And, first, not a few of those with whom we associate in the workshop, are snares to the soul of the very direst kind. We find that infidelity which is often the result of utter ignorance, there rampant and rife. We often see vice rioting in the life, and shutting the heart against the truth. A soul in which religion is felt and loved, will hear what it deems sacred blasphemed, and in self-defence, it may be constrained to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Some of those who are thus tried can tell of the mental anguish to which they are exposed--of the snares which are laid for them on the right hand and on the left--the heroism which is needed to contend, perhaps single-handed, against a crowd of gainsayers, who know of no pleasure but the pleasures of sin, or care for no truth but such as relates to gross and material things. As the body is oppressed and dies amid mephitic vapours, the soul grows sick and like to die amid scenes like these. It has to maintain a constant struggle for existence, as the natives of some portions of India maintain a constant warfare with the inhabitants of the jungle--the boa, the lion, or the tiger. Men long neglected by those who should have consulted for their better interests; men long viewed as only so much animal machinery, to be used as long as it can drudge, and then heartlessly cast aside; men long treated as if they had neither souls to save, nor an eternity to provide for, have too often sunk so far that they threaten to take revenge upon society, by trampling out every vestige of truth that can be found in the places of their exhaustion and toil. Now, amid perils like these, surely the man who cares for his soul has just the more need to cleave close to the only power which can give him the victory--and that power is Christ. Every ungodly gainsayer should be to that man an object of pity, like that of the Redeemer to our fallen world. Every blasphemer, every infidel, every man who has given himself up to the slavery of passion, and dethroned at once his reason and his God, should be an object of tender compassion to the soul of the Christian beside him. While sporting with their own ruin, such men should be like another, and another, and another call to all who know the truth, to show by their life at least, what a Christian, or what Christianity is--how true it is that "We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;" and the following counsels may help some earnest spirit in that arduous work. THE SABBATH-DAY. I.[*5] The most godly occupant of a workshop will be the least surprised to hear us say, Next to the Bible, prize the Sabbath-day, and let no man rob you of its sacred rest. You will thus find it a tower of strength to the soul.