meeting, I should think it best for any one, who would observe the church's fasts, to abstain from all society, except that of his own circle. The Fellows of one of the most respected Colleges in this place have, for years, made it a rule neither to accept nor to give any dinner-invitations on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. This has been a good beginning; and they have been the more respected for making this rule, even by those persons who have not thought it needful to follow their example. Some other persons, though probably but few, have extended their rule to all the fast-days of the church, except on some extraordinary occasions, such as those above hinted, or where respect to persons in authority seemed to supersede their private judgment; on such occasions, they would practise a quiet unostentatious abstemiousness. Nor do I think that any charge of singularity (in any obnoxious sense) does or would attach in any case when a person acts simply and unostentatiously. If a clergyman, e. g., were, in declining the invitation of an elder minister, to assign as his ground, that he did not dine out on fast-days, there would be something unbecoming in this sort of tacit reproof to an older labourer in God's vineyard; but though we must not disguise the truth, if asked for, we need not voluntarily put forward the grounds of our actions; we might leave it to circumstances to lay them open, as far as might be necessary; and if we make no parade of our practice, our Christian liberty will be respected. But, should it be otherwise, we are, of course, not to count that "some strange thing has happened unto us," though our good should be evil spoken of. After all our precautions against ostentatiousness, censure of others, and the like, our very practice, if accounted of any moment, will probably be regarded as implying blame of those who allow themselves in the things from which we think it our duty to abstain; especially shall we have much difficulty in the first outset, but from within, more than from without. We all, probably, magnify our own importance, and think that our neighbours canvas us more than they do; whereas some passing observation, that "we are good sort of people, but have exaggerated notions about the church's authority," or that "our state of health or spirits leads us to ex-
