a young man, who, in the first openings of life, promised every thing that was amiable. Under the fostering care of his parents, he is fed, he is clothed, he is put to school. No expense, nor pains, nor time, is spared to complete his education, and the good dispositions of the youth afford great hope to his parents. But, alas! in the matter of the Sabbath, through their inattention to sanctify it in their dwelling, no restraint is ever laid upon him. He may go out when he has a mind; he may play; he may stroll the streets, or traverse the country at pleasure; he may associate with his companions, and engage with them in any favourite playful purpose, during all or a part of the day, as his inclination leads him. As to prayer, reading the Scriptures, attendance on public worship and exercises of catechising, in order to form his young mind to religious principle, as little account almost has been taken of him with respect to these things, as if, belonging to a horde of wandering Scythians, his only employ, from his early life, had been to issue forth with the rising sun of every day to range the forest in quest of a precarious subsistence.-The consequence is obvious.-The mind, and the habits of thinking and acting, thus formed, to the exclusion of religious principle and religious impression, because wholly unacquainted with either, the service and homage, due from him to the God that made and redeemed him, are not in all his thoughts. All reverence for the Sabbath is lost, because so long accustomed to regard it as a play-day. In vain do you expect him to submit to a punctual attendance on the ordinances of public worship. The habit of profaning it hath got too deep root in his mind and practice, for him to appropriate that day to the services of devotion. Nay, although he were to go to the house of God, so ignorant is he of religious truth, that he has no understanding of what he hears; and, of consequence, can have no relish for it, so as to fix the attention, and engage the heart. Nor can you expect, in these circumstances, that the restraints of religion can have any influence in curbing youthful passions, or producing that sobriety of mind in a young man which is so necessary to avoid the shame, the disgrace, and the misery, which hath completed the ruin of many thousands. Thus ripened for such a melancholy issue, your son avows himself an infidel; because altogether unacquainted with the doctrines and the evidences of the Christian religion; and his antipathies are strong against the restraints of its Sabbaths, and the necessary attendance upon divine worship which it requires. The unwary youth is a prey to every pernicious and ensnaring sentiment, because possessed of no real principle to arm him against it and so fond is he of the easy morality of a loose age, that his spirits rise against every restraint that would fetter him in the indulgence of any of his propensities. If established in a family, his abode is the haunt of impiety and vice. Religion finds nothing but neglect, and ill treatment under his roof. A free liver, as well as a free-thinker, he glories in the insults which he offers to the law of God: and, to gain proselytes to his gloomy system, is a supreme gratification. Prosperity inflames his passions, renders him more daring in vice, and less provident against a day of evil. In the day of adversity, and in the prospect of death, he either howls like a dog, appears regardless like a fool, or blasphemes like a devil. And as he lived, so he dies, and goes to his place !-Alas! who or what can countervail the loss which this unhappy creature hath sustained, by the inattention of his parents to his religious education, particularly to the sanctification of the Sabbath; and the manner in which he was trained up to disregard it. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gam the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?”* Suppose now, this individual case to extend to society at large. Suppose a town, a district, or a nation, to be trained up in the same neglect of religious education, and profanation of the Sabbath day. What is the consequence? Religion is universally disregarded; the house of God is deserted; immorality, in every form, is practised without restraint; the bonds of society are dissolved; the heavens frown; the earth is smitten with barrenness; the air becomes the medium of contagion and death!!! Or if prosperity smile, it becomes a curse to its possessors, making them more forgetful of God and religion, and fattening them the speedier for the day of Jehovah's slaughter. For when society at large become thus profligate, the time is commonly not far distant for calamity to succeed calamity, till prevailing wickedness, with the authors of it, be swept from the earth. Thus ignorance, impenetrable ignorance, with every kind of wickedness in its train, is the consequence of employing the Sabbath to our own purposes, and of neglecting upon it the study and the practice of religion. Must it not then be a loss incalculable for people, in the manner specified, to be deprived of the instruction, of the enlargement of mind, and the other good impressions they might receive, by devoting the sacred hours of Sabbath to reading, to meditation, to prayer, to praise, to hearing the word preached, to religious conversation, to catechising, to self examination? And how inconceivable the misery of being formed, by ignorance and irreligion, to the ways of vice and perdition! Amidst all our pretensions to politeness as a people, and the exquisite sensibility of our great ones, in avoiding every thing that would offend; is there any thing like a general consent to gratify the wishes of the more devout and zealous among us in the cause of religion, by refraining from these public amusements. * Matt. xvi. 26 travelling excursions, and other recreations upon Sabbath, which are so inconsistent with every rule, even of civility and external decency, upon that consecrated day. But, indeed, when a people cast off the fear of God, and neglect that homage and reverence which they owe to him, we need not expect the rules of good breeding to go far, in respecting the feelings, or manifesting a deference to the religious observances of the more sober and devout." If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. On Kind Affections. TAYLOR. While a Christian kindly affectioned is distinguished from a man of a proud and overbearing temper, he is yet more distinguished from a person of a selfish and a cold heart. There are numbers who, though they will not be guilty of direct fraud, cruelty, or injustice, yet confine themselves to mere negative goodness, and satisfy themselves by thinking, that if they have done no wrong to another, they have done well. Considering that a man's first concern is for himself, they make this the principal and almost sole object of their attention: they seem to be at pains to seclude every other concern, reckoning nothing wrong which is not unjust, and nothing required which the law does not positively demand. Persons of this unfeeling temper are at pains to fortify themselves in their obduracy; and, wrapped up in the cloak of selfishness, are regardless of the happiness or misery of their fellow-crcatures. They find many arguments by which they harden their hearts, and allege numberless reasons as an excuse for not exercising the duties of humanity: they turn away their eyes from scenes of distress, even though the afflicting hand of God be stretched out, not because of notorious sin and folly, but for the trial and confirmation of the sufferers; coldly pretending, that they are not concerned. Hath his unhappy brother involved himself in trouble by his own fault, they immediately conclude, that he ought to suffer for his folly; and that others, more prudent, are neither to be involved in his distress, nor to pity his misfortune. If all mankind acted by the same rule, how miserable should we be in society? How much do we all stand in need of sympathy and compassion from one another? The most powerful and the most opulent are, on many occasions, dependent on the affection and good-will of their inferiors. If in the hour of sickness, and day of adversity, we had only servile hands to attend us, we should then know how much we stood in need of the * John zv. 19. tender sympathy and lenient hand of friendship; if, when we were visited by heavy misfortunes and severe trials, we had none to comfort us, we should sink under that burden which our own unassisted strength is unable to bear; if when, in an unguarded hour, we commit errors, to which even the best are sometimes liable, and then met with nothing but that reproach which, in strict justice, we have deserved, how bitterly should we pass our days of repentance? A Christian who duly considers these things, does not shut up his bowels of compassion against his brother, but with an open heart discharges the tender duties of humanity. Remembering that he is in the body liable to distress and weakness, he learns sympathy; he does not avoid the hour of mourning, but enjoys a real satisfaction if he can, in any degree, alleviate sorrow, or comfort the afflicted heart; he wishes to convince his brother of error, by friendly admonitions, not by bitter reproaches; and where he discovers symptoms of repentance, he strives to confirm him in virtue, and reconcile him to the world and to himself. No tears mingle so sweetly as those of mutual sympathy and affection; they are not bitter, but more fragrant to the feeling heart than the richest perfumes to the senses. A person kindly affectioned draws, even from affliction, sensations more truly pleasing to the benevolent mind, than all the tumultuary gladness which can arise from sensual joy. A Christian kindly affectioned cultivates a disposition to please and to be pleased. While he endeavonrs to live happily in society, he strives, to the utmost of his power, to promote the happiness of others. This serenity of mind may be sometimes interrupted by scenes of deliberate wickedness and vice, which he cannot witness without the most sensible pain; and he may also be disquieted by considering the deep distresses which many endure, where it is beyond his power to relieve or to comfort. Yet these do not materially affect his happiness, or the temper of his mind; which will appear by remarking, that the greater part of human life does not consist in deeds which are either notoriously bad, or eminently good; but in actions which do but in a small degree approach either to the one or the other. The happiness, therefore, or the misery of life, does not consist in transports of joy, or in the anguish of affliction; but in feelings of an inferior kind, which, though less violent, yet are much more frequent than these poignant sensations. Hence it comes to be in our power to make others miserable in life, not so much by deeds of cruelty or injustice, which we dare not or cannot commit, as by indulg ing a malevolent or uncharitable disposition towards them, and it is in our power to make them happy, not so much by signal and material services, which are seldom in our power, as by the inferior offices of kindness and benevolence, which we are able more constantly to exercise. Thus a man who gives way to a bad temper, though he may not be chargeable with any immoral or unjust action, yet often renders every one around him unhappy ; he banishes kind and cheerful looks by the sourness of his countenance, and excites in others disquieting thoughts in place of pleasing emotions. A Christian kindly affectioned, on the other hand, diffuses cheerfulness and complacency; he is on his guard, lest he should give uneasiness even to the meanest, and strives to make the hours pass sweetly on. In like manner, a person of an invidious disposition, though his conscience may not suffer him to do an actual injury, yet being disquieted and uneasy at the happiness of his neighbour, he speaks slightingly of his merit, and doubtfully of his good qualities; he catches every opportunity to mortify him; he misses no occasion of a satirical remark; and by thus hurting a tender part, may often render him more unhappy than he could have done by an open act of injustice. A Christian of kind affections abhors this ill-natured meanness. As he wishes for the happiness of others, so he rejoices in their prosperity; he is cautious of saying any thing, though true, which may give pain, unless he hopes to do a greater good; and though he will never flatter, yet studies how he may say or do what is pleasing. Again, a person of a fretful and discontented temper, by continual peevishness, makes all with whom he is nearly connected, uneasy. While he is unthankful for many blessings he enjoys, he is constantly repining, aggravating every little inconvenience to which he is exposed, complaining of all that he wants, as if he had a right to possess every good thing. Such a man is not only unable to exercise kind affections in himself, but by his presence, in a great measure, prevents others from unfolding theirs. Though he be an object of pity, yet, by his unreasonable conduct, he precludes himself from sympathy. The Christian disposition is the reverse of this. While he is thankful to God for the many blessings he has conferred, he shows that he is grateful, by maintaining a cheerful and contented mind. As nature has but few real wants, so he can make himself happy on very few things; he does not repine at the superior wealth of others, but is pleased to think, that he can be as well satisfied with his pittance as they can be with their abundance.-Yet again, a man of a slothful disposition, though he is guilty of no actual injury, yet does not contribute to the happiness of others. Though he may wish well to mankind, and be even pleased to see them happy, yet he will not rouse himself from indolence to do good: he seems to shun opportunities of being serviceable, and to avoid occasions where he may be called to active duty; he turns away from the house of mourning, and is unwillingly present at any scene of distress; he flies from every appearance of danger, and studies to live at perfect case. If such a person possesses any kind affections, they are of no use to mankind: he is in some respects worse than a mere blank in creation, because he occupies a station the du ties of which he does not discharge. A man truly kindly affection |