Nobody seemed surprised at it; nobody noticed it as a thing out of the common course of events.

And this, too, in a city where the Sabbath proprieties are sternly insisted upon; where some twenty pulpits deal out anathemas upon all who "desecrate the Lord's day;" where simple notices of meetings for moral purposes even can scarcely be read; where many count it wrong to speak on that day for the slave, who knows no Sabbath of rest, or for the drunkard, who, imbruted by his appetites, cannot enjoy it.

Verily there are strange contradictions in our conventional morality.

Eyes which, looking across the Atlantic on the gay Sabbath dances of French peasants are turned upward with horror, are somehow blind to matters close at home.

What would be sin past repentance in an individual becomes quite proper in a corporation.
True, the Sabbath is holy; but the canals must be repaired.