g-houses open on the
Sabbath not one had escaped insolvency. A poor boy was apprenticed to
an apothecary in a large city. To increase his wages and encourage his
efforts, his master gave him a recipe and materials for making blacking
on his own account. The blacking was made, and placed in pots in the
shop window; but day after day passed, and no purchaser appeared. One
Sunday morning, while the shop was open for medicine, before the hour
of public service, a person came in, and asked for a pot of blacking.
The boy was in the very act of stretching out his hand to reach it,
when he reflected it was the Lord's-day. Falteringly, he told the
customer it was the Sabbath, and he could not do it. After this the boy
went to church. The Tempter there teased him about his folly in losing
a customer for his blacking: the boy held in reply that he had done
right, and, were the case to occur again, he would do just the same. On
Monday morning, as soon as he had taken down the shutters, a person
came in, and bought every pot of blacking there was; and the boy found
that, after deducting the cost of materials, he had cleared one dollar.
With more faith and fortitude than some of you possess (said the
preacher), he went and took that dollar--the first he had ever
earned--to the Bible Society. That poor boy is still living, and is now
a wealthy man.

The preacher said he knew a man, in his own native State of Tennessee,
who on his arrival in America had nothing but a pocket Bible; but he
made two resolutions,--1st. That he would honour the Sabbath; 2nd. That
he would remember his mother. The first dollar he got he sent to her,
and declared that he would never forget the Sabbath and his mother. He
also was now a wealthy man.

The punishment of Sabbath-breaking was sure, though not immediate. Like
the punishment of intemperance or impurity, it would come. Here the
celebrated testimony of Sir Matthew Hale was adduced. Dr. Johnson's
rules respecting the Sabbath were read, with the observation that no
doubt he owed much of his celebrity to their observance. Wilberforce
had declared that, at one period of his life, parliamentary duties were
so heavy that he would certainly have sunk under them, had it not been
for the rest the Sabbath afforded. But the Sabbath was not merely a day
of rest,--it was a day for improvement. Where there was no Sabbath, all
was bad. The inhabitants of Scotland and New England were distinguished
for industry and