But the great question for _you_, and which you should lay your hands upon your hearts, and answer conscientiously, is this; how much _you_ yourselves, individually, have contributed to increase the mass of the national guilt in this particular, of which God is so jealous. As my sacred office compels me to speak the truth, and forbids every kind of flattery and dissimulation; as I cannot otherwise be useful to any of you, or assist you in working out your salvation, but by bearing witness to the truth; as I am, moreover, now about to leave you for a while, and therefore wish to give you some departing, farewell advice of the most momentous importance; I say it, I confess, with deep sorrow, and with a painful alarm on _your_ account, that, even in this otherwise well-disposed and well-ordered parish, there is a too evident, and a too great, neglect of the Sabbath. In the true spirit of pastoral affection, but in the plain, manly, authoritative language of an Apostle, I say, “I cannot praise you in this.” Alas! alas! what correct idea, or right devout feeling of God’s sabbaths, can _they_ have, who are always absent from God’s house, and who, perhaps, profane these sacred days, besides, by drunkenness, or gaming, or some other revelry? None, undoubtedly. But all _our_ remonstrances from this sacred place must, of necessity, be useless to _them_; they need them most, but are never present to hear them. Of the rest, how few come here with so much regularity as to show that it is an essential part of their system of life—an established principle of conduct never to be departed from but upon the most urgent, extraordinary occasions! And how will God judge of _them_, who think that they do sufficient honour to his Sabbath by coming once only, and forget that God may construe their coming but once as a proud assumption on their parts, that they want no more of his sanctifying grace than once a day may be likely to bestow! If the help of the Holy Spirit alone can fit them for salvation, and this help is chiefly given by the ministry of the church, how can they be perfectly satisfied with themselves, and think that they have done enough, when they neglect, once a day, an opportunity of partaking of the spirit, which the church is the instrument to convey? I am not unaware of the circumstances of this parish, which render more sometimes impossible; but how few, how very few, perhaps two or three individuals, lament those circumstances, and the consequent loss of additional means of grace!