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lie upon her silent hearth. It is to such a being (and there are many whose existence is little more enlivened by mental or spiritual excitement) that the social prayer meeting becomes an object of intense and incalculable enjoyment, the communion of fellow Christians a living and lasting consolation, and the record of divine truth a source of vital interest and delight.

There are in the darkest and most degraded walks of life, coarse, blind votaries of mere animal gratification, outcasts from the pale of intellectual as well as moral fellowship, gross bodily creatures, who sink the character of man beneath the level of the brute-men whose haunts are the polluted habitations of guilt and shame, whose feelings are seared with the brand of public infamy, and whose souls are blasted with the contagion of lawless thoughts and despicable purposes, and passions uncontrolled. By such men the paths that lead to the house of prayer are more despised than the gates of hell, and rather than seek the pardon of an offended God, they impotently defy his power. But at the same time that they are boasting of their recklessness, and making an open parade of the impious prostitution of their

souls, the worm that dieth not has begun its irresistible operation upon their hearts, and the darkness and horror which surround them in their solitary hours assume a tenfold gloom. They hear of religion, and they hate the name; but with their hate is mingled a secret trust in its efficacy to remove the intolerable burden under which they groan. They scorn to join. the congregation of openly professing worshippers, though but to hear the nature of religion explained; but without implicating themselves, they can go forth into the open fields, to listen to, and mock the less authorized enthusiast, pouring his unpremeditated eloquence upon the wondering ears of thousands, who would not have listened to his voice elsewhere. And such are the means by which the hardened sinner is not unfrequently awakened from his gross and brutal sleep, the outcasts from society drawn back within the wholesome limitations of a decent life, and the reprobate reclaimed from the dangerous error of his ways.

Nor let the more enlightened Christian despise such humble means, whose chief merit is their unbounded extent, added to their adaptation to extreme cases, and whose efficacy, proved by the observation of every day, is a sufficient

warrant for their lawfulness.

With the too

frequent abuse of these means, poetry holds no connection; but it is their least recommendation to say, that poetry is intimately associated with their power to awaken the dormant energies of the mind, to penetrate the heart, and mingle with the affections, and to let in the glorious light of immortality upon the benighted soul.

Of all the public ordinances of our religion, that which appoints one day in seven for a season of rest, is perhaps the most productive of poetical association, and as such has ever been a favourite theme with the imaginative bard. In a world such as we inhabit, and with a bodily and mental conformation like ours, it is natural that rest should become (especially in advanced age) the object of our continual desire, and that regarding it superficially, as it appears to us in the midst of the cares and perplexities of ordinary life, we should learn to speak of it as our chief good; although it is probable that in a purer sphere, and endowed with renovated powers of action and perception, we should find that constant activity was more productive of enjoyment. Even here, the word rest is one of comparative significa

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tion, for those who have an opportunity of making the experiment become more weary of continued repose than of continued exertion. Still the pining of the heart is ever after some portion of natural and necessary rest, and the Sabbath, where it is regarded with right feelings, affords a beautiful and perfect exemplification of the provision made by our Heavenly Father, to meet the wants and the wishes of humanity.

Those pitiable beings whose mental existence is supported by a perpetual succession of excitements, are wholly incapable of conceiving what the Sabbath is to the mechanic, the labourer, or even to the man of business, whose heart is with his family, while his head and hands are occupied in the daily traffic of mercantile affairs. To such a man the Sabbath is indeed a day of refreshment, as well as rest a day in which he can listen to the prattle of his almost unknown children, and look into their opening minds, and cultivate a short-alas, too short acquaintance with the sources of domestic happiness-it is a day on which he can enter into the free unreserved companionship of his own fireside, and, feeling that he has a possession in the esteem and the

approbation of those around him, in the moral rights of man, in the institutions of religion, and in the heritage of an immortal creature, he aspires to a higher and more intellectual state of being than that absorbed in the continual pursuit of wealth. If then he loves the Sabbath, it is not merely because it relieves him from the necessity of laborious exertion, but because it makes him a wiser and a better man.

The mechanic has the same reason, and the same right to welcome this day. Indeed it seems to be the peculiar privilege of those who spend their intervening hours in toil and trouble, to appreciate the enjoyment of the Sabbath, so far as it affords them an interval of cessation from irksome cares. Rightly to enjoy, and fully to appreciate the value of the Sabbath, requires the association of a higher range of thought and feeling, such as religion alone can supply.

If in the busy town, and for those who tread the beaten paths of life, there is much to interest the heart in the recurrence of the Sabbath-in the chiming of innumerable bells at stated intervals of public worship, in the gathering of vast multitudes assembled for one common purpose, and that the holiest of which

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