Lord John RUSSELL says, “It is, I think, one of the greatest evils of this country that toil has become so excessive, that all considerations of health—all attention to intellectual improvement, and even all that time which ought to be devoted to spiritual worship—is lost in that excess of labour which the people of this country are compelled to undergo.” Lord ASHLEY, in commending the efforts of “The Metropolitan Early-Closing Association,” {14} likewise most justly asserts, that “the struggle which is taking place at the present time is neither more nor less than a great conflict between materialism and spirituality. It is a struggle between things temporal and things eternal—it is a struggle between the creation of wealth and the objects for which wealth should be created.” But let us briefly reflect on the melancholy statement made by Dr. Copland, and we shall see that late hours of business inevitably destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath, and cause many to spend it in some of those modes of desecration for which the facilities are now so numerous and so seductive. The Writer of this Essay has two sons who have been brought up to respectable retail trades; the youngest was compelled, some short time since, to attend a shop from seven in the morning until eleven at night, and on Saturday it extended frequently to one, making it nearly two o’clock before he could possibly retire to rest. When he came home, on the Sabbath, instead of being enabled to attend a Church or Chapel, it became absolutely necessary that he should again obtain additional sleep during the greater part of the day, thus completely depriving him of the opportunity to be present in the sanctuary of God. This youth formerly attended the Park Chapel Sabbath School, at Chelsea, and the conviction naturally is that to this iniquitous and baneful cause may be attributed much of the demoralization which is so painfully apparent in many of those who have been similarly instructed.