through the gloom of the first sentence, “_In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread_;” a station for man the wayfarer to rest and refresh himself, as he ploughs and digs, and fights and forces his way through the jungle of earth to God. God, in this Sabbath institution, is bringing out a fundamental and primal law, and He gives to it the very highest sanction, a witness to all fundamental laws that the breach of them is death. That God did not regard it as a mere formal institution is most evident, in that He himself protests against the mere form of it, when it was offered to him as a sacrifice widowed of the congenital soul. Isaiah i. 13–15. “_Bring no more vain oblations_; _incense is an abomination unto me_; _the new moons and Sabbaths_, _the calling of assemblies_, _I cannot away with_; _it is iniquity_, _even the solemn meeting_. _Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth_: _they are a trouble unto me_; _I am weary to bear them_. _And when ye spread forth your hands_, _I will hide mine eyes from you_: _yea_, _when ye make many prayers_, _I will not hear_: _your hands are full of blood_.” The Sabbath of the Jews was a perennial monitor, pointing backwards to the earliest time. “_Remember the Sabbath day_,” remember the fountain of present and familiar liberties and joys. The time came when the alphabet of morals had been conned and thoroughly mastered, when the whole world was to be put into possession of treasure which had been accumulating in the hands of the Jews for ages. It is a fine illustration of the manner in which Judaism in its living germs, which had never been suffered to perish, expanded into Christianity, to trace the transition from the Jewish Sabbath to the Sabbath of the Christian church. It is more true, perhaps, to speak of growth than transition.