I have been requested, as an English Clergyman, to preface Dr A. Thomson's valuable paper on the Scottish Sabbath by a few recommendatory words. I comply with the request with much pleasure, though I feel that the paper needs no imprimatur of mine.

I am sensible, however, that there exists a certain amount of prejudice in many English minds against Scottish views of the Sabbath question. Too many Christians south of the Tweed are in the habit of regarding our northern brethren as "legal," "Judaizing," and "extreme" upon this subject. In the matter of all the leading Evangelical doctrines, they profess to admire their statements. In the matter of the Sabbath question, they say the Scotch "go too far."

I venture to think that this prejudice is not just. It is in fact a thorough "prejudice," a judgment passed without examination, a prejudged decision without any reasonable foundation. I believe that Scottish views of the Sabbath are scriptural, reasonable, and practical. As a proof of my assertion, I earnestly request the attention of English Christians to the following paper. My own firm conviction is, that, in the matter of Sabbath observance, Scotland has nothing to be ashamed of in her principles, and England has much to learn.

I can only say that the paper which I have undertaken to preface appears to me to deserve a wide circulation and an attentive perusal. That it is written in a Scotch style, and is consequently not so well suited to our uneducated classes as a more popular and less argumentative production, are facts which I do not pretend to deny. But there are myriads of hard-headed, thinking English readers in the middle and upper sections of the lower classes—myriads of tradesmen in our great cities, and assistants in our great houses of business, to whom I think this paper is eminently calculated to be useful. It is to them that I heartily commend it.

"My heart's desire and prayer to God" is now, and ever shall be, that He will bless this and every kindred effort to maintain the holiness of God's day, and to raise higher the standard of Sabbath observance. The subject is intimately connected with the best interests of the British churches and the British nation. From a Continental Sabbath may Great Britain ever be delivered! There is but a gradual descent, after all, from "No Sabbath" to "No God."

J. C. RYLE, B.A.
CHRIST'S CHURCH, OXFORD.

Stradbroke Vicarage, Suffolk,
November 1. 1862.

"The first creature of God in the works of the Days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and His Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit."—Bacon.

"Men should not be idle, but busy on the Sabbath-day, about the soul as men on the week-day about the body."—Wycliffe.