ants. On this point the law is particular and express, extending the sacred rest to those who are in subordinate situations; and to employ them in worldly business, is in direct contradiction to the statute". It is but too common, even with such as refrain from secular pursuits themselves, to engage others in occupations inconsistent with the sabbatical rest. So much is often required from servants as leaves them but little leisure for exercises befitting the season, and sometimes scarcely opportunity for attendance on public worship. Any employment of dependants beyond what necessity demands, is opposed by the clear declaration of God's word, and is as much a breach of the commandment as if their masters did it in their own persons. It is an act of oppression and tyranny to infringe, for the sake of a little interest or pleasure, upon that rest and relaxation which those who are in humbler situations have a right to enjoy, and which to them is a boon granted by a merciful Providence. Cruel as it is to deprive them, as members of society, of the repose to which they are entitled, it is doing a still more fatal injury to their immortal souls. The profanation of the sabbath is, in general, among the lower orders, the forerunner of every crime; and aggravated is the guilt of lead

ing them, by any means, to disregard an ordinance, the reverence of which is so important to the preservation of their religious principles. Dreadful is the account which we must render at the tribunal of Heaven, if we have been instrumental in the eternal ruin of those whose virtue and piety it is our duty to promote.

From the benefits of the law, which provides a weekly rest for the labouring classes, the animal creation are not excluded. On the sabbath day "THOU shalt not do any work-NOR ANY OF THY CATTLE." Here, then, is a direct prohibition against all unnecessary using or working of the domesticated animals on this day, and of course the loading of beasts, the driving of teams, the running of horses in carriages, beyond what is requisite for the real benefit of man, are unquestionably forbidden. The usual employment of beasts is contrary to the general law against working on the Lord's day; but it is prohibited by a specific enactment in the Decalogue, ordaining a regular time in which they are to rest from labour, and to recruit their exhausted strength. Divine Providence surveys, with benignant eye, the vast circuit of creation, in every minute part of which, as far as we can trace it, we see the manifestation of his wisdom, power, and mercy; nor is any creature that lives and moves beneath his notice or his care. Of all the evidences of

his unbounded goodness, none are more impressive, more fitted to excite an idea of the immensity of his benevolence, than his providing by an express revelation for the comfort of the animals subjected to the service of man. While grateful, therefore, for our dominion over the brute creation, we should remember that we are not to exercise it with harshness, or unfeeling cruelty. God hath blessed every living creature; he careth for the cattle; and not a sparrow falleth to the ground without him. Far, then, from treating them with the savage brutality, which, shocking as it is to humanity, is but too often practised, we are not wantonly or unnecessarily to deprive them of the indulgence of a stated rest.

In conformity with this principle we are to forbear employing them, without urgent cause, in journeying abroad on the Lord's day. It is a most unwarrantable exercise of our dominion over them to pursue our profit or pleasure, without any regard to the fatigues and hardships which

Since writing the above, I observed in the Courier Newspaper for June 17th, 1824, the Report of a Meeting for the purpose of forming a "Society for the preventing of cruelty to Animals ;" and every friend to humanity must wish success to the design.

they undergo. Sunday travelling is in other respects a disobedience of the divine command, for it deprives the offender of the means of join ing in the public worship of the Almighty, sets a bad example of carelessness about holy things, and frustrates the object of the sabbatical institution by raising obstacles to the devotions of others. But the evils of this custom will be most effectually exposed in the strong and nervous language of Bishop Horsley.

"It breaks in, (says he,) upon the principal business of the day, laying some under a necessity, and furnishing others with a pretence, for withdrawing ourselves from the public assemblies; and it defeats the ordinance in its subordinate ends, depriving servants and cattle of that temporary exemption from fatigue which it was intended both should enjoy. This, like other evils, has arisen from small beginnings; and by an unperceived, because a natural and a gradual growth, hath attained at last an alarming height. Persons of the higher ranks, whether from a certain vanity of appearing great, by assuming a privilege of doing what was generally forbidden, or for the convenience of travelling when the roads were most empty, began within our own memory to make their journeys on a sunday. In a commercial country, the great fortunes acquired in trade have a natural tendency to level all dis

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tinctions but what arise from affluence. Wealth supplies the place of nobility; birth retains only the privilege of setting the first example. The city presently catches the manners of the court'; and the vices of the high-born peer are faithfully copied in the life of the opulent merchant, and the thriving tradesman. Accordingly, in the space of a few years, the sunday became the travelling day of all who travel in their own carriages. But why should the humbler citizen, whose scantier means oblige him to commit his person to the crammed stage coach, more than his wealthier neighbour be exposed to the hardship of travelling on the working days, when the multitude of heavy carts and waggons moving to and fro in all directions, renders the roads unpleasant and unsafe to all carriages of a lighter fabric; especially when the only real inconvenience, the danger of such obstructions, is infinitely increased to him, by the greater difficulty with which the vehicle in which he makes his uncomfortable journey crosses out of the way, in deep and miry roads, to avoid the fatal jostle? The force of these principles was soon perceived, and, in open defiance of the laws, stage-coaches have for several years travelled on the sundays. The waggoner soon understands that the road is as free for him as for the coachman, that if the magistrate connives at the one he cannot enforce

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