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bath be given up, and the workingman's right to it is irretrievably sacrificed. It is then left to his employer's caprice, to decide whether he shall rest, or redouble his toil; and the essential selfishness of human nature justifies us in affirming, that the decision will be against rest, as often as avarice concludes that labour will be most profitable. Let the divine authority of the Sabbath be given up, and then all days are alike. The merciful arrangements of the humane will be neutralized by the exorbitant exactions of the cruel; the will of the righteous (if righteousness could exist without a Sabbath) will be resisted by the wicked; the weak will be coerced by the strong; in a word, the Sabbath will be lost, the landmarks of morality will be swamped, and a flood of worldliness and oppression will sweep over the whole earth. Thus, while the appointment of the Sabbath proves the prescience of God, in his perfect acquaintance with the constitution, and the future circumstances, of our fallen race, it also illustrates his tender solicitude for the happiness of his creatures generally, and of man in particular.

"With dove-like wings, Peace o'er yon village
broods:

The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on

man,

Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,

Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;

And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls,

4. It was designed, in connexion with bodily rest, to secure to every man time for the public and private exercises of religion.

Where there is no Sabbath kept, there is no true religion enjoyed, neither any standard lifted up against abounding iniquity. There Satan reigns; and man, who was made in the image of God, either renounces his rationality, and worships idols, or, in the spirit of atheism, he frames to himself a system of philosophy which transmutes the soul into matter, turns Providence into chance, and blots God out of the universe he has made, and on each particle of which he has stamped indelible traces of his wisdom, power, and goodness.

In proportion as the Sabbath is desecrated, in countries where its divine authority is formally acknowledged, the sanctuary of God is forsaken, the fervour of piety is quenched, the ordinances of religion are neglected, the poor are oppressed, the righteous are persecuted, God is forgotten, and profligacy corrupts all classes. The history of every Popish country in Europe establishes the truth of these allegations; and, but for the partial preservation of the spirit and principles of the Reformation in this land, truth would, long ago, have been treated as a fiction, immortality would have been regarded as a dream, and the Sabbath would have been turned into a day of pastime, -on which, field-sports, theatrical amusements, card-playing, buying,

His iron-arm'd hoofs gleam in the morning selling, and promenading would

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On other days, the man of toil is doom'd
To eat his joyless bread, lonely, the ground
Both seat and board, screen'd from the win-
ter's cold

And summer's heat by neighbouring hedge or
tree;

But on this day, embosom'd in his home,

He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;

With those he loves he shares his heart-felt
joy

Of giving thanks to God,-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but rev'rently,
With cover'd face and upward earnest eye."
GRAHAME.

have been practised by Priests and people, high and low, young and old.

The connexion which subsists between the observance of the Sabbath, and the maintenance of true religion, by nations, families, and individuals, is not accidental, but natural; not partial, but universal; not occasional, but constant. It is a connexion founded in the nature of things, which harmonizes with the physical and spiritual constitution of man; and which is confirmed by the appointment, and sanctified by the blessing, of God. Though

the Sabbath was designed, in the first instance, to heighten the joys of innocence; it was also adapted, and prospectively intended, to restrain vice, preserve truth, and bring God and eternity to our remembrance. The most hardened Sabbath-breaker can witness, how difficult he found it, at the commencement of his career, to be wicked whilst others were worshipping; and to forget God, whilst the stillness of the country, the pealing of the church-going bells, the open doors of the sanctuary, and the streaming multitude, who went up to the house of the Lord,-all seemed to say, "O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand."

As there is a time for everything under the sun, it was necessary there should be a stated day for the worship of God, that the universality of the custom might shame partial dissent, and check individual indifference; that one man's business might not interfere with another man's devotion; and that the regular return of the day might correct the treachery of the memory, the worldliness of the affections, and the alienation of the mind. In the Sabbatic institution, God contemplated our happiness no less than his own glory. He made the day his, by a solemn appropriation, that he might convey it back to us, under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none might deprive us of its rest, without incurring the guilt of robbing Him of his right. To his command he added his example, that the proud might be shamed into imitation, or, at least, be deterred from disobedience, under the dread of a double curse; that the lowly might be encouraged to obey, under the hope of a great reward, and by the influence of a heavenly pattern; and that rich and poor, bond and free, learned and illiterate, might have the same mighty motives to meet together,―at the same time, in the same place, on the same level,-uttering the same penitential confessions, supplicating the VOL. XXI. Third Series.

same blessings, and joining in the same ascriptions of praise to Him who is above all, and through all, and in them all.

"Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile,
Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe :
Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved
ground;

The aged man, the bowed down, the blind,
Led by the thoughtless boy; and he who
breathes

With pain, and eyes the new-made grave, wellpleased:

These, mingled with the young, the gay,
approach

The house of God: these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of gladness feel. With silent praise
They enter in; a placid stillness reigns,
Until the man of God-worthy the name-
Opens the book, and reverently
The stated portion reads."

GRAHAME.

5. To commemorate the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, and prefigure the rest which remaineth for the people of God.

By

That the Sabbath was not designed to be exclusively commemorative of the creation, is certain; for, in Deut. v. 15, the deliverance from Egyptian bondage is assigned as an additional reason why the Jews should rest themselves, and allow their servants to rest also. That deliverance was a type of the redemption effected by the death of the Lord Jesus; and if it was the will of God, that the shadow should be commemorated, how much more that the work itself should be held in everlasting remembrance! the incarnation, death, and resurrection of our Lord, a new dispensation was introduced, new manifestations of love were vouchsafed, and matter for new and unending songs of praise was furnished: God then bestowed his richest gift, and completed his greatest work,—a work in which the glory of his perfections shone so illustriously, that all former displays were cast into the shade. There was, therefore, a necessity why his people, in their Sabbathworship, should distinctly adore his love, and utter his praise, for having fulfilled his promises, and accomplished his predictions, in raising up an horn of salvation for them in the house of David his servant." JANUARY, 1842.

D

The Jewish Sabbath intimated that God was their Maker, and that it was he who had brought them out of the house of bondage; but ours proclaims the redemption of our whole race; and by keeping it we avow our belief in the love of the Father, in the Deity of the Son, in the vicarious character of his death, the triumphs of his resurrection, and in the eternal "rest which remaineth for the people of God." Without forgetting or undervaluing the stupendous work of creation, or the emancipation of Israel, the burden of our Sabbath songs should be, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Or, in the language of our Liturgy, which beautifully combines the adoration due to creating might, and redeeming love, "We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee; the Father everlasting. To thee all angels cry aloud the heavens and all the powers therein. To thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, Holy, holy, holy; Lord God of Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory. The glorious company of the Apos

tles praise thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee. The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee, the Father of an infinite majesty; thine honourable, true, and only Son; also the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb. When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers."

Reserving other branches of this great subject for future discussion, we trust the preceding remarks are sufficient to convince our readers, that the design of the Sabbath was holy and benignant; that the institution itself stands essentially connected with the rights of God, and the dearest interests of man; that it is, at once, a guard to truth, and a witness against error; that its sanctification is equally necessary to the refreshment of our bodies, and the salvation of our souls; and that we cannot devote it to pastime, or to labour, without robbing God, without infringing on the rights of others, and without wronging our souls by forfeiting the blessings of grace here, and the rest of glory hereafter.

own

PETER M'OWAN.

AN APPEAL TO THE METHODIST CONGREGATIONS ON A SUBJECT OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE.

(For the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

THE " signs of the times," to use the common phrase, may well call for the deep and fixed attention of the true Christian. The increase of intelligence (if there be an increase) does not heal the distractions of society. The political speculator, the secular educationalist, the philosophical civilizer, all construct their theories of happiness, and see them fail; while every disappointment has no other effect, than to drive them to the hopeless task of theorizing anew. This is the state of the civilized world; while heathen na

a

tions, with their multiplied sorrows, derived from hastening after strange God, and unassailed by a slumbering or half-wakeful Christianity, are heathen still. It is not quite half a century since the great evangelical communities of this country began to diffuse the Gospel of Christ to regions beyond us, by means of Missionary labour; and yet, even now, there have been produced changes, and an excitement such as the world never knew since the times of the Apostles. No sooner have men given evidence to

the infallible truth, that the Gospel meets all the wants of human nature, and have acted upon their belief, than they have had their faith confirmed by the success of their labour. The slaves of the West Indies, formerly the most wretched of all human beings, and the most distant from hope,-who had not the excitement of Hindooism, or any mythological system, to relieve their despairing fatuity, and whose human character was actually denied, -have been raised, through that blessed Gospel, to a state of moral dignity, purity, and peace, which their former oppressors could neither appreciate nor understand; and which, by its commanding evidence, is rapidly turning those oppressors into friends. Slavery itself has passed away from the British islands; but our Christianity, which was the presiding spirit of the movement, is guiltless of the horrors of St. Domingo. The sun of this revolution did not set in blood; nor has it gained yet its meridian height: and when it does, it will be sevenfold, as the blended light of seven days; yea, of any seven that preceded it; and "at evening time," also, "it shall be light." The aboriginal tribes of North America, who were retiring and melting away before the progress of civilized, though wicked, men, are beginning to establish their villages, and turn to settled pursuits; and numbers of them, elevated and sanctified by the religion of Christ, are forming the nucleus of another order of aboriginal society. The nations inhabiting the territory of South Africa have received such light, in reference to the value of the Gospel, its truth and power, and the native Chiefs are, in consequence, so earnest for its introduction, that the Missionaries on the spot implore us, either to satisfy the demand we have awakened, or else allow them to retire into a narrow circle, where they may no more be afflicted by the view of pagan ignorance and misery, which they have not numbers enough to remove, and where, at least, they may rear the infant churches which they have formed.

We have possession of SierraLeone, and the other stations of West Africa. Our soldiers have not with more intrepidity stepped into the breaches made in their ranks by the fire of the enemies of our country, than our blessed Missionaries have pressed into the awful and frequent chasms made by the death of their predecessors in that deadly atmosphere; and while, amid all this, a spiritual society lives and grows, (as is the case now,) they will press on still. They feel that they are advancing against the enemy's centre. If any one ask, in this mortality of Missionaries, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" let him find his answer in the mantle which falls upon every successor, and in the holy eagerness with which the intervening waters are divided. We read not in these deaths a sign of God's anger, but rather, that as Africa has long bled through European cupidity, we, meanwhile, standing by, and being verily guilty concerning our brother,-her children,-He, in his righteous providence, chooses to repay her with the precious deaths of his own saints, and the flower of our home churches. If common lives could avenge the wrongs of that oppressed race, England and Europe must die all over; but the sacrifice which is wanting in numbers, is compensated in value. It is a living sacrifice.

The deep and steady fortitude of Missionary zeal has survived the outbursts of cannibal ferocity in New-Zealand; and as England's Gospel has tamed these warlike, suspicious, and degraded people, and restored hundreds of them to their long-lost image of God, and thereby made residence among them possible, her needy sons are thronging to thrive on the soil, in most cases, alas! reaping where they have not sown, and gathering where they have not strawed;" speculating upon civilization, as the infidel speculates upon morals; standing upon vantage ground, and forgetting who gave possession. Our Australian colonists are provided for by our Society. A community, which promises to be one day an empire,

is drawing in Christianity with its infant breath. A city is being placed upon a hill, which cannot be hid, and which must draw the lost and almost spectral sons of the forest into its sacred retreat. Idolatry is overthrown in Tonga, Vavou, and Haabai. Lakemba, in the Feejee group, which it was almost madness once to touch at, is now peacefully harbouring Ministers of Christ, and receiving the Gospel from their lips. The stupendous system of Hindoo idolatry is undermined; the Scriptures are translated into the languages of the Hindostan continent; and the absence of literature in the vernacular dia. lects, is giving the Missionaries power, as far as books and tracts are concerned, of moulding the language as they will, and of expressing those deep and saving truths which, in the present vocal tongues of idolatrous nations, can never find its proper types. Prayer has been answered on every side, and innumerable doors have been opened wide, which both tacitly and vocally call upon us to enter into them.

The evangelical Societies of the present day-the Methodist, the Church of England, the London, the Baptist, the American Missionaries -have not been, collectively, the mere type of Christ's Gospel chariot; they have been that chariot itself, going forth from conquering unto conquer; yet are now impeded by the drag-chain of debt, and kept halting through want of funds. This is the sorrowful truth which has to be told. This is, in fact, the individual position of our own Society. It is true, the excess of ten or twelve thousand pounds' expenditure above the income, has arisen from reinforcing the Missionaries with additional fellow-labourers; but there was no alternative between reinforcing and retreating. When slavery, that great barrier to the Gospel, fell, were the Methodists, the friends of the Negro race, to contradict the spirit of all their former professions, by refusing to occupy the position they had so long and so ardently desired to gain? and, by affording only a miserable and scanty

dole of religious instruction, expose their own societies to danger, in that critical time of temptation and transition, and thereby give proslavery men occasion to publish emancipation to be a failure, instead of exhibiting to the world, (as, thank God, has been done!) that vital Christianity and well-regulated freedom are twin-sisters?

When William Shaw, and others, had been scattering a few rays of the glorious light of the Gospel in South Africa, were these poor dwellers in the wilds to be tantalized by its brightness, and then left in everlasting night? Were those beams intended first to excite, and then to betray? or to be precursive of a steady illumination ?

When Rome sent its emissaries to New-Zealand and the South Seas, for the obvious and avowed purpose of destroying our Missions there, could our managing Committee have been justified in resigning and abandoning the blooming work which had been begun, to the deathly grasp of Popery? and that, too, when the Missionaries, after years of prayer, persecution, and weeping, had begun to see the grace of God and be glad?

Here, again, as in all modes of aggression upon misery and wrong, there has been no medium between advance and ruin.

Clearly, then, without naming other instances, it is the answer to prayer, and the providence of God, which have placed the Methodist Missionary Society in its present position. And are we to assume, that Providence, on the one hand, calls for exertions which the same Providence, on the other hand, denies the means of putting forth ? Has not God blessed the home Connexion with means in as gradually enlarging a proportion, as he has blessed the foreign stations with prosperity? If so, then it is certain that the Methodist people can shake off the present incubus of debt, and furnish, in addition, the deficient twelve or twenty thousand pounds per annum. Who can survey the great work that the Society is doing in the earth, retaining his

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