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corrupt nature, ever ready to take part with the world, ever likely to be led astray from God and heavenly things. How will such an one prize the day, when, by God's will, he is bid to cease from earthly things—he is permitted to rest from earthly duties, and to turn all his attention to things spiritual. How will he prize the means of grace, in which he seeks the face of the Lord, and find Him: the Day on which, through the preached word, he receives the special message from God that his soul needs: the Day which he finds, again and again, through the power of the quickening Spirit, a resurrection day to his soul. Oh! where is the soul that loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, that cannot testify that his Sabbaths have been the stepping-stones that have pointed out to him the way to the Celestial City; and that as he has passed from one to the other, he has found them indeed tokens to his soul, that the Lord was with him of a truth; his mighty Saviour and faithful Shepherd, leading him by the way

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We fear not to say to you, judge yourselves by your Sabbaths. We mean not that the mere delight of the moment in hearing the preacher, that a mere passing excitement is sufficient proof that all is well. But ask yourself honestly-What think you of the Lord's

Day? What do you desire as each Sabbath draws upon you? What do you seek after

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through the Sabbath Day? What effect has your Sabbath on the week that follows it? Do you lay by in store on the first day of the week, that food in which you delight day after day? Oh! prize your Sabbaths more and more, "redeeming the time because the days are evil." Watch and pray lest there be the beginnings of spiritual decay here, for surely such a decay in the Lord's Day, shall eat as doth a canker through the week,

One short word of warning to those who do not honour the Lord's Day. It is but to beseech you to remember what has been said. It is the Lord's word which makes the day holy, and holy it is. You cannot make it any thing but what it is. Week by week does it come round as the Lord's Day which He has hallowed the portion of your time which He claims for heavenly service. "Will a man rob God?" Will you venture to go on, suffering it at each return to be a record on high, against your soul: a token that you are saying, I am not the Lord's-saying to the Highest, depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways?

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PRAYER.

O Almighty and most merciful God, who didst create all things by thy word. Thou hast been pleased to make known to us thy will from the beginning, and to bid us remember to keep holy thy Sabbath Day. I thank Thee, O Lord, for this day: this token of thy love to our souls. Thou, O God, who knowest us all altogether, knowest how greatly we need it both for soul and body. But, O Lord, I lament that I have so little profited by this great privilege. Forgive me, I beseech Thee, for Jesus' sake, all my Sabbath sins! And since, O Lord, thou hast blessed this day, give me grace to profit by the blessing. Grant that each Sabbath may make me richer in the knowledge of Christ. Grant me grace to love thy holy day, and never to be ashamed to esteem it honourable and a delight. And bring me O Lord at last to inherit the blessing prepared for those who shall dwell with Christ in a Sabbath of eternal peace and joy. Hear me, O Father, for the sake of this same Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

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FIRST MAN'S DISOBEDIENCE.

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

"And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst

of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

"For God doth know that in the day ye eat there

of, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." GEN. III. 1--6.

THIS is God's account of how sin first entered into this world of ours. Many curious questions will often arise in men's minds concerning

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this great matter of sin being in the world; but all that is good for us to know, is what God reveals to us in this chapter. He tells us these facts about it-that it came from the devil, and that man's disobedience to God's word was the cause of his fall, and by his sin all his posterity are corrupted. So writes the Apostle of Adam's sin, in Rom. v. 12, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."... ..." By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." And this account of sin first coming into the world is very instructive, and teaches us many things concerning the way in which sin attacks men now, and how we may profit by the warning before us. Things we may learn concerning our enemy the tempter, and the temptations with which he tries men. For of this we may be sure-Satan grows wiser by success. What he found to be of avail so many thousand years ago, he will still make use of against the sons of men. The weapons he used then, he will use now. Another thing we must remember he finds men's hearts more prepared to receive him than was Eve's. She was innocent before he tempted her, but now men's hearts are already inclined to evil-too ready to listen, yea, to yield to his voice.

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