Finally, I would desire to press upon you the responsibility under which the possession of such an ordinance places us, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. A responsibility to God—for which we must, each and all of us, give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. But a responsibility also to our country, and to generations yet perhaps to come. Other nations once had this privilege of a Christian Sabbath; but they have almost or utterly sinned it away. They neglected and abused it, till God took away, by a just retribution, almost the very name of His day from amongst them. There are countries in Christendom, in which Sunday is known almost only as a day of amusement or of common business. England too may one day be brought to this state, unless our responsibilities are better remembered than they are now. Let us, at all events, so honour this holy day ourselves, that our children may inherit it from us as one of the most precious of all the gifts of God. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” If any later expression of my opinions be demanded by the anxious vigilance of my inquisitor, let me add a short passage from a Sermon preached to a more youthful congregation on the Sunday before my Letter was written. {8a} And shall we, a later, but certainly not a holier generation, despise and tread underfoot a gift so gracious? {8b} Shall we thanklessly weigh and measure the amount of observance by which we may avoid condemnation in the use of it? Shall we either count it a weekly burden, a deprivation of one seventh part of life’s legitimate enjoyments; or else turn it from a day of heavenly into one of earthly pleasure, and, because we dare not openly secularize it, presume to nullify it altogether? My brethren, be wiser: wiser as to your own good, wiser as to your own happiness. Be assured that a wasted Sunday is the precursor of a sinful or an unhappy week. Be assured, on the other hand, that He whose gift it is—a gift of love unspeakable, even of that love which laid down life for us—will make it a happy as well as a profitable day, to all who accept it as His gift, and use it for the purpose of growing in the knowledge and love of its Giver.