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, on the margin of the canal, just above Central Street Bridge.

I rubbed my eyes, half expecting that I was the subject of mere optical illusion; but a second look only confirmed the first.

Around me were solemn, go-to-meeting faces,--smileless and awful; and close at hand were the delving, toiling, mud-begrimed laborers.