No care, no sorrow, there restrain, The soul has left sin's galling chain; And, dazzled by the burst of light, Gazes around in awed delight.

A nobler theme her harp employs, Than aught that wakens angels' joys: Redeeming love calls forth her lays; Eternity's employed in praise.

LETTER VI.

SABBATH EMPLOYMENTS.

DID you ever, my dear young friend, read Dr. Chalmers's sermon on the Christian Sabbath, the tenth in his volume of Sermons, preached at St. John's Church, Glasgow? It is a brief, strong, and convincing treatise on the perpetuity of the sabbath law, the obligation to observe it, and the blessedness attending its observance.-And in Mr. Wilberforce's invaluable work, the Practical View,' (a work well worthy of your diligent perusal,) you will find chap. IV. sect. 2. some very beautiful remarks on the spirit and temper in which this blessed day should be kept. No individual, who ever had the privilege of spending a sabbath under the roof of that distinguished individual and eminent Christian, can possibly peruse those remarks without

feeling how strikingly they were exemplified in the sabbath practice of the writer.

Yet one thing should be deeply impressed on your mind and heart. There may be a certain outward frigid observance of the law of God, a degree of reverence expressed and professed towards it, while the heart is cold and uninfluenced.-The sabbath may be fenced off by certain rules for observance; a high wall may, as it were, be built around it to separate it from the other days of the week; and yet, within that wall, the cheering influences of the Sun of righteousness, his heart-kindling, vivifying beams may never be felt.

I need hardly say, that I cannot rest satisfied for you with anything short of real, inward, spiritual, heart Christianity.-The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a cold, didactic set of precepts, which—

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Play round the head, but come not near the heart;"

its force is not in the letter but in the spirit,' and for the words of Christ to become spirit, they must penetrate into the soul.-There, they are indeed spirit and life; a new principle is given, a new tone of action is infused, "old things have passed away, behold all things have become new."

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The observance of the sabbath forms a criterion as to the reality of the life within, and the energy of its working. When we are really in earnest for the cause of the Lord, the question will no longer be how far we may entrench upon his holy day for our own pleasure. It will be how we may best secure it from entrenchment, and barricade it against ingression. It will not be how we may most agreeably employ the hours of the sabbath. The principle, the feeling is altogether changed. Our highest enjoyment we feel to be communion with God in Christ; we welcome the return of the day set apart for his service, in the blessed hope, the certain expectation of enjoying closer and nearer and dearer communion with him; less fettered by worldly cares, less interrupted by worldly occupations. It is very true that we do not seek our own pleasure on God's holy day,' for the Christian lives not to himself and seeks not his own, but it is a blessed truth, a truth stamped and sealed by the experience of thousands of God's dear children, that in making the service of Christ our end and aim, we obtain an unsought happiness, richer and deeper and fuller than ever illumined the brightest dreams of him whose hopes are bounded by an earthly horizon.

The sweet happiness of a Christian sabbath, the rest of faith, the ardour of hope, the calm enjoyment of love," the peace of God that passeth all understanding," the quiet recumbency of the soul on Christ while praising for the past, and praying for the future, are realities, and realities as far beyond the best enjoyment of the worldling, as substantial, solid, day-light bliss exceeds a dark, fitful, interrupted, feverish dream.

I cannot bring myself to write on such a subject in the didactic coldness of minute advice. I would rather turn to principles. I would wish you to have a reverence for the sabbath, from a sense of duty; it is the command of God, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." And I would earnestly desire that you should have a love for the sabbath from a sense of the blessedness of keeping it, the high enjoyment connected with its observance, and the blessings that flow to the soul from communion with our Maker and Saviour. When the "Son of Man" is acknowledged as "Lord of the Sabbath," when the day of rest is recognized as peculiarly" the Lord's day," then the constraining love of Christ will be felt, that love without which we may impose on ourselves and others, by a cold