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has already happened, that ordinances have for a time fallen into disuse, which yet were never intended to be abrogated, and which afterwards have been very beneficially revived. It is within the memory of man, that the yearly Commemoration of our Blessed Saviour's death was in country congregations very generally omitted. This is now, I trust, almost universally observed; nor is there any apparent reason, why this other ordinance of the Church, whereby we humble ourselves for the sins which caused that Death, should not, if men once came seriously to consider it, be promptly, and with very wholesome results, restored. I doubt not, that if the question were formally proposed to the Spiritual Authorities of our Church, whether they would think it adviseable that our stated Fasts should be abolished, they would earnestly deprecate it. Their silence therefore on this subject is rather to be ascribed to the supposed hopelessness of attempting to bind our modern manners to Ancient Discipline, than to any dispaiagement of the institutions themselves. Our institutions in many cases sleep, but are not dead; nay, one has reason to hope, that although the many neglect them, a faithful few have ever been found, who have experienced and could testify the value of those, which the world seems most entirely to neglect.
Yet, although these grounds of Church authority appear to myself perfectly valld, and I doubt not that many others will feel their weight, as soon as they shall reflect upon them, the other argument, drawn from the practical wisdom and experience of the enacters of these regulations, seems to lie nearer to men's consciences. The argument lies in a narrow compass. Regular and stated Fasts formed a part of the Discipline, by which all Christians of old, (if health permitted,) subdued the flesh to the spirit, and brought both body and mind into a willing obedience to the Law of God. They thought this Discipline necessary as an expression and instrument of repentance, as a memorial of their Saviour, to "refrain their souls and keep them low," to teach them to "trust in the Lord," and seek communion with Him. The value of this remedy for sin has come to us attested by the experience, and sealed by the blood of Martyrs; who having learnt thus to endure hardships, like good soldiers of Christ, at last resisted to the blood, striving against sin. Shall we untried pronounce that to
