taste! Omit no opportunity-the one you causelessly pass by, may be the very one that would have conveyed the richest blessing to your soul.

Cherish the sanctuary, as well as frequent it. Suffer me to remind you, that the glorious man on whom our attention is fixed, was very zealous for the maintenance and honour of God's house. Copy him in this respect. Lean not on the state to exempt you from the duty -ought I not rather to say the privilege?—of lengthening the cords and strengthening the stakes and sustaining the ministrations of your Church. Let your free-will offerings be given for the purpose, in the spirit, if not in the measure, of her who "cast all her living" into the treasury. There has, indeed, been a noble rally amongst the children of the Church, during the present century, for the purpose of meeting the spiritual exigencies of the population throughout the land-and not least in our own city and neighbourhood. There is, however, a wide and necessitous field. still before us. Let us not be content till the lap of our Church is broad enough to nurse and the bosom of our Church ample enough to cherish all her offspring. Let us gird ourselves anew to the task. Would that more of our men of wealth could be induced to consecrate their

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riches and their energies to the enterprise! They build themselves magnificent mansions, they purchase lordly estates, they bequeath unwieldy heritages to their posterity-to be spent, perhaps, in gambling, debauchery, or show-to prove a snare and a curse to their descendants. Is not this to walk in a vain shadow? Is it not to "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind?" Had they made to themselves "friends of the mammon of unrighteousness;" had they loved our nation and built us synagogues-then would they have laid up "in store for themselves a good foundation against the time of trouble." Here is an ambition worthy of a renovated and undying soul.

At this critical juncture, when clouds big with terror are darkening the sky, be true to your country, your Church, your sovereign, and your God. You may be told that there is no danger, no sinister omen; many cry "peace and safety;" but surely they must be false prophets—unobserving, undiscerning, or jesuitical. For if ever there has been a period since the Reformation when the Protestantism of Europe has been imperilled, it is the present period: if ever there has been a crisis when the fidelity, the consistency, the Protestant bearing of this country-the refuge of the persecuted, the home of truth, the citadel of liberty -has been of unspeakable moment to the whole

world, it is the crisis on which we are entering. Under God, England is set for the defence of the truth on behalf of mankind: under God, the faithful throughout the whole earth look to her for the maintenance of the pure gospel, and the vindication of the sacred freedom to worship God according to His word. The Lord God Omnipotent strengthen and harness us for the struggle ! The Lord, the Spirit, endue us with boldness to resolve, and with might to carry out the resolution-come what may-"we will not forsake the Word of our God-we will not forsake the House of our God!"

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LECTURE XIII.

NEHEMIAH'S ZEAL FOR THE SABBATH.

"Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”— NEH. xiii. 17, 18.

As God appointed His Holy Day for the individual to keep it to His glory; so He appointed it for the nation as a sign of His covenant with a people. Viewed in this light, the desecration or the sanctification of the day of rest is largely the criterion of a Christian country's faithfulness or infidelity; and will prove, in the long run, a main hinge of the prosperity or the downfall of that kingdom. It was in this view that God spoke of His day, when he said, "Hallow my Sabbaths,

and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." It was in this view He spoke of it, when He declared that he would pour forth his fury upon Israel because they had defiled His Sabbaths; and it was in the same light He regarded it, when He said, "If ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem, on the Sabbath-day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." As God had threatened, so had He done. The desecration of His day was one of the most crying of the sins of Israel. Their dispersion, desolation, and captivity had been the consequence. And now that God had brought back a remnant, who had restored the Temple, and raised from ruin the walls of their holy city-everything depended on their faithfulness to God, on their steadfastness in His covenant. No marvel, then, that their zealous ruler was jealous over them with a godly jealousy, as for the honour of the House and Name of God, so for the authority and sanctity of His day. He was, therefore, filled with just dismay, holy agitation of mind, and righteous indignation, when he witnessed what he thus describes-" In those says saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses