SACRED POETRY. ECHO. I STOOD on the banks of a swift-flowing river, That the dearest enjoyments of life would not last. Oh! tell me, I said, rapid stream of the valley, That bear'st in thy course the blue waters away, Flow on in thy course, rapid stream of the valley, And friendship's endearments-Ah! will they not stay? The simple enchantments of soft blooming nature, And the pleasures of mind-must they too fade away? Where where shall we seek for a certain relief? I ONCE was a stranger I knew not my danger, And felt not my load. I oft read with pleasure, And John's simple page; Like tears from the daughters Of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters But when free grace awoke me Then legal fears shook me, No refuge, no safety, In self could I seeJehovah Tsidkēnu my Saviour must be. My terrors all vanished Before the sweet name; My breastplate and shield! The shadow of death, This “ Watchword” shall rally My faltering breath; For while from life's fever My God sets me free, Jehovah Tsidkēnu my Death song shall be. Collins the Poet.-Collins is well known as a celebrated English poet. In the latter part of his life, he withdrew from his general studies, and travelled with no other book than an English New Testament, such as children carry to school. When a friend took it into his head to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, the poet said, "I have only one book, but that book is the best." True Independence. When Mr Campbell went upon his first mission to Africa, the Bible Society sent along with him a number of Bibles, to be distributed to a Highland regiment, stationed at the Cape of Good Hope. Arrived there, the regiment was drawn out, in order to receive the Bibles. Mr C. and the box which contained them were placed in the centre, and on his presenting the first Bible to one of the men, he took out of his pocket four shillings and sixpence for the Bible, saying, "I enlisted to serve my king and country, and I have been well and amply paid, and will not accept of a Bible as a present, when I can pay for it." Beza. It is related of Beza, one of the Reformers, that when he was old, and could not recollect the names of persons and things he had heard but a few minutes before, he could remember and repeat the epistles of St Paul, which he had committed to memory when he was young. And sold by the Local Agents in all the Towns and Parishes of Scotland; and to be procured of every Bookseller in England and Ireland. Subscribers in Edinburgh and Leith will have their copies delivered regularly at their own residences, every Saturday morning, by leaving their addresses with the Publisher, or with John Lindsay & Co., 7, South St Andrew Street.-Subscribers in Glasgow will, in like manner, have their copies delivered, by leaving their addresses at the Publishing Office there, 32, Glassford Street. Subscription (payable in advance) per quarter, of twelve weeks, 1s. 6d.-per half-year, of twenty-four weeks, 3s.-per year, of fortyeight weeks, Gs.-Monthly Parts, containing four Numbers each, stitched in a printed wrapper, price Sevenpence. THE SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MINISTERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 86 THE FEAR OF THE LORD, THAT IS WISDOM." VOL. I. No. 4. SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1836. THE VALUE OF THE SABBATH. BY THE REV. ARCHIBALD BENNIE, Minister of Lady Yester's Parish, Edinburgh. WE may illustrate the value of the Sabbath, by considering it, first, as a day of rest; and secondly, as a day of religious duty and privilege. I. That occasional intervals of repose are necessary for the healthy and vigorous action both of the mind and the body, is felt by the most unthinking. We cannot continue long at any process of labour without pausing to recruit; and it has generally been observed, that when any one has attempted to dispense with repose for a considerable period of time, the unnatural attempt has issued either in premature decay, or in some violent shock to the system, which has unfitted him for further exertion. The regular return of night, though a most wise provision in the divine economy, does not altogether meet our need of rest. It repairs the exhaustion of the preceding day, and efreshes for the toils of that which follows. But, besides that night, as a season of rest, is often abridged by our carrying the labours of day into it, there seems to be a necessity for occasional pauses, over against which no labour is to be set, during which, the constitution, like the soil, may lie fallow, and both mind and body, freed from all labour and restraint, may be invigorated for that alternation of toil and rest, which makes up the ordinary day of life. The mind, it is true, is capable of much longer, and more intense labour than the body, and does not stand so much in need of relaxation and relief; but even it, though the better, the far nobler part, may be overstretched; and though scarcely ever totally inactive, nor is it desirable that it should be so, it requires a cessation from its ordinary pursuits, a variety in its exercises and engagements, in order that it may maintain its vivacity and vigour unimpaired. Now, the Sabbath, as a day of rest, completely answers this end. It is a pause in the rapid flow of life. It is an interval of withdrawment from its business and cares. It is an interruption to the bustle and hurry, by which both body and mind are often worn out, and utterly enfeebled. Even when there is no real religion, it causes a man to stand still from want of scope for worldly transactions, PRICE 1d. and inability to obtain the co-operation of others, which, on the Sabbath, is not to be commanded. The mind, it is true, will be active on that day as well as on others, but it will not be active according to task. Its activity is voluntary, unforced, and, if we may so speak, non-exhausting. There is something in the very repose of the Sabbath, which has a refreshing effect upon the mind. The city is at rest. The plough lies motionless in the field. If a man goes abroad, he sees not the stir and crowd of other days. He feels that there is a respite from the ordinary law and tax of humanity. Even the brute-beast is spared. Though all the great processes of nature are going on, yet such is the effect of association, that the very aspect of the scenery around us seems to partake of the stillness which rests upon the works and the ways of man. The poet of the Sabbath has very beautifully expressed this :How still the morning of the hallowed day! Sounds the most faint attract the ear, the hum Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, The distant bleating mid-way up the hill. To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale; And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark Warbles with heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen." Nor is it to be overlooked, that there seems to be a peculiar felicity in the appointment of each seventh day to be a day of rest. Habit, no doubt, has a great influence on our feelings with respect to this. But there is a general feeling that a longer term of business and toil than six days, would be oppressive, and that a shorter would be a hurtful interruption to the necessary avocations and pursuits of life. Even men who are not in the least alive to the religious sanction and design of the Sabbath, appear to be willing to admit this view of it. For though some, in their idolatrous pursuit of wealth and other objects, often break in on the rest of the Sabbath, and, in practice, literally blot it out of many weeks in the year, yet even these persons are conscious, sooner or later, that they have bent the bow too far; while all who reflect calmly and comprehensively on our nature and condition, will be ready to allow, that as interrupting the drudgery and care of life, which, in many cases, are little better than a grinding at the mill, the Sabbath justly claims to be considered as | and it only answers its high end, when it helps him on in his preparation for eternity,-in that work of salvation, which, under grace, is his highest employment on earth. The worship of God, both in public and in private, forms the most prominent duty of the Sabbath. It is the only day, indeed, on which public worship can be conveniently and efficiently performed. Private worship belongs to every day; but public worship requires men to assemble in considerable numbers, and for a considerable period of time; and hence, it is peculiarly appropriate to a day on which the ordinary employments and cares of life are laid aside. This great branch of duty invests the Sabbath, to the sincere Christian, with a deep and holy charm. In one sense, that day has a value to the impenitent, though they are insensible to it. As a divine institution, it is an appeal to a lost world, on the subject of their highest interests. Its very solemnity comes upon mankind like a voice of power. Its peacefulness, the cessation of toil, and bustle, and merchandise, has something religious in it. Besides, the Sabbath places the means of grace within the reach of the careless and profane. The sanctuary is open; the devout are seen hastening from their homes, in decent attire, that they may join in worship; the Word is publicly preached, and sinners are in II. The Sabbath is a day of religious duty and privilege. This is its grand distinguishing characteristic, to which the rest of the body is design-vited to partake of salvation. But the true value ed to be subservient. For though rest in itself is salutary, yet the rest of mere idleness, particularly as respects the mind, would be attended with pernicious effects. The body is respited from toil, and the mind from its ordinary pursuits, that duties of the most sublime spirituality may be engaged in. These duties give to the Sabbath its peculiar sanctity. It is a day set apart for religious meditation and devotional exercises. During the other days of the week, religion may be said to hold a divided empire. It is but one element, even when it is supreme, and all-pervading; and though its influence should be powerfully felt, the mind is necessarily occupied with a variety of interests and cares, which exhaust its energy and consume time. But the Sabbath-day is designed to exclude other things, that religion may have the whole field of thought to itself,-that it may be considered in its vastness and glory without distraction, and that by calm meditation upon its truths, and the exercise of the affections in devotion, whatever injury, in point of clearness or influence, it may have sustained during the week, may be repaired, and a fresh impulse given to our diligence and zeal in the performance of its duties. This is what is implied in keeping the Sabbath holy, the language of the Fourth Commandment. For mere rest is not holiness,-pastime or amusement is not holiness; and hence they who would interpret that commandment as only implying these, do most entirely mistake its import and design. To keep it holy, is undoubtedly to spend it in religious duty. It is the "day which God has made." He made it for man,-to meet the great and urgent wants of his nature and condition; of the Sabbath belongs to the believer. Conceive a man, pursuing .salvation with intense earnestness,-deeply alive to spiritual excellence,―realising things unseen and eternal-and feeling from day to day the common concerns and engagements of life to be comparatively sordid, as well as to be accompanied with much to grieve, annoy, and hinder the soul in its upward progress-its aspirations after purity, peace, and love :-Conceive the value of the Sabbath to such a man. He welcomes it as a refuge from distraction and care. It is as a haven after a storm. Its quiet comes down like sunshine upon his soul. It invites him to duties the most delightful and reviving. It brings him into the full presence of the God whom he loves, and the Saviour in whom he trusts-with no cloud or shadow intervening to impair his joy. It banishes all that is low, frivolous, and earthly. It calls him to the house of Prayer, the scene of his dearest associations, his most exalted pleasures, and his holiest desires. It spreads out before him the richly furnished table of divine provision, and supplies the food by which he is to be nourished and refreshed. It lifts him to a noble elevation above the world and its cares. When fully enjoyed, it is heaven upon earth. "One day in thy courts is better than a thousand." Private worship, we have said, belongs to every day. But the Sabbath affords peculiar advantages for observing it, both in the family and the closet. There is not only more time, more freedom from all disquietude and interruption, but public duty comes in aid of private, and attunes the mind to it. The train of pious thought being longer continued, the mind has time to kindle into a glow upon it, as well as to avail itself of those helps to devotion, which reading and meditation supply. Family worship is observed with more interest and solemnity than on other days. The members of the domestic circle can then be all assembled. Worship comes not like an intrusion on what is secular. There is no violent transition to it. It flows naturally and easily from the design of the Sabbath. It is closely allied to its public duties. The Bible, in one sense the book of every day, is emphatically the book of the Sabbath. Family worship, too, beautifully crowns the lessons of parental advice, and the work of parental instruction. When the father has been imparting counsel, warning against temptation, and encouraging to piety and virtue, it is a most appropriate close to his task to worship God. There is not a more delightful spectacle, than is exhibited when a Christian father sits on a Sabbath evening in the midst of his children, explaining the wisdom of the precious Word; or kneels with the young worshippers around him in fervent reverential prayer. Such domestic scenes are the proper and hopeful nurseries of the Church. "O Scotland! much I love thy tranquil dales: To commune with his God in secret prayer,— Christian poet, Cowper, on the right observance of the Sabbath : "What says the prophet? Let that day be bless'd Pastime and business both it should exclude, By deeds in which the world must never mix. A day of luxury, observed aright; When the glad soul is made heaven's welcome guest, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE spirit of industry being thus awakened in the Stein- Closet or secret prayer has also peculiar advan-tance, was circulated freely among themselves. tages on the Sabbath. A day, with so much of carried his improvements into their dwellings, which heaven in it, prepares the Christian for the most were formerly, most of them, nothing more than wretched hovels, hewn out of the rocks, and without any celendearing communion with God. The whole day lars to preserve their potatoes, which formed their prinhas a purer atmosphere than the other days of the cipal food, from the influence of the frost. He was anxiWeek. The closet is a bright and hallowed spot. ous, also, to improve their agriculture; but the people, The Christian enters it with his mind serene, spi- supposing that, from his habits and mode of life, he could ritually sensitive, and more than usually elevated not have so much knowledge on that subject as they in its thoughts. The great truths, heard or read judging, that an appeal to themselves would be the most themselves had, resisted all his attempts; and he, wisely during the day, have imparted to his views an ex- certain way of convincing them, resolved to put his traordinary vividness. As he communes with God, theories in practice, on a small piece of ground belongit seems as if the realities of faith stood personi-ing to the parsonage. Having dug trenches, four or fied before him, and he felt the blessedness and joy of their presence. The closet is Bethel; and the angels of God ascend and descend on the ladder of the New Covenant. Such is a faint illustration of the value of the Sabbath. When thus spent, and thus enjoyed, it is indeed a day of high and holy privilege, a foretaste of heaven,-a cluster of grapes from the vines of that promised land. It soothes the cares of discipline, and refreshes after the fatigues of pilgrimage. It repairs the injuries sustained in the spiritual conflicts of the past, and prepares for the hazards and hardships of trials yet to come. It is as a green spot in the wilderness, with the freshness of a flowing stream, and the shelter of an overshadowing rock. We conclude this paper with the following lines of the inimitable and truly five feet deep, he planted various slips of apples, pears, plums, cherries, and walnuts, and made a large nursery neglected, from the supposed sterility of the soil; and, of a piece of ground, which had been hitherto totally in due time, the peasants, astonished at the rich produce of their minister's ground, compared with the scanty return of their own, flocked to enquire by what methods he had met with such abundant crops. In answer to their inquiries, he, according to custom, after having directed their minds to Him, "who causeth the earth to bring forth her bud, and crowneth the year with his goodness," gave a minute explanation of the mode, by observing which, they would ensure themselves, by the blessing of Providence, crops equally strong and abundant as his own. This experiment was attended with a result more important to his parishioners, in its immediate effects, than the taste for plantalmost entirely upon potatoes; but owing to various ing trees, which was universally diffused. They lived causes, this root had degenerated so much, that about the time of Oberlin's arrival, in 1767, fields that had a collection of all sorts of observations that promised to be useful. The grand object which he had in view in all these, was to inform their understandings, and to impress them with a sense of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator; and so much did he endeavour to make them connect their diligence in business with religion, that he made it essential to receiving the rite of confirmation, that the young candidates should bring a certificate from their parents, that they had planted two young trees, or contributed something to the general good. And this he did, not for the purpose of conferring a temporal benefit under the sanction of a religious ordinance, but on the broad principle of the apostle," that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we should do all to the glory of God." The principles of religion, Oberlin taught them to carry into practice in the minutest affairs of life-to take, for instance, a stone out of the way, if it were likely to incommode a traveller, on the principle of love to their neighbour. Things, which done by other men, would be only matters of convenience, he always taught should be done as a religious duty; and all the institutions of that society which he formed and established among the rude people over whom he was placed, were conducted on this principle. From the year 1782, when the social improvements of his people were so far advanced that they did not need so much of his attention, he directed himself almost wholly to their religious interests. He formed a society, denominated "The Christian Society," for which he drew up a set of rules, and the object of which was, the promotion of the spirit of prayer and of religious conversation; but owing to much violent opposition, it was not of long continuance. He next caused a circular to be sent to every cottage in his parish, calling upon his people to join him in the establishment of a monthly prayer-meeting for the spread of the Gospel, and the stability and success of missionaries engaged in that cause; and also that every one should, on Sunday and Wednesday, at five o'clock in the evening, prostrate himself before God, in the name of Jesus Christ, and engage in prayer, first for himself, then for every member of his household, mentioning the names of each-then for all the friends of God of his acquaintance then for all in authority; and that on Saturday evening they should, at a certain hour, pray God to bless the preaching of the Gospel on the ensuSabbath. These various improvements, however, which he introduced among his people in agricultural gardening, and the other useful arts of life, were only parts of the system which he had sketched for the benefit of his parish; and while he was indefatigable in his exertions to improve their temporal condition, he was never, for a moment, unmindful of the spiritual services, to which they had a claim, and which he felt to be the principal and proper part of a minister's duty. Various were the plans he adopted for this great end. In 1779, he printed and circulated an address, at the beginning of the year, among the people of the Steinthal, in which he reminded them of the blessings and privileges they had long enjoyed-impressed upon them the increasing responsibility they thereby incurred to improve them to their spiritual advantage—called upon all to embrace, by faith, the overtures of reconciliation with God, made through a crucified Saviour, and exhorted them, in the most earnest and affectionate manner, to let their walk and conversation be becoming the Gospel. The young of his flock particularly engaged his pastoral solicitude. For their benefit, he procured subscriptions among his friends, to erect a school, of a commodious and permanent description, in each of the five villages of his parish-trained up several intelligent young men, undering his own eye, to the theory and practice of intellectual education, and founded institutions of a humbler kind, under the management of conductrices, or female superintendents, for the reception, and preparatory tuition of infants, whom he had often seen neglected, while their parents were at work, and their elder brothers and sisters were at school. From these schools, the infants were removed, at a proper age, to the higher seminaries, where they were instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, the principles of agriculture, astronomy, sacred and profane history-the pastor having a general superintendence over the whole, and reserving solely to himself the department of religious instruction. Every Sunday, the children of each village, in turns, assembled at the church to sing the hymns they had learned, to recite the lessons they had prepared during the week, and to receive an admonition from the lips of the minister. Such an impression was made by these benevolent and useful exertions, that funds poured in upon him from various quarters, in such abundance, as enabled him to establish a library for the adults, and one of a simple kind for the scholars a museum, consisting of a collection of indigenous plants and objects in natural history, and of philosophical and mathematical instruments. With part of these funds, he drew up, printed, and circulated among his people, an almanack, containing a list of all the popular superstitions, with an exposure of their absurdity, and About this time, and after sixteen years' uninterrupted happiness in the married state, Oberlin was deprived of his beloved wife; and ever after, says his biographer, the passive graces shone as conspicuously in his character, as the active virtues had done before. The first intelligence of the event, for it was very sudden, threw him into a stupor; but recovering in a little, he threw himself on his knees, and returned thanks to God, that his beloved partner was now beyond the reach or the need of prayer. They had prayed, at the commencement of their union, that they might live together as the people of God. And he now prayed, If it be a thing which we may ask of Thee, O grant that we may not be long separated." The desire of departing and being with Christ, which had always been a strong principle of his mind, and the belief that he would not be long in following his wife had taken such hold of him, that in the firm persuasion of his death not being far distant, he composed a long paper of directions, admonitions, and warnings, to all classes of his people, which he carefully laid aside, with orders that it was not to be opened till after his decease. But Providence had still much for him to accomplish in the world, and with that composure and resolution which was the fruit of his faith, and which so remarkably distinguished him, he continued in the midst of his people, labouring among them in word and doctrine more zealously than ever. Meanwhile, the loss of his wife was in some measure |