suits; and, 2. Spend the day in such a manner as will best promote your spiritual improvement. The first point is easy; I shall therefore pass it by, and direct my attention immediately to the last.

There are wise and there are unwise ways of keeping the sabbath holy. James is a boy who has set his heart upon reading the Bible through, in as short a time as possible, and he thinks there is no way of spending the sabbath so properly as by his carrying forward this good work with all his strength. He carries his Bible to bed with him at night, and places it under his pillow, that he may read as soon as it is light in the morning. You may see him at breakfast-time counting up the chapters he has read, and calculating how long it will take him at that rate to get through a certain book. He can hardly wait for family prayers to be over, he is so eager to drive forward his work. He reads a great many chapters in the course of the day, and lies down at night congratulating himself on his progress;-but alas, he has made no progress in piety. Reading chapters in the Bible, in this manner, is not making progress in piety. He has not examined his heart that day. He has not made resolutions for future duty. He has not learned to be a more dutiful son, a more affectionate brother, or a more humble and devoted christian. No, he has read twenty chapters in the Bible! He has been making no new discoveries of his secret sins-has obtained no new views of his duty -has not drawn nigh to God, and found peace and happiness in communion with him; no, he has had no time for that, he has been busy all day, running over his twenty chapters in the Bible! It were well if James was aware that his real motive for this work is the pride of thinking, and perhaps of telling others, how much he has read, and that the cultivation of such a spirit is a bad way of spending God's holy day. I would not say a word against reading the Bible, but it must be read aright. Many a boy has broken the

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sabbath entirely-wasted every hour of it, and yet done little else but read the Bible from morning to night.

Many young persons think there is no way to break the sabbath but by work or play. But the spirit and meaning of the fourth commandment undoubtedly is, that the sabbath should be devoted to the real improvement of the christian character. And if this is neglected, the sabbath is broken, no matter in what way its hours may have been spent.

Yes; if this is neglected, the command is disobeyed. No formal attention to any external duty whatever can be made a substitute. A boy sits at his window, studying his Sunday-school lesson: his object, I will suppose, is not to learn his duty and to do it, but he wishes to surpass some companion at the recitation, or perhaps is actuated by a mere selfish desire to obtain a reward which has been very improperly offered him. He looks out of the window across the valley which extends before his father's house, and sees a boat full of his playmates pushing off from the shore, on an excursion of pleasure. "Ah!" says he, "those wicked boys! they are breaking the sabbath." Yes, they are breaking the sabbath, and so is he. Both are perverting it. God looks at the heart, and requires that all should spend the sabbath in sincere efforts to discover, confess, and abandon sin, and to become pure and holy, and devoted to him. Now both the boys in the boat and the one at the window are neglecting this. They are doing it for the pleasure of a sail. He is doing it for the honour of superiority in his class. The day is mispent and perverted in both cases.

Mrs. A. is the mother of several children, and she is exceedingly desirous that all her family should faithfully keep the sabbath. She cannot bear the thought that it should be profaned by any under her roof. Before sacred time comes, therefore, the whole house is put in order; all worldly business is brought to a close,

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so that the minds of all her family may be free. this is excellent; but how does she actually spend the sacred hours? Why, her whole attention is devoted to enforcing the mere external duties of religion in her household. She is careful to banish every secular book. She requires one child to sit still and read the Bible, another she confines to a prayer-book, or some good book of religious exhortation. A third is kept studying a Sunday-school lesson. All, however, must be still; it is her great desire and aim to banish every thing like worldly work or play. There must be no light conversation, and even the little infant, creeping upon the floor, has to relinquish his playthings and spend the day in inaction.

Now, when the night comes, this mother thinks that she has kept the sabbath, and induced her household to keep it too; and perhaps she has. But all that I have described does not prove that she has kept it, according to God's original design. God did not institute the sabbath in order merely that children might be kept from play, or that they might be forced to read mechanically good books, but that they might improve their characters, and make real preparation for another world. Now, unless a mother adopts such methods as shall most effectually promote the improvement of her children, and unless she succeeds in interesting them in it, she does not attain the object in view. If your children are spending the day in a cold and heartless manner, complying with your rules from mere fear of your authority, they are not, properly speaking, keeping the sabbath. The end in view, improvement of character, is not attained.

But many a mother who reads this will ask, "How can I interest my children in such efforts to improve?" You will find a hundred ways, if you set your hearts upon it. The only danger is that you will not fully feel the necessity of it. You are satisfied, or there is great danger that you will be satisfied, with the mere

formality of external decorum on the Lord's day, forgetting that the empire in which your influence ought to reign on that day, is the empire of the heart, not the external conduct. You ought, therefore, to aim at adopting such means of addressing and influencing your children as shall seem best calculated to reach and control their hearts. If you really wish to do this, and really try to do it, you will soon learn.

Imagine such a scene as this:-A mother, with several children under eight or ten years of age, collects them in her chamber on a pleasant sabbath afternoon in summer, and with a cheerful countenance and pleasant tone of voice, when all are seated, addresses them as follows:

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'Well, children, you know what the sabbath is for; it is to give us time and opportunity to improve. I suppose you want to improve. The way to do it is to find out your faults, and then try to correct them. Are you willing now to try to find out your faults?"

"Yes, mother."

How should you

"I have thought of this plan. like it? I will pause a minute or two, and we will all try to think of faults that we have seen among ourselves last week. You may try, and I will try. After a minute or two I will ask you all round. Should you like to do this?"

A mother who manages her children in a proper manner, with habitual kindness and affection, will receive a cordial assent to such a proposal as this.

After a few minutes she puts the question round,-— "Mary, have you thought of any thing?"

"Yes, mother, I think that John and I quarrel sometimes."

"Do you think of any case which happened, last week?"

Mary hesitates, and John looks a little confused.

"You may do just as you please," says the mother, "about mentioning it. It is unpleasant to think and

talk about our faults, and of course it will be unpleasant for you to describe particularly any thing wrong which you have done. But then if you do honestly and frankly confess it, I think you will be much less likely to do wrong in the same way next week.”

Mary then tells in her own simple style the story of some childish contention, not with the shrinking and hesitation of extorted acknowledgment, but openly and frankly, and in such a manner as greatly to diminish the danger of falling into such a sin again. When she has said all, which however may not perhaps have been more than two or three sentences, the mother continues, addressing herself to the others:

"Well, children, you have heard what Mary has said. Have you observed any thing in her expressions which tended to show that she has wished to throw the blame off upon John ?"

They will probably say, Yes. A child would not be a very impartial historian in such a case, and other children would be very shrewd to detect the indications of bias.

"Now I do not know," says the mother, "but that John was most to blame. Mary told the story, on the whole, in a very proper manner. I only ask the question to remind you all that our object is now to learn our own faults, and to correct them, and you must all try to see as much as possible where you yourselves have been to blame."

She then turns to some passages of the Bible on the subject of forbearance and harmony between brothers and sisters, and reads them, not for the purpose of loading her children with invective and reproach, or telling them, with a countenance of assumed solemnity, how wicked they have been, but of kindly and mildly pointing out what God's commands are, and the necessity as well as the happiness of obeying them.

If this is done in a proper manner, if the mother watches the feelings of her little charge, and applies her