, 18). Not a word is said about keeping the Sabbath-day holy, to which the Pharisees attached so much importance, though in the following verses we are told, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.” Had the observance of the Sabbath been a matter of importance, or had it been expressly reserved from the repeal about to take place of the Mosaic law, would it thus have been passed over? We believe not. Many other instances might be cited of Christ’s non-observance of the Jewish Sabbath, and not one passage can be quoted in which the Founder of Christianity recommends its keeping. He not only healed the sick on the Sabbath-day, but directed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda to take up his bed and walk, although it had been expressly commanded by the prophets Nehemiah and Jeremiah—and by the latter in the name of the Lord—that no burden should be carried on the Sabbath-day. (Jer. xvii. 21).

“Christ, therefore, neither excepted the Fourth Commandment from abrogation nor varied the day of its observance; and we look in vain at the writings of the Apostles for proofs of their action on this matter. The great Apostle of the Gentiles says, “Let no man judge you in meats or in drinks, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days. (Col. ii. 16). Again, Romans xiv., 4-6, he says, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Again, he says, “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years; I am afraid of you lest, I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” (Gal. iv. 9, 11). We may here observe that this positive declaration of the independence of days as ceremonial observances, applies as fully and emphatically to the modern Sunday as to the Jewish Sabbath. Indeed, throughout the New Testament there is not the slightest evidence of the retention of the Jewish Sabbath as a part of the newly promulgated Christian system or of the substitution of the first day of the week as the day of observance. We look in vain for a command, either on the part of Christ or his apostles, that the first day of the week should be kept holy in place of the seventh, or that the first day should be set apart in commemoration of the resurrection, and devoted exclusively to prayer and preaching, or that no manner of work should be performed on that day. We read of the disciples sometimes meeting on the “first day of the week,” but this was at a time when, as appears, from the Acts of the Apostles, they were also in the habit of assembling in the synagogues on the ordinary Sabbaths; and on one occasion of their meeting on the first day of the week—the earliest mentioned—(John xx. 19)—they are incredulous of the resurrection—Thomas, surnamed Didymus, refusing to believe upon the concurrent testimony of the rest, requiring the evidence of his own senses.

“The instances of the disciples meeting on the first day of the week (the only Scriptural facts on which you can rely as proving the divine institution of the Sabbath), although not numerous, indicate a custom easily explained upon other grounds than those you set up. The Romans were the masters of Judea, and had their religious festivals as well as the Jews—public holidays on which little business was transacted, and which, therefore, afforded to the Hebrews the same available opportunities of leisure which the modern Jews find in the present Sunday. It was, moreover, as history tells us, the dies solis—the day on which the Romans visited the temple of Apollo, and, therefore, a day of comparative liberty to their slaves and dependents. Nothing, therefore, was more likely than that the Christian converts would seize the occasion to meet and confirm each other in the new faith, and more especially so in the distant provinces of Greece and Galatia, where the old Pagan festivals would be more universally observed than in Jerusalem. That this was the origin of the Sunday as a day of Christian meeting, and that it was not a Sabbath in the Mosaical sense, we have very conclusive evidence. Justin Martyr, who wrote A.D. 147, defends himself in his dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, against the charge that the Christians “pretended to excel all others, and yet observed no Sabbath.” He says, “The new law will have you keep a perpetual Sabbath. You, when you have passed a day in idleness, think you are, religious. The Lord God is not pleased with such things as these. If anyone be guilty of perjury or fraud, let him reform; if he be an adulterer, let him repent; and he will then have kept the kind of Sabbath truly pleasing to God. You see that the elements are never idle, and keep no Sabbath. There was no need of the observance of Sabbaths before Moses; neither, now is there any need of them after Jesus Christ.” (Diag. Trypho, pp. 227, 229, 241, edit. Par.) Tertullian, writing in A.D. 192, refers to the Sabbath as involved in the abolition of circumcision and the old law. He says—“God gave neither circumcision nor the Sabbath to Abel or Noah; thus it follows that the law is proved to have been completed in their appointed times, so also the observance of the Sabbath is proved to have been temporary.” And that the custom of meeting on the first day of the week did not imply a total cessation from labour for twenty four hours in all, is all but self-evident from the writings of Justin Martyr and others of his time, and by the express declaration of the Council of Laodicea, that Christians “ought not to Judaize and rest on the Sabbath.” It was not till A.D. 321 that any body of Christians kept the first day of the week as a speclal holiday, and not until Constantine found it particularly expedient to amalgamate old and new creeds, to convert heathen temples into Christian churches, and proclaim what it pleased him to call Christianity as the religion of the state. Then, and not before, was the dies solis made a Christian ordinance, in the following terms:—“Let all the population of the towns rest, and the labours of the artisans cease. The agriculturist, however, may freely and lawfully attend to the cultivation of his fields: since it not unfrequently happens that no day is more favourable for committing the seed to the furrows, or the vines to their trenches: and the advantages given us by the providence of Heaven ought not to be thrown away out of regard to the day.”—3 C. 12. 4 Omnes Judices. Constantine, and not Christ or his apostles, is therefore the founder of the modern Sunday, though even here we look in vain for the rigid Puritanism of the Scottish Sabbath. We might, in order to prove that this ordinance of man’s invention has never, until a comparatively modern time, been construed in the rigid sense expressed in your remonstrance, refer to the practice of all Christendom up to a late period. For a long time sports and pastimes were freely permitted on the Sunday, and this not in Roman Catholic countries alone. We can point to the most celebrated Protestant authorities, from Luther, Calvin, and Melancthon, down to Archbishop Whately,—men celebrated for piety as well as learning,—against the rigid observance of the Sabbath you seek to impose. It is only in the legislation and practice of the Puritans that we can find either law or authority for your view of Sabbath observance, against which we may set Christ, the apostles, the early fathers of the church; and its whole practice for at least fifteen hundred years. On such narrow grounds, therefore, it cannot be expected that we should yield submission to your dicta, considering that in addition to the reasons already set forth, we deny in toto the conclusions you draw as to the consequences of the “denounced” Sunday sailing of the Emperor on the Clyde.

“You tell us that the effect of this sailing, if persisted in, will send a “withering blight over the piety of our family circles, over the purity of our Christian Church, and over the prosperity of our beloved land, by sapping the foundations of public morality, and in weakening the safeguards of private character.” It would have been well had you been more precise, for we confess, this loose phraseology is not easily dealt with. If it be meant, however, that taking a sail on the Sunday is to blight the family circle, and the purity of the Christian churches, to sap public morality, or weaken the safeguards of private character, we at once deny it. A mere ceremonial observance of a particular day in the manner indicated by that which may consider itself the ruling sect, we do not recognise as in any sense constituting morality; and with regard to the rest of the assertion, we can point to the practice of all Protestant countries (Scotland excepted) as complete evidence of its incorrectness. Scotland, with all its virtues, is not the most moral country in the world, nor are the decencies of life, the purity of its forms of worship, or the integrity of its private character better than in other countries where it is not deemed a sin to sail in a steamboat or ride in a railway carriage on a Sunday. Certainly, at all events, with all its puritanical observances, Glasgow has no right to set itself up as a model city against the great centres of population in England and America, where Sunday travelling, so far from being looked upon as an offence committed against Christianity is considered as entirely in accordance with it. That on the grounds of necessity and mercy, a certain amount of travelling convenience on Sunday is required, cannot for a moment be gainsayed by any unprejudiced person. It is the only day on which the great mass of the middle and working classes can, without loss of labour or injury to business, visit friends at a distance, recreate themselves with fresh air or see and admire the beauties of nature in a pure atmosphere. And of all modes of travelling, steamboats afford the largest amount of accommodation with the least expenditure of labour to those employed in the necessary work, and that labour of a healthy and invigorating kind. Unlike private carriages, which, in proportion to the parties convenienced, employ a large number of persons, and are chiefly used by those whose whole life is one of ease and enjoyment, our steamboat accommodates the pale artisan and jaded shopkeeper, confined during the week in the mephitic atmosphere of an ill-drained, ill-ventilated and overcrowded and smoky city, to the free air and majestic scenery of our noble river, on their only available day, there to inhale health and strength for the coming six days of toil; and we cannot see how either morality or religion can thereby suffer. We hold, on the contrary, that we promote not only the health but the moral character of the community by such travelling facilities as our steamboat affords of the Sundays; and in proof of this we have on our side the authority of men better qualified to give an opinion than, with all deference, we hold you to be. The evidence, moreover, of our own experience for the last seven weeks convinces us that your fears on the score of public morality and private character are entirely groundless and absurd.

“You have now, gentlemen, our answer. We deny your authority in this matter, as well as your allegations and deductions, and have placed upon record our reasons for so doing. It was not for mere profit that we started the Emperor steamer, nor was it to do violence to the religious convictions of our fellow-countrymen. Neither did we seek “virtually to abrogate” the whole day as a religious ordinance. Our original intention was simply to run the Emperor before and after the usual church hours to the various points along the coast, and we actually did so for the first two days. It was not until after the unchristian and unseemly proceedings, already known to the public, which took place at several landing-places on the Firth that we altered the hours of sailing, to protect our passengers from the rude treatment of uncivil and illiberal church goers at Gourock and Dunoon. We deny, however, either your right or the right of any similar conclave to prescribe the exact manner in which we shall keep the Sabbath-day. On this subject we claim to think and act for ourselves, and to sail’ the steamer on any hour we deem most convenient to that portion of the public who patronise her.

“We deny, moreover, that either the law or public opinion, as you allege, are against us; but even were they so, we cannot admit these as tests of what is right and true. Christianity was introduced into the world in direct opposition to the law and public opinion of the lands in which it was promulgated, and in the same way the Protestant Reformation was brought about. Even in the present day the iniquity of slavery in the United States has the sanction of both law and public opinion, as well as the solemn decisions and declarations of Presbyteries and other Ecclesiastical courts in its favour; yet, your body will scarcely dare to pronounce slavery to be a “Divine institution.”

“You further believe that the laws of the country have provided a remedy should your remonstrance fail. For that also we are prepared. We scarcely think you will be so ill-advised as to try the matter in a court of law; but, we are ready to meet you even there if necessary, and to vindicate in our persons the right of conscience and religious liberty. We advise those among you who have only read the tyrannical statutes of Charles II., and dream of subjecting us to pains and penalties, to push these inquiries a little further. Perhaps, if they peruse statutes of a later date, they may find that they are perfectly innocuous as regards that element through which the Emperor glides, and where, with the blessing of God, we intend she shall continue to sail for the healthful recreation of the citizens of Glasgow, who think it neither sin nor crime to visit their friends, or to recruit their exhausted frames on the only day afforded them from excessive toil by the margin of the loch or on the mountain side.

I am, Gentlemen, On Behalf of the Proprietors of the Steamer Emperor, Yours respectfully, Andrew Paton, Chairman.”

On the last Sunday in July, the Emperor repeated her excursion to Gareloch-head, calling at Greenock, Gourock, Helensburgh and Row with a good crowd on board. The excursionists were landed and spent about three hours on the shore. There was no report of any difficulties.

“The Sunday Steamer on the Clyde.—The Emperor appears to be very successful in her Sunday trips, notwithstanding the attempts made at some of the watering-places down the Clyde to prevent her passengers from landing. On Sunday week she left the Broomielaw with 200 passengers, and returned in the evening with 300. As was to be expected, the Presbytery of Glasgow has taken up the matter, and on Wednesday “a solemn remonstrance” was ordered to be transmitted to the proprietors of the vessel, Mr. Norman M‘Leod deprecating forcible measures as a means of preventing “Sabbath desecration.” It is said that the Magistrates of Helensburgh have resolved to withdraw their officers and gangways from the quay, and to keep the gates locked on Sunday, in order to prevent the passengers from coming ashore. On the other hand, we see that at a meeting of the Clyde Trustees on Tuesday, the following passage in the committee minutes relative to the Sunday steamer was approved of:—“That no interference should be made by the harbour master or his assistants, and that the ordinary officer on duty should give the same attention to the steamer Emperor on the occasion in question as to any other vessel leaving the harbour.” ”—Scotsman, Saturday August 6, 1853

For the first two Sundays in August, the steamer ran to Lochgoil-head. Events passed smoothly although crowds gathered in the evenings to meet the returning steamer and yell and hiss at the passengers.

“The Sunday Steamer.—Last Sunday the steamer Emperor came down the river with about five hundred passengers, the day being the finest since she commenced to run.”—Scotsman, August 10, 1853.

But there was public support too. The Emperor was well supported on other days and was available for charter during the week. A number of working men’s groups and other organizations availed themselves of charters. On Thursday the 28th of July, upwards of a hundred Roman Catholic ladies and gentlemen steamed down the river with a military band on board, and spent the afternoon at Arrochar and Tarbet. On the following day, it was the turn of two hundred Falkirk miners. The journeymen tailors took their annual sail to Arrochar on Monday August 1 with 400 on board. The sawyers of Glasgow embarked a week later and were joined by those from Dumbarton and Greenock when the Emperor called at Bowling and Greenock. Again the destination was Arrochar, and the company then, led by three pipers, walked over to Tarbet on Loch Lomond where they enjoyed their few hours of recreation.

On the following Tuesday, the 11th, there was an attempt to sink the Emperor while she lay at the Broomielaw overnight. She was undergoing some alterations at the time and a new engine hatchway, in the process of construction, provided easy access to the engine room where a sea-cock was opened. The damage was not serious but she missed her regular sailing on the Wednesday following.

“An attempt to sink the Emperor steamer.—On Tuesday morning, a most malicious attempt was made by some miscreant to sink the steamboat Emperor, better known as the Sunday steamer, while she was lying along with other river boats at the upper wharf of the harbour. The means by which it was sought to damage, if not to permanently destroy the Emperor, was the opening of the large sea cock, which is placed near the bottom of the vessel in the engine room, whereby such an immense quantity of water might have been let into the body of the boat as to sink her down into the harbour. The time selected for the vile attempt was singularly inauspicious, being sometime between for and five o’clock in the morning, and but for the early rising of one of the hands on board there can be no doubt but the scoundrel would have been successful in his design. By the time of the perilous situation of the vessel being discovered there were fully two feet of water in the engine-room, the steward’s cabin, and part of the steerage, and if the flooding had been allowed to go on for another hour, in all likelihood the Emperor would have been at the bottom of the river, as an elapse of a few minutes would have prevented anyone from discovering the source of the watery flow. The sea-cock, we may explain, is attached to a pipe fully five inches in circumference, which communicates outside directly with the river, and it would not take more than a couple of hours to waterlog the Emperor from stem to stern. It is said that a man was seen by one of the police to go on board the Emperor between four and five o’clock, and shortly afterwards leave her and proceed to another steamboat, but the watchman supposing him to be one of the hands, did not pay more than ordinary attention to the circumstance. The police, we believe, are on the alert, and will do their best to discover the perpetrator of this wanton and malicious outrage. The steamer was deterred on Wednesday from making her usual trip.”—Glasgow Chronicle.

This article is continued as the “Battle of Garelochhead.”