the house of God was accounted extremely vulgar, and therefore carefully avoided by all who were fearful of being branded with this offensive epithet. They came to worship now and then, in order to save themselves from the imputation of absolute impiety; and they came only now and then, for the purpose of escaping the still more frightful imputation of being on a level with the poor and illiterate. Of late, however, the extent of this evil has been greatly diminished. Persons of high life, and cultivated taste, and genteel manners, may venture into the temple twice every Lord's day, and even on other occasions also, when it is less a duty, without much hazard of having their claim to these distinctions called in question. And we rejoice to say, that not a few seem to regard it as their true honour and their best privilege to be found as often as good opportunity is offered in that holy place, where the rich and the poor meet together to hear the word, and to join in the worship of Him who is the Maker of them all. But still, there are some, over whom fashion lords it with a high and unhallowed hand. Their vanity is flattered by being thought to belong to the circle in which it presides. Their attachment to it is secured also by the indulgence which it readily grants to their wayward and vicious propensities. It is their business to become acquainted with the rules which it prescribes to its votaries, and their constant care is to reduce these rules to practice. And unfortunately though very naturally it happens, that they would lose caste and become the objects of ridicule among those who take the lead in promulgating and enforcing its laws, were they to be constant and devout attenders in the sanctuary. They do not make a point of never going there; but their going there is an exceрtion to the general fact. The general fact is, that they go there as seldom as possible, and only at those times when there is some peculiar and extraordinary circumstance that would be deemed sufficient to warrant this deviation from their usual habits. Accordingly, when other people are moving along to the house of prayer, they may be observed lounging about some frequented place, as if to intimate that they had a spirit above that of the common herd of church-goers. Or, during the time of divine service, they indulge in all those follies which demonstrate them to one another, and to every one that witnesses their conduct, to be quite beyond the reach, or even the suspicion, of methodism. Or they set out on their journey to some distant scene of amusement or festivity, that there may be no doubt of the dashing style and reckless irreligion of that fraternity to which they belong. Or, if they have nothing of this kind to occupy them, you may perhaps see them accompanying their acquaintance to the very threshold of the church, and there bidding them adieu, because they recollect that they had engaged to meet a friend at the club-room, or to do something equally important and sacred. By the way, we may just hint to those of you who have at any time been honoured with such an escort, that you were in what a true Christian would consider as bad and dangerous company-that the conversation you must have been tempted to indulge in, could not be very suitable to the exercises in which you were about to be engaged that if it be your duty to "abstain from the appearance of evil," as the Scripture declares it to be, you were not performing that duty when you exhibited in the very face of God's people such a Sabbath-day intimacy with the open despisers of his worship and that it would be no loss either to your Christian character or your Christian reputation, were you resolutely to decline their society in such instances, and to keep them in their own place. If there be any present of the description now mentioned, suffer, I beseech you, the word of exhortation. In all probability you are young. Perhaps your lot has been unfavourably cast. You have been thrown from your childhood among those who are understood to give the tone and the example to others in such matters. And the thoughtlessness and inexperience which usually attach to your period of life, may have led you unawares or driven you headlong into the path of folly which they are pursuing. Or it may be, that an aversion to all seriousness, the waywardness of your passions, and a love of show and singularity, have tempted you to join their ranks, and enter into the unholy peculiarities by which they are distinguished. But whatever may have been the cause, we beseech you to pause and listen for a moment to the voice of reason and religion. We have no objection to what is called fashion, provided it keeps within its own proper department. Let it exercise its power over those things which may be one way or another, and in both cases be as it has made them, with innocence and safety. But whenever it encroaches on the province of religion, whose laws and modes are settled by the Almighty ruler of the universe, it evidently becomes systematic rebellion against him, and being so, ought neither to be tolerated nor obeyed. Neither have we any serious fault to find with fashion changing its will as often as those who take the lead in it are so inclined. Indeed, caprice and mutation seem to be some of its essential attributes; and though it may thus occasion inconvenience and display absurdity, it may be the means of quickening industry, of exercising ingenuity, and of promoting the prosperity of families and kingdoms. But still the changes which it enacts must not trench on the divine will, or go to affect the moral and everlasting interests of mankind, which we are commanded and bound to hold sacred; for otherwise it is guilty of an active and wanton attempt to dethrone the mighty Governor of the world, to rob him of his great and inalienable prerogative, and to sacrifice to its own silly humours the wise and merciful arrangements he has made for the happiness of his creatures. I lay this statement before you, and I appeal to yourselves to your candid judgment-to your sober feelings if it be not undeniably true. I ask you if it is not a violation of every thing that is right and decent, when the fancies of perhaps the weakest and most worthless-no matter, let them be the greatest and the noblest of mortals, are substituted for the commandments and ordinances of Him, whose power called them into existence, and whose mercy it is that permits them still to breathe in the land of the living? I ask you if you can conceive any thing more dreadful than that men should say or act on the maxim that it is not fashionable to believe in a divine revelation that it is not fashionable to submit to certain portions of the moral lawthat it is not fashionable to worship the great God of heaven and of earth? I ask you if the plea of fashion can be sustained in the estimation of one intelligent being that is not utterly depraved, if your own mind has ever approved of it in the hour of calm reflection, if you think it |