the forgiveness of their sins in consequence of it, are bound by the command to keep up for ever that sort of memorial of him." "It looks like it, indeed," she replied. "Certainly, it does," I said; " and it appears to me also, that they who do not keep up this memorial of his death, virtually abandon of their own accord all right and title to the forgiveness of sins which his death was intended to procure." "That

would be a very serious matter, indeed," she answered, doubtingly. "Well, but," I said, "this at least stands to reason, does it not, that they who will not preserve the appointed remembrance of a person, or thing, will come afterwards with a very bad grace to ask for some great benefit, which is only to be had by that person, or thing, and which is the very cause of appointing the remembrance to be preserved ?"

Here she seemed to be somewhat shaken, and did not attempt to speak; so I continued. "In point of fact, Jesus Christ died for the whole world; all mankind, therefore, are equally interested in his death; they stand equally in need of it; and therefore they are equally bound to keep up that memorial of it, which he himself appointed; and consequently the command is addressed to us all, when he said, upon presenting the cup, do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me. This is proved, too, by the practice of the first Christians. Give me your Bible, and I will shew you what that practice was. There was no Bible, as there should have been, in the sick room, but she was not without one in the house, and after a short delay she brought it to me. I then pointed out to her the several passages which speak of their breaking bread from house to house, and of their continuing steadfastly in the doctrine and fel

VOL. III.

U

lowship of the Apostles, and in breaking of bread and in prayer. From the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles I turned to the eleventh of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, where that Apostle gives directions about this sacrament, and finds fault with an improper administration of it; but I read only as much as was sufficient to establish the fact, that wherever the Christian religion was settled, the ceremony of the Lord's Supper was ordained also, and enjoined upon all Christians alike. Afterwards, however, I dwelt a little upon the circumstances of St. Paul, to shew her the importance of the ceremony, as well as the certainty that it was intended to be universally adopted. "St. Paul," I said, "was not present when our blessed Lord instituted the holy rite, nor did he first learn any thing about it from those who were. It was made known to him by our Lord himself. His expressions to the Corinthians are these I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread,' and that he spoke such and such words, and did such and such things. Now then, Now then, I ask you, Mrs. Turner, what was the use of Christ's appearing miraculously. to St. Paul, to tell him all the history of the first institution of the Sacrament, if it were not to be established every where, and were not besides a matter of general importance to us all? That the Apostle so understood it is plain by his conduct."

Mrs. Turner was silent for some time, and seemed to be quite unable to controvert my position; but at length recurring in her thoughts to what I had said about the eighth commandment, she answered, that notwithstanding all this, she could never bring her

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self to suppose, that we were under the same obligation to take the Sacrament, as we were to keep our hands from picking and stealing. "For you know, Sir," she added, we could not go on at all, if we were to rob one another every day as we pleased; but we may be very good men and women, as far as I can see, without the Sacrament; and the world perhaps would go on just as well without any Sacrament at all."—" Then do you think," I said, "that you are at liberty to make a distinction in the divine commands, and to pick and choose out of them, and obey only those of which you understand the use, and neglect the rest, or at least consider them to be less binding upon you?"

Here she hesitated; so I continued. "My opinion is this. Be the command what it may, if it come from God, we have nothing to do but obey. If we understand the use of the command, it is very well; but if not, still we must obey, or submit to the consequences; and we may depend upon it that God will punish a wilful disobedience even of the least, or the most unintelligible, of his commands; and the more severely, if we should presume to argue that they are useless, or of little consequence. What would you say to your children, if they should refuse to obey any command of yours, and tell you that they did not see any use in obeying you in that particular instance?"-" Why," she exclaimed eagerly, "I should box their ears well;" and then, suddenly recollecting herself, she added, "but I should never order them to do anything useless, or unnecessary." —“Oh! then,” I said, “ you are wiser than God; you never order anything useless or unnecessary, but God does! And so God has no right to punish the

neglect of some of his commands, but you may punish the neglect of any of yours!" This brought the colour into her face; but still she persisted in asserting, that she saw no use in the Sacrament, although it might be a divine command. "Never mind that,"

I rejoined. "The right conduct for us is to obey, and to leave the use to God; and then, no doubt, he will find some way of making our humility and faithfulness very useful to us, and of rewarding us for those virtues beyond anything that we can now imagine. And do you not think that many things may be useful to you, without your knowing how, and when?" She looked doubtfully; so I asked her, if parents did not continually order their children to do things, which they knew would be very useful to them, but which the children themselves thought to be only troublesome, or painful? She could not deny it. "So then," I said, "the superior understanding may see a use, when the inferior sees none. And is not our understanding as far below the understanding of God, as the understanding of a child is below that of the parent?" She supposed it was. "Well then," I said, "if this be so, it would clearly be better for us, to consider God as the wisest and best of parents, and ourselves as his children, whom he would train up to goodness and happiness; and in consequence to imitate the humbleness and the docility of children; obeying his will in everything, without contradiction or cavil, and without foolishly presuming that we know more than he does of our own wants and necessities. But, after all, am I to be understood, as if I allowed, that we could not discover any use in this Sacrament? Far from it. The uses are both many and great. One has been already

mentioned, or at least implied; a use which the blessed author of the Sacrament himself pointed out; the keeping up the remembrance of his death. And St. Paul says, 'When ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.' It is to his death we owe everything of the utmost moment to us, and therefore it should be as often as possible in our thoughts, and so represented as to make an awful impression upon us. It would not do to leave this to every man's private meditations; we should soon forget it altogether, or cease to think of it, or think of it ineffectually. Some rite, some ceremony, some sensible token is absolutely necessary to keep up a due feeling of it; and this therefore, no doubt, was one reason why the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was appointed, for our sakes, by a wise and merciful God; and by St. Paul's expression, till he come, you may see plainly enough, that the same Sacrament is intended to continue as long as the world itself endures."

Mrs. Turner made no attempt to speak in reply to this. It was too evident, that she was determined not to be convinced; and that the removal of the objections which she had brought forward, although it had silenced her for the present, had not gone to the bottom of her real difficulties. Something, or many things, perhaps, were still behind, which as yet she did not choose to mention; so I addressed myself to her sick husband. "You have heard," I said, "no doubt, all that has passed in conversation between your wife and myself. The ordinance of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, as you now understand, is enjoined alike to us all for ever, and it has at least one manifest and striking use;