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in created beings perfect happiness is impossible, without the contrast of recollected misery. This consideration affords an answer to those persons who censure the resurrection of the body as a provision unnecessary and unwise,-who say that the joys of a blessed spirit cannot be increased by a union with a material body, however excellent in form, structure, and powers. I would ask, what other provision could possibly furnish the pleasure derived from contrast, so vividly, so constantly? A celestial form, the habitation of that being who formerly dwelt in a body, frail, diseased, mortal !-To the man who had been blind in his earthly abode, what a change his sightless orbs transformed into eyes of telescopic ken-To the palsied! that body which could not move itself,-endowed perhaps with electric velocity! that once feeble, faltering voice-attuned to the harmonies of the heavenly choirs, "who sing the song of Moses the servant of God, -and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and

marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints : Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"

NOTES

ON THE

SABBATH WALKS.

NOTE 1. p. 78. 1. 48.

To think that now the townsman wanders forth.

"THERE cannot be a more pleasing or a more consolatory idea presented to the human mind, than that of one universal pause of labour throughout the whole Christian world at the same moment of time; diffusing rest, comfort, and peace, through a large part of the habitable globe, and affording ease and refreshment, not only to the lowest part of our own species, but to their fellow-labourers in the brute creation. Even these

are enabled to join in this silent act of adoration, this mute kind of homage to the great Lord of all and although they are incapable of any sentiments of religion, yet by this means they become sharers in the blessings of it. Every man of the least sensibility must see, must feel the beauty and utility of such an institution as this; and must see, at the same time, the cruelty of invading this most valuable privilege of the inferior class of mankind, and breaking in upon that sacred repose which God himself has, in pity to their sufferings, given to those that stand most in need of it. It was a point in which it highly became the majesty and the goodness of Heaven itself to interpose. And happy was it for the world that it did so. For, had man, unfeeling man, been left to himself, with no other spur to compassion than natural instinct, or unassisted reason, there is but too much ground to apprehend, he would have been deaf to the cries of his labouring brethren, would have harassed and worn them out with incessant toil; and when they implored,

by looks and signs of distress, some little intermission, would perhaps have answered them in the language of Pharaoh's task-masters, " Ye are idle, ye are idle. There shall not aught of your daily tasks be diminished; let more work be laid upon them, that they may labour therein," ExOD. v. 9. 11. 17.

"That this is no uncandid representation of the natural hardness of the human heart, till it is subdued and softened by the influences of divine grace, we have but too many unanswerable proofs, in the savage treatment which the slaves of the ancients, even of the most civilized and polished ancients, met with from their unrelenting masters. To them, alas! there was no Sabbath, no seventh day of rest! The whole week, the whole year, was, in general, with but few exceptions, one uninterrupted round of labour, tyranny, and oppression."-PORTEUS.

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