broken hat or a rent in the elbow, are
manifestly baffled by the "complete mail" of a clean and decent dress.
I recollect on one occasion hearing my mother tell our family physician
that a woman in the neighborhood, not remarkable for her tidiness, had
become a church-member. "Humph!" said the doctor, in his quick,
sarcastic way, "What of that? Don't you know that no unclean thing can
enter the kingdom of heaven?"

"If you would see" Lowell "aright," as Walter Scott says of Melrose
Abbey, one must be here of a pleasant First day at the close of what is
called the "afternoon service." The streets are then blossoming like a
peripatetic flower-garden; as if the tulips and lilies and roses of my
friend W.'s nursery, in the vale of Nonantum, should take it into their
heads to promenade for exercise. Thousands swarm forth who during week-
days are confined to the mills. Gay colors alternate with snowy
whiteness; extremest fashion elbows the plain demureness of old-
fashioned Methodism.

Fair pale faces catch a warmer tint from the free sunshine and fresh
air. The languid step becomes elastic with that "springy motion of the
gait" which Charles Lamb admired. Yet the general appearance of the
city is that of quietude; the youthful multitude passes on calmly, its
voices subdued to a lower and softened tone, as if fearful of breaking
the repose of the day of rest. A stranger fresh from the gayly spent
Sabbaths of the continent of Europe would be undoubtedly amazed at the
decorum and sobriety of these crowded streets.

I am not over-precise in outward observances; but I nevertheless welcome
with joy unfeigned this first day of the week,--sweetest pause in our
hard life-march, greenest resting-place in the hot desert we are
treading. The errors of those who mistake its benignant rest for the
iron rule of the Jewish Sabbath, and who consequently hedge it about
with penalties and bow down before it in slavish terror, should not
render us less grateful for the real blessing it brings us. As a day
wrested in some degree from the god of this world, as an opportunity
afforded for thoughtful self-communing, let us receive it as a good gift
of our heavenly Parent in love rather than fear.

In passing along Central Street this morning my attention was directed
by the friend who accompanied me to a group of laborers, with coats off
and sleeves rolled up, heaving at levers, smiting with sledge-hammers,
in full view of the street