lessons, to which a godly parent is sure to devote some reasonable portion of every Sunday, so that, instead of being felt at all irksome or disagreeable, they will be received with pleasure and remembered with delight.

As to older people; I certainly do not consider it a sin that a man with his wife and children should take a quiet walk for an hour on a Sunday evening. This might be good in various ways for both physical and mental health, and indeed, in frequent circumstances, for spiritual health too; for, when thus refreshed, one may return with all the greater zest and liveliness of thought and emotion to any of the peculiar exercises of the day which may yet remain. I cannot see that an admission like this at all opens the door, as is sometimes alleged, for a Sunday of mere gaiety and frivolity. There is surely a medium, which it is not impossible, nor even very hard, for good sense and right feeling to strike, between the strictness of Judaism and the licence of unbelief. It is surely imaginable that a man may be allowed a quiet walk without its being implied that he may neglect to attend church, or to apply his mind privately to the reading of the Scriptures and prayer, or that trains and steamers are to run on Sunday just as at any other time, or that all sorts

SUNDAY.

179

of places of public amusement are to be thrown

open.

It is strictly in harmony with the principles laid down, to say that the employment of labour on Sunday ought, as far as possible, to be discouraged. All are entitled to that day of rest, and, except in so far as necessary causes may intervene, all should be allowed it. When an advocate of the strictest views is himself found using, let us say, some public conveyance on Sunday, it may afford fair enough ground for a charge of inconsistency against him. But arguments of this sort are constantly run away with, and you will hear people speaking as if inconsistency like this was their own justification for going into an extreme of laxness. That one who is a supporter of austere ideas in reference to Sunday observance, should find himself sometimes unable to act up to his own nearly impracticable theory, is a good reason why he should judge charitably of others,―probably also why he should reconsider his own notions,—but it certainly affords no reason at all why those who differ from him in opinion should adopt or recommend practices, which, if generally embraced, would unquestionably result in depriving very many of that weekly rest which is so beneficial.

While holding the moderate views I ha endeavoured to state, I think it is quite in I with them, and I very earnestly urge, ought to consider it a most necessary keep the Lord's day in a manner which ca and conscientiously be described as kee sacred. For high purposes of the spiritual is necessary we should have seasons set a private and public worship, and for medita Divine things. There is no temple in I because it is all a temple-all sacred grou might be said, in like manner, that there no Sunday in Heaven, because then we sha entered the eternal rest. In this world, h we cannot do without those ordinances with we shall be able to dispense hereafter. Were for our Churches and Sundays, religion wou die. As we value, then, our own highest in and those of our brethren, we shall greatly that weekly opportunity which is provided fo turning our thoughts away from the worl directing them to the things that belong eternal peace. We shall deem it a great pr that we are thus enabled to escape for a little time to time, out of the weary round of w works and cares; and, with the solicitude of

so high a privilege is worthy, we shall seek, both in our private arrangements and by our public influence, to preserve it safe for ourselves and those we love. In a word, we shall strive to observe our Sundays as becomes those who are aware of the need for ordinances in our present imperfect state; of the importance towards the right use of all the other days of the week, that the first day should be well kept; and of the solemn, ever-to-be-remembered truth, that a man is profited nothing though he gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul.

XIX.

PLACES AND FORMS OF WORSHIP.

[The following is a Sermon which was preached in Glasgow Cathedral on Sunday Morning, June 15, 1862, on occasion of the re-opening of the Church after the erection of the great East Window. With the alteration of only a few sentences, it is printed just as it was preached.]

1 CHRONICLES xxix. 1-"The palace is not for man, but for the Lord God."

You will have conjectured already, on hearing the text, that the beautiful addition which has just been made to the decoration of this Church has suggested my subject this morning.

We have in the text King David's statement of the reason which made him desirous that the temple to be built by his son and successor should be a magnificent one; it was to be a "palace not for man, but for the Lord God."

God is to be served with our best. That is the principle on which the text proceeds.

Of course our heart is our best, and nothing can ever compensate for the withholding of that. But