without saying how long the law should last. If such a law was made, it would be binding until Congress should repeal it, or say it was a law no longer.

Now it is not said, in the fourth commandment, how long it should be binding. It is not said that it should be a law for a thousand years, or two thousand years, or until the Messiah came.

It would, therefore, never cease to be a law until repealed by the same authority that made it. It would never expire by its own limitation.

Well, then, has God repealed the fourth commandment?-Has he said it shall not be a law any longer? Your uncle John and others who think as he does, quote several passages from Paul's Epistles, to show that the fourth commandment has been repealed. I need not examine every one of them, for what I shall say on one of the passages, will apply to the others.

I will take what Paul says in Colossians, 2: 16, 17-"Let no man, therefore, judge you in mcat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come: but the body is Christ."

George. I did not know, mother, that Paul wrote so about the Sabbath.

Mrs. M. The Jewish feasts are often called Sabbaths in the Old Testament, and some suppose Paul, in this passage, meant these feasts, and not the week

ly Sabbath. But I do not think this very probable.

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The Jews who early became Christians, were very fond of their old customs and modes of worship. They were particularly fond of the Sabbath. The Gentiles who became Christians, kept the first day of the week, as the day of rest. This, at that time, was called the "Lord's day," to distinguish it from the Jewish Sabbath. The Jews, too, kept the Lord's day but some of them, also, kept the seventh day, which was their former Sabbath. Those Jews who kept both days, wanted that the Gentiles should do the same. When they lived in the same neighborhood, and belonged to the same church with Gentiles, I have no doubt they sometimes talked about them harshly, for not resting on both days. Paul did not believe the Gentiles were under obligation to keep the seventh day, or Jewish Sabbath. He was willing that the Gentiles should observe it, as well as the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's day, if they chose to keep both. But he would not let the Jews compel them to keep the seventh day. He would have every man do as he pleased in regard to keeping it. This was the reason why he said to the Colossians, "Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days."

Paul knew that the Jewish temple and nation would soon be destroyed, and that then the Jewish

ceremonies and institutions would speedily be forgotten. For the sake of peace, therefore, he let the Jews keep the seventh day, their former Sabbath; but then they must also keep the Lord's day.

It was not the day of rest which Paul says was "a shadow of things to come." It was only the Jewish Sabbath. The christian Sabbath, which was already kept on the first day of the week, was not repealed; but it remains, and will remain, as in the time of Paul, till days and weeks are known

no more.

This is a very interesting part of our subject, my children, and as we can spend a little time longer in conversation this evening, I will mention one or two more reasons why I think Paul did not mean to repeal the Sabbath.

The apostles contended against the ceremonial law of the Jews, and said that it was never designed for the Gentiles. They preached against it, and wrote against it, as much as was necessary and proper in their circumstances. They said that Christ had blotted it out, that it was waxing old, and ready to vanish away.

Now, my dear children, look at what has happened, and see if it corresponds with what the apostles said should come to pass. The rites of the ceremonial law, the many washings, the division of meats into clean and unclean, all vanished away long since from the christian church-Christ has

blotted them out. This is just what Paul said would happen. But has the Sabbath vanished away? Far from it. Paul kept it himself, and taught others to keep it by his example. The other apostles kept it, and the earliest saints and martyrs kept it. It has been kept from that day to this, and the fourth commandment seems no more likely to vanish away from the church of Christ than any other commandment of the ten. I should not know why this is so, if I believed, with your uncle John, that the fourth commandment was repealed as long ago as the days of Paul. I think it is very evident that the Sabbath, which has fared so differently from the ceremonial law, was no part of this law. I think that the Sabbath, which has so long outlived what the apostle calls the hand-writing of ordinances, is no part of these ordinances. I am, therefore, fully satisfied that your uncle John gives a wrong meaning to the words of Paul.

George. The prophets foretold many things which would happen in the church of Christ. Do they ever foretell, mother, that there would be any Sabbath kept then?

Mrs. M. Yes, my son, Isaiah, in the fifty-sixth chapter of his prophecy, says, there would be a Sabbath among the Gentiles, who would be converted to God. The chapter is a short and beautiful one, and I hope all of you will read it to-night,

before you retire to rest. Certain persons were prohibited, by the ceremonial law, from coming into the congregation of the Lord. Of these, God says that if they will keep his Sabbaths, "even unto them will I give in my house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters." This shows that the Sabbath would outlive the ceremonial law, and be blessed by God in the christian church.

And why should not the Sabbath exist in the Christian as well as in the Jewish church? I have told you already that men need it in every age and in every country. And would God take away from his church so great a blessing, which it had long enjoyed?

And the Sabbath is not only as much needed in the Christian church as it was in the Jewish, but it can be made even more useful now than it was at that time. The Jews did not have so many means of making the Sabbath profitable as God has given to the Christian church. God has revealed his will more clearly to us than he revealed it to them. They lived in the twilight. We live in the full light of noonday. The Holy Spirit is now shed forth more abundantly on men than before the death of our Saviour, and greater numbers are converted to God by the preaching of the Gospel. But men must assemble together, or there can be no public preaching, and they would not assemble