a principle which learned men have taught, respect ing works proper to be done on the Sabbath. It agrees with what I have told you this evening. I hope you will commit it to memory. "We may, on the Sabbath, do those works of charity and mercy which we could not do before the Sabbath, and which cannot be put off till the end of the Sabbath without showing a want of mercy and benevolence."

EVENING XIII.

MOTIVES FOR KEEPING THE SABBATH.

Mrs. M. We will converse to-night, my children, about the MOTIVES which should lead us to keep

the Sabbath.

And, George, what is the best reason you can think of for doing any thing?

George. Why, mother, I can think of no better reason for doing any thing than the command of Gol. I suppose there can be no better reason for doing any thing, than that God commands it; or for not doing any thing, than that he forbids it.

Mrs. M. Then we have the best of all reasons for keeping the Sabbath holy; for we have seen, in these conversations, again and again, that God commands all men, wherever the Bible comes, to remember the Sabbath-day, and to rest from all their labor.

Can you think of any other reason, George, for keeping the Sabbath?

George. I do not think any other reason is necessary if men felt as they ought; but I suppose, if they can see that what God commands them is for their good, they may obey, sometimes, more cheerfully.

Mrs. M. It ought to be enough to make us do what God commands, that he commands it. We must believe it is right and proper, and for our good, whether we can see that it is so or not. But God is very kind and gracious, and many of his commands, he lets us see, are fitted to our nature and condition. This I have shown you is true of the fourth commandment. If God had not told us we must keep one day in seven, we ought to keep it for our own good. Here, then, is another reason for keeping the Sabbath.

When I tell you to go on an errand for me, Charles, do you think you ought to go because I command you?

Charles. Certainly I do think I ought to go, mother, because you love me so well, and because you do so much for me.

Mrs. M. And if I should tell you, Charles, that as you had been studying your geography and your Latin all the afternoon, the exercise would do you good, would this, too, be a reason why you should be willing to go on the errand for me?

Charles. Yes, mother.

Mrs. M. Now, Charles, if I were to promise you, that if you did the errand faithfully I would read to you an hour in the evening from some interesting book in your father's library, would that make you do your errand more quickly and faithfully?

Charles. I do not know that it ought, mother; but I should think you very kind in promising to reward me for doing what you had a right to make me do without any reward. And I love so well to sit down in the evening and hear you read history, that I should run all the way to the place to which ⚫ you sent me, and back again.

Mrs. M. Then we have another reason for keeping the Sabbath, for God promises to bless those who keep it as they ought. "Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold of it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it." "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, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking

thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

If I should command Charles to do something which had often saved his life, he would be very foolish, and very ungrateful, and very wicked, if he refused to do it. We have another reason, then, why we should keep the Sabbath, in what it has already done for our country. Our forefathers were once heathen. They were heathen long since our Saviour came into the world, and the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week. They would have been heathen still, had it not been for the Sabbath. This evening I might have been worshipping with you at the temple of some savage idol, or offering you as sacrifices to appease the anger of the gods. We can never be grateful enough for the gift of the Sabbath. The man who thinks it unnecessary, or burdensome, to rest one day in seven, almost deserves to be turned back to a state of heathenism, and groan under its yoke, until he learns his obligations to the Sabbath.

The liberty and the safety of our country depend upon the observation of the Sabbath, and this is a reason why we should observe it. I need only just mention this, for I have shown you, in former conversations, that no government, and especially no

republican government, can last long without the Sabbath. One has well said, that, without the Sabbath our nation would be like a furious giant tearing in pieces himself, and every thing on which he could lay his hands.

Another reason why we should be very strict in keeping the Sabbath, at the present day, is that many around us are indisposed to keep it. It has been thought by some that our Puritan fathers were too strict, were gloomy, were superstitious, in their mode of keeping the Sabbath. But they would have had no Sabbath without a great deal of strictness. Others all around them used to spend the day in sports, in morris dances, and at the alehouse. Our ancestors would not join in such a violation of the Sabbath. They wanted that their example should reprove those who, in this way, profaned the Sabbath. And if our ancestors had not been so very strict in keeping the Sabbath, we should be spending our Sabbaths in sports and business.

Those who wish to recover the Sabbath from profanation must, at the present day, be even more strict than they would be at other times, instead of conforming to the wishes and example of the wicked.

The Sabbath, if not well kept, will be a curse to the country. This is another reason for observing it. There will long be a Sabbath of some kind in