There are very few bearing the Christian name--perhaps none except such as are a scandal to the profession--who do not feel the importance of a weekly day of rest, which shall be dedicated to the service of the Most High God. Whatever may be their scruples in regard to the application of the term _Sabbath_, to such a day, and though they may suppose that it is not to be observed according to the rigorous exactness of the ancient law, they nevertheless feel that it would be sapping the foundation of religion, morality, and good order, to abolish all distinction of days, leaving none for religious and moral improvement. Nay, even those who, in theory, maintain that under the gospel all days are alike, still feel--though it is difficult for them to account for it--that their theory and their experience will not harmonize together. Their very nature calls for a day of repose, while the wants of their souls are so clamorous as to drive them to some moral and religious improvement of it. If they heed not these monitions, they do but feel some aching void, some uneasy distress, wholly unlike those peaceful feelings which result from a due improvement of the season. Whatever be a man's _theory_, he _feels_ better when he sanctifies one day in seven to the Lord: his body feels better--his soul feels better. This feeling is not one which grows out of the airy visions of a distempered brain; but it is one which is capable of being resolved into solid arguments. Without a Sabbath, it would be utterly impossible to promote the interests of religion. Were there no set time for suspending the business of the world, the church of God would soon lose its visibility, and hell obtain complete triumph over the fallen soul of man. Ministers might preach, embodying in their discourses the most powerful reasoning, and garnishing the whole with the sweetest flowers of rhetoric; but, to whom would they preach? A few, of exalted piety, who rejoice in the sacred testimonies more than in all riches, and who feel that "a day in the courts of the Lord is better than a thousand," Psalm lxxxiv. 10, would perhaps be there. But the mass--the throng--the great multitude--would be elsewhere. They would be immersed in the service of the world, their souls perishing for lack of knowledge. It would be impossible, utterly impossible to bring the word of God to bear upon their minds. How then could they be saved? For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, Rom. x. 17. And if men are not brought to believe the gospel, what becomes of the church? Its visibility is gone--the gates of hell have prevailed against it. But God has sworn that the church shall stand; nay, that all nations shall flow unto it, Isa. ii. 2. Wherefore, He who said "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. xvi. 18, is also Lord of the Sabbath for the benefit of the church. As Lord of the Sabbath, he will forever perpetuate an institution so necessary to the interests of his kingdom.