We behold with sincere gratification the efforts which have been made, and are being made, in regard to other subjects of special importance to the church and the world. We would cordially coöperate with their respective advocates in securing, as far as practicable, a strict obedience to other moral precepts, and in emancipating the human mind from sin and error. But we cannot forget that God has given a _fourth_, as well as a _first_, a _sixth_, a _seventh_, and a _tenth_ commandment, and that it rests upon equal authority with those, and with either of the precepts of the Decalogue; and hence we plead in its behalf. We do this as moral and accountable beings, as Protestants, as Christians, as reformers, and as cotemporaries of our brethren in the nineteenth century, a period so distinguished for its moral and political enterprises, and for its proximity to the time when it shall be said, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." We approach you in the belief that "open rebuke is better than secret love"--that "faithful are the wounds of a friend"--and that we "should admonish one another daily, and so much the more as we see the day approaching." We feel bound to exert ourselves in this cause, in the belief that "our labor will not be in vain in the Lord," that the church is "coming up out of the wilderness," and that we live in the dawn of a brighter day, in a period of the world when the scriptures and the providences of God concur in affording the highest encouragement to the faithful advocates of truth and duty. And we do not hesitate to express our expectation, that by the blessing of God upon the well-directed and persevering labors of his people, and the continued and augmenting spirit of inquiry, there will soon be achieved a glorious reformation in respect to the subject of this Tract. God will "overturn, and overturn, and overturn, till He shall come, whose right it is," and "the sanctuary shall be cleansed." Finally--we enter our testimony in what we deem an important case, in the hope, through grace, of meeting all "the faithful in Christ Jesus in the everlasting rest," of which the rest of the seventh day is a lively and touching type and foretaste. Published by the American Sabbath Tract Society, No. 9 Spruce Street, New York. THE SABBATH: ITS MORAL NATURE AND OBSERVANCE SECTION I. THE SABBATH NOT CEREMONIAL.