seem to suppose, an institution slightly connected with the other arrangements of God. It may seem so at first, but trace its connexions and you will find it inseparably blending with all the arrangements of God for the elevation and well-being of man. Its law of rest is enstamped even upon the physical organization of all beings capable of labor, whether of body or mind, and in its simplicity and variety of adaptation, like the air, and the light, and the water, it bears the evident impress of the hand of God. How simple! and yet while it meets the wants of the exhausted animal, how evidently was it "made for man" in all conditions and in all his relations! How perfectly is it adapted to the laboring man in his toil, to the young man in his temptations, to the business man in his perplexities, to the scholar in his exhausting processes of thought, and to the statesman as bearing the burdens of public life! How is it adapted to families, consecrating home, and giving opportunity for family instruction; how to communities, as the individuals composing them are related at once to each other and to God, and as needing opportunity both for private and public devotion! How does it blend the social and the religious nature of man, and fit him for a social heaven! How is it related to the Bible, as a book requiring study, and so time for study! How does it connect man with the past, by constantly reminding him of that great event which it commemorates; how with the future, by its glimpses and foretastes of that heaven which it typifies! Kept as God commanded, it would improve the individual man, physically, intellectually, morally. In his social relations, it would secure purity and harmony; in his civil relations, security and freedom. It would unite man to man, and all men to God. Surely, whatever he may intend, he who fights against the Sabbath, fights against the best interests of his race, and against God himself. Surely this Association is engaged in a work of piety and of patriotism in making known the will of God on this subject. This connexion of the Sabbath with civil liberty, and with every earthly interest of man, I would especially urge, at this point, upon the attention of civilians and statesmen. Let them understand it, and if not as religious men, yet as patriots, they will honor this day, from the honest convictions of their own hearts; let the people understand it, and they will see to it that no man, whatever may be his talents, or his party, shall have their favor, who will disregard an institution so vital to their welfare.

And this leads me to say finally, that while the Sabbath is thus adapted to man, at all times and in all circumstances, there is much in our present position, as related to free institutions and to the hopes of the world, which calls upon us for special interest in this cause. While, for reasons already indicated, there are always peculiar temptations to violate the Sabbath, and we are to expect at this point the first, and not the least violent onset of the ene

mies of freedom and of religion, there is also much in the circumstances, especially of our western and southern population, scattered as they are, with imperfect means of education, and little organized into societies, which must tend strongly to the desecration of this day. There is, too, pouring in upon us with prodigious and unexampled rapidity, a foreign population not trained in the school of freedom, and if they regard the Sabbath at all, having generally low views respecting it. This population is of different nations, and languages, and sects, and being clothed at once with political power, and spread over the whole breadth of the land, it must enter, as a modifying if not a distracting element, into all our political and religious combinations and movements. This heterogeneous mass is taking possession of a country of exhaustless fertility and of boundless resources, and is sitting down under a government where there can be no effectual barrier between the people and their immediate will. If now we add to these characteristics peculiar to this country, those of the age-the general activity of mind, the triumphs of science and invention, the power of the press, the wonderful means of communication, and the facility with which vast masses may be concentrated at various pointswe must feel that the elements are combining which shall prepare the way for scenes such as this world has never witnessed. At present, the urgency of want, the facilities for enterprise, the newness and vastness of the country, may conduct harmlessly off the elements of evil. But when the population shall become dense, and its tide refluent, numbering, as soon it must, its hundred millions; when wealth and the arts of luxury shall be increased; then, what complexity of interests! what prizes for ambition! what means of corruption! Then, let the political heavens become black, let the storms of passion be raging, and the waves of faction be heaving and tossing over this mighty ocean; and there is no human power that can prevent the bark of our liberties from foundering and going down. Then will the sun of the brightest morning that ever dawned upon the earth set in storms and in blood. No! no human power can prevent this. If prevented at all, it must be by that God, "which by his strength setteth fast the mountains; being girded with power: which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." Our hope is in Him, in his word, in his ordinances, in his Sabbath. Let God be honored in these, and all will be well. Let the Sabbath sun, as he returns, look down upon these multitudes going up, over the hills of New England, and the prairies of the West, to worship together-to listen to the voice of God, to unite in prayer, and in sacred praise-and the purity and permanence of free institutions will be secured. The "people shall be all righteous," and "shall inherit the land for ever."

SERMON CCCCLI.

BY REV. DR. HUMPHREY.

WAITING FOR A REVIVAL.

Though the vision tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, and will not tarry.-HAB. II., 3.

It is to be feared that during the great spiritual drought which has parched the land, and been wasting the churches for more than three years and six months," many professed Christians have been waiting for "the heavens to pour down righteousness, very much as stupid sinners wait for the Lord to come and awaken and convert them. They act as if they had nothing to do and almost nothing to say, either to God or man about it. They fold their arms, and trust that in his own time God will again visit his people, and "pour us out a blessing till there shall not be room enough to receive it."

There is a true sense in which we ought to wait for revivals, and there is a false and ruinous sense, in which but too many do wait for them. What, then, does waiting, in the true and proper sense, imply?

1. It implies a sense of need. As the Christian, who in a time of great spiritual declension is sufficiently awake to look round upon the desolation, "his eye affects his heart." He sees "how the ways of Zion mourn." He sees how the young are growing up and coming upon the stage without religion, while the fathers and mothers in Israel are passing off. With deep concern he watches the tide of worldliness and irreligion as it rises higher and higher, and threatens to sweep away what of vital, active piety, there is still left, from the face of the land; and he feels that nothing but the Spirit of God can arrest it. Then it is that he begins in humble dependence to look up, and wait for a revival.

2. Waiting for a revival implies desire. There is no consistency or propriety in saying that we are waiting for the outpouring of the Spirit, if we feel indifferent about it. And I apprehend that there is at the present moment a great deal more of this indifference, of this spiritual apathy in the churches, than the majority of professors are aware of. We are liable to deceive ourselves in imagining that we feel much more than we really do. How many among us say that they desire to see God's work revived, perhaps that they desire it more than anything else, while they give no

evidence of it? Desire, where there is anything to be done for the attainment of an object, begets effort; but what are they doing to "prepare the way of the Lord?" Let not the stupid, worldly professor flatter himself, that he is waiting for a revival of religion, while he has no real desire for it. If he had, he would shake off his sloth and make the desire known, not in cold professions, but in the use of such means as God has appointed.

3. Waiting for a revival implies expectation. When we wait for the coming of a friend, it is with some degree, at least, of expectation. We might greatly desire to see him, and to have him come immediately; but if we did not expect him at all, any more than we do that summer will come in mid winter, it could not with any propriety be said that we were waiting for him. No more can it be said that any one is waiting for a revival, if he has no expectation that the Son of Man will come in his power and glory. Is not there reason to believe that many prayers are daily offered up for the speedy revival of God's work, by church members, who do not expect it at all? Nothing would astonish them more. Everything looks dark and discouraging. They pray by rote. They expect no immediate answer to their prayers. They are not waiting for the blessing in any proper sense. If it is ever to come, it is a great way off-much too far off to be expected.

4. Waiting for a revival implies the use of all the means which God has appointed for bringing down the blessing, and hastening the time. Among these, prayer holds the most prominent place. With God is the residue of the Spirit. It is his prerogative to "rain down righteousness;" but "he will be inquired of." He expects that if his children want the blessing, they will ask for it, and that they "will give him no rest ;" and most assuredly, if they do not faint, if they are "not faithless but believing," he will hear and answer and show mercy, "though he bear long with them." Religious conference, also, under the divine blessing, prepares the way for a revival. Thus "they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard." It is when Christians are engaged in religious converse, that "their hearts burn within them."

Nor do those who really wait for a revival content themselves with speaking to one another on the subject. They turn to their impenitent friends and neighbors, and earnestly exhort them "to flee from the wrath to come." Their daily prayer is, "Lord, what wilt thou have us to do?" And it is their aim and endeavor to act in the spirit of this petition. Reader, is it yours? Are you waiting for a revival? Do you see and feel the need of it? Do you earnestly desire it? Do you expect it? Do you fervently pray for it, with an humble reliance on God's great and precious promises; and are you faithfully using

all the means of his appointment? "We are in a great strait." The churches at large are in a consumption; and if God do not interpose, they will die. O, when will "the years of his right hand" return? When will Zion again rise and shake herself from the dust? "Hath God cast off his people whom he foreknew?" Are his mercies clean gone for ever? Will he be favorable no more? "He will be gracious. He will answer prayer. He will build again the waste places." "Though the vision tarry, wait for it: because it will surely come and will not tarry." Already are the heavens beginning again to open. Here and there a field is refreshed, and is there not "a sound of abundance of rain?" "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known, in wrath remember mercy."

SERMON, CCCCLII.

BY THE LATE REV. DANIEL A. CLARK.

"For every one that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."-JOHN 111; 20.

THE more accurately we are able to judge of men's motives, the more fully do we see the correspondence which exists between human conduct and human character. A man's outward conduct developes his creed. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God;" and the unbelieving mind finds daily opportunity to show forth his infidelity. Men whose hearts are alienated from God, have a natural aversion to his truth, as soon as the light of it penetrates the soul. As some wild beasts roam only in the hours of darkness, while by day they are hidden in their lair, so the carnal mind dreads the light, neither cometh to it, lest its deeds should be reproved.

Why does the evil doer thus hate the light?

I answer negatively

1. That it is not because error is more intelligible than truth. The entrance of God's word giveth light. Truth seeks no concealment, admits of no obscurity; while false-hood lives and thrives only in darkness.

2. Nor is it because error is more easily defended than truth. An attorney once said that a man can be eloquent in defending the