to the commission of that which brought them to the prison, and often to the gallows. He has letters almost innumerable, he says, from others, proving the same thing, and that they considered the violation of the Sabbath the great cause of their ruin. He has attended three hundred and fifty at the place of execution, when they were put to death for their crimes. And nine out of ten who were brought to a sense of their condition attributed the greater part of their departure from God to their neglect of the Sabbath.

Another gentleman, who has been conversant with prisoners for more than thirty years, states that he found, in all his experience, both with regard to those who had been capitally convicted and those who had not, that they referred to the violation of the Sabbath as the chief cause of their crimes; and that this has been confirmed by all the opportunities he has had of examining prisoners. Not that this has been the only cause of crime; but, like the use of intoxicating liquors, it has greatly increased public and private immorality, and been the means, in a multitude of cases, of premature death.

Another gentleman, who has had the charge of more than one hundred thousand prisoners, and has taken special pains to ascertain the causes of their crimes, says that he does not recollect a single case of capital offence where the party had not been a Sabbath-breaker. And in many cases they assured him that Sabbath-breaking was the first step in their downward course. Indeed, he says, with reference to prisoners of all classes, nineteen out of twenty have neglected the Sabbath and other ordinances of religion. And he has often met with prisoners about to expiate their crimes by an ignominious death, who earnestly enforced upon survivors the necessity of an observance of the Sabbath,

and ascribed their own course of iniquity to a nonobservance of that day.

Says the keeper of one of the largest prisons, "Nine tenths of our inmates are those who did not value the Sabbath, and were not in the habit of attending public worship."

It is not so strange, then, if human nature were the same, and the effect of Sabbath-breaking the same, under the Jewish dispensation as it is now, that God should cause the Sabbath-breaker, like the murderer, to be put to death. Sabbath-breaking prepared the way for murder, and often led to it; and it would not be possible to prove that Sabbathbreaking, now, is not doing even more injury to the people of the United States than murder. Should every person in this country habitually keep the Sabbath, and attend public worship, murders would, to a great extent, if not wholly, cease; and prisons become comparatively empty. Sabbath-keepers very rarely commit murder, or perpetrate other heinous crimes.

The secretary of a Prison Discipline Society, who has long been extensively conversant with prisoners, was asked how many persons he supposed there are in State Prisons who observed the Sabbath and habitually attended public worship up to the time when they committed the crime for which they were imprisoned. He answered, "I do not suppose there are any." An inquiry into the facts, it is believed, would show, with but few exceptions, this opinion to be correct. Men who keep the Sabbath experience the restraining, if not the renewing and sanctifying, grace of God. While they keep the Sabbath, God keeps them. When they reject the Sabbath, he rejects them; and thus suffers them to eat the fruit of their own way, and to be filled with their own devices.

A father, whose son was addicted to riding out for

pleasure on the Sabbath, was told that, if he did not stop it, his son would be ruined. He did not stop it, but sometimes set the example of riding out on pleasure himself. His son became a man, was placed in a responsible situation, and intrusted with a large amount of property. Soon he was a defaulter, and absconded. In a different part of the country he obtained another responsible situation, and was again intrusted with a large amount of property. Of that he defrauded the owner, and fled again. He was apprehended, tried, convicted, and sent to the State Prison. After years spent in solitude and labor, he wrote a letter to his father, and, after recounting his course of crime, he added, "That was the effect of breaking the Sabbath when I was a boy."

Should every convict who broke the Sabbath when a boy, and whose father set him the example, speak out from all the State Prisons of the country, they would tell a story which would cause the ears of every one that should hear it to tingle.

A distinguished merchant, long accustomed to extensive observation and experience, and who had gained an uncommon knowledge of men, said, "When I see one of my apprentices or clerks riding out on the Sabbath, on Monday I dismiss him. Such an one cannot be trusted."

Facts echo the declaration "Such an one cannot be trusted." He is naturally no worse than others. But he casts off fear, lays himself open to the assaults of the adversary, and rejects the means of divine protection. He ventures unarmed into the camp of the enemy, and is made a demonstration to the world of the great truth that "he that trusteth to his own heart is a fool." Not a man in Christendom, whatever his character or standing, can knowingly and presumptuously trample on the Sabbath, devoting it to worldly business, travelling,

pleasure, or amusement, and not debase his charac ter, increase his wickedness, and augment the danger that he will be abandoned of God, and given up to final impenitence and ruin.

It was on Sabbath morning, while out on an excursion for pleasure, that he who was intrusted with great responsibilities, and was thought to be worthy of confidence, committed an act which was like the letting out of great waters, which ceased not to flow, till, wearing their channels broader and deeper, they overwhelmed him and others in one common ruin. Many a man, setting at nought the divine counsel with regard to the Sabbath, and refusing, on that day, to hearken to his instruction or reproof, almost before he was aware of it, has found himself abandoned of God, in the hands of the enemy, chained and fettered by transgression, sinking

from depth to depth, till he was suddenly destroyed, |

and there was no remedy.

Let every young man, especially he who has gone out from his father's counsels and his mother's prayers, remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy, ! be found habitually in the house of God, and under the sound of that gospel which is able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. Let him avoid worldly business and amusements on that day, as he would avoid the gate of hell.

Even where they do not lead to abandonment in crime, they harden the heart, pollute the affections, sear the conscience, and prevent the efficacy of all the means of grace. They carry the soul away from God on the rapid stream of time, towards eternal perdition. Their language is, "No God. - no heaven- no hell! No human accountability for the things done in the body? Who is Jehovah, that I should serve him? I know not Jehovah, neither will I obey his voice."

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In its progress, Sabbath-breaking sometimes seems

to become a trial of strength between the Sabbathbreaker and his Maker. So besotted is he, that he acts as if he thought he could outwit or overcome the Almighty, and gain something valuable by opposing his will.

A man in the state of New York remarked that he intended to cheat the Lord out of the next Sabbath, by going to a neighboring town to visit his friends. He could not afford to take one of his own days, and therefore resolved to cheat the Lord out of his. On Saturday, he went with his team into a forest, to get some wood. By the fall of a tree, he was placed in such a condition that he did not attempt to carry his intended fraud into execution. He was willing to stay at home.

But another man, in the same state, who had spent the Sabbath in getting in his grain, said that he had fairly cheated the Almighty out of one day. He boasted of it as a mark of his superiority. On Tuesday, the lightning struck his barn. He gained nothing valuable by working on the Sabbath.

Another man acted as if he thought all the evil of working on the Sabbath consisted in its being seen. He went out of sight, behind the woods, and spent the day in gathering his grain, and putting it into a vacant building near his field. But the lightning struck the building, and, with the grain, it was burned to ashes. He who made the eye saw what this man did, and so ordered things, in his providence, that he gained no real good by his transgression. Men are not apt, in the end, to gain in that way.

Seven young men, in a town in Massachusetts, started in the same business nearly at the same time. Six of them had some property or assistance from their friends, and followed their business seven days in a week. The other had less property than either of the six. He had less assistance from others, and worked in his business only six days in a week.