plead the necessity of your strenuous exertions for the support of yourselves and families as an excuse for absenting yourselves from public worship on that sacred day, when by the laws of the state, as well as those of God, all earthly business is ordered to be suspended, that the more important concerns of eternity may be attended to, is a pretence as inadmissible, as it is groundless. Yet in default of that, I am well aware that other pleas are sometimes set up as apologies for neglect of this important duty. The hardships which you may have had to undergo, the fatigues which you may have suffered from morning to night, during the six long preceding days, require, you will perhaps tell me, a short interval of repose, and relaxation, to enable you to return with renewed vigor to a repetition of the labors to which your hard lot has subjected you. My dearly beloved friends-I am not ignorant of the toils and sufferings, which the conditions of life, in which it has pleased divine providence to place you, compel you to endure. Nor am I so constituted as to be insensible to the force of your pathetic appeal. One day out of seven set apart for repose and relaxation is not, I confess, an unreasonable indulgence. But where, may I be permitted to ask you, where can you enjoy more refreshing repose, than within the arms of the divine mercy stretched out to receive you in his sacred temple? Where can you experience more exhilarating relaxation, than within those hallowed walls, where, in con

junction with your brethren in Jesus Christ, you are cheerfully employed in pouring forth your hearts in tributes of adoration, love, and gratitude, to your father who is in heaven? Is it not there that his Holy Spirit is prepared to descend into your hearts, and by his celestial influence, to repair your wasted strength, and to animate you with fresh vigour for a renewal of your exertions? Is it not there that the minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ delivers to you those precious words of eternal life, so replete with comfort to the afflicted soul, and so calculated to cheer your drooping spirits? Is it not there, in short, that in your devout intercourse with the adorable author of your existence, and in the contemplation of those great and everlasting joys which he has reserved for you hereafter, you lose sight of the troubles of the present time, amidst the satisfactions and delights of such heavenly communications, and the transporting anticipations of future bliss?

But then it is urged, that other circumstances sometimes occur, which oppose obstacles to a constant attendance on public worship. Personal indisposition, distance of place, badness of the roads, and inclemency of the weather, are not unfrequently assigned, as sufficient pleas, to justify violations of this sacred ordinance. It does not however appear, that the devout persons, whom I recommend to you, as models for your imitation, were prevented by considerations of this descrip

tion, from repairing annually to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, although that city was distant, twenty-seven leagues, or upwards of eighty English miles from Nazareth, the place of their abode. But waving that circumstance, I will put a case to you perfectly applicable to the subject in question, and, I am willing that your own decision in one instance, shall regulate your conduct in the other. I will suppose a personage of high rank, to have invited his dependents to a sumptuous entertainment, and I will suppose you to be in the number of those dependents; is such the state of your health, the distance of your residence, the badness of the roads, or the severity of the weather, as to hinder you from availing yourselves of his gracious invitation? if so, I am satisfied that the same reasons be admitted in justification of your absence from the place of religious worship. But, if on the contrary, all these obstacles are found to give way on such an occasion, I appeal to your own fair and impartial determination; if this should be suffered to debar you from the incomparably more exquisite and magnificent repast, prepared for you by the Lord of Glory, in his holy Temple? "Behold," he now says to you by the lips of his ministers, in words similar to those employed by the servants, in the parable recorded, in the Gospel, "behold, I have prepared my dinner, come ye to the feast." Yes, my friends! "all things are ready." The Lamb is slain-the "Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world," the Lamb,

destined to invigorate your souls, to fill them with consolation, to ravish them with delight, and to impart to them a foretaste of the happiness of the elect in God's everlasting kingdom. It is slain, it is about to be laid on the sacred table; and you are all invited to partake of the celestial viand. Tell me then, my friends, whether you think it reasonable, that the same considerations, which would not be sufficient to induce you to forego the sensual gratifications of a convivial entertainment, should withhold you from the enjoyment, at least in spirit, of those incomparably more exalted pleasures, and substantial benefits, derived by the pious soul, from a worthy participation of that sacred banquet; in which, to use the language of the church, "Christ himself is received, the memory of his passion is renewed, the mind is replenished with grace, and a pledge is given of future glory." No, my friends! you cannot, I am convinced, be led to entertain so inconsistent an opinion. Should circumstances therefore, of the description above mentioned, suggest themselves to you as excuses for absenting yourselves from public worship, let them be fairly tried by this criterion, and let the question of their validity be decided accordingly.

The next incident specified in the Gospel, is that of the earnest and diligent search made by the holy Virgin and her venerable consort for their beloved child, when they perceived that he was not in their company; a search, that termi

nated at length, in their happy discovery of him in the temple of Jerusalem, to which they returned, when they had sought him ineffectually on the road among their friends and relatives. It may appear perhaps surprising, that these virtuous and excellent parents should have left Jerusalem, without a full assurance that their child was with them, and still more so, that they should not have been sensible of his absence, till an entire day had elapsed. All this however, my friends, may be reasonably accounted for, from the uniform tenor of conduct which they had previously witnessed in their divine Son. He was apprised, they well knew, of their intended departure, and the watchful attention which he had invariably paid to their motions, on all prior occasions, left them no room to doubt of a similar behaviour in the present juncture; and consequently made them perfectly easy about him. But the long privation of the company of their dear child, to which they had not been hitherto accustomed, awakened, it is probable, in their breasts their parental apprehensions and these apprehensions, unaccompanied with the slightest degree of suspicion of any neglect of duty on his part, urged them, it may be presumed, to retrace their steps to the holy city. Happy the parents who are blessed with children of virtuous dispositions, similar to those which pre-eminently distinguish the youthful Jesus; happy the children who have the advantage of parents who are careful, by their co-operation