d confinement on the other. It would, indeed, be a very strange,
and, I think, a very sad thing, if young people _were_ willing to let
suns rise, and stars set, and all the beautiful changes of Nature go on,
without an irresistible, instinctive prompting to fly from the grave
monotone of the city, and live and breathe in her freshness and her
song. If a young man must choose between play of muscle, swiftness of
motion, the free air of the hills, and sitting in church to hear a
sermon, he will often choose the former; and if he cannot enjoy these
things without going in opposition to the best sense of the community,
if they cannot be compassed without a certain consciousness of
wrong-doing, they will lead to recklessness and lawlessness; for be
compassed, they will.

But let the young men have Saturday afternoon for their boating and
bowling and various pastimes, and they will be far more disposed to hear
what the minister has to say on Sunday,--far more disposed, let us hope,
to join in prayer and praise. One very obvious and practical
consideration is, that many of them, probably the larger part, can spend
on a single holiday all the holiday money they have to spend. So--there
will be nothing for it but to stay at home on Sunday by force of the
_res angustae domi_. But, also, is it too much to believe, that, the
half-day having given them that physical exercise, amusement, and change
which they need, Sunday will find them the more ready to absorb and
appropriate spiritual nourishment? that bodily and mental recreation
will prepare them for religious recreation? I have said that sport is as
natural and necessary as worship. But, on the other hand, worship is as
natural as sport, Very few, I think, are the persons, young or old, in
all of whose thoughts it may be said God is not. And if this natural,
spontaneous turning to God were not interfered with by our pernicious
modes of training and management, we should not become so fearfully
alienated from Him. Play and work and worship would be animated by one
spirit. Many surely there are who would be _more likely_ to devote a
part of their Sunday to the direct worship of God, and to a more
intimate knowledge of His works and words, who would be more likely to
come under the influence of the Bible and the pulpit, from having had
opportunity first to free their lungs from the foul air, and their limbs
from the lifelessness, which a long confinement to business had caused.
At