a

ch

. repressed, every angry emotion softened, every envious or revengeful or malignant passion expelled; and the bosom thus quieted, purified, enlarged, ennobled, partaking almost of a measure of the Heavenly happiness, and become for a while the seat of love, and joy, and confidence, and harmony.

The nature, and uses, and proper employments of a Christian Sabbath, have been pointed out more particularly, not only because the day will be found, when thus employed, eminently conducive, through the Divine blessing, to the maintenance of the religious principle in activity and vigour; but also because we all must have had occasion often to remark, that many persons, of the graver and more decent sort, seem not -seldom to be nearly destitute of religious resources. The Sunday is with them, to say the best of it, a heavy day; and that larger part of it, which is not claimed by the public offices of the Church, dully drawls on in comfortless vacuity, or without improve* ment is trifled away in vain and unprofitable discourse. Not to speak of those who by their more daring profanation of this sacred season, openly violate the laws and insult the Religion of their country how little do many seem to enter into the spirit of the institution, who are not wholly inattentive to its exterior decorums! How glad are they to qualify the rigour of their religious labours! How hardly do they plead against being compelled to devote the whole of the day to Religion, claiming to themselves no small merit for giving up to it a part, and purchasing therefore, as they hope, a right to spend the remainder more agreeably! How dexterously do they avail themselves of any plausible plea for introducing some week-day employment into the Sunday, whilst they have not the same propensity to introduce any of the Sunday's peculiar employment into the rest of the week! How often do they find excuses for taking journeys, writing letters, balancing accounts; or in short doing something, which by a little management

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might probably have been anticipated, or which without any material inconvenience, might be postponed! Even business itself is recreation, compared with Religion; and from the drudgery of this day of Sacred Rest they fly for relief to their ordinary occupations.

Others again who would consider business as a profanation, and who still hold out against the encroachments of the card-table, get over much of the day, and gladly seek for an innocent resource, in the social circle, or in family visits, where it is not even pretended that the conversation turns on such topics as might render it in any way conducive to religious instruction or improvement. Their families meanwhile are neglected, their servants robbed of Christian privileges, and their example quoted by others, who cannot see that they are themselves less religiously employed, while playing an innocent game at cards, or relaxing in the concert room.

But all these several artifices, whatever they may be, to unhallow the Sunday and to change its character it might be almost said “ to mitigate its horrors,”) prove but too plainly, that Religion, however we may be glad to take refuge in it, when driven to it by the loss of every other comfort, and to retain as it were a reversionary interest in an asylum, which may receive us when we are forced from the transitory enjoyments of our present state, wears to us in itself a gloomy and forbidden aspect, and not a face of consolation and joy; that the worship of God is with us a constrained and not a willing service, which we are glad therefore to abridge, though we dare not omit it.

Some indeed there are who with concern and grief will confess this to be their uncomfortable and melancholy state; who humbly pray, and diligently

; endeavour, for an imagination less distracted at devotional seasons, for a heart more capable of relishing the excellence of divine things: and who carefully guard against whatever has a tendency to chain down their affections to earthly enjoyments. Let

not such be discouraged. It is not they whom we are condemning, but such as knowing and even acknowledging this to be their case, yet proceed in a way directly contrary: who, scarcely seeming to suspect that any thing is wrong with them, voluntarily acquiesce in a state of mind which is directly contrary to the positive commands of God, which forms a perfect contrast to the representations given us in Scripture of the Christian character, and accords but too faithfully in one leading feature with the character of those, who are stated to be the objects of Divine displeasure in this life, and of Divine punishment in the next.

noticed.

It is not, however, only in these essential constituents of a devotional frame that the bulk of no

minal Christians are defective. This they Other internal defects freely declare (secretly feeling perhaps

some complacency from the frankness of the avowal) to be a higher strain of piety than that to which they aspire. Their forgetfulness also of some of the leading dispositions of Christianity, is undeniably apparent in their allowed want of the spirit of kindness, and meekness, and gentleness, and patience, and long-suffering; and, above all, of thắt which is the stock on which alone these dispositions can grow and flourish, that humility and lowliness of mind, in which perhaps more than in any other quality may be said to consist the true essence and vital principle of the Christian temper. These dispositions are not only neglected, but even disavowed and exploded, and their opposites, if not rising to any great height, are acknowledged and applauded. A just pride, a proper and becoming pride, are terms which we daily hear from Christian lips. To possess - a high spirit, to behave with a proper spirit when used ill, -by which is meant a quick feeling of injuries, and a promptness in resenting them,-entitles to commendation; and a meek-spirited disposition, the highest Scripture eulogium, expresses ideas of

disapprobation

disapprobation and contempt. Vanity and vain glory are suffered without interruption to retain their natural possession of the heart. But here a topic opens upon us of such importance, and on which so many mistakes are to be found both in the writings of respectable authors, and in the commonly prevailing opinions of the world, that it may be allowed us to discuss it more at large, and for this purpose to treat of it in a separate section.

SECT. III.

On the Desire of human Estimation and Applause

- The generally prevailing Opinions contrasted with those of the true Christian.

THE desire of human estimation, and distinction, and honour of the admiration and applause of our fellow-creatures, if we take it in its full

Universality comprehension, and in all its various mo- of the pasdifications, from the thirst of glory to sions. the dread of shame, is the passion of which the empire is by far the most general, and perhaps the authority the most commanding. Though its power be most conspicuous and least controllable in the higher classes of society, it seems, like some resistless conqueror, to spare neither age nor sex, nor condition: and taking ten thousand shapes, insinuating itself under the most specious pretexts, and sheltering itself when necessary under the most artful disguises, it winds its way in secret, when it dares not openly avow itself, and mixes in all we think, and speak, and do. It is in some instances the determined and declared pursuit, and confessedly the main practical principle; but where this is not the case, it is not seldom the grand spring of action, and in the Beauty and the Author, no less than in the Soldier, it is often the master passion of the soul.

This is the principle which parents recognize with joy in their infant offspring, which is diligently

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instilled

notions asserted,

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instilled and nurtured in advancing years, which, under the names of honourable ambition and of laudable emulation, it is the professed aim of schools and colleges to excite and cherish. The writer is well aware that it will be thought he is pushing his opinions much too far, when he ventures to assail The common

this great principle of human action: "a

principle,” its advocates might perhaps

exclaim so the extinction of which, if you could succeed in your rash attempt, would

be like the annihilation in the material world " of the principle of motion; without it all were torpid, and cold and comfortless. We grant,” they might go on to observe,

“ that we never ought to deviate from the paths of duty in order " to procure the applause or to avoid the reproaches “ of men, and we allow that this is a rule too little “attended to in practice. We grant that the love “ of praise is in some instances a ridiculous, and in “ others a mischievous passion; that to it we owe “ the breed of coquettes and coxcombs, and,

more serious evil, the noxious race of heroes " and conquerors.

We too are ready, when it appears in the shape of vanity, to smile at it as "a foible, or in that of false glory, to condemn it as

a crime. But all these are only its perversions;

and on account of them to contend against its “ true forms, and its legitimate exercise, were to

give into the very error which you formerly your“ self condemned, of arguing against the use of " a salutary principle altogether on account of its

being liable to occasional abuse. When turned “ into the right direction, and applied to its true purposes, it prompts to every dignified and

generous enterprise. It is erudition in the portico, “ skill in the lycæum, eloquence in the senate, vic

tory in the field. It forces indolence into activity, " and extorts from vice itself the deeds of

generosity and virtue. When once the soul is warmed by its generous ardor, no difficulties deter, no

dangers

a

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