telligent, well trained, for the responsibilities of business and of public life, and accurately informed in all that pertains to a good education. It is demanded by the reputation of our mercantile community. But many of our clerks are obliged to seek employment at an early life, and before they have had the thorough discipline of education. If ignorant, they must continue so, according to the present mode of doing business. Give them the same opportunities that are enjoyed by the apprentice and the craftsman, and they need not remain in iguorance. Let them have the evening of every day, and you give them an impulse to improve themselves. They may then frequent, and with profit, the Mercantile Library, established for their special benefit; the vast and valuable stores of which the retail clerks can now enjoy scarcely at all, unless they give the sacred Sabbath to reading. Lectures and evening-schools may then be visited; and other opportunities for storing the mind with useful knowledge be embraced. Why should these privileges be denied them?

Last of all, let me plead with you to remember that the getting of gain, so far from being the great object for which we come into this world, and with which we should occupy ourselves here, is one of the smallest. When we make it the chief thing, the one only thing, as so many do, we sin against our own souls; we prefer the less to the greater, and suffer ourselves to be made the slaves of Mammon. It is enough, surely, to be thus occupied by day. The remainder of our wakeful hours are needed for higher, better purposes. We are not to forget that we are candidates for eternity, and that we have need to be daily engaged in preparation, in laying up treasures for heaven. The Christian may be greatly profited by the social devotional meetings of the evening. Our churches can scarcely thrive in spiritual matters without them. And yet the retail merchant and his clerks must be, for the most part, denied the profit and the pleasure of such means of grace; while our churches must be deprived of the attendance of a large portion of their brethren, because the business of the world must be extended into the night.

Let the desired reform be put into practice, and we shall have healthier, more vigorous, and more intelligent merchants, happier homes, more sociability, more refinement, and more opportunity for every species of mental, moral, and religious improvement. None will be impoverished,-all enriched by the change. None will be losers,-all gainers. Shall the reform be carried?

We put the question, not to the merchants alone, and shopkeepers, but to their customers. Just as soon as night-traffic ceases to be lucrative, it will be given up. The merchant will not keep open his store, merely to illumine the streets, nor to preserve the morals of his clerks. His public spirit and his philanthropy are not so fully developed. Whenever it costs him more to keep his clerks employed by night, than he makes by their labor, he will

close before night. Such a result may soon be brought about. Let the community resolve to abandon evening shopping altogether, and the shops and stores will all be closed. In the name of humanity, then, I call upon you to pledge yourselves to a TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM EVENING SHOPPING. Buy all that you want by day. Have pity upon the poor prisoner behind the counter. Compel him not to wait and tend until nine and ten at night. Treat him not worse than you would the man that digs, or paves, or sweeps the streets, or carries the hod. Make him not a slave. Give him time to breathe the healthful air, to taste the sweets of domestic life, to improve his mind, to polish his manners, to enjoy the means of grace. Let him go free at night-fall.

May the time soon come when it shall be written over the door of every factory, shop, and store, and on every heart, "The night cometh, when no man can work."

XII.

FAITH, GENUINE AND SPURIOUS.

BY REV. W. S. LEAVITT,

PASTOR OF A CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, NEWTON, MASS.

"Faith without works is dead."-JAMES ii. 20.

THE great religious question with us is, "How shall man be just with God?" To this question different answers have been given. Some have gone to one extreme, holding that mere faith is sufficient, and that works of righteousness are not at all necessary to our acceptance with God, or to our enjoyment of his favor. Others have gone to the opposite extreme, holding that faith is not necessary at all, and that a correct life and a good moral character will insure any man's salvation. And even those who have avoided both these errors, have sometimes had but a confused idea of the real connection between faith and works.

There are two great principles on this subject set forth in Scripture. One is, "that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law"-that he cannot obtain salvation as a reward, or in payment for his righteous deeds, but by faith in Christ. The other is, that faith does not "make void the law"-does not take away the necessity of righteousness; that the faith required in the Gospel, cannot exist without producing real holiness of life. A very slight examination will show that the two are not inconsistent with each other that confidence in the revealed mercy of God, may well harmonize with love to him, and with obedience to his law.

I propose to consider the second of these principles, as it is presented in the text:

FAITH, WITHOUT WORKS, IS DEAD.

1. Because mere speculation is not the appropriate business of man. A habit of mere speculation is possible. Man is capable of looking at truth abstractedly, or without any regard to its practical bearings. He may accustom himself to view the truths of science, or philosophy, or morals, or religion, simply for the gratification of his curiosity, or the exercise of his mind, like the general propositions of mathematics, which may be demonstrated and admired as

true, without any thought of applying them to practice, or without once asking whether there be any realities to which they correspond. And such speculations are very fascinating to many minds, and to some almost irresistible. There is a great deal of pleasure in these day-dreams of the intellect; in building palaces of clouds, beautiful to look at, harmonious in their proportions, fitly joined together and compacted in all their parts, but designed for no practical use. Much skill, and mental power, and taste, may be expended on them, and in such employment a man may wish to pass his life. And yet they are altogether out of place in a world like ours. This is a world of realities, of things that are practicalnot of cloud-castles and day-dreams. Every man has a thousand interests that always demand his care; all the energies of his mind should be brought to bear upon practical things. He has no time and no strength to waste upon mere speculation-it is not his proper business here. The life of man is too short; he has none too much time for the practical affairs of life; he may fill up every hour with duty, and he ought. The flying moments are too few, and too precious, to be given to idle dreams, or employed in doing that which looks forward to no practical results. If man had nothing to do in the world-no appointed work, no appropriate business, no wants to supply, no interests to take care of, nothing to hope for, nothing to fear, no relations nor duties to his fellow-men, who might be affected by his conduct: if he had to choose perfect idleness, utter vacuity and emptiness of mind, or speculations upon abstract truth-then, of course, it were better he should do this, than do nothing, and such speculations would be his appropriate work. But he is reduced to no such alternative. He can find enough to do. He is not placed in a castle of indolence, or a paradise of ease; his wants will not take care of themselves; his desires will not be gratified without any effort of his own. Life is a mazy path, beset with dangers; and the dangers will not, of their own accord, keep out of his way, Mere speculation upon abstract truth, however correct, however beautiful it may be, will not keep him from starvation; it will not bring him the comforts of life; it will not guide him through its snares; it will not shield him from its ills. Nor will it discharge his duty to others: it will not feed the hungry; it will not comfort them that are bowed down; it will not bind up the broken heart. This is a world in ruins; a world full of misery and tears; and the relief of its sorrows affords full employment for the noblest intellect, and for the most enthusiastic feelings of good-will to man: but mere speculation will not wipe away a single tear, nor take off a single burden from the weary and the heavy-laden of earth. In its best estate it reaches no higher than that benevolence which says to them that are naked, and destitute of daily food, "Depart in peace; be ye warmed and filled"-but gives them not those things which they need.

It is so in religion. Mere speculation will not ease the soul. A

faith which looks at religious truth as an abstraction, and-makes it subservient to no practical uses, is dead. It fails of doing its appropriate work it was not made simply to exist, clear, it may be, and beautiful, as an icicle-and as useless. It is contrary to all the analogy of God's government, contrary to the first principles and the very idea of religion. Man as a religious being has something else to do than merely to speculate on truth, or merely to believe it without making its influence the moving power of his life. "Faith without works is dead"-dead to all the appropriate business of life-dead to all useful purposes; to all the ends for which we are placed on earth, and which we ought to fulfil. On all subjects, the theory and the practice of truth are united; they are made to go hand in hand; and what God hath joined together, man has no right to put asunder.

Man as a religious being has wants to supply he is at enmity with God, and he needs peace; his heart is defiled with sin, and he needs a cleansing and sanctifying power; he has gone astray, and his erring feet need to be guided into the path of life; he is lost, and he needs salvation. And what shall it profit him to have the most correct views of God's plan of mercy; to see, as clearly as angels do, his ruin and his remedy-if he practically keeps aloof from that mercy, and will not apply that remedy to himself? What shall it avail him that he knows every step in the path of life, while he still walks in the road that leads to death? What propriety is there in his idle faith-in his fruitless speculations on religious truth-while his soul is trembling between heaven and hell? "Thou believest there is one God: thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble." Their faith is doubtless correct enough; but it is worthless : it does not work by love: it produces no fruits of holiness there: and it is at least quite as much out of place, and quite as worthless, on earth. A dying man, hastening to eternal retributions, has something else to do his proper work is to secure the salvation of his soul; and until he has done this, all his speculations are of no avail; they may be correct and magnificent, but they are correct and magnificent trifles: and though he have all knowledge, and believe all mysteries, it will profit him not at all. His faith is out of place: it belongs to the tomb-to the dwelling of things that return to the dust-it is dead.

2. Faith without works is dead, because the very design of requiring faith is that it may produce good works.

There are but two uses to which truth can be put; two ends it is capable of answering-to be looked at, and to produce a practical effect. There is, doubtless, pleasure in admiring truth-as there is in admiring a painting or a landscape. Truth is the mind's landscape whose glories it may search out, whose sunshine may make it glad, and in whose beauties it may rejoice.

The earth is full of the glory of Jehovah; the eye is never wea