that God may be lost in the multitude of his benefits? Shall he be unregarded who gives you all you possess? Is it safe to love every thing but the Author of your abundance?

These objects are not eternal. They have never rewarded you for the pursuit of them. They cannot be the final portion of a being, capable of intellectual conceptions, and the glory and happiness of a resemblance to that very divinity from whence they flow. The human mind is susceptible of pleasures which these things cannot affect; and without which all the world could not make it happy. There are sources of felicity within the reach of an immortal creature, independent of all those things which perish with the using.

Have you, O man, ever felt the felicity of good affections, an approving conscience, and the hopes of the gospel of Jesus Christ? And can you believe that you were born only to grovel about worldly possessions? Can you look up, as you sometimes must, from the region of carnality and narrow pleasures in which you have been toiling, and see the gates of heaven thrown open, and the just ascending with angels to the presence of the eternal Mind-aspiring to the friendship and everlasting enjoyment of God, who is all intellect and goodness?ean you contemplate all this, and not make one effort to break from your enthralment, and to shake off the sordid dust that incumbers you, and try to soar to that intellectual region!

Perhaps you will say you have

been misrepresented, that you are really happy in your present slavery to the world-at least as happy as you wish to be. Be it so, but how long will this endure! or of what can it supply the place! Can this world's goods redeem a single man from death? Can it mitigate the agonies of a burdened conscience, or insure an honorable and happy state in that unchangeable world which lies before you.

When your conscience is oppressed with guilt, and alarmed with the prospect of a judgment to come; collect around you, all your treasures-and what is their sum! Of what avail are they now-how they shrink into nothing! On the other hand, when conscience bears testimony to integrity and piety, and you see God waiting to receive you, without all this pomp and glitter, what then are they worth? Sometimes perhaps your hearts have been rent with grief, or your limbs racked with pain, or your frame has been languishing with sickness; what then was the consolation which this world's goods administered? If it has been your lot to have known nothing by experience of such sorrows and sufferings; yet the time will come when you will be on a dying bed, the tide of life will be ebbing away, every breath will seem to be the last; then when the invisible world shall open on your soul, what will all these earthly objects be to you! Keep yourselves then in the love of God, and wait for his Son from heaven.

B.

THE abuse of obituary notices is no argument against their utility; and if the qualities of common characters have been sometimes exaggerated, it furnishes no reason why the excellencies of the truly great should be suffered to remain in obscurity.

The death of Mrs. Peabody has caused a very deep and a very extensive sorrow. Tears have fallen to her memory in almost every part of our country, and many are yet to drop in those distant places where the tidings of her decease have not reach

ed.

She was descended from one of the most respectable ancestries, and allied to some of the most desirable connexions in New England. Her father was Mr. Smith, minister of Weymouth. She first married Rev. Mr. Shaw of Haverhill, and after his death was united to the wor thy character who is now left to mourn an irreparable loss.-Such is the simple history of her life, which was unmarked by any striking, incidents. If it would be proper however to give the history of a single day of that life, the details might be numerous, instructive, and interesting. But as we must not intrude too closely into the shades of domestic life, a general sketch of her character will be attempted, in order to meet the expectations of her friends, and fulfil the duty which is owing to departed excellence.

For the Christian Disciple.

Mrs. Peabody was endued with a mind of the first order, which, considering the state of education in our country, received no ordinary degree of caltivation. But under whatever deficiencies her education labored, they were amply remedied, not only by her subsequent application, but by the freshness and elasticity of an intellect, which till the latest period of her life, would grasp at every improvement, and imbibe with all the ardor of youth, every idea which possessed the claims, either of novelty or utility. Her reading was solid and extensive, and drew from her remarks which equalled in wisdom and interest the works she perused.

Her talent in teaching the young was unrivalled. She brought knowledge down to the level of their understandings; she was careful to imbue them with the purest taste; and she was unwearied in forming their hearts to the love of virtue.

un

Her heart was as good as her mind was great. Duty was the point round which her actions revolved. Her character was a remarkable compound of mildDess and energy. To an common knowledge of the char. acters, she united a tender charity towards the imperfections of others. She possessed that never failing mark of true superiority, a respect for the just claims of others; and such was her art of giving to all their due, that

there was none within her presence, who did not feel himself to be of some importance.

One of the most conspicuous traits in the character of Mrs. Peabody was an unvarying display of the most perfect good breeding. In the department of manners, at least, she must in her youth have received an accomplished education. Every word, every motion discovered it. It is hard to say whether she shone with most dignity and grace in the unobserved scenes of familiar retirement, or with most ease and self-command, when exposed to the gaze of numbers. None who had once seen and conversed with her, could recollect her without emotions of respect, unless he had been indifferent to a rare combination of attractive personal charms with the soundest sense and the purest virtue.

But she shone brightest as a christian. Her religion seemed to be directly drawn from the New Testament, and a spectator

would say, that its precepts were fresh in her memory, and operative in her conduct. She was far, however, from interpreting those precepts too rigidly; and, if possible, still farther from the lax extreme. Whatever of severe there was in her character, was spent almost entirely upon herself. If she was sometimes angry at the faults of others, her anger was not without effectand was consequently transient. The truth is, that in the immediate sphere of such a woman, but few faults will be committed. Vice dares not encounter the frown of so powerful a representative of virtue, and we get away from the reach of her censure, before we venture to de serve it. Perhaps it was this circumstance, in part, which made her breast so unsuspicious, and her life so serene.

God took her to himself without any warning-but it is not the suddenness of her death that we lament-she lived prepared to die.*

43.

John v. 10-16. "The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, it is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy

bed-And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day" Ir is a most affecting view of

the depravity of the Jews in the time of our Lord, which the evangelist exhibits to us in these expressions. A man who had been thirty eight years diseased, was healed by Jesus on the Sabbath; and because the miracle was too publick to be denied and if acknowledged, would have been unquestionable evidence of his divine authority-to evade what they could not deny, the Jews accuse him of violating the law of the Sabbath. It was no ordinary state of debasement, in which recourse was had to such means of resisting convictions, which, unopposed, would have brought them to the most grateful reception of the Messiah; and in these most confirmed errors and vices, we see the justice of the judgments, which were soon after executed upon them.

But what were the peculiar sentiments of the Jews concerning the Sabbath?

The word Sabbath signifies rest; but it is sometimes applied to all the festivals of the Jews, because they were days of rest from the common employments of life. But it most frequently denotes the seventh day of the week; and by Matthew and Luke, it is used to signify the whole week.* Much has been written on the question, Was the Sabbath instituted on the seventh day of the world, or not till the departure of the Israelites from Egypt? But it seems to be the sentiment of the Jews, even if there were an antediluvian, and a patriarchal Sabbath, that the day which they observed as a

Sabbath, was peculiarly and exclusively appointed for themselves. "My Sabbath shall you keep, for it is a sign between me and you, throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who hath sanctified you;" (Exodus, xxxi. 13, 16, 17.) or separated you from the rest of mankind. Hence say the Jewish doctors, by servants who were to rest on the Sabbath, is to be understood such only as were circumcised; and that others might work on the Sabbath, as an Israelite might on any other day.

The Jews advance thirty nine negative precepts, concerning things not to be done on the Sabbath; beside many others, which are appendages to them. For example, "it is forbidden to reap; and therefore, to gather ears of corn, because it is a sort of reaping. It is not lawful to sow; and therefore not lawful to walk on ground newly sown, because the seed adhering to the feet, may be carried from place to place, which is a kind of sowing. Grass may not be walked upon, lest it should be bruised, which is a sort of threshing."We might cite more of these negative precepts, which are equally characteristic of those who formed, and of those who adopted them. But these are enough. Work of any kind, except that which was done by the priests in the temple, for the religious services of the day, was not only forbidden, but was a capital offence. It appears indeed, that in the time of our Lord, they would water their cattle, or take a beast from a pit into which it

had fallen; but they condemned the disciples of Christ, for rubbing the ears of corn in their hands, doubtless because it was a sort of threshing! and they persecuted Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had commanded the man whom he had healed, to carry home his bed, upon the Sabbath day! The law, as they received it in the wilderness, required that they should bake their manna on Friday, for the food of the Sabbath, because on that day none would be given; (Exod. xvi. 23, 26.) and considering this as a perpetual duty, the Jews dressed no meat on the Sabbath. And the command, "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath," (Exod. xxxv. 3.) which is thought to have referred only to the fire, which was used in the work for the tabernacle, and not to have been of perpetual obligation, was however so interpret. ed, that it was thought to be unlawful to kindle any fire on that day. But the law enjoined also, that no man should go out of his place on the Sabbath day; (Ex. xvi. 29.) which certainly could not be meant, to confine them to their houses, since the Sabbath was to be celebrated by a holy convocation, or by the assembling of the people for public worship. But so strictly was the law on this subject observed, that in the beginning of the Maccabean wars, the Jews suffered themselves to be burned, or smothered, rather than defend themselves, by stopping the months of their caves. Mattathias, however, convinced them of their error, by teaching

them that self-murder was & greater crime, than breaking the Sabbath. But though they afterwards would defend themselves, they would not, on that day, attack their enemies; and Pompey, observing this, as he was besieging Jerusalem in favor of Hyrcanus, against his brother Aristobulus, ordered that no assault should be made on the Sabbath; but that the day should be employed by his army in carrying on their works, filling up the ditches with which the temple was fortified, and arranging their battering engines; by which means he took the city, and brought the Jews under subjection to the Romans.

To carry a bed on the Sabbath, was to work. This is the only defence which could have been made of the accusation, that our Lord, in this instance, had violated the law of the Sabbath. And how very irreproachable must have been his conduct, when no greater offence could be alleged against him!

It was the law of God, "from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." (Lev. xxiii. 82.) The Jews therefore began their Sabbath, at 6 o'clock on Friday evening; but the whole of Friday was considered as so far preparatory to the Sabbath, that they did not travel on that day more than twelve miles, lest, coming home late, they should not have leisure to prepare for the Sabbath. Their Judges were not allowed on that day to sit in judgment, upon causes of life and death; and all artificers were for. bidden to work, except shoemak.