3. All irreverence and blasphemy, as well as all lip homage and mechanical service. Lev. xxi. 6; xxii. 2; Col. iii. 8 ; S. Matt. vii. 21, 22, 23.

They who seek a better country, who look to a land yet unseen, whose joys are yet unrevealed, and even by inspired men could not be told to us; they who through the changes of this life are cheered and encouraged to struggle onwards by the assurance of a better; they who live on, whether bearing the cross in their body as under some unceasing disease, or having it deeply cut into their souls by some terrible sorrow, who yet for ever look upward and onward, tearfully hoping for the one vision, that of the Eternal God, they can tell you what His name is to them; a very tower of strength, a very ocean of joy, a very sheen of blessed sunlight, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; and if now, what hereafter ? Let us think of that name in this way. What will He be to us? What are His great and precious promises to those who reverently keep, and lovingly rest on that name? He will be their great and exceeding reward. He who is now the strength of our hearts will be our portion for ever. What doth He promise by aud by in the far off country? The white garment, the hidden manna, and the white stone, the seat on His throne, and yet more, the new

name.

I will write upon him the name of my God. I will write upon him my new name. Rev. iii. 12.

Upon the Rock of Ages

They raise thy holy tower;
Thine is the victor's laurel,
And thine the golden dower;
Thou feel'st in mystic rapture,
O Bride that know'st no guile,
The Prince's sweetest kisses,
The Prince's loveliest smile;
Unfading lilies, bracelets

Of living pearl, thine own;
The Lamb is ever near thee,
The Bridegroom thine alone;
The crown is He to guerdon,
The buckler to protect,
And He Himself the mansion,
And He the architect.
The only art thou needest,
Thanksgiving for thy lot;
The only joy thou seekest,
The life where death is not;
And all thine endless leisure
In sweetest accents sings,
The ill that was thy merit,
The wealth that is thy king's!

CHAPTER V.

COMMANDMENT IV.

"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

"Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the, Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in there is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."-Ex. xx. 8-11.

Remember. Such is the key note to this commandment, and this word makes it different from the rest. The law here laid down did not take its origin here, but was founded on the creation of the world, and for its institution went back to the beginning of all time. The Sabbath had struck its roots in every soil, and cast its kindly shadows in every land. It was not like the ceremonial law which bound the peculiar people of God, but it bound all, and hence in the heathen world we meet with some notice of its institution. If the rest of the holy Sabbath (Ex. xvi. 28), in which no

manna fell, is mentioned before the giving of the law at Sinai, the rest of the seventh occurs in some of the early heathen poets, as Homer and Hesiod. The sabbatical week, the seven days interval, (Gen. vii. 4; viii. 10-12), is spoken of in the days of Noah in such a way as to leave no doubt that it was a recognised division of time. So when the law was delivered on Mount Sinai, this, the fourth commandment, was no new command, but one well known and accepted observance, and therefore commenced with "Remember." And perhaps

it

may not altogether be fanciful to imagine that the word had a prophetic meaning, as warning us how much of Christian holiness, how much of personal piety to a nation or individual, turns in the proper observance of this day. Here in Ex. xx. we have the first reason of God's rest in creation; but in Deut. v. 14, 15, we have another reason in the special mercies vouchsafed to the Jewish nation. God there declares that He had brought them out through a mighty hand and a stretched out arm : "Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." And so to us the rest which reminds us of the heavenly rest, and the Lord's day which speaks to us of the great triumph of Christ, and of our own resurrection, may fitly call us to a national and an individual regard for the "

queen

of

days," the Christian Sabbath. Is this so ? Have we any reason to think that as the Passover and the Pentecost are fulfilled in the Christian festivals, of which they were the types, so the Sabbath of the seventh day has found its fulfilment in the Sunday of the Church of Christ? I think we have. Christ Himself seems to prepare men for this change when He speaks of Himself as "the Lord even of the Sabbath day," and "that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." He was about not to abolish, but to confirm, not to destroy, but to fulfil that which was made for man, i.e., for mankind, and not for a particular people, was about to be made eternal by His own act, and to be henceforth in commemoration of that act for the whole Catholic Church. This was no change of the Apostles, but was the act of the Saviour Himself; an act which He in His own person confirmed after the resurrection. He manifested Himself on the first and second Lord's days in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, breathing into His Church the breath of life; He spoke to S. John, and shewed him what should be hereafter on the Lord's day;" He fulfilled the promise He had made of sending the Comforter of the Church on the Lord's day, thus marking out that day by acts and gifts which were never, and would never be forgotten. But