asking ourselves how far our customary notions and practice are in accordance with its character and its object-seemed to me a duty which I could not safely neglect. It is a very painful thing to find ourselves at variance with those whose judgment and sincerity we wish to revere; but if we find from Scripture that the opinions which the religious public, in different periods, have formed on this subject, involve very serious moral and theological errors, the fear of differing with the good men around us is over-balanced by the greater fear of being at issue with the authority of the Lord of the Sabbath-day,-of Him by whose sentence they and we must be judged. If one person is led by the Sermons I am putting forth on this subject, to reverence a day which he has been used to dislike or to scorn, and to receive it and the book which testifies of it as the pledge of God's love for him and for the world, I shall have abundant compensation for any hard words which I may hear from those whose favourable opinion I should rejoice to win, if it could be obtained by some smaller sacrifice than that of truth and honesty. The more serious excitement produced by the funeral of the Duke of Wellington should not, I think, be suffered to evaporate in a vague feeling about the vanity or fragility of human greatness. I have endeavoured to show, in the sermon preached the Sunday after that event, that the greatness we deplore was not vain but substantial, and that the national unity which for that one day was realized, ought not to be fragile, since all morality and faith will perish when it perishes. The fifth sermon in the volume was one of a course of weekly lectures delivered at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields during the Great Exhibition of 1851. The subjects were selected, with much judgment, by the Vicar, for the purpose of connecting the thoughts respecting human skill and the fellowship of different nations which the Exhibition awakened, with the laws of God's universe, and with those which bind races and men together. The one upon which I preached was destined for a gentleman whose accurate and comprehensive knowledge of history would have enabled him to do it signal justice. When I was invited to be his substitute, I despaired of giving students the kind of help which they might have expected from him. I contented myself with pointing out a few difficulties which, judging from my own experience, I thought were likely to distress them, and with explaining how I believed the Divine book had anticipated and resolved them. London, December, 1852. CONTENTS. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in And He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and, lo! in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the |