One of our country’s most precious inheritance from the Puritans was the more or less compulsory cessation of commercial activity on Sunday. But we Hobbesian/Darwinian survivalists increasingly think there’s not time enough to allow the wasting of even a single day. Or we think we need a day of mere play as a respite from our demanding lives; many of us have become "Seventh Day Recreationists." Or we think Sunday should be a "lifestyle choice" for those who inexplicably have that kind of preference. It would be tyrannical to impose anyone’s preferences on anyone else. But to make Sunday merely a choice, of course, limits to it those who can afford it. The day of rest becomes, not a right reflecting who we are, but a privilege for the privileged.
According to Tocqueville, the Americans, on Sunday, stopped working in order to hear and think about the "delicate enjoyments" and "true happiness" that come from acting virtuously as beings made in the image of the great and eternal God. Even when they heard Christian sermons that enjoyed them to be humble, they wer exalted. They were alwys told that, as beings with souls destined for immortality, they were more—much more—than merely beings with interests. If people believe that nothing human endures, Tocqueville contends, they won’t produce accomplishments—thoughts, writings, and deeds—that endure the test of time.
Is one reason that we full of the (allegedly) postmodern awareness that everything human is so ephemeral is that we surrendered Sunday—the Sabbath? Is that one reason we have so much trouble resisting the arrogant efforts pop-Cartesian experts who proudly turn themselves into gods by brutalizing everyone else? The danger of our time, Tocqueville observes, is that the particular individual "will finally lose the use of his most sublime faculties, and by wishing to improve everything around him, will finally degrade himself."
