parel; and I am one of those who believe that to be neat and tidy has a decided moral influence. As the tradesman or the mechanic, who has been confined for some days, walks abroad, leading his little ones to the Sunday-school or the church, he feels a complacency which nothing else could produce. If his turn is serious, he will be led to contemplate the Creator in his works; and, especially in the fairer seasons of the year, to rejoice with rejoicing nature.

But it is at church that we discern the greatest advantages of the Sabbath. There is a little community met in their best suit, in their best humour, for the most important business of the week. If it is in the country, the scene is often enchanting. The old church stands on some eminence, surrounded by ancient trees, beneath which are scattered the grassy mounds that mark the restingplace of the dead. Friends are now exchanging kind looks and salutations, who meet at no other time during the week. There is scarcely a dull eye or a lack-lustre face among the groups which crown every knoll of the wide enclosure. So that, long before public worship begins, there is a benign, moral influence at work. How much more pure and genial is the social spirit thus awakened than that which is engendered at wakes, auctions, and town-meetings: and how little real community of feeling would there be in a neighbourhood where there was no such weekly gathering!

But enter the house of God, and catch the impression of the sacred scene. The vision of the

poet is realized:

"Fast the church-yard fills; anon
Look again, and they are gone;

The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sat in the shade of the prior's oak!
And scarcely have they disappear'd
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard :—
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice,
A moment ends the fervent din,

And all is hush'd without and within."*

Who can calculate the softening, elevating, hallowing influences of such a service once every week! Fifty-two Sundays, every year, is this custom spreading its blessed fruits of peace and good order. Consider next the instructions of this sacred season. "Here," says a popular writer, "on a day devoted to no employment but the gaining of this knowledge, and the performance of those religious duties which unite with it in perfect harmony; in a place convenient and sacred; on an occasion infinitely important; and with the strong power of sympathy to aid and impress; a thousand persons are taught the best of all knowledge; the most useful to themselves and the most beneficial to mankind; for a less sum than must be expended by a twentieth part

* Wordsworth.

of their number in order to obtain the same instruction in any other science. No device of the heathen philosophers, or of modern infidels, greatly as they have boasted of their wisdom, can be compared, as to its usefulness, with this. The Sabbath, particularly, is the only means ever devised of communicating important instruction to the great mass of mankind."

For these reasons the habit of church-going is of great value to every man, and above all price to such as have not received a thorough education. I like to see the head of a family bringing all his household to public worship: children cannot begin too soon to enjoy so great a blessing.

The afternoon and evening of Sunday afford a favourable opportunity for the religious instruction of children and dependants. In the stricter sort of old families this was as regular a thing as the return of the day. There are good occasions also for the reading of the Scriptures and of other good books. Happy is that domestic circle where this has been the habit of every member from his childhood.

What time can be more favourable than this for acts of mercy! From the smallest gains something may be laid by, on the first day of the week, for the poor, or for benevolent institutions. It is really surprising to observe how much more men will give in the course of a year in this way, than by random gifts of large amount.

He who enters at all into the spirit of what I have written, will not need to be warned against

Sunday dinners, visits to public gardens, rides or drives into the country, or any of the varieties of profane dissipation. Sir Matthew Hale is reported to have said, that during a long life he had observed the success of his weeks to turn out well or ill, according as he had observed or neglected the Lord's-day.

23*

XLIII.

THE WORKING-MAN RETIRED FROM BUSINESS.

"O bless'd retirement, friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
How happy he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease."

GOLDSMITH.

AN elderly man once expressed to me his sense of declining life, by saying, "My birth-days begin to come very fast." The years seem to run round faster as they approach their close; so that it is a common saying among the aged, that time flies much more rapidly than when they were young. Every gray hair, every failing tooth, every wrinkle, and every decay of eyesight, ought to serve as a gentle hint, that we are going down the hill; and yet I believe there is no one whom old age does not take by surprise. There is a fine moral in the little poem of the Three Warnings; those of us who begin to be shy of telling our age would do well to read it.

At this period of life, particularly where a man has had some prosperity, it is natural to think of retiring from business. What can be more reasonable than to desist from labour when the ne