notwithstanding his high respect for religion, he is persuaded "you cannot make people religious by act of parliament," and then those around him laugh at the sage observation, and there is a cry of hear, hear! and so the bill is thrown out, and the people slave on without rest or religion as before. The principle of legislation on this subject should be, not to force, but to enable men to worship God. It should be called "a Bill for the exemption of the poor from labour on the Lord's day." To oblige or induce a poor man to work seven days, when his Maker says he shall only work six, is a positive fraud upon him. Our labouring population ought to have as much wages for their six days' work, as will enable them to live comfortably for seven; even as God himself gave the Israelites a double allowance of manna on the sixth day, that they might keep the sabbath holy.

RIDLEY.

You would not then interfere, by any positive enactment, with their amusements, but only exempt them from labour.

HERBERT.

That is my notion of the right distinction

between compelling and enabling the people to be religious. Absolute nuisances and flagrant immorality must not, however, be tolerated. But, after all, I fear that little amendment can be expected while the upper classes give so bad an example as many of them do. There is a most pernicious and selfish opinion afloat, that a man's religion is between himself and his God alone, and, springing from this, there is too often an utter recklessness as to the effects of

bad example. Few seem to know or to care that their actions are observed by a circle of spectators, and that every good or evil deed has an influence on others besides themselves.

RIDLEY.

My good father,-whose memory you revere almost as much as I can,—had a strong opinion respecting the importance of example, and the responsibility which devolved on the head of a family. He was very strict-I was going to say, but I remember your reproof-he was very observant of the Lord's day, and expected all his household to be so too; he would on no account use his horses or his carriage, and was very careful to require no unnecessary service from his domestics. God expressly forbade

him (he would often say,) to make his cattle work, much more his servants, on the sabbath. And I do not see, that there is any difference, whether we use a private or a public conveyance, though some persons affect to make one. If the employment of a public conveyance does not make a man so directly responsible as if he used his own, yet it involves him in a wide-spread system of public desecration. My father carefully adapted his hours on Sunday to the convenience of his household, so that all might attend public worship, and have the greater part of the day to themselves. What cared he if his hours were unfashionable? he would have despised himself, if he had harboured the thought.

HERBERT.

I have observed in many instances, besides your father's, that churchmen of influence and fortune have been rather forward than otherwise, to show their unfashionableness in the observance of the Lord's day.

Yes, (said Ridley, laughing,) my father would never make the least difference if his house was full of visitors. He was very arbitrary in requiring all "strangers within his gates" to con

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form to the custom of the family. One habit of his, I remember particularly, which often caused a smile. Every Sunday, when the post came in at breakfast time,—instead of opening the newspaper, he used, with the gravest face imaginable, to put it into his pocket, and deposit it unopened in his library, until the next morning, when he would produce it again at the usual time, as if it had only just arrived. I often wondered why he did not desire his servant to place it in the library, without bringing it into the breakfast-room at all: but I believe that he had it brought in purposely, that his example might be a sort of silent admonition to his family, that they also should put away worldly things.

HERBERT.

He was quite right in his interdict. Few things interfere so much with the holiness of the Lord's day as a newspaper. It chains one's thoughts down to this perishable world. It clogs the wings of the soul which ought to be struggling to mount upward. It breaks in upon that holy calm which should pervade the mind; and takes away the relish for divine and heavenly truths. Alas! a newspaper is but too true a picture of human nature: but how humiliating, how con

temptible! what a host of low, profane, ungodly thoughts, what a train of vexatious, mournful, pitiable ideas rush over the mind, when we cast our eyes down its crowded columns! Surely we ought to spare ourselves, for one day at least, from contact with such a mass of corruption and ungodliness. If we desire to shake from us earthly trammels, and to elevate our souls to holier thoughts, we must put away from us this epitome of a corrupt world, and refrain from touching it, till the morrow's sun again calls us to labour amidst sinfulness and vanity.

There is another practice, (continued Mr. Herbert,) which is often thoughtlessly indulged in, and apparently innocent, but which I am convinced is very pernicious,-that is, Sunday visiting. I do not allude to the intercourse of intimate friends, who may converse with each other on subjects suited to the day; but to the morning calls of common acquaintance; when the conversation will generally turn on the news, and the current topics of the hour. How do I know, when I knock at my neighbour's door, whether I may not be interrupting him in some act of devotion; whether he may not be reading the holy Scriptures; or have thrown himself on his knees before God, beseeching him to bless