“The morning of the sabbath is all-important, as a season of private devotion. Our first thoughts should be given to God. We should seize the earliest moments of this calm and blessed season, and use them for the soul’s benefit....

Who has not felt the tranquilizing influence of the sabbath morn? Nature seems to sympathise with the moral associations of the scene. On other days, her voice is almost drowned amid the din and bustle of the world; but when the wheels of mammon’s car are arrested, and their thunder is not heard, then comes forth her soothing language, which falls on the heart like aeolian music, to subdue its passions, and to awaken its finer sensibilities. The voice of nature is the voice of God. He who speaks in the sanctuary, of redemption by the blood of Jesus, speaks, from the hush and fragrance of the morning, of the vast and varied gifts of his providence. To commune with nature and with God, we must imitate David, and awake early.

The resurrection of Jesus took place before the dawn. Ere the sun was up, one of his faithful followers repaired to the sepulchre. She came in the morning twilight to look upon the tomb of Jesus. She found it unsealed and empty, and wondered what had become of her Lord. As she wept, a voice addressed her, at first in a stranger’s accents, lest, under the excitement, a too sudden revelation might overpower her mind; then that voice was changed, and the well-remembered tones told her that it was indeed her risen Master. Did Mary find her Redeemer at early dawn; and shall we presume to expect his presence, if we doze away in guilty slumbers this portion of sacred time? No, let us rather fly to the sepulchre, and see amid the shadows of the morning the breaking beams of the Sun of righteousness. Let us gather the spiritual manna before the sun is up, and feed upon it, ere we refresh ourselves on the food that perisheth. Few would complain of dull sabbaths, or wandering thoughts, or tedious services, were they to secure, for the purposes of private devotion, the morning of the sabbath. A sacred impulse would thus be obtained, which, like a favouring gale, would waft the soul onward to its rest.” — J.B. Waterbury, A Book For the Sabbath (1840), pp. 53-54