upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.'

"Do we, then, it may be asked, survey the profanation of the Sabbath, whether in plying traffic or in dissipated swarm, with unconcern? Unconcern! We know nothing so irreligious! we see nothing that so depraves the mind! we recognise no national crime so guilty! we tremble at no such provocation of heaven! The cry is great, and the sin is very grievous. We know what it is to mourn, when we mark the rude breaches of the day; when we follow the giddy throngs in their reckless course; when the home welcomes the desecration, and trains its children for these palpable transgressions.

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"What, then, would you do in counteraction of the evil? When law has favoured you, provided for the case which you deplore, you will not invoke it.' Alas! no human law can touch the evil. It is the 'sin of the soul;' it is the heart going after its covetousness;' it is the slavery of divers lusts and pleasures.' cheon and sceptre fall aside. It is a contumacy against Christianity. Nothing external, and human law never can be more, will retrieve it. It is a spring which feeds itself. But are we precluded moral resistance? May not the plague be stayed according to its own type? We would enlighten men on this obligation. We would urge reasonable motive; we would publish salutary caution; we would denounce the terror of the Lord.' If the Sabbath be kept, it must be from conviction, approval, choice; it must be in the spirit of religion. If the Sabbath-breaker be reclaimed, it must be by process of intelligent impression; it must be by the influence of religion on the mind. We dare not bring the machinery of the state, the inflictions of the tribunal, to the punishment of spiritual

wickedness, of any thing simply infringing religious law.

"It does not, however, follow, that we are inclined to dispute the general jurisprudence of this country touching its recognition of a particular section of time, and its setting of that apart to a secular rest. Were this the enactment of the Sabbath as a religious institute, it would be as vain as the enactment that we should fear, love, and worship God. But a sound policy, it may be, discerns the necessity of a periodic remission of labour. It may adopt the septenary division; it may have ascertained that this only, or best, agrees with man's physical constitution; it may have proved that this secures the largest amount of healthy productive industry; it may have experienced that this conduces to social order and contentment; it may think it expedient that this should coincide with the Christian festival. Its ordering of this may have but a civil reason and force. We are, then, bound to accept it as law. We, as Christians, would be most ready to yield such obedience; to be subject to the higher powers for conscience' sake; to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake. Our religion seasons and sanctifies every political relation. Our loyalty rises and falls not with parties; it is an invariable principle. And it may be, that the Christian patriot shall so clearly allow the wisdom and morality of this law, that he may act with others to apply it. He may proceed against the factory and the mart, which are the scenes of its infraction. He may actively contend against every violation of this outward rest. In this is no compromise. He surely has as much interest in it as any other man who is not a Christian. What alienates him from the commonwealth? But let it always appear unmistakeably at what he aims. Let him not confound or insinuate any question of conscience and reli

gion with it. Let it be seen that it is not the Sabbath which he would thus legalize and enforce, but a weekly pause of labour and excitement, which the experience of statesmanship and society has found to be essential to the good and recreation of man."DR HAMILTON's Hora Vindicia Sabbatice.

Christ at the Table of the Pharisee.— "Any approach to feastful entertainment on this day, is a perversion of its leisure and an insult on its spirit. Let there be the family meeting, where its members then only can assemble. Let there be the liberal and decent provision; but the table should be guarded against its ordinary snares. Dainties would disgrace it; costly viands and ambitious cates are, at least, improper here. There may be easy contrivance and preparation for it. We enter into no economics. All may be enjoyed, which does not cause servant or purveyor to break the sacred obligation, which detains no one from the house of God. The poor man's little luxury we do not grudge; but it must be on the same conditions. Let all eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. We refer the more to this, because He who hath left us an example' is supposed to hold such rule indifferent. It is recorded, that he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath-day.' The more opulent Jews exercised general hospitality on their Sabbath, to accommodate the frequenters of the temple. This was its professed purport. He accepts what may be considered a general, rather than a particular, bidding. He does it for an end. This usage was corrupted into extravagance and ostentation. He prescribes its due limits. Was it professedly for the traveller and stranger, without home and accommodation? Let it be so maintained. 'When thon makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor rich neigh

bours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.' We see in this rebuke the abuse. It cannot be an interdict upon men, to welcome to their society those of their own social condition. It cannot be that they are always to surround themselves with those far removed from them in their tastes and manners. But this was a Sabbath banquet, for convenience to those who attended the holy rites. Their peers needed it not; it was a prostitution of it to invite them. Therefore our Lord continues,- But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed.' These are the objects you should seek, and whom, for such a purpose, you alone can lawfully entertain on the Sabbath day.' How reasonable a pattern for imitation in our Christian homes! Open their doors to your fellow attendants on the sanctuary : the feeble, the aged-who cannot go in and out as they were wont to do-let them break bread with you, and strengthen and refresh them to totter back to their more remote abodes."-Ibid.

The Glory and Blessedness of the Sabbath.-"Oh, Sabbath! Needed for a world of innocence e; without thee what would be a world of sin! There would be no pause for consideration, no check to passion, no remission of toil, no balm of care! He who had withheld thee, would have forsaken the earth! Without thee, He had never given to us the Bible, the Gospel, the Spirit! We salute thee, as thou comest to us in the name of the Lord, radiant in the sunshine of that dawn which broke over creation's achieved work; marching downward in the track of time, a pillar of refreshing cloud and of guiding flame; interweaving with all thy light new beams of discovery and promise, until thou standest forth more fair than when reflected in the dews, and imbibed by the flowers, of

Eden-more awful than when the trumpet rung of thee on Sinai! The Christian Sabbath! Like its Lord, it but rises again in Christianity, and henceforth records the rising day. And never, since the tomb of Jesus was burst open by Him who revived and rose, has this day awakened but as the light of seven days, and with healing in its wings! Never has it unfolded without some witness and welcome, some song and salutation! It has been the coronation-day of martyrs, the feast-day of saints; it has been from the first, until now, the sublime custom of the churches of God. Still the outgoings of its morning and its evening rejoice. It is a day of heaven upon earth! Life's sweetest calm, poverty's best birthright, labour's only rest! Nothing has such a hoar of antiquity on it;

nothing contains in it such a history, nothing draws along with it such a glory. Nurse of virtue, scal of truth! The household's richest patrimony, the nation's noblest safeguard; the pledge of peace, the fountain of intelligence, the strength of law; the oracle of instruction, the ark of mercy; the patent of our manhood's spiritual greatness; the harbinger of our soul's sanctified perfection; the glory of religion, the watch-tower of immortality! The ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reacheth to heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending on it!"— Ibid.

Our opinion of Dr Hamilton's work we have indicated in our notice of "Sabbath Tracts for the Times."

SIR, The prosperity and extension of the United Presbyterian Church are desired by all her members. The many valuable papers which have of late appeared in your Magazine, have directed the attention of her ministers and sessions to the various plans submitted, by which the United Presbyterian Church might become more numerous and influential. It is matter of great joy to find, that her congregations are increasing in numbers, wealth, and respectability; and that, in not a few places, new congregations are springing up, giving pleasing indications that in a short time these too will be prosperous.

We desire to call your attention to a fact connected with our church, and through you, the attention of her ministers and sessions. It is a matter of great notoriety that many members and adherents of the United

Presbyterian Church are yearly leaving those congregations in which they have been reared, and are finding their way into England, under a great variety of circumstances. Many of them, it may be presumed, on leaving their respective congregations, obtain their lines of church member. ship, and those who are not members may obtain from their respective ministers, letters of introduction to the ministers in connexion with our church in those towns in which they purpose to take up their residence. Now the fact is, that many of these do not use their certificates and letters of introduction; they settle in large towns, and follow the example of the great masses of the people, who are living without God and without hope in the world. The day of holy rest returns, but it never finds him in the house of God. In

short, they now, without compunction, associate with the openly wicked, and are altogether regardless of the service of the Most High.

It may be asked, why do not our ministers and friends in England use efforts to secure those coming from the north from neglecting such important duties ? Their answer is, Such have never been brought into any connexion with either ministers or elders, who cannot be responsible for those of whom they have no knowledge. Give either ministers or elders an introduction to them, and then all due attention will be given to secure them from the many temptations by which they are surrounded.

We ask, cannot any thing be done to prevent such a state of matters? Might not the ministers and sessions, either collectively or individually, keep up a friendly correspondence with them, until they find them settled down and connected with some congregation or other; or might not their disjunction or letter of recommendation be directed to the minister of the town in which they may design to settle; or, if there are more ministers than one, might not the names of the ministers with their chapels be furnished, that they might satisfy themselves without any delay, and so be immediately put under pastoral inspection? In following such a method, their object would be more quickly obtained, and their interests more securely advanced. Their desertion of the house of God, and neglect of his ordinances, might thus be prevented. If such a plan were adopted and followed, we are sure that all our congregations in the north of England would be greatly increased, and many more congregations might be formed in many large towns in which at present we have no congregations, and which would not require any support from our mission funds, but which would, from their very commencement, be self-supporting congregations,

and so be enabled to carry the interests of our church into every village and hamlet around them. It is a fact that many thousands of those who have been reared and connected with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, are living in England at this very day, in a total neglect of all that is good and holy.

When, oh! when will the church arouse into proper action, and put forth the might of a holy resolve for the recovery of her strayed members? It is the command of our Divine Master," Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." The recovery of the lost must engage our every sympathy, and urge to deeds becoming the character we assume. Do we believe the gospel to be the best preventive of crime, disaffection, anarchy, and wo? then we shall endeavour to carry out its great design, not only in its proclamation, but also to impress the duty of all to wait upon its dispensation. Antinomianism has too long rioted in the south; its pestiferous influence has been like a blight upon the land, and the churches, few and feeble, have been oft endangered. Here the infidel politician has bent his steps; here the tracts of Paine, and others of that school, have met a ready and extensive sale. Weigh, then, ye friends of the Redeemer, these claims of the church and the consistency of your character; hasten, by your counsels and your active zeal, the period when the United Presbyterian Church, with all her influence of members, adherents, week-day and Sabbath-school classes, shall co-operate in every well directed effort for the illumination of the world, and all her resources be rendered tributary to this holy cause. It is most earnestly desired that ministers and sessions will, without the least delay, act upon the hints which are thus submitted.

M.

MR EDITOR,-Allow me to solicit the attention of your readers, to a few remarks on a subject which is at present exciting considerable interest in some quarters of the church. The subject to which I refer, is the Augmentation of Stipends. I do not intend to discuss the question,—What ought to be the minimum stipend of an ordained minister? whether that minimum should be eighty or one hundred pounds per annum? This, I am persuaded, is a question about which there is really no dispute. I firmly believe that all who take any interest in the matter, will admit that the minimum ought not to fall below L.100, and that the reason why any would fix it at L.80 is, that in their opinion, this is at present the only point that is practically attainable. I cannot for a moment doubt, that it is the sincere desire of all the members of our Synod, that every minister in our body should have not less than L.100 per annum of stipend, exclusive of a manse. But the grand question is, how is this desirable object to be attained? possibility of its being accomplished, it may be presumed, will not be doubted by any. If the Reformed Presbyterian Church, one of the smallest denominations in the country, can effect this object, and if the Free Church be able to carry out the resolution of its General Assembly, that the minimum stipend of its ministers shall be L.150,-and there is at present every likelihood that that resolution will be carried out,-can it be doubted that, if our church take up the matter in good earnest, all that is at present desired might easily be accomplished. It is regarded by some as doubtful whether this object is at present likely to be attained. I confess, however, that it does not seem to me quite so hopeless a case as some who wish well to the cause seem to

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imagine. It is true, that notwithstanding the subject has been upwards of two years before the church, the contributions for this object have been but trifling. It may be fairly questioned, however, taking all things into view, whether this is greatly to be wondered at. Every effect has a cause, and doubtless there is a cause

perhaps more than one-for the apparent indifference of our people in reference to the object in question. May not one cause be, that the subject has not yet been brought before the people, with that prominence and frequency which its importance demands? But I apprehend there is another reason,-and one which may, of itself, satisfactorily account for the fact referred to. Almost all who have taken in hand the advocacy of this cause, whether in Synod speeches or in the pages of our periodicals, seem to have taken for granted what ought to have been proved, that an augmentation of the smaller stipends is actually needed. It is true, that, as regards the wealthier classes in our churches, no proof of this point is required. They are fully aware, that the sum which many ministers receive is very inadequate to their support in the station which they are expected to occupy; although perhaps many even of these do not know all the expenses to which a minister is peculiarly subjected. But it must be kept in mind, that many of our people belong to the labouring classes, and that many, especially of our smaller congregations, are composed almost exclusively of these. Now persons in this station in life, have not the means of estimating the expense to which a minister is necessarily exposed; and hence, with many of them, the question-not unnaturally perhaps-is not, How does a minister contrive to make the two ends of the

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