And if there is need for such a Sabbath in any country, and among any people, even were they as pastoral and contemplative in their daily habits as Abraham in Canaan, or as Moses when tending the flocks of Jethro, it is immeasurably more indispensable to the intellectual and religious wellbeing of men living in old countries such as Scotland or England, where over-population has unduly crowded the market of labour, and given rise to an unhealthy competition, in which men often need to strain their wits and their energies to the utmost in order simply to live. Nothing will save a people in such a community from an undue mental strain unfavourable alike to intellectual and moral health, and even from being wrought in great numbers to death, but the weekly recurrence of a day which is fenced off and guarded by Divine prescription, and attachment to which is deeply rooted in the religious convictions and the gratitude of the people. There are tens of thousands of our industrial classes, and even multitudes among our men of business, who seldom see the younger members of their families, except on Sabbath-day. And to what a debasing monotony of toil would the lives of these men speedily be reduced, were it not for the anticipation of the coming day of hallowed rest, in which the artisan should know no master, and the master himself should be disturbed by no postman's rap or din of business, and should exchange his ledger for his Bible, and the hardening influences of commercial competition and rivalry for the softening and purifying influences of home and of the house of God. On this day, our sons of toil stand erect in the full consciousness of their manhood and of their heavenly birthright; and shall the day which brings such privilege and blessing to man be described as a restraint? It is such a restraint as the shutting of the door of the ark was to Noah, which kept the deluge out, and the patriarch safe. It is like the fence of flowers which we may imagine to have been drawn around Paradise when Adam dwelt in it; and to many a wearied and wasted labourer, when this day has returned with healing in its wings, it has seemed as if the primeval curse was suspended, and Eden threw open its closed gates for a season to receive the wanderer back.