tiful words. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my yoke upon you and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. To come unto Christ means to believe in him and to trust in him as our Saviour. If we do this we shall find ourselves easy under trouble, for we know that trouble may be in this world, but happiness will be in the next. We shall find ourselves made easy, when we remember our past sins, if we are conscious that we have repented most heartily of all those sins, and are now walking in newness of life, as new creatures, as people born again, because we know, if it be so, that Christ has reconciled us to his Father, has obtained our pardon, has procured for us the Holy Spirit to sanctify and keep us holy and he will give us rest, peace in our minds here, and reward hereafter. But remember that he tells us to take his yoke upon us. His

yoke means his commands: and sometimes those commands may seem hard, because it is a bitter thing to conquer our wicked hearts, our bad tempers, our violent passions, our wanton desires, our bad inclinations; but yet every time you do conquer them, you will find the task grow easier and easier, till at length you will feel his yoke to be, what he himself tells us it is, easy and light. For no wicked practice ever made any body happy long. You may steal, you may lie, you may get drunk, you may be wanton, you may revenge yourselves on your enemies; all this may be pleasant at the time: but rely on it, when you come to think of what you have done, and particularly, when you are on your death-bed, and when you remember it all, you will feel something gnawing you at your heart, which is only the beginning of that worm that never dies, and of that fire that never goes out, a worm and a fire, which will make hardened sinners miserable for ever. I had almost forgotten to tell you, that

our Saviour bids us also learn of him, follow his example, for he was meek and lowly in heart, and encourages us to do so, by assuring us that we shall find rest unto our souls. When you shall have heard from me more concerning our Saviour's life and conduct, you will find that he was indeed meek and lowly in heart. You will find him without any of the angry passions, with no violence in speech and behaviour, and always shewing on all occasions, (and he had occasion enough given him to try his temper) the greatest meekness and humility of spirit. And certain it is, that if we follow his example, we shall find the rest, the peace of mind which he promised. For there is no greater enemy to peace and happiness, than a proud, and quarrelsome, and angry, and revengeful spirit.

The writer of our Saviour's life, named Matthew, goes on to tell us, of an instance in which our Saviour's countrymen be

haved very foolishly and wickedly towards him. It seems, that as Jesus was passing with his disciples through a corn-field, they, being hungry, began to pluck some ears of corn, and to eat. This was not stealing, for their law had given them leave to do it. The law was, when thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand, but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn. There was great fruitfulness in that land, and the corn could very well be spared; therefore, God had given them this law, to provide for the hungry and worn out traveller. If God had not ordered it, we might have supposed it wrong. Things are very different with us: and to do such a thing now, would, you all know, be theft. However the Jews did not complain, because it was stealing (for it was not that) but because it was done on the sabbath-day. Our Saviour tells them, that acts of mercy and kindness, were not wrong on a sab

bath-day, and shews them from what had been done by their best men, and was still done by their priests, that certain things, which looked like work were lawful on the sabbath-day. You know that the fourth commandment, which was given by God, forbids us to do any work on the sabbath-day, which with us is Sunday, with the Jews was and still is, Saturday. Jesus tells them, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Sunday is to be kept holy it is true: but if you can do a kindness on that day, you will not grudge to do it: if you can feed the hungry, help the sick, you will do so, though it may cost you some labour to do it. For soon after he healed a man with a withered hand, on the same sabbath-day, and asked them, if they had an ox or an ass fallen into a pit, would they not draw him out on the sabbathday? Might not he then lawfully heal a poor, sick man on that day?

I think that Sunday is a day, which you