The labour to which, in the present state of society, the majority of the working population of our country is subjected, in order to obtain their subsistence, is of that incessant and tasking nature, which, when the daily hours of toil are closed, leaves the system too much exhausted for mental application or intellectual enjoyment. Hence, among those of the labouring classes who are not led by religious principle to avail themselves of the opportunities for self-improvement which the weekly rest affords, we find, with comparatively few exceptions, low and degrading pursuits the principal sources of their amusement; while their highest enjoyments are derived from the gratification of their appetites and propensities. Nor is this strange; no one who has for any considerable length of time been subjected to severe and unremitting toil, whose employment called for the exertion of his muscular power till real fatigue ensued, will deny, that, while in such a state, man is equally incapable of availing himself of the more refined pleasure of social intercourse, or of the improvement to be derived from mental application; that the craving is for animal gratification, or nervous excitement; and that a continued routine of such labour, without the seventh-day rest, would soon sink the labouring population into a condition worse than that of absolute barbarism. This is no merely speculative theory; we have only to enter into social intercourse with those around us, to meet with more than abundant proofs of its reality. Were it possible, then, to view man as only formed for this world--as a mere link in the chain of causation--doing his little part, enjoying his brief existence, and then reduced again to his original elements, passing away alike forgetting and forgotten; and were we to regard the Sabbath as merely a civil institution, the appointment of human government; even thus separated from all its religious relations, it would, were it possible for man destitute of the knowledge of God, to improve the opportunities afforded by it, confer benefits upon working men which they could not otherwise obtain. The Sabbath limits, to some extent, the power of employers, whom selfishness and avarice, in not a few instances, have rendered alike regardless of the comfort and the health of their servants; and secures to those whose daily avocations require their absence from the family circle, the pleasures and the comforts of home; the softening and refining influence of family relations and domestic intercourse. Its rest refreshes and invigorates the physical constitution, and affords time to apply the mind to the attainment of useful knowledge: it ought therefore to command the respect of all who are sincerely desirous of promoting the improvement of the working population.