lemn subjects, he seriously remarked, that even the most lively Christians, those whose hearts were really devoted to God, must be sensible of the dreadful disparity and disagreement which are frequently to be found between their words and their thoughts, their outward actions and their internal feelings. "Hence," said the good man, "there is not one commandment by which I feel myself more entirely condemned than the third; since scarcely an hour passes, and not one single occasion is set apart for devotion, in which I do not take the name of God in vain, and that in the most plain sense of the commandment. However," added he, cheerfully, "though condemned in every particular by the law, yet we are allowed to continue our journey through life under the influence of a sweet and encouraging assurance, that the price of our redemption has been fully paid by Him who could confidently say to his enemies, Which of you convinceth me of sin?"

Early the second day from their leaving L, Anna arrived at her beloved home; where, being confirmed in her views of what she considered to be the true nature of religion by all that she had observed among the professing part of the inhabitants of L, she immediately returned to her usual round of duties, and continues, we trust, to fulfil them, in the strength of Him who is our ever present helper in the time of need, with no greater mixture of human infirmity than is usually discoverable among sincere and upright Christians.

By our last account of Anna, we understand that she is become a wife and mother. But as her husband is a young man whom Mr. Williams employed to assist him when he perceived that his own strength was beginning to fail from his growing infirmities, she is not separated from her parents, and her venerable father has still the privilege of beholding the lovely effects of piety as evidenced by his daughter through all the various duties of domestic life.

The lady of the manor having concluded her history of Anna, finished the evening with prayer.

"O MOST holy Lord God, against whom we offend continually, and never more seriously than when we pollute thy worship by wandering and unholy thoughts, profaning

thy holy word and glorious name by our heartless and formal usages; pardon, we beseech thee, our past offences of this nature for His sake who shed his blood upon the cross for us miserable sinners. And through thine infinite mercy, and according to the purposes of thy redeeming love, pour out upon us the influences of thy Holy Spirit in such a measure that the love of God may be so effectually shed abroad in our hearts, that our services may henceforward cease to be mere formal and hypocritical observances; and that, for the time to come, our delight may be only in thee, who art the fountain of all blessedness, and the giver of all good.

"We are condemned, O Lord, by all and each of thy holy commandments, and our offences are without number and past all calculation. Our best duties, our religious observances, our penitence, and our prayers, stand in especial need of atonement. What, then, might be recorded against us with relation to our more careless hours! Nothing then remains for us but to take up the language of the prodigal and say-Father, we have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and are no more worthy to be called thy children!' Nevertheless, we are not left without an encouraging hope: for though we have been led by the divine mercy to know and feel something of our utter depravity, yet we are favoured with an abiding confidence and growing assurance, that our salvation has been wrought out by one in whom is no sin, and whose merits, when laid in the balance, not only abundantly outweigh our offences, but render them, in comparison, even lighter than the dust of the balance.

"Our trust, then, O God, is in thee, who hast made us truly willing to cast away the rags of our own righteousness. We confess, O Lord, that we are vile, exceeding vile; that we have worked out our own destruction; and that we are utterly corrupt and abominable. But, we beseech thee, O Lord, remember thy words unto thy servants. Let Christ be formed in us the hope of glory; and may we at last be counted worthy, through him, to enter into that rest which has been prepared from the beginning of time for all those who have washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world."

CHAPTER XVI.

Fourth Commandment.-Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-Day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy Son, and thy Daughter, thy Man-Servant, and thy Maid-Servant, thy Cattle, and the Stranger that is within thy Gates. For in six Days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, the Sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh Day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh Day, and hallowed it.

WHEN the lady of the manor found herself once more surrounded by her dear young people, she looked smilingly around her and said, "I am now about to carry you, my beloved young friends, into a new world; very earnestly desiring to excite in your minds that ambition, which, with the divine blessing, may raise you above the mean and contemptible distinctions of this present life.”

The lady then observing, that the fourth commandment was to supply the subject of their present day's conversation, requested one of the young ladies to repeat it; which being done, she proceeded to the following purpose:—“I felt, my dear young people, that our last discourse detained us too long upon earthly ground, and gave us many distressing views of the folly of man. But it will not be the fault of our present subject, if we are not now raised, as it were, into the third heaven, and brought into the immediate presence of the Lamb of God, surrounded with the multitude of the redeemed, who, clothed with white robes, and having palms in their hands, continually cry, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth!"

·

The lady then proceeded to remark, that the Holy Scriptures contained a number of notices of events and successions of events, which were to take place in the course of time, though not without bearing some reference to the state of man in eternity. "Some of these notices," continued she, “are contained in the words of prophecy, and require no corresponding act on the part of man; while others are veiled under some peculiar ceremony or form, to be continually observed until the completion of the events of which they were the appointed forerunners; as, for example, the lamb slain at the passover foreshoweth the death of Christ, and therefore the feast of the passover was commanded to be annually commemorated until the event of which it was the type should take place. In the same manner, the institution of the Sabbath is a type of certain events which will not be fully completed until the consummation of all things; though I consider, that the obligations of the old Sabbath are now wholly referred, and that, probably, by divine appointment, to the Lord's day; which day must be no otherwise confounded with the Sabbath than thus far-that this day being also a type of rest, it is obligatory upon Christians to rest from their weekly labour upon the Lord's-day, in the same manner as the Israelites rested formerly on their Sabbath."

The lady of the manor was interrupted in this place by one of the young people, who observed that she was somewhat surprised at the distinction which had just been pointed out between the old Sabbath and the Lord's day, saying, that she had always considered these two days as the same with respect to the duties which they required, and the events of which they were the types.

"These days," replied the lady of the manor, "are both types or emblems of the rest of the people of God when delivered from the power of sin and death: and, as such, it is required of the children of the Holy One that they keep the second of these days in the same manner as the first was kept among the Israelites; that is, by resting from the labours of the ordinary days of the week, and devoting this rest to the service of God, as we are directed to do in the fourth commandment. But, notwithstanding that I have granted all this, about which I believe all Christians are agreed, yet I am persuaded, from the tenor of Scripture,

that the old Sabbath and the Lord's day are types and symbols of different future events, and consequently are not to be counted as one and the same institution; but though similar in the obligations they hold out, yet varying in their nature, and not to be confounded when considered with a view to prophecy."

The young ladies acknowledged in this place that they did not comprehend what their excellent instructress was aiming at. On which she smiled, confessed that she had, perhaps, begun at the wrong end of the subject, and said, that she would endeavour to state her opinions in a plainer form. "You all understand, my dear children," said the lady of the manor, "the original institution of the Sabbath, as explained in the fourth commandment. In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested from his work which he had made: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.' In these seven days, we find, according to several of our pious commentators, the type or emblem of the duration of the present world, which, it is generally supposed, will continue seven thousand years: six thousand of these being decreed to be spent under the bondage of sin and Satan; and the last, under that more blessed order of things when Christ shall reign on the earth, and rest shall be given, not only to the people of God, but to the whole frame of nature. Hence we find in the seventh day not only a commemoration of the creation of the world, but a lively emblem, budding and blossoming as a rose in the wilderness, of the future kingdom of Christ on earth; in which idea I am confirmed by the Apostle, where he speaks of the Sabbath as a shadow of things to come. (Col. ii. 16, 17.) This emblem was frequently repeated to the Israelites under the Mosaic law, by the observances which were enjoined those people on the seventh month of every year, and by the appointment of the sabbatical year at the expiration of seven years, during which period the land was to rest and remain without culture-Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. (Lev. xxv. 3, 4.)

"The institution of this sabbatical year," continued the