mand of God. The voice of God still speaks in the promises and threatenings of his holy word. Still may we listen to the encouraging words, "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord . . . for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." The service of God is, indeed, perfect freedom. Our Lord Himself condemns the severity and superstition of the Jewish Sabbathkeepers; but profanations of the day have been sometimes defended on the ground of his answer to the Pharisees when He restored the withered hand on the Sabbath Day. If, however, it has been ordained as a day of public worship for all classes, it must be one of leisure and abstraction from worldly occupations and amusements. Our Lord declares, indeed, that it is "lawful to do well on the Sabbath Day." But to make it a day of premeditated conviviality, to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, this surely is doing evil. To impose on servants or cattle, for some paltry consideration of pleasure, the same unremitting toil that falls to their lot during the six days of the week, thus excluding them from the means of grace,—this surely is not doing well; for the importance of public worship and the benefits arising from it have been universally acknowledged. In many cases, were it not for the instructions of the Church, those of the poor whose lot it is to rise up early and eat the bread of carefulness, might remain involved in ignorance. Their hours of leisure are few, their means of instruction extremely limited. It is, in some cases, only in the temple of the Lord that they become acquainted with the duties they owe to God, and to their neighbour, and themselves-all the evils that arise from thus employing those that labour in some callings are included in the permission of those kind of amusements which many now seek to have sanctioned on the Sabbath, besides all that are incurred by those who partake in such amusements. They must dissipate the thoughts entirely from serious reflection and religious instruction

in reading or any other way. They interfere with time for public worship, and even in any instance in which it might be contrived to bring it in amongst them, there could be little profit in it to the minds of those hasting to or from such scenes. In considering the degree of liberty or recreation allowable on the Sabbath, a distinction appears proper to be made between the circumstances of different ranks: our gracious God intended it for a day of rest and comfort, bodily and spiritual; and if some have no other day on which they can enjoy the pleasure of pure air and exercise amongst the pure light and cheerful objects of nature, formed by their gracious Creator for the use and pleasure of man, open to them in every lane and field, or any other opportunity of seeing relations and friends who they can meet on no other day, surely it is fulfilling one of the beneficent purposes for which it was intended for such to employ a part of the day in such employments, but not so as to prevent their attendance in God's house. On the other hand, to those who have leisure and power to enjoy recreation and social intercourse on every other day, it is most incumbent on them to preserve the difference of the Sabbath from all other days by avoiding all those occupations which would interfere with that which is properly the business of the day. One argument for the endeavours that have been lately making to establish places of public resort on the Sabbath, is the recreation and benefit they might afford to the hard-working and labouring man; but if the matter is carefully considered, it will be found that they are much more of an injury to him. They involve fatigue and expense, or both, to him in going to them, and expense also to the wasting of his week's earnings in procuring necessary refreshment, besides the temptation to intemperance in the places to which he has to resort to obtain it, and in which the young persons concerned may incur much risk from these temptations and the bad company into which they may be there led. It has been said these evils may be avoided by the poor, by bringing a little provision with them, of which they can partake without expense or contact with others; but will they in many cases so avoid

it? and if they did, this is troublesome, and a very wasteful proceeding in the provisions of a poor family. It is greatly to be hoped that this precedent which would tend to other and to more exceptionable practices, will not receive any sanction that would render it a national sin, and abrogate the laws and rules which have hitherto rendered our land distinguished for the sacred observance of the Sabbath.-Sent by a Correspondent.

A TRACT FOR SOLDIERS.

THE following passage is taken from "A Tract for Soldiers." We are told, on good authority, that the tract was sent to the late Duke of Wellington during the last week of his life, and that he read it, and expressed himself pleased with it.

"The soldiers demanded, And what shall we do?" LOSE NO TIME IN 66 FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH, AND LAYING HOLD ON ETERNAL LIFE.

It is a striking figure which the Bible employs, and which none can understand better than you, when mankind are represented as an army lying slumbering on the field of battle, and the Gospel clarion sounds in their ears, calling them to march: "It is high time to awake out of sleep . . . the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us cast off the unfruitful works of darkness, and be clothed with the armour of light!"

If it becomes us all to be alive to the urgency of the question of our Eternity, it surely more especially becomes the Soldier to make it a matter of instant and immediate urgency. There are many things which combine to make the present time with you of vast value. Postponement, in the case of all, is perilous. It is specially so with you. Your opportunities are less permanent than others. Your lives are more precarious. It is true, the trumpet of peace may now be hanging mute in the hall; the thunders of battle are hushed; but who can predict how speedily the spell may be broken? The world is in that state of unquiet fretfulness, that, in a moment, without a note of warning, the slumbering volcano may burst forth, and you may be summoned to

a new, and, it may be, a fatal battle-field, when selfreproach will be in vain that you had not availed yourself of the years of peaceful repose to make up your peace with God!

Oh! how blessed if you were to be now living in that state of holy preparedness, that "battle, and murder, and sudden death" would never overtake you too soon!

I can tell you, that even the quiet death-bed of the peasant, which I have often seen, with nothing to disturb, but every thing that human sympathy can do to alleviate his dying moments, that is not the time to prepare for eternity. How much less, then, can the din of a martial camp, and amid the fever and excitement of preparations for battle, attune your mind for an awfully sudden and solemn meeting with your God! I conjure you now to flee to Jesus Christ, your only Saviour-to repose in the preciousness of that blessed verse, which contains a whole Gospel, "He is able to save unto the uttermost.” He has already saved multitudes. Reader, He is able,

He is willing to save you.

Who that has ever travelled through the forest of Soignies, on their way to visit the field of Waterloo, could refrain a tear as they thought of the brave hearts (which a great Poet so touchingly describes) who once passed through at early dawn, and were at evening "trodden like the grass?" As we listen to the tramp of these mustering squadrons, we never can doubt of the valour and indomitable courage which beat in many a doomed heart. But may we not well imagine, that there were not a few there who felt that they could, with bolder hearts still, have ventured on the awful doings of that day, if they had been prepared to meet their God, and been ready to pass from the perishable laurels of an earthly battle-field, to "the crown of glory which fadeth not away?" To the Christian visiting that great field, or reading the English epitaphs in the church close by, I verily believe it is not the thought of the terrible carnage that rises with most appalling power before him, but the thousands who rushed unprepared and unmeet to the bar of God.

Reader, neither you nor I can tell what your destiny may be. Your death-bed may be the field of conflict, amid mounds of uncoffined warriors; or it may be in times and circumstances of peace, carried with the beat of the muffled drum, and with reversed arms, to a home churchyard. I know not a more solemn or imposing spectacle in our towns than a soldier's funeral; and it is a wise regulation, that all honour should be done to the memory of departed comrades. But in following the slow and measured tramp of that procession, listening to the shrill and mournful fife notes, and the death-like roll of the drums; or standing by the grave's mouth, and listening to the last tribute the brave can offer to the brave, how is the question all the while pressed on the bystander, "What of that man's soul?" Oh! what a solemn mockery all that imposing parade would be to the immortal spirit that has passed from a misspent time, to an undone and neglected eternity!

My friend, whether such a funeral procession may one day be yours, I cannot tell; but this I know, that you are included in that universal doom, "It is appointed unto all men once to die." If die you must, I ask you, Are you ready? It is the family motto of one of the greatest living soldiers, and it would form a good motto for every Christian soldier who is "fighting the battles of the faith," and looking forward to encounter the last enemy, the King of terrors,-"Ready! aye ready!" It was the motto of the Apostle Paul, "I am now ready." Reader, is it yours? You know what would be the consequence, if, as a sentinel, you were found unwatchful at your post? What, if, when your Lord comes, you should be found off your guard, "slumbering and sleeping?" I am writing solemn truths to you. You may think I am speaking too plain. But this I cannot do. I remember a Bible verse, which a soldier will best understand, "If the trumpet give forth an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle?" I cannot sound the trumpet of warning so as to give forth a doubtful sound; so as to lead you to sleep in the camp of sin, and perish with salvation in your offer. It is, indeed, with trembling heart I sound the trumpet; for if you