The first concerns the Continent.

"You

sent a specimen or two.
know," observes the Rev. T. Plitt of Bonn, "that an opinion pre-
vails in our country that there is no real connexion between the
Christian Sunday and the command of God, Remember the
Sabbath-day to keep it holy;' but that the Sunday celebration
is a human institution which must be left to Christian liberty,
because it is good, and because it is enjoined by the Church. This
view, in different gradations, you find too general in Germany;
and I am quite convinced you agree with me in believing that a
truly Christian Sabbath observance is only possible if we hold
that the law given to Adam, and repeated on Mount Sinai, Re-
member the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,' has an eternal obliga-
tion."1
We give another specimen, one relating to our own
country: "The thought of writing at all was suggested to me by
a few words only, which I heard interchanged in the street of a
country town, but which were sufficient to convince me that Dr.
Whately's pamphlet, Thoughts on the Sabbath, was doing extreme
mischief; and that through it an opinion was gaining ground
that the Episcopacy of our Church was opposed to the principle
of keeping holy the Sabbath-day. Under such circumstances, I
was induced to write these pages, to vindicate the Divine institu-
tion of the Christian Sabbath."2 We find in the pamphlet itself,
on which Mr. Barter animadverts, evidence that its views are not
fitted to produce the most elevated morality. In an address to
the inhabitants of Dublin and its vicinity, the Archbishop says,
"If, for instance, after devoutly attending Divine worship with
your family, you just turn into a shop to buy some trifling article,
you indeed may not feel that you are doing anything that inter-
feres with your own devout observance of the day; but you should
remember that the expectation of some such chance-customers
may induce the tradesman to remain all day in his shop, occupied
in his ordinary worldly affairs, and deprived of his best, and per-
haps only opportunity, of attending to the concerns of his soul."3
From a sentence in the Thoughts on the Sabbath, to which the
Address is appended, we learn the following fact relative to per-
sons known to the writer as entertaining his opinions on the ques-

1 Religious Condition of Christendom, pp. 479, 480.
2 Barter's Answer to Whately, p. 35.

$ Pp. 43, 44.

tion: "I have formerly hinted my suspicions, in an essay already before the public [On the Love of Truth], that some persons who do not really believe the Mosaic law relative to the Sabbath to be binding on Christians, yet think it right to encourage or tacitly connive at that belief from views of expediency, for fear of unsettling the minds of the common people. Indeed, I know, as a fact, respecting several persons, what is probably the case with many others, that they fully coincide with my views on the present question, though they judge it not advisable, at present at least, to come forward and avow their opinion."1

The influence of the unguarded expressions of Luther and others on the subject before us was very extensively, and has been also permanently, injurious to the interests of religion and morality. We have only to look to the Protestant countries of the Continent for the proof. "Their view about the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment as a Jewish ordinance," observes Fairbairn, "told most unfavourably upon the interests of religion on the Continent. There can be little doubt that this was the evil root from which chiefly sprung so soon afterwards such a mass of Sabbath desecration, and which has rendered it so difficult ever since to restore the day of God to its proper place in the feelings and observances of the people. . . . The evil, once begun, proceeded rapidly from bad to worse, till it scarcely left in many places so much as the form of religion. No doubt many other causes were at work in bringing about so disastrous a result, but much was certainly owing to the error under consideration. And it reads a solemn and impressive warning to both ministers and people, not only to resist to the utmost all encroachments upon the sanctity of the Lord's day, but also to beware of weakening any of the foundations on which the obligation to keep that day is made to rest ; and here, as well as in other things, to seek, with Leighton, that they may be saved from the errors of wise men, yea, and of good men.'" 2

There is another class of opinions which, without referring to our institution at all, operate against it, by fostering the supposition that religion is not the principal concern of man. The mere absence of religion from a publication which is constantly

1 Thoughts on the Sabbath, p. 1

2 Typology, vol. ii. pp. 475, 476

read, and the treatment of every topic as if there were nothing of importance beyond the present scene, have a most secularizing effect on the public mind. Robert Hall informs us that the evil effect of a perusal of Miss Edgeworth's writings, which are marked by "a universal and studied omission of religion," was experienced by him for weeks. We have been informed by a working man that he was obliged from the same cause to discontinue the reading of a popular miscellany which prides itself on its harmlessness and moral purity. If works of this cast tend to make their readers mere "men of the world who have their portion in this life," such a publication as Punch would deprive them of any little dignity which the other writers had left to their time-bounded existence. Even where there may be nothing profane or licentious in the literature of the day, its entirely worldly or frivolous character imparts its own impress to the mind of the reader.

And how much more prejudicial the influence of those numberless works which more avowedly or covertly seek to sap the foundations of all religion and morals! Of this class of publications it was stated, in 1847, that there was an annual issue of not less than 28,000,000. This would give an average weekly number of above 500,000, and supposing five readers to each, there must have been in that year upwards of two and a half millions of people under the perpetual operation of the fatal leaven. Let us conclude this part of our subject with the impressive words of Dr. Warren : "I can most conscientiously express my belief, that for a long time no periodical of note has been established in this country which has not disclosed the desire of its conductors to fit it for the purpose of innocent recreation and information to readers of both sexes, and of all ages and classes. It is a fact, however, stated with concern and reluctance, that there is a poisonous growth of libertine literature-if the last word be not indeed libelled by such a use of itdesigned for the lowest classes of society; supplied, moreover, to an extent scarcely equal to the demand for it, and which exists to an extent unfortunately little suspected. I know not how this dreadful evil is to be encountered, except by affording every possible encouragement, from every quarter, to the dissemination, in

1 Life, p. 174.

the cheapest practicable form, of wholesome and engaging literature. If poison be cheap, let its antidote be cheaper.” 1

REMEDIES FOR SABBATH DESECRATION.

We have nothing new to propose on this part of our subject. We are firmly convinced that the grand panacea for the ills of the world has been long ago discovered and prescribed, and that what is wanting is only its more general and earnest application. Be sides this chief remedy, there are others important in their place,· but even on these little room has been left for originality. As truth, however, needs to be often presented, we offer no apology for the following suggestions.

The preaching of the Word by the appointed servants of Christ is perhaps next to prayer the most important remedy for a desecrated Sabbath. This was the great instrument by which Christianity was established in the world. It was the chief means of the Reformation. It has done more than any other human agency for the conversion of the heathen in our own time. It is the glory of our land. It would enlighten and bless all nations were it wielded as extensively as there are human beings. It would still more elevate Christian countries were it more fully and earnestly employed. And we have only to examine the doctrines and spirit of the apostle Paul to know what the true and effectual preaching of the gospel is. His great subject was a crucified Saviour, and he preached well and successfully because he believed, felt, prayed. Let a philosopher who knew human nature well, and had observed much, be heard on the kind of preaching that does good. His remark has been quoted already, but deserves repetition. "Those," he says, "who preach faith, or in other words a pure mind, have always produced more popular virtue than those who preached good works, or the mere regulation of outward acts." It is not difficult to trace the connexion between right preaching and a sanctified Sabbath. Let a man hear and believe the Word of God, and he immediately feels the value and obligation of the Lord's day, as of every Christian ordinance. If a person live under a faithful ministry he learns more and more of the value and obliga1 Intellectual and Moral Development of the Present Age. By Samuel Warren, etc. p. 7.

tion of that institution. To what mainly does Great Britain owe a Sabbath to such an extent honoured by her people, and blessing them in return with temporal and spiritual good, but to the teachings of an evangelical ministry? Let it be the endeavour of all who wish well to their country to have such an instrumentality extended to every part of the land. It is a melancholy fact, as we have already seen, that there are multitudes who will not attend on Divine ordinances in the usual places of worship. In these circumstances let us remember the wise words of Dr. Chalmers, "The gospel is a message, not a thing for which the people will come to them, but a thing with which they must go to the people."

Another mode of diffusing sacred knowledge, and an important pioneer and auxiliary to the other, is realized in the labours of missionaries. And they would, we conceive, still more efficiently promote their object by being trained and sent forth as foreign agents are. It is delightful to think of what has been accomplished by those excellent men who are employed in the London City Mission, in inducing Sabbath observance and its associated practices. In the Reports of the Society it is mentioned that in the course of one year they prevailed on 1914 adults regularly to attend public worship; and, in the progress of another, persuaded 2736 to follow their example. They have, in thousands of instances, influenced persons to give up their secular work, and families to keep their shops shut on the Lord's day. These are only specimens of results of the same nature which annually attend their exertions. And yet a much larger field might be occupied if there were only more abundant pecuniary means. Is it not painful in the extreme to reflect that multitudes, by trampling on the laws of God in our large cities, are continually provoking His displeasure, spreading moral and physical disease, burdening society, and destroying themselves, when there are so many able to provide the means of healing, in the fountain, these waters of bitterness?

The less official style of personal appeal and remonstrance by individuals of any class of society is an important aid in the promotion of this cause. Many instances of the efficacy of this means might be adduced. We cite the following. The late ex