may not be drowned by the voice of the tumult of the passions. Things go right in the soul when no resentments are admitted into the affections but what have first undergone the scrutiny of the understanding, and thence received their pass. That passion which cometh not in by this door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber, which we should stand on our guard against. In a time of war, (and such a time it is in every sanctified soul, in a constant war between grace and corruption,) due care must be taken to examine all passengers, especially those that come armed, whence they came, whither they go, where they are for, and what they would have. Thus should it be in the well-disciplined, wellgoverned soul. Let meekness stand sentinel, and upon the advance of a provocation, let us examine who it is we are about to be angry with, and for what? what are the merits of the cause? wherein lay the offence? what was the nature and tendency of it? what are likely to be the consequences of our resentments, and if we stifle them and let them go farther, what harm will it be? Such as these are the interrogatories which meekness would put to the soul, and in answer to them would abstract all that which passion is apt to suggest, and hear reason only as it becomes rational creatures to do. Another office of meekness is to calm the spirit, so as that the inward peace may not be disturbed by any outward provocation. No doubt but a man may express his displeasure against the miscarriages of another as much at any time as there is occasion for, without suffering his resentments to recoil upon himself, and to put his own soul in a hurry. What need a man to tear himself to his anger.' (Job xvii. 4.) Cannot we charge home upon our enemy's camp, without the wilful disordering of our own troops? doubtless we may, if meekness have the command; and though there be some firing on the outworks, yet it fortifies the heart, the main fort, the wards against the assaults of provocation which do us no great harm, while they do not rob us of our peace nor disturb the rest of our souls. As patience in case of sorrow, so meekness in the case of anger, keeps possession of the soul.' Meekness will cool the heat of passion quickly, and not suffer it to continue. As it keeps from being soon angry, so it teacheth us when we are angry, to be soon pacified. The anger of a meek man is like fire struck out of steel, hard to be got out, but when it is out, soon gone. Angry thoughts, as other vain thoughts, may crowd into the heart upon a sudden surprise; but meekness will not suffer them to lodge there. Meekness will curb the tongue, and keep the mouth as with a bridle when the heart is hot. If we have conceived a passion and thought evil, meekness will lay the hand on the mouth to keep that evil thought from venting itself in an evil word, reflecting on God or our brother. It will reason a matter in variance without noise; give a reproof without reproach; convince a sinner of his folly without calling him a fool; will teach superiors either to forbear threatening or to moderate it, and will look diligently, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble us, and thereby many be defiled.'-Henry. POETRY. GOD IS LOVE. OH! child of grief, why weepest thou? What deep, sad sorrow, lingers there? Thou mourn'st, perhaps, for some one gone- Yet mourn not, for thou hast above REDEMPTION. WHEN our world fell from its first estate, it became one vast prison; its walls were adamant, and unscaleable; its gates were brass, and impregnable; within, the people sat in darkness and in the shadow of death; without, inflexible justice guarded the brazen gate, brandishing the flaming sword of the eternal law. Mercy, as she winged her flight of love through the worlds of the universe, paused to mark the prison aspect of our once paradisaic world. Her eye affected her heart. Her heart melted and bled as the shriek of misery and yell of despair rose upon the four winds of heaven. She could not pass by nor pass on; she descended from the gate, and requested admittance. Justice, raising the flaming sword in awful majesty, exclaimed, 'No one can enter here and live!' and the thunder of his voice outspoke the wailings within. Mercy expanded her wings, to renew her flight amongst the unfallen worlds. She reascended into the mid air, but could not proceed, because she could not forget the piercing cries from the prison. She therefore returned to her native throne in the heaven of heavens. It was a glorious high throne from everlasting, both unshaken and untarnished by the fallen fate of man and angels. But even there she could not forget the scene which she had witnessed and wept over. She sat and weighed the claims of all the judicial perfections of Jehovah, all the principles of the eternal law. But, although they rose upon her view in all their vastness, she could not forget the prison. She redescended with a more rapid and radiant flight, and approached the gate with an aspect of equal solicitude and determination, but again she was denied admittance. She stood still; her emotion was visible. Justice ceased to brandish the sword; there was silence in heaven. Is there admittance on no terms whatever?" she asked. 'Yes,' said Justice, 'but only on terms which no finite being can fulfil.' 'I demand an atoning death for their eternal life; blood divine for their ransom.' 'And I,' said Mercy, at once accept the terms.' It was asked on what security, and when they would be fulfilled? There,' said Mercy, 'is the bond, my word, my oath; and four thousand years from this time, demand its payment on Calvary; for I will appear in the incarnate form of the Son of God, and be the Lamb slain for the sin of this world.' The bond was accepted without hesitation, and the gate opened at once. Mercy entered leaning on the arm of Justice. She spoke kindly to the prisoners, and gave them some hints of her high undertaking in their behalf. All were amazed, and many melted into tears by this timely and tender interference; and to confirm their hopes, Mercy from time to time led the captivity of some captive, that their salvation might be the pledge and prelude of eventual triumphs. Thus the gathering in of the first-fruits in the field of redemption went on for ages; and at last the clock of Prophecy struck the fulness of the time. Then Mercy became incarnate in the person of the Son of God, who appeared in the form of a servant publishing his intention and determination to pay the mighty bond,and soon the awful day of payment arrived, then the whole army of the judicial attributes of Jehovah took their stand on Calvary,—with justice at their head, bearing the bond of redemption. Angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, principalities and powers, left their thrones and mansions of glory, and bent over the battlements of heaven, gazing in mute astonishment and breathless suspension upon the solemn scene; for now the Mediator appeared without the gates of Jerusalem, crowned with thorns, and followed by the weeping Church. As he passed along the awful array of the judicial perfections of the divine character, none of them uttered a word of encouragement-none of them glanced a look of sympathy to him: it was the hour and power of darkness. Above him were all the vials of the divine wrath, and the thunders of the eternal law ready to burst on his devoted head. And around him were all the powers of darkness on the tiptoe of infernal expectation, waiting for the failure. But none of these things moved him from the purpose or spirit of redemption. He took the bond from the hand of Justice, and moved on to the cross as a lamb to the slaughter; he resigned himself to the attack of ignominy. Then Justice unsheathed the flaming sword, and marshalling all his terrors, went up to the altar to enforce his claims; the rocks rent under his tread, the sun shrunk from the glance of his eye. He lifted his right hand to the eternal throne, and exclaimed in thunder, 'Fires of heaven, descend and consume this sacrifice.' The fires of heaven, animated by the call, with living spirit answered, We come, we come; and when we have consumed that victim we will burn the universe.' They burst, blazed, devoured, until the humanity of Immanuel gave up the ghost, but the moment they touched his divinity they expired. That moment Justice dropped the flaming sword at the foot of the Cross, and joined the prophets in witnessing to the righteousness which is by faith: for all had heard the dying Redeemer exclaim in triumph,-'It is finished.' The weeping Church heard it, and lifting up her voice, cried,—'It is finished.' The attending angels caught the shout of vie tory, and winged their flight to the eternal throne, singing,-'It is finished.' The powers of darkness heard the acclamations of the universe, and hurried away from the scene in all the agony of disappointment and despair; for the bond was paid, and eternal redemption obtained.—Evans. t THE JEWISH SABBATH; ÓR, THE SABBATH AS A SOCIAL AND CIVIL INSTITUTION. a WE fear that we have chosen an unpromising title and an unpopular subject, and we confess ourselves unable to discover why it is so. It is singular, that while almost every other religious question which has been recently discussed, gained at once the attention and sympathy of the public, yet some how or another the Sabbath question has had the disadvantage of being treated with indifference and neglect. This cannot be the result of any settled conviction that the question is of itself unworthy of consideration, but possibly a variety of causes may have combined to produce it. The discussion of the lawfulness of Sabbath trains, led to a division of opinion in the community as to what was a work of necessity, and this division on that difficult question prevented many from joining in the movement to secure better observance of the Sabbath. The difference of opinion amongst professing Christians, as to what was the duty of the civil powers in reference to the Sabbath, has had also its influence in preventing that hearty co-operation which was expected. It may be also that the anxiety and zeal of some of the friends of the cause, led to sentiments and expressions which startled the prudence of others, and caused them to stand aloof from the movement. All public questions are liable to such drawbacks as these, and it may have been that the Sabbath question has had more than a fair share of them. However, one would have thought that the plan suggested by the sagacity and generosity of Mr Henderson of Park, namely, that of enlisting the sympathy and services of the working classes on behalf of the movement, by the offer of three prizes for the best essays, by working men, on the temporal advantages of the Sabbath to themselves, would have more than counterbalanced these deficiencies. But the result was not such as the sanguine friends of the Sabbath anticipated; for though the general competition and the public settlement of the prizes made a considerable noise at the time, yet the excitement died away, and nothing was produced worthy of the class or the Whatever may be the merits of these essays, and however creditable they may be to the talents and taste of their respective authors, still it must be confessed that they are only remarkable as the productions of working men. None of them rise above mediocrity, and are not such as might have been expected from cause. It the class that sent Burns from the plough, Wilson from the loom, and Miller from the quarry. Our friends, though evidently actuated by the best of motives, yet seem to be writing for a prize, and their anxiety to observe the rules laid down for the competition, appears to have withered that freshness and vigour which generally characterize the writings of self-taught men. They appear to have felt it necessary for the occasion to lay aside their working clothes, and to wash themselves from the soil of their labour, lest the mark of aught pertaining to their craft should stain their productions; and this requisite to their successful competition may so far explain why their essays have never been popular, among their own class. Though written by working men, they are not addressed to working men. They contain nothing like a spark from the anvil,' or 'a whistle from the plough,' to awaken the sympathy of the labouring class; so that the effort which might have made a work for the shop, only produced a wonder for the drawing-room. may be also that the religious aspect of the question has been too much paraded in public, and that its advocates have sometimes forgot the difference between the Church and the community, or the Town Councils and the Kirk Sessions. Not that the religious privileges of the Sabbath can ever be too highly prized, for to every Christian mind these will always be esteemed as pearls of great price; but if even these pearls have been cast without much discrimination into our business committees and public meetings, that would account for much of the turning again and rending which has been exhibited. At least it will be admitted, that the civil and social aspect of the question has not had that attention which its importance deserved; and whether it arises from the difficulty of finding a common ground, or from the fear of taking too low ground, we have never seen that position occupied in such a manner as was desirable. We are of opinion, that if the principle of the Jewish Sabbath was better understood, many erroneous impressions would be corrected, and a basis of union discovered by which all the friends of the Sabbath might combine to secure its unbroken rest. And we would therefore present the law of the Old Testament on this matter, not only as an authority to all who believe it to be so, but also as an example to such as may deny its obligation, and we may plead its regulations as proper rules even with those who refuse them as existing laws. To some our platform may appear too low; but if it is up to the standard of revelation, who would presume to raise it higher? The Jewish law of the Sabbath is expressed in the following terms-'Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by a stretchedout arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.' (Deut. v. 12-15.) In order to see the meaning and feel the force of these words, it will be necessary to glance at the state of society at the time and place to which reference is made. The Egyptians having so early as the days of Joseph pledged their lands and sold their liberty to the Crown, were soon reduced to a state of the most abject vassalage. The whole of the working classes were doomed to a toil that knew little intermission, and less remuneration. Under the pretence of improving every kind of handicraft, the children were bound to follow the trade of their parents, and were thus deprived of every hope of advancement, as no personal effort of theirs could elevate them above the drudgery to which they were born heirs. A system of caste, similar to that of Hindostan, confined the labouring population to their hopeless and cheerless callings, until they became too far sunk to feel their degradation, or to desire its amendment. The description of the condition of the Hebrews there, is one of the most graphic pictures of slavery that we have on record. They are represented as having neither the time nor the opportunity to worship, and the effort to procure these privileges begins the struggle which ends in the bursting of their bonds. They could not worship the God of their fathers there in the form observed by the Patriarchs, because the animals which they were commanded to sacrifice had been deified by the Egyptians; and any attempt to offer these would have been regarded as sacrilege by their oppressors, and be but the signal for their destruction. In these circumstances, Moses was deputed to go and ask from Pharaoh the privilege of being allowed to go three days' journey from Egypt, where, when far from the habitations of men, they might without offence worship their God in the solitude of the wilderness. To Moses' request, 'Let my people go and worship,' the tyrant answers, 'Go get you to your burdens: let more work be laid on them, and let them not regard vain words.' When the overburdened labourers again complain, they are unfeelingly told, Ye are idle, ye are idle, therefore, ye say, Let us go and worship,' and they are sent back to their toil, as if they had been a class of beings who had no duties which they owed to God, and no rights which they could claim from man. This request and its refusal is a striking illustration of the condition of society and of the character of the times. Now, it was in times and circumstances like these, when labour without intermission, and without reward, was demanded from the working classes, that Moses drew forth from the ruins of antiquity the institution of the Sabbath, and enshrined it in the moral code of laws as the Magna Charta of labour. When the re-institution of the Sabbath is thus read in the light of its connected circumstances, what a host of arguments in behalf of a day of rest are condensed in the words, 'Remember Egypt.' There is not in all the records of antiquity any such vindication of the liberty of conscience and the rights of man. It was a measure so foreign to the feelings, and so contrary to the customs of the age, as to be evidently the inspiration of heaven-a gift from the Creator to his toil-worn creatures—a flower taken from paradise, to alleviate the curse and to sweeten the labour of man. This then is the origin of the Hebrew Sabbath, and some of the reasons for its peculiar strictness as a day of rest, a peculiarity which it is now unhappily too much the fashion of our times to despise. We are aware that many of the ceremonies and customs which the Jews attended to in their observance of the Sabbath have been swept away, and that some positive ordinances once belonging to it have been removed, and that others are now appointed in their stead. But we are not aware that the moral duty of resting one day in seven has been altered by any change which the Church has undergone. On the contrary, we hold that Christ abolished the existing abuses of the Sabbath to secure its ancient uses, and made it what it was at the beginning-a Sabbath meet for man, a day of rest to the weary, and of worship to the serious. We know that the Jews in their regard for the letter of the law violated its spirit-that with them rest was religion. But may we not have gone to the other extreme-respecting the Sabbath as a day of worship, but overlooking its importance as a day of rest-esteeming its usefulness to the Church, but forgetting its value to the world-honouring it for the privileges it bestows on us as Christians, but heedless of the blessings it confers on us as men. These thoughts would require a more extended illustration, and we proceed to notice First, That Moses, in recording the institution of the Sabbath in the Genesis, simply states that God sanctified the Sabbath day, because in it he rested from all his work.' Here we learn that the Sabbath was originally appointed to commemorate the creation of the world, a fact which is the elementary truth in all religions, and one of the most important truths to man as a moral being, inasmuch as it certifies and proclaims the relation between him and his Creator-a relation, be it observed, which lies at the foundation of all moral duty, is the origin of all moral obligation, gives to God all his right to command the services and allot the circumstances of his creatures, and creates all those moral responsibilities which distinguish men as rational beings. It was well, therefore, that the facts-which certify a relation involving such consequences-should be as intelligibly proclaimed and as sensibly manifested as possible, and we can conceive of no better way of doing this in the early ages than the institution of a day of rest. By its periodical recurrence, it came again and again, like an importunate creditor, to remind man of his origin, and of all those duties which he owed to his God and his kind. Even the long-lived tenants of the field seem to have learned to distinguish by its silent rest the birth-day of creation from the other days of the week, and then 'look less fearful on man their foe.' And could the observation of reason overlook or forget what the experience of instinct can learn and remember? God has impressed his own image on the works of nature; but as that is but dimly reflected on a dark mind, it was well that the Sabbath's rest should be hung up like a lamp to the world, so that the human family might not only see but feel the light of their Father's countenance. And as men may see that image mirrored in the blue sky, the green sea, and the variegated earth, even so may they also feel in the calm stillness of a silent world the conciousness of a present and presiding Deity. 'God's voice is powerful on the waters, and full of majesty in the thunder;' but the silence of the Sabbath is like a whisper from the throne of heaven, breathing softly in the ear of a listening world, "Be still, and know that I am God.' In the early dawn of human history it was a suitable witness for the existence and supremacy of the one only God. So long as the Sabbath was not forsaken, he could not be forgotten; and wherever it was known, there also was he regarded and honoured. It was only after men forgot the seventh day, that they for got all those truths it commemorated, and forsook all those duties it commanded. The image of the Invisible was still as deeply engraven on the works of his hands, but the light that reflected that image on the conscience became dim as the lamp of this primeval institution grew dull; and when it was extinguished by the profanity of the times, the image of the Eternal faded away from the minds of his creatures, and the bands of restraint were severed, and the bonds of brotherhood were burst, soon as the presence of the common Father was sensibly withdrawn. Then during the eclipse of religion, the twilight of science, and the midnight of freedom, the pyramids of Egypt were erected as suitable memorials of the period-the gigantic tombs of overgrown tyrants, erected by a nation of slaves in the first burial-grounds of human | liberty. Secondly, Moses, in re-instituting the Sabbath as the Exodus from Egypt, merely refers to the original institution as a reason sufficient to justify its re-appointment; and by inserting it in the moral law with only this reason annexed for its observance, he appears to have regarded it as an institution peculiar to no age nor sect, but as it was founded on the relation between the Creator and the creature, its observance was binding on all by whom this relation was acknowledged. By placing it in the moral code, he not only distinguished it from all those positive precepts of the ceremonial law, which were only binding on the Jews as Jews, but elevated it to the rank of a moral duty, which was binding on all men as men. Thus on this principle men of every nation, of all ranks and of all creeds, were held by the Jewish lawgiver to be under personal obligations to keep the Sabbath. Having gone thus far, it was necessary to carry out this principle, that the Jew, with all his kindred, neighbours, and dependants, should be placed in such circumstances as would enable them to keep the law. If any one had been left with the power to prevent any from observing it, such an overlook would have been at variance with the universal requirement of the law. Hence universal rest was appointed as the only safeguard of general liberty; and to protect the rights of all, the Sabbath was recognised by the civil law, and its rest enforced on the whole community. Thirdly, It is worthy of notice that Moses, in inserting the Sabbath in the civil or judicial code, leaves out the reason annexed to it in the moral law, and not only gives another, but a different reason for its civil obligation. As moral beings, he holds them personally bound to keep it, from a respect to the authority of their Maker; and as social beings, he holds them |