perance; it is something to bring them, from spending the Sabbath in the fields or in the ale-house, to spend it in church, and at home but it is not enough. The heart may still be unrenewed; the sins of the life unpardoned; and the soul in jeopardy of perdition. We do too little, then, although that which we do is good,when we confine our attention to the former objects. We must go further Intemperance and Sabbath-breaking have a source. Like other sins, they are streams from a fountain. We must go to the fountain. Our grand aim must be, to heal the waters there. We must assail the propensities to evil by that truth which is "the power of God unto salvation.". If, through the blessing of God, we succeed in bringing that truth to bear upon the evil desires and passions of the heart, so as to subdue it to Christ, we have gained every thing we could wish. We ensure sobriety and Sabbath-keeping, and every other practical virtue, by introducing the principle of them all. Whereas, if we keep working merely at the motives to temperance, and to outward church-going decorum on the Sunday, the product of our successful assiduity may be no more than a self-righteous formalist, who may have gained much for the comfort of this life, but little or nothing for the life to come. Let us seek, then, by all means in our powers to make known the truth of God, both by persuading men to come and hear it, and by carrying it to them, and recommending it to their attention and to their believing acceptance. This is the shortest, the most direct, and the most effectual way, to the attainment of all our ends. Make men believers; and you make them "sober, righteous, and godly." v det,w to 951.wols Q1M VOITÍZKO

But while this is true, I do not mean that we should not employ all other subordinate and auxiliary methods of restraining the profanation and encouraging the observance of the Sabbath.Tracts should be profusely circulated, not only containing gospel truth, but directly setting forth the nature, the obligation, and the benefits, (spiritual and secular, private and public,) of the Sabbath, as "made for man," and containing in its institution an evidence of the divine goodness.In our great towns, too, such institutions as the Glasgow City Mission; are of admirable utility, for suppressing the profanation, and promoting the observance of the Lord's day; the agents of such institutions, in their visits of mercy, finding their way amongst the very classes of the population where the evil most affectingly prevails, and bringing directly to bear upon them all the moral and spiritual means of its s correction That Christian who professes anxiety to promote reverence for the Sabbath, acts most inconsistently with his profession, if he withholds his countenance and support from such associations to a sung bombas D41-And Olet Christians remember, how much may be done, of evil or of good, by their example. I would press this, with all earnestness, upon their attention. It is of far more importance than they are generally aware. There is good reason to fear, that no small portion of the profanation of the Sabbath which Christians lament, owes its origin to laxity in the conduct of many who bear the profession of the gospel. Christians do not sufficiently consider, what advantage the world are ever prone to take of every thing in their conduct that can at all be construed into allowance of what they themselves wish to

practice; how much further the evil of their example goes than the good; from how slight an indulgence on the part of a saint they will deduce a wide and licentious sanction. Surely, this ought to make Christians exceedingly cautious and circumspect. When they find their example even in what they may conceive to be, in itself, and as they practise it, innocent, pleaded in behalf of indulgences far be yond the harmless limit which they have set to themselves -it becomes their duty to exercise self-denial, and, although they may conceive it, and justly conceive it, a hardship, that the perverseness of others should deprive them of a liberty in which God and conscience do not condemn them, yet, since God and conscience do not require them to take the liberty, and no principle, there fore, is violated or compromised in its relinquishment, there can be no hesitation as to the path of duty. If by their walking on the brink of a precipice, the result is that others fall over it, will they, for the sake of showing their liberty, persist in keeping near the edge, and disdain the consequences ?" When I first attended seriously to religion," says Mr. Scott, the justly venerated commentator, "I used sometimes, when I had a journey to per form on the next day, to ride a stage in the evening, after the service of the Sabbath; and I trust my time on horseback was not spent unprofitably. But I soon found, that this furnished an excuse to some of my parishioners, for employing a considerable part of the Lord's day in journeys of business or convenience. I need not say, that I immediately abandoned the practice.” On the same principle ought Christians ever to act, even in things of still less questionable harmlessness than the practice here

specified. It is not for us to say, "If men will pervert and abuse our example, we cannot help it; the fault is their own, and let them take the consequences." This is not the benevolent spirit of the gospel. O! what is any little liberty of ours, however harmless, when compared with encouraging fellow-sinners in their worldly and selfdestroying courses. Such sacrifices are not once to be named. Life should not be dear to us, when the stake to be won by its forfeiture is-the souls of men.

Let Christian parents inculcate upon the minds of their children, from their earliest years, reverence for the day of God, as a part of that "fear of the Lord," which is "the beginning of wisdom;" and let them carefully exemplify it before their families, in their own habitual practice. Let them attend to this, not only for the sake of their children, but for the sake of the benefit to others from their children's example. If, in this matter, personal example is valuable, domestic example is, if possi ble, still more so. It is in families, in an especial manner, that the reverence of the Lord's Sabbaths must be maintained, and transmitted to future generations. If, in the families of any of God's people, there appear an undue relaxation of the holy, but kindly, discipline of the domestic Sabbath, other Christian families will speedily catch the infection, the children pleading and claiming the same indulgence, and the parents gradually yielding to the claim. The domestic example, too, like the personal, will be abused by the semi-christian, and by the sober worldling, as a sanction for much more unfettered licence; till the sacredness of the day comes to be lost, and its salutary restraints thrown entirely away. Awake, awake,

my brethren, to the danger. Let not the domestic Sabbath, in any of your families, be undistinguishable from other days; but be it the resolution of in the strength of promised grace, "AS FOR ME, AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!"

every one of

you,

And let churches also do their duty. If it be a law of God, that the Sabbath be hallowed, the breach of that law should not, any more than the breach of others, be allowed to pass unnoticed and uncensured. I am aware, when I say so, of the difficulty that may sometimes be experienced, in defining the limits of the law, and determining in what cases, and to what extent, its prohibitory enactments have been violated. But the law does not, in this respect, stand alone. There are cases of nice and delicate casuistry, in regard to other laws, as well as in regard to this. But the occurrence of these cannot, in any case, affect the great general principle, that every church of Christ is bound to see to it that his laws be duly observed; and, among the rest, that his own day be becomingly sanctified in the personal and domestic conduct of its members, that the flagrant neglect of its public ordinances, or its private duties, be not permitted, without expostulation, admonition, and, if contumaciously persisted in, even exclusion; and that, in this, as in other respects, the members should mutually and faithfully watch over one another,—not in the spirit of prying curiosity and intermeddling officiousness, but of humble and affectionate interest in each other's spiritual prosperity, and earnest solicitude for the glory of Christ, and the purity and growth of his kingdom.