parts of the rural districts in our land, of servile labour, ceasing at an early hour on the Saturday. "It was," says one, "a holy custom among our forefathers, when, at the ringing to prayer, the eve before the Sabbath, the husbandman would give over his work in the field, and the tradesman his work in the shop, and go to evening prayers in the church, to prepare their souls, that their minds might more cheerfully attend God's worship on the Sabbath-day."

Among the serious part of the Scottish peasantry, the "Saturday e'en " is a season of preparation, and is spent in the manner which Burns has so exquisitely described-in reading the "big Ha' Bible," and chanting "holy lays."

"They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
Or noble Elgin* beats the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compared with these Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt rapture raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

"The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abraham was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;

Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

• Dundee, Elgin, and Martyrs, are the names of Scottish psalm-tunes.

G

"Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How his first followers and servants sped;

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land;

How he who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's
command.

"Then kneeling down to heaven's eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear,

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere."

The Lord of the Sabbath watches the observance of his day jealously, threatens its profanation sharply, complains of it bitterly, and punishes it severely.

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."*

"If ye diligently hearken unto me to bring in

Isa. lviii. 13, 14.

no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbath-day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots, and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for

"If ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbathday; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched."†

"Among all these I* sought a resting-place,

But in whose inheritance shall I dwell?
Thou directed me, the Creator of all,
And my Maker fixed my tabernacle-
And said:

In Jacob pitch thy tabernacle,

And in Israel receive thy portion.'
Before the former age he created me,
And unto the age I shall not fail.
In the holy tabernacle before him I served,
And thus was I established in Sion;
In the beloved city also he fixed me,
And in Jerusalem was my power;
And I took root in a glorious people,
In the Lord's portion of his inheritance.

"He maketh WISDOM run over as Pison,
And as Tigris in the time of new fruits;
He filleth up understanding as Euphrates,
And as Jordan in the time of harvest;
He cleareth up instruction as light,
As Gihon in the time of vintage;
Not perfectly did the first man know her,
Neither so shall the last trace her out;

For her thoughts are more deep than the sea,
And her counsels than the great abyss.

And I, as a canal from a river,

And as a water-course entered Paradise.

I said;

I will water my garden,

And will saturate my plat;

When, lo!

My canal became a river,

And my river became a sea."-Ecclesiasticus, xxiv.

* Wisdom.