course.

And seeing that he is so, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.'

These considerations may teach a more judicious procedure than is sometimes practised with young persons. It is a vain attempt to try to keep them out of all temptation. You cannot do it. Temptations are too numerous and subtle for all your vigilance. And if you could, what would follow? That you would only have formed a negative and feeble character, which would probably take the first evil impression after your influence was withdrawn. And withdrawn it some day must be. Do not make temptations for them; but let them gradually be exposed to trials of their principles while there is the parental or friendly eye to watch, the parental or friendly hand to shield, and heart to care for them. The needless prolongation of authority, and an injudicious sternness towards excusable failings, have done the young at least as much harm as the opposite extreme of criminal indifference, or criminal indulgence. Watch over them, for you must render an account. But remember, that the best account you can render is, that you prepared them for the self-acquisition of that moral strength by which alone they can acquit themselves well of their own personal responsibility.

We should learn, too, the importance of every re. sistance to temptation, inasmuch as every resistance, if successful, augments our moral strength, and if unsuccessful, tends to its destruction. The clear and bright hopes of heaven which bless a vir

tuous old age are won, not by single efforts, but by repeated victories; the power of evil still diminishing; the power of resistance still increasing, till the individual was strong in faith giving glory to God. And thus may 'the trial of your faith,' including in that term every Christian grace, 'being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.'

It is only in the characters of the good that we behold, here, the genuine results of the plan of Divine Providence. The Scripture applies similar imagery to futurity. The trials of the righteous, the future punishments of the wicked, are both pictured by the fire which seems to destroy; but which really purifies. O, be such its influence; that thus the Lord who trieth the hearts may finally cleanse all hearts from every impurity, mould them into the likeness of his own moral image, fill them with the love of his own infinite excellence, and bless them with his own everlasting blessing.

SERMON XVIII.

SABBATICAL OBSERVANCES.

MARK ii. 27.

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

en.

It is true both in a literal and in a spiritual sense, that man on the earth has always looked up to heavHe has felt the need of a power above, for his guidance and protection, and desired to obey its will, that it might realize his expectations. He has always been ready to find, moreover, that this power manifested its will by positive injunctions, requiring external obedience: thus rendering it more easy and tangible than the moral duties which demand reflection and feeling; and giving him with more facility the consciousness of merit, and the assurance of recompence. The lesson has been learned on earth much oftener than it was ever taught from heaven; and while one set of positive institutions, imposed on one people for a limited duration, may claim a real divine authority, observances have been multiplied and perpetuated till they have often threatened to overwhelm a rational devotion and a beneficent morality beneath a monstrous pile of superstitions. And it has happened that the looking up to heaven,

in this sense, has not been unconnected with the results of literally gazing upon the material heavens. It is said, in the Mosaic theory of creation, that 'God made lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years.' And soon did men learn to apply this celestial machinery to the measurement of time. The sun guided them to the year, and the moon to the month. But other measurement was needed. Months were a good subdivision of the year, especially aided by the regularly returning seasons for an intermediate quantity; but days were too minute and numerous a subdivision of the month. An intermediate quantity was wanted there. And where was it found? Most probably in what till recent times was believed to be the number of the planets, and which was known in ancient Egypt. The days were clustered into sevens. The week became a measure of time, as common as the month, and the year. Man was still guided by the heavens. His natural science and his religious speculations went hand in hand. Seven was made a sacred number. Philosophy calculated by it; astrológy predicted by it; and superstition by it soothed or terrified. Over all the earth there were years, months, and weeks; and every where a superstition, which was growing darker and darker, working through them upon men's souls; till Moses was prompted of God to look back through the spiritual evil to the physical good, and to correct the one, and to improve and exalt the other into a spiritual good, by the institution of the Jewish Sabbath.

That was an era in the history of humanity. In the records of the ancient heathen world, we find the numbering of the days by sevens, and the supposed sacredness of the number seven; but we find no Sabbath. There was no weekly return of a day of purification for the polluted, of instruction for the ignorant, of festival for the torpid, and of rest for the weary. This law was given by Moses,' i. e., by the God from whom he had his mission. For the Sabbath was made for man, and not by man. It was a positive institution, founded on a physical fact, but most abundant in mental and moral blessings.

By the theory of a six days creation, and a divine rest on the seventh, the God of nature is identified with the God of Israel. We are taught the harmony

of the natural and the supernatural.

Of an in

They are inwoven as portions of one great plan. But of a patriarchal Sabbath there are no indications. stitution, there is no record anterior to Moses. Then, the appointment was part of a system. The Sabbath was a sign of the Jewish covenant. It indicated a dispensation of outward observance and positive obligation. It was needful for the Israelites thus to learn devotion, till ripened for the spirituality of Christian worship. It was needful thus to learn obedience, till matured for the perfect law of liberty, where morality is the application of the principle of benevolence. The mental improvement of a day must be voluntary; the abstinence from labor may be enforced. They had not only their weekly Sabbath, but their Sabbatical year. During that year the land was to remain untilled.

Both were symbols of