it has been in part compensated by the greater diligence which parents and teachers, in consequence of this disuse, have found necessary to employ in inculcating the first principles of faith; and among the humbler, by the enlarged and still rapidly increasing means of education.

The instruction of the children of the poor, and of the labouring classes, has been of late years greatly facilitated and extended by the establishment of sunday schools. If conducted upon right principles, they will, under the divine blessing, be one of the most efficacious means of training the rising generation to moral and religious habits. The regular attendance at school and church, is of itself favourable to virtue, while, under the superintendance of the clergy, sound principles may be instilled, and the most useful lessons inculcated upon the infant mind, the advantage of which will be experienced in after life. The carelessness, the indifference, and the vice which unhappily prevail among the humbler ranks, throw formidable impediments in the way, of which those alone can be justly sensible who have been concerned in the management of such schools: but however we may regret the want of success which sometimes attends the most zealous efforts, our exertions should not be relaxed. Much may be accomplished by perseverance; and experience of the benefits, it may

be hoped, will in time cause a general eagerness among the poor to extend them to their children. So little open to objection are these institutions, and so fraught with the most beneficial effects, that it ought to be the wish of every servant of Christ, of every friend to humanity, to render their operation universal. These, together with the exertions of the National School Society; a Society deserving the warmest support of every member of our Apostolical church, afford an encouraging prospect for the future; and from their united efforts it is reasonable to expect an increase of attachment to our venerable establishments, civil and ecclesiastical, a gradual extension of religious feeling, and a consequent improvement in the national character'.

Such are the private and domestic duties required of those who would devote the sabbath to the consecrated objects of its institution. It is not meant that ALL these duties are to be performed every sabbath, or that they are ALL incumbent upon every individual: but they are to be practised, either all or in part, either on

It has been made a question, whether the teaching of writing in Sunday-Schools be not a breach of the sabbatical law. To prohibit it, however, appears to be too strict a construction of the statute, as it may well be considered a work of charity. Nevertheless, the time may, probably, be employed other ways to much better purpose.

every sabbath, or successively, as may appear most expedient to every person's own judgment and discretion. Private prayer, meditation, self-examination, studying the Bible, reading books of piety and devotion, family worship, catechetical instruction of the young and uninformed, are confessedly religious exercises proper for the Lord's day. Varied, however, they must be, according to the different relations sustained in society, and as they may be best adapted to the peculiar circumstances in which those who use them are placed; but to direct beforehand the exact proportion and the particular application of them, is to assume a power over others inconsistent with Christian liberty. Every individual should exercise himself herein in the way which he deems most likely to meet the exigencies of his own case, and of those with whom he may be united by any of the ties which bind society together; but the time and manner, the degree and nature of these exercises must be left to his own determination, which will commonly be right if he humbly and sincerely follows his best judgment, meekly praying for the light and guidance of God's Spirit. The great object of the institution is to be kept constantly in view, which is the commemoration of the divine goodness in creation and redemption, and the improvement of the heart in godliness. He who adopts

such exercises, of privacy and devotion, as he conscientiously esteems most conducive to that end, truly fulfils the domestic duties of the sacred

season.

The several obligations imposed by the sabbath, in its twofold character of a day of rest and a day of holiness, have now been investigated. I cannot, however, conclude this part of the enquiry without feeling some anxiety, considering how easily error may arise from too much laxity on the one hand, and over-strained rigour on the other, from an incautious application of Scripture precepts, and from hasty decisions respecting matters which the sacred writers have determined. Under such circumstances, to expect an exemption from all mistake, or to satisfy every reader, were a delusive hope: some points also are of such a nature as to admit a difference of opinion yet I flatter myself (so strong is my own conviction,) that the conclusions attempted to be established in this chapter will be found substantially accordant with the word of God, and its best interpreter, the Anglican Church,

CONCLUSION.

A FORMAL recapitulation of the arguments advanced in the preceding chapters, would swell this work beyond its just limits; it may, nevertheless, be proper to state briefly the conclusions to which they have led. It has been proved that the sabbatical institution is fraught with moral and political benefits sufficient, if it were only of human appointment, to recommend its adoption to the philanthropist; (chap. i.) that it was first instituted at the creation, by a divine command, addressed to the whole human race, and consequently binding upon all mankind, if not subsequently repealed (chap. ii.); that it was adopted into the Mosaic dispensation, but under circumstances which shewed that it was to survive the extinction of the peculiar polity of the Hebrews, (chap. iii.); that, so far from being abrogated under the Christian dispensation, it is clearly enjoined in the New Testament, (chap. iv.); that, although it is not unalterably fixed to any particular day of the septenary cycle, there is a pecu