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Article PROVINCIAL. ← Page 28 of 44 →
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Provincial.
presence of the Masonic Brethren the business would have been very insignificant , and , comparatively , very uninteresting . They , under the able management of Mr . Gibson , who is the director of the ceremony of the Pomfret Lodge , gave an interest and a novelty in the proceedings which ivould otherwise have passed off in an exceedingly dull and monotonous manner .
NANTWICH , May 23 . —Masonic Festival on laying the Foundation Stone of a new National Sunday School . —The great moral advantages , apart from tlie spiritual benefits , which have attended the institution of Sabbath schools in this country , are so obvious , that objections , as to their utility , have been neutralized by the great success which has outstripped the expectations of their most sanguine friends . The better observance of the Sabbath , without the intervention of parliamentary
legislation , or Sunday enjoyment preventing societies , has marked their progress in salutary and healthy reformation , and taken from the highways ancl market places of our country , the swarm of juvenile vagrants who formerly desecrated the Sabbath by their uproarious noise and their mischievous delinquencies . The village pot-house , in great measure , has ceased to re-echo the maudlin jest and the blasphemous ribaldry , which once drew around its unhallowed haunt the youthful aspirants
for a drunken , riotous father ' s successorship ; and its deserted precincts give silent testimony to these auxiliary checks to sabbath-dishonouring crimes . The voice of praise , heard in the hymns sung by the sweet voices of children , as it rises to heaven from the village cottage , or arrests the foot of the town passenger in his careless walk , gives testimony to the sabbatizing agency of these nurseries for heaven ; and who shall say how greatly these hallowed strains , gleaned from the sabbathschool , have served to arrest the sinful parent in his demoralized course , and charmed him into better life by the angel-visitations of the Spirit attuning those infant lips to praise ? How many of our prosperous
tradesmen and mechanics , elevated from the humbler walks of life into comfort and respectability , owe their success , in great measure , to the wise counsels and prudence engrafted on their character by the influence of sabbath-education ; to say nothing of the domestic comforts it has introduced into thousands of families by abstinence from the tavern or the inn ? Flow often , too , has the gloom of the prison dungeon , and the darker horror of a sin-burthened conscience , derived added darkness ,
more pungent bitterness , from a survey of the past , when recollections , like accusing spirits , have haunted the memories of their victims , and they have mourned over the sabbath-school , as the passed-by " city of refuge , " which once would have opened an effectual door from the avenger in their guilty course , but whose invitations they then fearfully despised ? Ancl , has not many a death-bed been irradiated with a light from heaven , while pious rapture , lilce the vision of Jacob's ladder , has from
brought ascending and descending angels missioned the throne of the Eternal , waiting to escort the emancipated spirit , and to bear up the trembling guest above the swellings of Jordan ; and ere yet the awful separation of soul and body has ensued , how often have the pious breathings , the admonitory counsels , the rapturous emotions of a pure and hallowed faith , made the chamber of death a Bethel in the praise of Jehovah Jireh , as the redeemed spirit has given its dying attestation to the influence of sabbath school education ? These remarks have been elicited from us , after witnessing the laying of the foundation-stone of a new Sunday-scliool , at Nantwich , on Mon-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Provincial.
presence of the Masonic Brethren the business would have been very insignificant , and , comparatively , very uninteresting . They , under the able management of Mr . Gibson , who is the director of the ceremony of the Pomfret Lodge , gave an interest and a novelty in the proceedings which ivould otherwise have passed off in an exceedingly dull and monotonous manner .
NANTWICH , May 23 . —Masonic Festival on laying the Foundation Stone of a new National Sunday School . —The great moral advantages , apart from tlie spiritual benefits , which have attended the institution of Sabbath schools in this country , are so obvious , that objections , as to their utility , have been neutralized by the great success which has outstripped the expectations of their most sanguine friends . The better observance of the Sabbath , without the intervention of parliamentary
legislation , or Sunday enjoyment preventing societies , has marked their progress in salutary and healthy reformation , and taken from the highways ancl market places of our country , the swarm of juvenile vagrants who formerly desecrated the Sabbath by their uproarious noise and their mischievous delinquencies . The village pot-house , in great measure , has ceased to re-echo the maudlin jest and the blasphemous ribaldry , which once drew around its unhallowed haunt the youthful aspirants
for a drunken , riotous father ' s successorship ; and its deserted precincts give silent testimony to these auxiliary checks to sabbath-dishonouring crimes . The voice of praise , heard in the hymns sung by the sweet voices of children , as it rises to heaven from the village cottage , or arrests the foot of the town passenger in his careless walk , gives testimony to the sabbatizing agency of these nurseries for heaven ; and who shall say how greatly these hallowed strains , gleaned from the sabbathschool , have served to arrest the sinful parent in his demoralized course , and charmed him into better life by the angel-visitations of the Spirit attuning those infant lips to praise ? How many of our prosperous
tradesmen and mechanics , elevated from the humbler walks of life into comfort and respectability , owe their success , in great measure , to the wise counsels and prudence engrafted on their character by the influence of sabbath-education ; to say nothing of the domestic comforts it has introduced into thousands of families by abstinence from the tavern or the inn ? Flow often , too , has the gloom of the prison dungeon , and the darker horror of a sin-burthened conscience , derived added darkness ,
more pungent bitterness , from a survey of the past , when recollections , like accusing spirits , have haunted the memories of their victims , and they have mourned over the sabbath-school , as the passed-by " city of refuge , " which once would have opened an effectual door from the avenger in their guilty course , but whose invitations they then fearfully despised ? Ancl , has not many a death-bed been irradiated with a light from heaven , while pious rapture , lilce the vision of Jacob's ladder , has from
brought ascending and descending angels missioned the throne of the Eternal , waiting to escort the emancipated spirit , and to bear up the trembling guest above the swellings of Jordan ; and ere yet the awful separation of soul and body has ensued , how often have the pious breathings , the admonitory counsels , the rapturous emotions of a pure and hallowed faith , made the chamber of death a Bethel in the praise of Jehovah Jireh , as the redeemed spirit has given its dying attestation to the influence of sabbath school education ? These remarks have been elicited from us , after witnessing the laying of the foundation-stone of a new Sunday-scliool , at Nantwich , on Mon-