truth, employ all his skill and all his talents to envelope it in darkness, to clothe wrong in the garb

f right; if, his very looks at the outset declare him a partisan and not a judge; if petulance and rage mark his inward fear of failing to effect his but too manifest iniquitous intention; if, at last, when coming to award judgment on the rich and on the poor, both guilty of precisely the same offence, he merely shake the lash over the shoulders of the former, and make the forty lacking one draw thirty-nine streams of blood from the loins of the latter, is not the favoured culprit covered with shame, and the judge with infamy?" So they

wrap it up." But is not every breast filled with indignation? Are they not "contemptible and base "before all the people?" Is not the curse of God pronounced upon them; and do not all the people say, Amen!

"Go to the Ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be "wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth 66 ner meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the har

vest. How long wilt thou sleep, O, sluggard? When wilt "thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little "slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep! So shalt "thy poverty come like one that travelleth, and thy want like "an armed man."-PROVERBS, Ch. vi. V. 6 to 11.

THE passage chosen for my text is one of the most beautiful that ever was penned; and it contains an exhortation and a warning of great importance to all persons of both sexes and of ages in all the ranks and the callings of life. Man was born for activity, for exertion, and not to lie in a state like that of those creatures who appear to live for no other purpose than that of in creasing in bulk, merely to grow up out of the earth or its products, and, through some channel other, to return to earth again.

The causes of poverty and want are various. Some

are wholly unavoidable; some arise from dissipation; some from downright wickedness of disposition; but, a considerable part of all the want and misery that we witness in the world, arises from sluggishness; from that hateful laziness, that everlasting hankering after rest, which is so well described and so strongly reprobated in the words of my text.

It is surprizing, but not more surprizing than true, that a vice, and, indeed, a great sin, so hateful in itself, so injurious to the parties committing it as well as to the community of which they form a part, and so directly in defiance of the word of God, should, in this and in many other countries, have found a sort of apology in the precepts as well as in the example of those who affect a particular regard for religion.

The Hermits, the Monks, the Nuns, and all the endless tribes of impostors of ancient times, who indulged in laziness at the expence of the industrious, affected peculiar devotion to God, dedicated, as they termed it, their bodies to the Lord. As if the body of man can, in any way, be so truly dedicated to its Maker as by its being made to perform those functions for which it was manifestly intended! As if God, who has fashioned man for activity, who has made labour 0 necessary to his health and even to his sustenance, should be pleased with, and should bestow his choicest

rewards on, that part of human beings, who have made the least use of their limbs, and who have contrived to exist on the labour of others by assuming the garb of superior piety!

The fanaties of our day are, only in another form, the successors of the Hermits, the Monks and the Nuns; and, they are still more mischievous inasmuch as their teaching tends to produce sluggishness in others as well as to maintain it in themselves. To teach people to rely on God, without, at the same time, teaching them that they are to use their own exertions, is to delude them to their ruin. God has given the earth and all the elements; but, he has given nothing for our use unaccompanied with the positive and indispensible condition, that we shall, in every case, perform labour, of some sort or other, in a greater or less degree.

Yet, by a misinterpretation, a torturing, an exaggeration, or at least, a misconception of the meaning, of those parts of the Bible, which speak of the vanity and worthlessness of human exertions and worldly cares, a persuasion has been implanted in many minds, that laziness, with its natural consequences, rags and hunger, are not only not displeasing to God, but are amongst the surest outward marks of his especial grace. Why, human exertions and worldly cares are, when

pushed beyond certain bounds, vain and worthless, cen surable and sinful. But, because, when a man's whole soul is bent on accumulating wealth, for instance; when he labours beyond his strength, grudges himself necessary sustenance, and worries his mind with anxieties as to gain; because this is sinful, is there to be no labour, no care, at all? Are we to make no exertions, and to make no provision? "God feedeth the Ra

vens," says Jesus Christ. In that illustration of his meaning the whole of his doctrine as to worldly cares and exertions is explained. God feedeth the Ravens: that is to say, God hath given the Ravens wings and claws and beaks, wherewith to go in search of, to obtain, and to carry home, their food. He feeds man in precisely the same way; that is to say, by giving legs, arms and hands.

Yet is there prevailing the delusive idea, that, some how or other, food and raiment are to come by the favour of God, without bodily exertion. Plainly and in so many words, this is not, indeed, avowed. But, the doctrine implies as much. And, the consequences are, that, where this species of fanaticism takes hold of the mind, chearful exertion ceases, laziness and slovenliness and carelessness succeed, and are hallowed with the name of trust in God. All vanities are carefully to be avoided; but, of all human vanities, what is at once so mischievous and so despicable as for the Sluggard to