have any reasonable doubt, that in that time you could prepare to meet God, and could lay a good foundation for eternal life? I think that no one could reasonably doubt that in that period, by careful study and prayer, he could settle the inquiry to his own satisfaction about the life to come. And yet the Sabbaths distributed through the weeks of the year would furnish just as much time for this as in the case supposed, and would have greater advantages, with reference to this end, than if taken as continuous time from any one portion of the year. And can you have any reasonable doubt, that if you had given your minds to a careful preparation for heaven, during the Sabbaths of this whole year, with such attention as you might have bestowed on the subject on the other days of the week, without interfering with your worldly business in any way, you might have been this day a true Christian-a child of God -an heir of heaven?

It

These thoughts will have additional impressiveness if we consider a second circumstance the place of the Sabbath-the manner in which your Sabbaths have been scattered along among the other days of the year. is easy to conceive, on the supposition that God had intended to set apart such a portion of time as one-seventh to be kept holy, that that period might have been taken as a continuous period, either at the end of the year, to reflect on the past, and to gather up the lessons SO many successive days might have suggested to the mind, and to rest after so long uninterrupted labour; or at the beginning of the year, to prepare man for so long a period of unbroken toil. One ignorant of what

which

man is, and man wants, or one unskilled as to the actual working of any such system, would have done this, as Mohammed designated an entire month to be observed as a month of fasting-with infinite inconvenience to all who attempt to observe it. But the Divine arrangement has been different, and is characterised by wisdom and benevolence.

Now, this arrangement has been continued along in our journey of life through another year. No man's business has been injuriously broken in upon; no court has been adjourned with detriment to the interests of justice; no student has suspended his studies with damage to himself; no mechanic has closed his place of business with any loss to his customers or to himself; and no man has been laid by for tedious successive weeks on his journey. No farm has remained unploughed when it was desirable to plant or sow, and no harvest has rotted in the fields because the farmer felt himself bound to keep a long period of holy time. Yet the year has been interrupted so as to comprise this whole period of fifty-two entire days. Fifty-two times the affairs of the world have been suspended by common consent all around you, to remind you that there is a God; that there is another world; that there is a place of perfect cessation from toil; and that man has higher interests than those which pertain to the present life. Fifty-two times all the courts have been suspended; the stores have been closed; the exercises in colleges and schools have been arrested; the apprentice has been released from toil; and the hired labourer has ceased to be bound by his contract to work. Fifty-two times the

axe of the woodman has ceased to be heard, and the noise of the spindle and the loom has died away, and the plough has been left standing in the furrow. Fifty-two times during the year, you have been solicited to take up your Bible, and to search diligently after truth; fifty-two days have you been invited to the sanctuary; through fiftytwo days you have had nothing else to do but to prepare for heaven.

These thoughts may be more deeply impressed on the mind if we consider for a moment the design for which this day has been set apart. Its great purpose can be easily understoodcan not well be mistaken. It is based on these truths: (a) That man has other and higher interests than those which pertain to this life. Who can doubt this? Who can doubt that those interests demand the careful attention of man? Yes, there are other ends for which to live than gain, and pleasure, and honour. We are all made for other purposes than these. These must be the smallest things pertaining to our welfare as creatures travelling to eternity. (b) That it is desirable to make the heart better and holier. The Sabbath pertains primarily to the heart. The intellect, the world, the wharf, the exchange, the "shop," the courts, the money-tables

- these have enough of our time through the week. It is well to devote one day to the heart, to the temper, to the affections, to self-government, to the entire contemplation of higher realities, to the enlargement and the purifying of the domestic affections, to the subjugation of evil passions. All that tends to make the heart better, and the world happier, is appropriate to the Sabbath. All that will make me less covetous, or less envious,

or less irascible, or less ambitious, or less sensual, or less hardhearted to the calls of sacred charity; and all that I can do to make my neighbour more cheerful, if sad and in affliction, or to give light to the ignorant, or peace to the dying, is appropriate to the Sabbath. All these things are well at other times, and they should not be neglected; but in a world like this it is worth the cost of one whole day in every seven-estimate its value as you will by dollars and cents-to make the heart better, and to promote the happiness of the world. (c) And the Sabbath is given for these ends; for it was made for man." It was given for this purpose under every advantage-scattered along at reasonable and convenient intervals in life; when the affairs of the world are suspended; when all is calm around you, and invites to reflection; when the hours of the day are set apart by law and by custom for this purpose; and when you are sure that such an appropriation of these hours would meet with the approbation of God, and with your own approbation when you come to review life from the bed of death. And, (d), again, it is given for no other purpose, and you have no right to employ it for any other purpose, for God commanded, saying: "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Gain, and traffic, and study, and travel, and personal business, except for purposes of necessity and mercy, are a violation. of the law of God; for He who said "thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother," said also, "remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day." Fifty-two times that command has

been laid across the path of the worldly, and the vain, and the gay, during the past year, and as many times you have been reminded that God claimed that that time should be devoted to Him.

II. These days are ending. Let us dwell a few moments on the fact that these days are closing, and in view of that ask, in this impressive moment, how they have been spent.

To some these Sabbaths have been among the most pleasant parts of their lives. The happiest moments of the year have been on this holy day; the hours which the mind would desire should be the last that should fade from the memory, if a time should come when that mind was to forget all things, would be those precious hours. The influences upon the heart most desirable to be retained, have been those which have proceeded from the observance of this day of holy rest, and the principal sorrow in the recollection of the departed days of the year is, that those holy seasons are past-a sorrow, however, which finds alleviation as the sorrow for no other departed joys does-in the assurance that if life is prolonged that joy will certainly be renewed again; or, if life should be soon arrested, that they have been but the foretaste of the joys of the eternal Sabbath.

But is this so with all persons? Is it so with all who are professing Christians? Have we who bear the Christian name, made as much of the Sabbaths of this year as we might have done for our own improvement, for our growth in grace, for prayer, for the study of the Word of God, in doing good in our families and in the world? Are there not solemn records

against us for wasted hours, and for neglected duties, and for a bad example, and for unprofitable reading and conversation? Are there no records against us for what our Master regards as violations of that day; for pursuits of worldliness and sin?

But let me seriously ask of those who are not professing Christians, to recall now the manner in which you have spent the Sabbaths of the year, and especially in view of the thoughts which I have suggested as to its design -the fact that so large a portion of the year has been separated from other time by the law of God, and the customs of the community; that that time so separated has been distributed along through the year, in a manner best adapted to promote the end of the institution, and to produce the happiest effects on your own minds; and that the design of the day has been to make the heart better, and to prepare for another state of being. The fair question now is, whether these designs and ends have been accomplished? Or, which is the same thing, whether you can suppose, that God would designate such a day with a view to your accomplishing those things in which you have been engaged during the Sabbaths of the year? What the employment of these portions of the year has been, you best know yourselves, and whether the recollection of the manner in which you have spent the sacred hours be that which is best fitted to give peace, on a review of life, you best can tell. If the business of the world has been pursued with as much zest and greediness on that day as on any other; if you have pursued your journeys without even pausing to show outward respect for the day; if the affairs of the world

have been only nominally suspended, while your heart has been in it, and you have been forming plans of worldliness still; if you have secretly stolen into your counting-rooms to write your letters; if you have prosecuted your professional studies, or have only laid aside your professional books to read those of a lighter and more attractive kind; if it has been a day to do up the small business of the week; if it has been a day of amusement, in which, relieved from toil, you have sought mere relaxation; if it has been a day of almost insupportable tediousness because you have no love for its appropriate employments, and you have been constrained to show an outward

respect for it; if you have habitually and deliberately neglected your Bible, and offered no prayer on that day; or if, instead of improving its hours to make your heart better, you have only abused them to make it worse- then, doubtless, you can recall all these things to-day, and this is a proper hour to judge whether that has been the wisest and the best method of spending these fifty-two days. They are gone. They cannot now be recalled. But you can ask yourself whether these days were not designed for other and holier objects than these, and whether they might not have been spent in a manner better adapted to promote the great ends of human life.

It is a commemorative festival. And the event, the great and wondrous event that we celebrate, is the sacrificial, atoning, redeeming death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Through His blood we are pardoned, justified, and saved. And we are gathered together, in solemn convocation, to perpetuate the memory of His death by a public act, appointed and enjoined by Himself for the purpose. "The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." And the Apostle Paul adds: "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."

This is also a communion festivala feast of participation-a fellowship. We are here, not as uninterested parties in what we behold, but as receivers

of the grace so clearly and so fully revealed. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread."

We have fellowship with Him whose death we celebrate. He speaks; we hear. He teaches; we learn. He scatters; we gather. He draws; we are allured. His heart beats towards us with throbbing affection; we both feel and respond to the pulsations. As we look up to Him, He looks down upon us; and as eye catches eye, thought mingles with thought, and the dewdrop of His love coalescing with the tear of our penitence and gratitude, we are conscious of a oneness with Him closer in itself, and more blessed in its consequences, than we can describe. We have fellowship with our Lord in His sufferings. Entering into their nature, design, and perfect adaptation to our wants, the atonement, with its objective purposes and results, becomes life and light, hope and peace, purity and joy to our souls. Revealed fact is now realized blessedness. Reconciliation to God, peace with God, nearness to God, rest in God, delight in God, obedience to God, the surrender of all we have and are to God—this, all this, is experimental fact.

"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross we spend;
Life, and health, and peace possessing,
From the sinner's dying friend."