purer and more substantial joys than the present scene affords, that ere long, time will be swallowed up in eternity, and that we shall be surrounded with realities of happiness, or woe, which will render all sublunary sorrows and delights as insignificant as the bubbles upon the stream.
There is in fact, no external ordinance of religion, which experience shews to be so intimately connected with correspondent effects upon the general character, as that of the sabbath. Few habits are so truly symptomatic of the real state of the mind, as the mode in which it is habitually employed. Fix your eye upon any individual of your neighbourhood, or acquaintance in any department of life, who is remarkable for his conscientious regard for the sabbath, and for his regular and uniform attendance upon the public services of the sanctuary, and I am most exceedingly mistaken if you do not find him equally distinguished, if not by the genuineness of his piety and the fervour of his devotion, at least by the decency, the industry and rectitude of his general demeanour. Look around you on the other hand, and mark the man who is noted for his desecration of the day which is by pre-eminence "the holy of the Lord", the man who spends it in sleep, or in work, in travelling, or yawning, in drinking or gambling,-the man who is rarely, if ever, found at his church or his chapel, and still more infrequently at his Bible or his devotions; and what are his prevailing habits during the other days of the week? Granted—that he is not very precise in the duties which he owes to God; but is he more exact and
