asion often to remark,
that many persons, of the graver and more decent sort, seem not seldom
to be nearly destitute of religious resources. The Sunday is with them,
to say the best of it, a _heavy_ day; and that larger part of it, which
is not claimed by the public offices of the church, dully drawls on in
comfortless vacuity, or without improvement is trifled away in vain and
unprofitable discourse. Not to speak of those who by their more daring
profanation of this sacred season, openly violate the laws and insult
the religion of their country, how little do many seem to enter into the
_spirit_ of the institution, who are not wholly inattentive to its
exterior decorums! How glad are they to qualify the rigor of their
religious labours! How hardly do they plead against being compelled to
devote the _whole_ of the day to Religion, claiming to themselves no
small merit for giving up to it a part, and purchasing therefore, as
they hope, a right to spend the remainder more agreeably! How
dexterously do they avail themselves of any plausible plea for
introducing some weekday employment into the Sunday, whilst they have
not the same propensity to introduce any of the Sunday's peculiar
employment into the rest of the week! How often do they find excuses
for taking journeys, writing letters, balancing accounts; or in short
doing something, which by a little management might probably have been
anticipated, or which, without any material inconvenience, might be
postponed! Even business itself is recreation, compared with Religion,
and from the drudgery of this day of Sacred Rest they fly for relief to
their ordinary occupations.

Others again who would consider business as a prophanation, and who
still hold out against the encroachments of the card table, get over
much of the day, and gladly seek for an innocent resource, in the social
circle or in family visits, where it is not even pretended that the
conversation turns on such topics as might render it in any way
conducive to religious instruction, or improvement. Their families
meanwhile are neglected, their servants robbed of Christian privileges,
and their example quoted by others, who cannot see that they are
themselves less religiously employed, while playing an innocent game at
cards, or relaxing in the concert room.

But all these several artifices, _whatever they may be_, _to unhallow_
the Sunday and to change its character (it might be almost said "to
relax its horr