prove powerless if used ever so skillfully-which will not result in defeat and shame. Any compromise with the enemy will but make our overthrow more certain and dreadful.

Ministers of the Gospel must take this stand, and the church must sustain them, stand by them, and help them forward. Every minister must take this stand; whether he be in a college, or an agent of some benevolent society, an editor, or a pastor; every one of them must now come forward to the work with his whole soul and strength, or the cause can never be gained.

Be it known unto those who help this cause, that they help all other good objects. But let this fail, and all their skill, vigilance, and zeal, cannot save a single wreck of the other good objects. Let this fall, and they must fall as a matter of course. It need not be longer said, "We must labor for other causes, and that will help keep this from sinking; for be assured, there is already a leak in the ship which will require every hand at the pump, the oakum and the chisel, or she will go down in spite of her strength, beauty, and utility; and we shall all be buried in one common grave. The ship is fast being filled-she is sinking, and will you not come to her rescue?

While ministers are describing this evil, showing its enormity and its consequences, remonstrances from every lover of the Sabbath in this nation should be going to Congress against the law compelling and encouraging labor in the Postoffice department on that day. These remonstrances should be long and loud. They must be made, until they are heard and the grievance removed. The Sabbath never can be observed as it should be, while that law is in force. So long as this nation holds out a premium for desecrating this day, men will be found to do it.

Christians must also remonstrate against the practice of making our public thoroughfares-canals, railroads, and national roads, money making establishments on Sunday; taking of the people's money to pay lock and gate tenders, toll-gatherers, &c., and suffering money earned on that day to be put into the public treasury. Now, we, the people, are paying out money for labor on Sunday, and making money on that day by means of our public property. While we suffer this process to be going on

without remonstrating against it, we shall be considered as acquiescing in it, if not as being pleased with it. Those who order this labor to be done are our servants, and they are supposed to represent our wishes. If they do represent our wishes, then we are equally guilty with them; if they do not represent them, we ought to say so.

Where there is a regular system of Sabbath profanation going on, there other vices cluster, and grow and thrive. It is said, that in the 1800 boats on the Erie Canal in 1834, there were a thousand prostitutes. This state of things is not peculiar to that channel of waters. These individuals, with their 50,000 associates of both sexes, flock into the country and villages, during the cold season, and draw from the paths of virtue and peace, in our respectable families, each one his half dozen, and then they in their turn seduce others, and a mighty host are soon on their way to infamy, want, and perdition. These are some of the fruits which we are reaping for our neglect of the welfare of those who are not allowed a Sabbath on which to go and hear of the way which leads to life, and of the consequences of not walking in it. We have only to hold our peace a little longer, and from this source alone will flow a tide of moral pollution and death, as long as our canals, and as broad as the land, which nothing short of Omnipotent energy, miraculously interposed, can turn back.

While churches, or individual professors, profane the Sabbath, they cannot grow in grace, and their example, so far as known, does more to prejudice an ungodly world against the Christian religion, and destroy the influence of the Sabbath, than all that infidels or atheists ever did or can do. For it never was expected that they would wish to preserve that day, but it is expected that Christians will.

All history shows us how other nations, which have dared to pollute the Sabbath, as we are doing, have been swept as with the besom of destruction, except when prevented by timely repentance and return to duty. Hence it appears, that God cannot carry on his plan of converting the world, without the influence of his day.

As then we would emancipate the world from sin; as we value

the present and future well-being of our race; the upbuilding of the Redeemer's kingdom, and the glory of God; let us come forth boldly, in the strength of the Lord, and call upon every man who now profanes the Sabbath, as he dreads the retributions of the final judgment, and the pains of the damned, to cease from his wickedness and lay hold on eternal life.

From henceforth let this be our motto:-BUSINESS MEN ought to do all their work in six days, and rest on the Sabbath, as the Lord hath commanded. Though the evil has been accumulating, until it is mountain high, yet as great evils have been attacked and conquered, this must also be, or the millenium can never bless our world. The man who at this crisis is not ready, to wear this motto, in large capitals, upon his forehead, is not fit to stand in the front ranks, and lead on to battle, in the warfare against this "giant foe." No, he is not worthy a place in Gideon's army, but had better retreat now, that it may be known who are, and who are not on the Lord's side.

Will any man doubt that it is the duty of every minister, often to warn his hearers against profaning the Lord's day ?—to tell them plainly, solemnly, and affectionately, that traveling on business or for pleasure on that day is desecrating it; that to run boats, stages, omnibuses, rail-cars, &c. &c., for the accommodation of travelers, or parties of pleasure, or for the transportation of goods on that day, is sin; that it is a great and national sin, to carry, open, and distribute the mail on Sunday, and, if continued, will unavoidably prove our ruin; that it is a sin for merchants to do business in their counting rooms, for boatmen to lade and unlade, or run their boats, and sailors to lade or unlade their vessels, or go out of port on that day? that customhouse officers, toll-gatherers, and postmasters, commit sin, by laboring on that day? that it is sin to let carriages and horses, to help desecrate holy time? and that it is the duty of ministers thus to particularize and bring the truth of God, with all the terrors of the divine law, and thunder it in the ear of every man who proves himself an enemy to his race, to this republic, to our religion, to his Creator, and to his own soul? Make every man, woman, and child know, that such men, in the sight of God, are great sinners, and that their practices and their

time to call this thing Should ministers and

company even are dangerous? Is it not by its right name, that all may know it? churches neglect to tell our state and national legislatures their guilt in this matter, their responsibility and the results which must follow?

Every man should be made to feel that if he will continue to transgress in this thing, God will punish him, and he cannot escape it. "The wicked shall not go unpunished, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

This evil is increasing in our land with almost the rapidity of the rays of the morning. Every additional canal and railway adds greatly to its strength. The immense crowds of foreign immigrants, the increase of Romanism, and commercial enterprise, are but so many dead weights to sink this institution into oblivion. While ministers or private Christians, from fear or favor, or from any other cause, neglect to denounce this practice, and plainly and faithfully to warn every Sabbath-breaker of his guilt and danger, they are contributing in no small degree to swell the tide which must soon, unless arrested, roll over this fair land, destroying every thing that is valuable, and leaving in its place all that can corrupt and make a people wretched.

Would ministers do good to men, save the church from annihilation, obey their Master, and hold their places as teachers of the way of life, they must call the practice of labor or amusement on Sunday, whether national or individual, sinful, and only sinful, which must speedily be abandoned. They must not be afraid to tell this nation of the enormity of her guilt, so long as she has a Sunday mail, or demands and encourages any secular business on the day of rest-that our State Legislatures greatly err while they allow labor to be done during that day on their public works; and that Christians, so long as they do not remonstrate against such practices, if they do not require them, will be considered as acquiescing in them at least.

They should often tell their hearers that those who employ men to work on that day are not friends to the poor-they are not friends to human happiness-they are not friends to the religion of the Bible-they are not friends to their country, and cannot be in the way to heaven.

If it should be necessary at any future time to say more on this point, the greater sin will lie at the door of the friends of the institution, for God will be more dishonored, and many more immortal beings will lie down in unavailing sorrow.

Cleveland, July, 1835.

MINISTERIAL EXCHANGES.

We have just read the report of a committee to whom was referred the subject of ministers riding on Sunday in making their exchanges. It was presented to the conference of Churches in Massachusetts. "After considerable discussion, in which both the clergy and laity expressed their views, the report was not accepted, as many, particularly the laity, were not willing to give their sanction to it, without further examination." We presume that the more they examine it, the less willing they will be to adopt it. For our part, we do not wish to study in the school where such ethics are taught; and even were we to admit that the premises laid down are correct, we could not, by any process of right reasoning, come to their conclusions. · “We revert again to the principle at first laid down, that riding to preach the gospel is either secular, and comes under the head of worldly business, or it is a religious service, appropriate to the Sabbath. We maintain that it is a religious service, and falls in perfectly with the design of the Sabbath." We have long supposed that singing appropriate words in an appropriate piece of music, praying to almighty God, publishing the news of salvation, exhorting men to repent, and warning them to flee from the wrath to come, are “religious services," but we never heard before that riding was religious service. "What is it that justifies a person, ever, in riding on the Sabbath? It is his having an object in view, which is appropriate to the Sabbath. Riding to preach, then, is appropriate." For examples we are referred to a man living five or eight miles from Boston harbor. "There are hundreds of sailors standing about the wharves, with none to care for their souls." "The man gets up his horse, takes a bundle of tracts, and distributes them among the poor sailors. Very well, if he makes this his business, every Sabbath. May God bless his labors, and incline thousands to go and do likewise.