doing, and in not endeavoring to benefit our mistaken neighbours by our superior light, we heap upon our own heads all the offences of which the land has been guilty from the time when first it fell away into the errors of the idolatrous church of the great Babylon! Is this a time and a place, at the crisis in which the great heresy is revealing itself under a new form, namely, that of open infidelity, to mangle the doctrines of our holy religion in our assemblies, and to exhibit the Saviour, as one that helps out the short comings of his people, rather than as one who, in all his divine attributes has been sent by the Father to be the finisher of our salvation—which salvation, being complete in him, requires nothing that we can do to render it more perfect-and which, being perfected, admits the believer to the benefits of sanctification by the Lord the Spirit?

On the heights above us on the opposite side of the ravine, is a lofty monument, standing as a beacon over the sea. This pillar is well known, and was built by Buonaparte on occasion of his intended triumph over England--a monument of vainglory, which, if the world were less enlightened, might in ages to come bear testimony to a falsehood, and lead the nation who erected it to boast of victories never wrought. Such are often human testimonies, but the testimonies that are divine cannot deceive. The hill before us was steep, and the evening sultry, though a late rain had rendered the air damp; we, however, began to ascend from the bottom of the valley, and seeing on our right hand a shady walk, we turned into it, not knowing exactly where we were going. Presently we saw before us a small house where beer was sold, and on our right a large garden cut into alleys; on our left was a terrace encircled by plane trees, which trees included a considerable area; within we saw benches and persons drinking and smoking, and on the left of the house beyond the garden another terrace surrounded by trees, where a company of the lowest orders of men and women were dancing together, notwithstanding the wetness of the ground, which was such, that they were obliged to scatter sand in places where the footsteps had pressed; the musicians sat within the last square, on a raised seat. At the sight of this scene, in which the utmost

coarseness of manner, added to the sense which we felt of the profanation of the day by an amusement so thoroughly worldly, not only winked at, but allowed by the authorities of the country, we turned away, and being weary of all which presented itself whithersoever we went, we thought it best to seek the retirement of our apartment, in order that we might enjoy another opportunity of christian communion with our own family before the hour of rest; nevertheless, some one of our family asked whether the dancing was worse than the assemblies which take place for drinking in public houses on the Lord's day, in England.

"That which is allowed, and which is public, is always more disgraceful to a nation and a church, than that which is disallowed, and thus compelled to shrink into holes," was the answer given to this inquiry, and the reasoning was admitted to be just; but as we ascended again towards the town, not exactly by the way we came, we fell into discourse on the nature of the day called the Lord's day, which is, as I conceive, by no means the same as the Jewish sabbath.

The sabbath, it seems, experienced its first completion by the rest of the Saviour in the grave, and was then in fact done away with as incumbent on the church, which, being one with Christ, died and was buried with him, and rose again with him on the Lord's day. This last day, therefore, is to be observed, not according to the letter, which killeth, but according to the spirit, which giveth life, by those who are one with Christ, not only in acknowledgment of that union and of that great deliverance effected by the resurrection, but also as a means of refreshment to its members, and a token of divine love springing afresh at these stated times: it is also to be observed by the unbeliever, because it is a law of the country, and a privilege, yet its real duties cannot be enforced like that of the Jewish sabbath, which in the first instance affected only outward observances; hence, the beast who has no soul may keep the Jewish sabbath, but the children of God only can keep the christian.

But this we also remarked, that, whereas the Lord's day is the first of blessings in a christian country, in a land of error it is commonly perverted to the worst of purposes, by that evil

one who, if infernal craft could have prevailed above divine wisdom, would not have had cause to blame himself or his followers for that failure, which, through the mercy of the Father, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, he will speedily experience. Nevertheless, as we remarked, the Sunday on the continent is a busy day with our arch enemy; and an evil day, because labor is good for the unconverted man, and leisure is evil, and the very necessities of his nature are so many restraints holding him back from the perpetration of sin. Thus we conversed till we had entered, from an open road, crowded with persons running to and fro in search of pleasure, and bordered with houses and gardens for Sunday entertainments, into a shady path, where suddenly we beheld the summits of tomb-stones and black crosses elevating themselves above a wall or wooden fence.

Let us turn towards this, we said, and endeavor to discern from the inscriptions graven upon the tombs, the grounds of hope which the mourners have possessed when committing to the dust the objects of their tenderest affection.

It seems that this burying-ground was a new one, and that it had lately been further enlarged, and that the part of it in front of which we had first arrived, was devoted to the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the town, whilst the more distant belonged to the Protestant. Having found entrance into that of the Roman Catholic, although with some difficulty, for the way was choked with briars and rank grass, we saw an amazing number of memorials of the dead, pyramids and obelisks, and coffin-shaped sarcophagi; with urns of marble, over which depended the elegant branches of the weeping willow, and various crosses of different materials, some being simply black with lines of white, others being of marble, and others gilt; and on the tombs were various devices indicative of mortality, viz. winged hour-glasses, skulls, and skeletons, departing time, and approaching death; but the inscriptions were what we chiefly sought, and what were these-they vaunted the virtues of the deceased, to wit, the goodness of a father, the perfections of a wife, the obedience of a daughter, the honor of a son; they spoke of the tears of friends, of long regrets, of blighted hopes,

of bloom destroyed, of sudden wo-but where religion was alluded to, it was in that dark and doubtful spirit which always attends a false religion, accompanied with frequent entreaties for the prayers of the living in behalf of the departed soul, that soul which if not redeemed already is lost, lost, for ever lostan awful truth which cannot be too often repeated.

And is this all which the covenant of works (for the Roman Catholic religion is nothing more in fact than another exhibition of the covenant of works) can do for these poor mourners, we said-can they not trust their dying friend in perfect hope, to that God and those saints in whom they pretend to place their trust in life? Do they still require the aid of man to patch the ragged garment wherein they trust to be received above?—and we turned away from this sad scene of earthly wo and spiritual gloom, towards the protestant burying. ground, where rest many of the English who have died at Boulogne. Here the emblems of superstition had disappeared ; the cross and tablet demanding the prayers of the living were indeed not to be seen, but the vain boastings of the tomb were quite as eloquent here as in the former cemetery, and in one instance only did we observe the proper expressions of christian humility and christian confidence; there might be others; we will not pass so severe a censure as to say there were not, but we did not see them; and with a sense of sadness not easily to be shaken off, we turned in silence towards our hotel. It was evening when we arrived, the air was hot, and as we sat down near our open window, a new scene of vanity forced itself on our notice; our street was particularly busy; well-dressed persons, all apparently having one object, succeeding each other along the pavement. There were elderly ladies in their gowns of silk, and head-dresses of blond and artificial flowers, younger ladies in the height of foreign fashion, little children of various ages, their small persons being arranged precisely like their elders, young men and old, rich and poor, healthy and infirm, all were pressing on, and with a glee, an animation which we could not comprehend till informed that it was the hour of the comedie, and that the representation was about to commence ; "and it is Sunday evening," added our infor mant, when the theatres are always particularly crowded.

What could we then do, if it was our desire, on this holy day, to turn our eyes from vanity, but to close our windows. It is well that the Lord has prepared a table and a feast for his people in the wilderness, which depend not on the ministry of man. We had our Bible, and we had the promise of the divine presence, and though pity for our unhappy fellow-creatures had filled our hearts with anguish, yet we remembered the words of the Lord to the prophet Elijah, "I have seven thousand names in Israel which have not bowed the knee to Baal," and we hoped that, even here, there might be a remnant who, like Daniel, serve their God, even within the walls of Babylon.

We were to leave Boulogne early the next morning, in the contemplation of which we retired to our beds at nine o'clock, and were in a deep sleep, when a noise of rattling heels, and a sort of mixed murmur, from which occasionally issued the sound of loud merriment, suddenly awoke us. What was this but the breaking up of the theatre and the return of the conpany through the street. Neither was the street clear and quiet again till the midnight hour had struck. Thus terminated the Sunday at Boulogne-and may the God of all mercies have pity on a country in which the Lord's day is thus systematically devoted to evil purposes, and may it be put into the hearts of those Protestants, of whatever denominations they may be, who visit the continent, to shew that respect for the Lord's day, which every person must feel who has the smallest regard for the cause of religion.

But here I close my communication, promising, if agreeable to my readers, and if I am so permitted, to give them some further examples of Sundays spent in other cities of the continent, assuring them that our experience has already supplied us with so large a variety of materials, that I feel that it will be my fault, rather than that of my subject, if my communication fail to instruct. Neither will all my pictures be equally dark with the one now presented to the reader; I have met with some bright passages in my pilgrimage, and have visited at least one land of brooks and fountains of living water, but I will not anticipate-they that would see wonders in the natural world, must travel far and endure many rough roads and weary