SUNDAY usurpation has no place in the following doctrine which we extract from a sermon delivered by Henry Smith, D. D., Professor in Lane Theological Seminary, on the relation of the fourth commandment to the Christian Sabbath; (i. e., the seventh day.)—Sab. Recorder. The Decalogue is a unit, and all its parts must stand or fall together. Written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and delivered to man amid the most august and stupendous exhibitions of Divine majesty which human eyes have ever beheld, as the step initiatory to the erection of the Hebrew commonwealth, it lies at the foundation of the legal code of that nation, only in the same sense in which it must lie at the foundation of the code of every nation, which would embody in its legislation the primal principles of human duty. Approach with me, O legislator, approach with me, O magistrate, who art the minister of God, appointed by him not to bear the sword in vain; not to be a terror to good works, but to the evil—approach with me and with reverent hand uncover that mystic coffer in which these sacred tablets are enclosed. Let us try to decipher the hand-writing of the Almighty, that we may retain that portion of these precepts which we require, and reject that portion of them which the advance of civilization and the march of mind have rendered obsolete and void. Take, first, the second table of the law. How reads it? "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Shall we annul or relax its first precept? That law guards the sacred relation of parent from the wantonness of filial ingratitude and impiety. It shields from wrong the venerable head, which is white with the blossoms of the life to come. Read on. "Thou shalt not kill." Can we spare that law? It guards the treasure of human life, a treasure which, if lost, can never be replaced again. Its abrogation would reproduce the scenes of antediluvian horror, as the relaxation of it has filled some portions, even of our land, with bloodshed and violence. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." That law guards the purity of the fountain of life in the family, and protects the sanctity of all the domestic affections. The abrogation of it would hurl man down to the level of the Hottentot life; as the relaxation of it in many countries is rupturing all the bonds of society, and turning the face of man downward toward animalism. "Thou shalt not steal." That law is the strong fortress of the property relation. Shall we demolish or dismantle it? "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." That law is a shield of character. Shall we cast it vilely away? "Thou shalt not covet." That law seals up the fountain of all the crimes which man can commit against his fellow, the fountain of perverse and illegitimate desire. So closes the record of the second table of the law. Shall we venture to break it? Never, until the nature of man is repealed, and all the laws of civilization and social happiness are annulled. Replace it in its sacred depository and take now the first table of the Decalogue. Let us read this also: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." That law guards from insult the majesty of the eternal Jehovah. Shall we displace him from the throne of the universe, and pay our adoration to devils? "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth." Shall we repeal that law and become a nation of idolaters? "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Shall we repeal this precept? That law, O magistrate, is the munition of rocks to which all human justice flees for refuge, as to its last retreat. The oath, says one of the Roman emperors, is the sacred mystery of the Roman government. The abrogation of that law would leave every human right and interest a prey to the spoiler. We cannot dispense with it. These precepts are a golden chain, which cannot be ruptured in one link, without marring the whole. And now but one more law remains. Let us read it, and ponder it well, as we read. "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it." Shall we cancel this law? Let us consider well before we venture upon that sacrilegious step. As the mountains are around about Jerusalem, so the venerable bulwarks of the fourth commandment lift themselves up round about the church of God; round about all the interests of man which the entire Decalogue besides it protects. It guards the day of God, and with the day of God, it guards the recognition of his being; it guards the sacredness of his worship; it guards the inviolability of his name; and it guards the whole second table of the law, by the inculcation upon all Sabbath worshipers of the duties which it enjoins. Shall we venture to annul this holy and venerable law? "Let it stand!" The rights which it protects, are the rights of universal man. It is still the law of God. It is still the law of Christianity. Leave it, O minister of Jesus! leave it, O minister of human law! Let it remain, as God ordained it—unrepealed, unrelaxed, untouched, universal, perfect!