sons will, for a very little of the world, and without any hesitation, go to the place on Friday, do their business on Saturday, and return on Sunday. Now I would do the one just as soon as I would the other, and should consider that I desecrated the Sabbath by travelling to or from the place of business on it, just as much as by accomplishing the object of my journey on it.

I would ask the candid traveller if any thing can secularize the Sabbath more completely, if any thing can more effectually nullify it, than ordinary travelling? If a man may lawfully travel on the Sabbath, except in a case of stern necessity, such as would justify any species of work, I know not what he may not lawfully do on that day. What is more absurd than that it should be lawful and proper to journey on the day set apart and sanctified for rest? Surely journeying does not comport well with rest. But they say that travelling is not work, and therefore not included in the prohibition. I deny the fact. It is often hard and wearisome work. And what if it be not work to the passenger, is it not work to those who are employed in conveying him? If he does not labour, yet others must labour in order to enable him to travel; and is he not eqnally responsible for the work which he renders necessary on the Sabbath as for that which he does with his own hands? But what if no human being is employed to forward him on his journey, he deprives the beast of his day of rest. And is it nothing to withhold from the poor animal the privilege of the Sabbath-to compel him to work on the day on which God has directed that he should be permitted to rest?

According to this theory, that it is lawful to

journey on the Sabbath, a man may so arrange it as never to be under obligation to keep a Sabbath. He has only to set apart that day of the week for travelling; he has ot only keep in motion on the day of rest; that is all. Moreover, he who gets his living by travelling, or by the journeying of others, has, on this supposition, a manifest advantage (if such it may be called) over his neighbours. He has seven days for profit, while they have only six. The daylabourer and the poor mechanic may not use the seventh day as they do the other days of the week. They must make a distinction between them. those who travel for their pleasure, or whose business calls them abroad, and those who accommodate them with conveyances, may use the seven days indiscri minately. Is this equal?

But

I think it must be evident to every unprejudiced mind, that to travel on the Sabbath is to use it as any other day. It is to make no distinction between it and Monday or Saturday. It disregards the peculiarity of the day altogether. Yet I suppose there is as much journeying on the Sabbath as there is on any other day of the week. With very few exceptions, the steam-boats ply and the stages run as usual; and both, I am informed, are as full, if not more crowded, on the Sabbath than on any other day; and private carriages are as numerous on the great thoroughfares, and in the vicinity of cities. more so, on the Sabbath. And the registers of the watering places show as many arrivals and departures on Sunday as on Monday. Yes, men make as free with the Lord's-day as they do with their own days, so little regard is paid to divine authority-so little do men care for God. And, they tell me, all sorts

of men travel on the Sabbath-even many professors of religion. That I would suppose. I never heard

of any thing so bad that some professors of religion had not done it. It was one of the professors of religion who bartered away and betrayed our blessed Lord and Saviour. And some ministers of the gospel, I am told, do the work of travelling on the Sabbath. Now we have some ministers who have farms. I suppose it would be accounted dreadful, should they plough or reap on the Sabbath. Yet these might plough as innocently as those may travel. But these breakers of the Sabbath, and indeed almost all of this class of transgressors, are the readiest persons I ever met with at making excuses for their conduct. I propose in my next to consider some of their apologies. They will be found very curious.

21.-APOLOGIES FOR TRAVELLING ON THE SABBATH.

SOME of those who do the work of journeying on the Sabbath, do not condescend to make any apology for it. They care neither for the day, nor for Him who hallowed it. With these we have nothing to do. Our business is with those who, admitting the general obligation of the Sabbath, and knowing or suspecting Sunday travelling to be a sin, offer apologies which they hope may justify the act in their case, or else go far toward extenuating the criminality of it. I propose to submit to the judgment of my readers some of the excuses for this sin, as I cannot help calling the breach of the fourth com

mandment, which from time to time I have heard alleged.

I would premise that I know of no sin which men are so sorry for before it is done, and so ready to apologize for afterwards. I cannot tell how many persons, about to travel on the Sabbath, have assured me that they are very sorry to do it; and yet they have immediately gone and done it. They have repented, and then sinned-just like Herod, who was sorry to put John the Baptist to death, then immediately sent an executioner to bring his head. It does not diminish the criminality of an act that it is perpetrated with some degree of regret; and yet the presence of such a regret is considered by many as quite a tolerable excuse.

One gentleman, who was sorry to travel on the Sabbath, added, I recollect, that it was against his principles to make such a use of the day. I wondered then that he should do it-that he should deliberately practise in opposition to his principles. But I was still more surprised that he should think to excuse his practice by alleging its contrariety to his principles. What are principles for, but to regulate practice; and if they have not fixedness and force enough for this, of what use are they? A man's principles may as well be in favour of Sabbath breaking as his practice; and certainly it constitutes a better apology for a practice that it is in conformity to one's principles, than that it is at variance with them.

Another gave pretty much the same reason for his conduct in different words: "It is not my habit," said he, “to travel on the Sabbath." It was only his act. He did not uniformly do it. He only

occasionally did it. A man must be at a loss for reasons who alleges an apology for travelling one Sabbath, that he does not travel other Sabbaths. The habit of obedience forms no excuse for the act of disobedience.

An intelligent lady, who was intending to travel on the Sabbath, volunteered this exculpation of herself. She said she had travelled one Sabbath already since she left home, and she supposed it was no worse to travel on another. What, then? are not two sins worse than one?

Another (and she was a lady too) said she could read good books by the way; and you know, said she, that we can have as good thoughts in one place as in another. I assented, but could not help thinking that the persons employed in conveying her might not find their situation as favourable to devout reading and meditation. This, I suppose, did not occur to her.

Another person said that he would never commence a journey on the Sabbath; but when once set out, he could see no harm in proceeding. But I, for my part, could not see the mighty difference between setting out on the Sabbath, and going on on the Sabbath. My perceptions were so obtuse that I could not discern the one to be travelling, and the other to be equivalent to rest.

I heard, among other excuses, this: Sunday was the only day of the week on which the stage ran to the place to which the person wished to go, and therefore he was compelled to travel on Sunday. Compelled? Why go to the place at all? Why not procure a private conveyance on another day of the week? What if it would be more expensive?