emphatically as a day of rest. It opens upon him somewhat as it did
upon George Herbert, as he describes it in his exquisite little poem:--

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky!"

Apart from its soothing religious associations, it brings with it the
assurance of physical comfort and freedom. It is something to be able
to doze out the morning from daybreak to breakfast in that luxurious
state between sleeping and waking in which the mind eddies slowly and
peacefully round and round instead of rushing onward,--the future a
blank, the past annihilated, the present but a dim consciousness of
pleasurable existence. Then, too, the satisfaction is by no means
inconsiderable of throwing aside the worn and soiled habiliments of
labor and appearing in neat and comfortable attire. The moral influence
of dress has not been overrated even by Carlyle's Professor in his
Sartor Resartus. William Penn says that cleanliness is akin to
godliness. A well-dressed man, all other things being equal, is not
half as likely to compromise his character as one who approximates to
shabbiness. Lawrence Sterne used to say that when he felt himself
giving way to low spirits and a sense of depression and worthlessness,--
a sort of predisposition for all sorts of little meannesses,--he
forthwith shaved himself, brushed his wig, donned his best dress and his
gold rings, and thus put to flight the azure demons of his unfortunate
temperament. There is somehow a close affinity between moral purity and
clean linen; and the sprites of our daily temptation, who seem to find
easy access to us through a broken hat or a rent in the elbow, are
manifestly baffled by the "complete mail" of a clean and decent dress.
I recollect on one occasion hearing my mother tell our family physician
that a woman in the neighborhood, not remarkable for her tidiness, had