men! Do you not know that every penny that rings upon your counter on that day will yet eat your flesh as if it were fire-that every drop of liquid poison swallowed in your gaslit palaces will only serve to kindle up the flame of "the fire that is not quenched."

3. Sunday Trains upon the Railway.-A majority of the Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway have shown their determination, in a manner that has shocked all good men, to open the Railway on the Lord's Day. The sluices of infidelity have been opened at the same time, and floods of blasphemous tracts are pouring over the land, decrying the holy day of the blessed God, as if there was no eye in heaven, no King on Zion Hill, no day of reckoning

Christian countrymen, awake! and, filled by the same spirit that delivered our country from the dark superstitions of Rome, let us beat back the incoming tide of infidelity and enmity to the Sabbath.

Guilty men! who, under Satan, are leading on the deep dark phalanx of Sabbath-breakers, yours is a solemn position. You are robbers. You rob God of his holy day. You are murderers. You murder the souls of your servants. God said, "Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy servant;" but you compel your servants to break God's law, and to sell their souls for gain. You are sinners against light. Your Bible and your catechism, the words of godly parents, perhaps now in the Sabbath above, and the loud remonstrances of God-fearing men, are ringing in your ears, while you perpetrate this deed of shame, and glory in it. You are traitors to your country. The law of your country declares that you should "observe a holy rest all that day from your own words, works, and thoughts ;" and yet you scout it as an antiquated superstition. Was it not Sabbath-breaking that made God cast away Israel? And yet you would bring the same curse on Scotland now. You are moral suicides, stabbing your own souls, proclaiming to the world that you are not the Lord's people, and hurrying on your souls to meet the Sabbath-breaker's doom.

In conclusion, I propose, for the calm consideration of all sober-minded men, the following

SERIOUS QUESTIONS.

1 Can you name one godly minister, of any denomination in all Scotland, who does not hold the duty of the entire sanctification of the Lord's Day?

3. Did you ever meet with a lively believer in any country under heaven-one who loved Christ, and lived a holy lifewho did not delight in keeping holy to God the entire Lord's Day?

3. Is it wise to take the interpretation of God's will concerning the Lord's Day from "men of the world,” from infidels, scoffers, men of unholy lives, men who are sand-blind in all divine things, men who are the enemies of all righteousness, who quote Scripture freely, as Satan did, to deceive and betray?

4. If, in opposition to the uniform testimony of God's wisest and holiest servants-against the plain warnings of God's Word-against the very words of your catechism, learned beside your mother's knee-and against the voice of your outraged conscience-you join the ranks of the Sabbathbreakers, will not this be a sin against light—will it not lie heavy on your soul upon your death-bed-will it not meet you in the Judgment Day?

Praying that these words of truth and soberness may be owned of God, and carried home to your hearts with divine power-I remain, dear fellow countrymen, your soul's wellwisher, &c.

December 18, 1841.

SCRIPTURES TO BE MEDITATED ON.

1. Sabbath commanded.-Ex. xvi. 22-30; xx. 8-11; xxxv. 1-3. Lev. xix. 3-30. Deut. v. 12-15. Neh. ix. 14.

2. A sign of God's people.-Ex. xxxi. 12-17. 2 Kings iv. 23. Ezek. xx. 12. Lam. i. 7. Heb. iv. 9.

3. Sabbath-breaking punished.-Num. xv. 32-36. Lev. xxvi. 33-35. 2 Chr. xxxvi. 21. Jer. xvii. 19-end. ii. 6.

Ezek. xx. 12-26. Amos viii. 4-14.

Lam.

4. Day of blessing.-Gen. ii. 2-3. Ex. xvi. 24. Lev. xxiv. 8. Num. xxviii. 9-10. Isai. lvi. 1-8; lviii. 13-14. John xx. 1, 19, 26. Acts ii. 1, with Lev. xxiii. 15. Rev. i. 10.

5. Rulers should guard the Sabbath.-Ex. xx. 10. Neh. xiii. 15-22.

6. Sabbath in gospel times.-Psalm cxviii. 24. Isai, lxvi, 23. Ezek. xlvi. 1. Mark ii. 27-28. Acts ii. 1; xx. 6-7. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. Rev. i. 10.

LETTER ON SABBATH RAILWAYS.

TO ALEXANDER M'NEILL, ESQ., ADVOCATE

SIR-I have read the report of your speech at the meeting of Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, on Tuesday 16th November last, and also the motion which you propose to lay before the shareholders on the 24th February. As a Christian minister, and a free British subject, I take leave to express in this manner the deep feelings of righteous indignation which these have awakened, not in my breast only, but in the breast of every believing man whom I know.

You candidly acknowledge that in the ranks of your opponents are to be found "men of lofty intellect, of great learning and piety, and unbounded benevolence," and yet, in the same breath, you say "you must judge for yourself, ac cording to the reason and plain sense of the matter." That is to say, that the host of intellectual and pious men who are arrayed against you do not judge according to reason or plain sense in this matter, but by some airy superhuman notions, which a man of sense may brush aside as so many cobwebs. Ah, sir, speak out your mind! Tell what it is that lies at the bottom of your enmity to the entire preservation of the Lord's Day. It is the concealment of your sentiments that is the darkest part of your whole address. You are an utter stranger to me, and I dare not judge as to your true motives. But every thinking man cannot but form this opinion in his own mind, that the reason why you despise the lessons of all God's holiest and wisest servants in this land, is not that you think little of the resolutions of popular assemblies (that is a miserable subterfuge, unworthy of any but a mere debater), but that you despise and trample under foot the divine message which they bring. You say you are threatened to be overwhelmed with a flood of obloquy. Do not be afraid. You are on the world's side" the world cannot hate you." There are not many to lift up their voices in behalf of the holy Sabbath. Those who do, are the followers of one who bade us bless and curse not. You say "you do not court approbation, and you care nothing for condemnation." This may be a brave speech: few will regard it as a wise one. If you mean that you do not care for the condemnation of worldly men, there would be something right in that, for in doing our duty, we must expect that the world which crucified our Lord

you

will not spare his servants; but if mean that you do not care for the condemnation of God's people, and of the Word of God, and of the Lord Jesus, who is to be your Judge, then will you soon repent your words with bitter tears. Why, sir, what are you, that you should say, "I care nothing for condemnation ?" "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee ?" "Hast thou an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like him ?" If the condemnation of your words, which God's people are now testifying in every part of the land, be righteous condemnation- if it be in accordance with the Word of God and the mind of Christ—is it the part of a wise man to say, “I care not for it?" You may say so now in the blindness of your heart, but the day is at hand when you will feel the

reverse.

And now one word as to your proposed motion. It runs as follows:-" Whereas it is the duty of the Directors of the Company to give implicit obedience to the Law of God, &c., -This meeting resolves that it is not inconsistent with the duty of the Directors as aforesaid, and they are hereby enjoined to provide trains to be run from the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, in the morning and in the evening of Sunday," &c.

I do not know whether this motion has come entirely from your own mind, or whether several have agreed with you in it; but I here freely state my conviction, formed upon the calm and deliberate study of the motion, and without the slightest desire to use a harsh or improper term, that THE MOTION IS BLASPHEMOUS. You say, first, that it is your duty to give implicit obedience to the Law of God. What is the Law of God? "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it," Exodus xx. 8-11 Now, sir, if, as I presume, you spent your early years in Scotland, trained up, perhaps, under the watchful eye of one who prayed for her child that he might walk in wisdom's ways, you cannot be ignorant of the explanation given of this Commandment in the Shorter Catechism. Qu. 60.) "The

Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy." This is the Law of God, and this is the received interpretation of it, both of which were, no doubt, in your eye when you penned that memorable sentence, “It is the duty of the Directors to give implicit obedience to the Law of God." And yet, before the ink was dry, you write down, "The Directors are enjoined to provide trains to be run in the morning and evening of Sunday." In other words, you hold in your hand the Two Tables of Stone, written with God's finger, and you say we should obey this, and then you dash them on the ground, and say it is our duty notwithstanding to trample on and defy them. Ah! sir, you may call this reason and plain sense, but simpler men can see that it is open mockery of God's Holy Law, and of Him on whose heart it was graven from eternity. Such lip-acknowledgment of God and his Law, God hates and despises. I solemnly declare, and it is the feeling of many besides me, that I would have been less shocked if you had written down, "It is the duty of the Directors to break God's Law." That would have been honest and downright, and thousands would have applauded you. But when you set out with the hypocritical declaration that it is your duty to give implicit obedience to the Law of God, and then conclude by declaring your resolution to break it, I believe in my heart that not only will God's children abhor the blasphemy, but honest worldly men will despise your cowardice. And now, sir, I have done. You little know the feelings of deep compassion with which you, and the unhappy men who voted with you, are regarded by many an humble and holy believer, who loves, because he knows the preciousness of, an unbroken Sabbath Day. Never in all my experience did I meet with a child of God who did not prize, above all other earthly things, the privilege of devoting to his God the seventh part of his time. It is still a sign between God and his Israel. It is this simple fact, sir, that affords me ground to fear that, with all your talents, with all your reason and plain sense, you are yet an utter stranger to the peculiar tastes, and joys, and hopes of those who love the Lord. You proclaim your own shame. You prove, even to the blind world, that you are not journeying toward the Sabbath above, where the Sabbath-breaker cannot come. If you shall really