if there was no Sabbath. To the Jew, the Sabbath was the brightest among many stars; to the Christian, it is the sun in the firmament, shining in all its glory.

You might almost as well close every church, and destroy every Bible, and seal the lips of every minister in christian lands, as to abolish the Sabbath, or have it regarded only as made by man. It is now the special day for prayer, for communion with God, for self-examination, for religious reading and meditation; and more persons, probably, become pious, from the divine blessing on the public and private services of the Sabbath, than on the means employed during all the other days of the week. If God, then, did not mean to have the Sabbath binding on all, but only on the Jews, it would almost appear to show a want of wisdom or of goodness. Man would, in such a case, seem to be, in this matter, wiser or more benevolent than God; for man would then, of his own accord, have continued a valuable and necessary institution, from which God had withdrawn the sanction of his authority.

God must, too, I think, have meant that the Sabbath should be binding on all, to the end of time, as well as on the Jews, or else he would not so constantly distinguish it with his favor. Why does he let his people love the Sabbath so well? and why does he continue to bless so richly the services of

that day, if he designed the Sabbath only for the Jews, and recalled his command to keep it nearly two thousand years ago? I cannot believe that he has recalled his command, and so I must think that when he spake from Sinai, and said, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy," he meant to bind you, and me, and every person, in every age, to keep the Sabbath, just as much as he bound those who heard the trumpet, and saw the clouds and lightnings around the top of the mount, when the fourth commandment was originally given.

I have dwelt the longer on this part of our subject, because I wished to convince you that the Sabbath is not now, as some assert, merely a day which it is expedient to keep, but that it is a day which God has commanded to be kept till the end of time. If men think that God has not required them, in this age, to observe the Sabbath, they will be likely, often, to neglect or violate it; nothing will restrain them from this but the warning voice of God, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

And to the christian it is not a matter of indifference, whether God still regards the Sabbath with peculiar favor. The christian loves to think,, when the Sabbath comes, that he can look for the special blessing of God on his worship, his meditations, and his reading; for God, who cannot lie, has promised such a blessing. Prove to the christian that no such promise has been made, and you

would fill his bosom with sadness. He would still love the Sabbath-he would still delight in its duties, but he could not say with a gushing heart, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."

EVENING V.

CHANGE OF THE SABBATH.

George. You told us, mother, in our former conversations, that the fourth commandment was meant for all other nations, as well as for the Jews. Mrs. M. Yes, my son.

George. And you told us that it had never been repealed, and so must be binding now.

Mrs. M. Yes, I told you that, too.

George. Well, then, mother, why do not good people keep the fourth commandment?

Mrs. M. Do not good people keep it, my son? George. No, mother, I do not see that they do. The fourth commandment says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." But we keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and we

work on the seventh day, in which God says, "Thou shalt not do any work." Is not this to break the fourth commandment?

Mrs. M. This is what we will converse about this evening. I will try to show you why we keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and not the seventh day, and that this is no breach of the fourth commandment.

Time has been divided into three periods. The first of these three periods is called the Patriarchal, and extends from the creation to Moses. The second is called the Mosaical, or Jewish, and extends from Moses to Christ. The third is called the Christian, and extends from the time of our Saviour to the end of the world.

During the first and second of these periods the Sabbath was a sign or memorial to make men keep in mind some great event. During the first or Patriarchal period, it was a sign of God's resting on the seventh day, after he had created the world. The Sabbath began on the day in which God rested, and came every seventh day.

During the second, the Mosaical or Jewish period, beside being a sign of God's resting from the work of creation, it was also a sign of the release of the Jews from their bondage in Egypt. God says to the Jews (Deuteronomy, 5: 15,) "And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee

out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Learned men say it is highly probable that the exact reckoning of time, from the creation, was lost by the Israelites during their heavy bondage, and that they began to reckon their Sabbaths from the day when they came out of Egypt.

During the third, or the Christian period, it is natural, therefore, to expect the Sabbath would be a memorial of some great event, and would, as in the two former cases, be reckoned from the day in which that event happened. Such an event is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. If the creation of the world was worthy to be kept in mind by a memorial like the Sabbath, the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ is equally worthy. Indeed, the Bible represents it as more worthy. "Behold I create new heavens, and a new earth; and the former heavens shall not be remembered nor come to mind." The prophet, in this passage, seems to mean, that the work of redeeming the world from sin is more glorious than the first creation, and should be commemorated in its stead by the same sign. This sign is the Sabbath. From what the prophet says, then, as well as from what was done during the two former periods, we are led, I think, to expect a change in the day of keeping the Sabbath.