It was late ere they retired to rest. They began to realize a tender nearness to the loved ones at home, such as they had not felt since parting from them. They talked long and gratefully over past deliverances and future hopes; then closed the evening as those should who wish to find the Sabbath a day of blessing.
The next morning dawned more dark and uncomfortable than the day preceding. The whole sky was loaded with clouds, and the rain fell every minute through the day. The young people probably would have found their time pass away very dismally had it not been for the pious vivacity of Harold, who laid himself out to make it agreeable. He frankly avowed that one reason why he wished to have them unite with him in spending the Sabbath aright, was his desire to succeed in the effort to see their friends that week; and he referred for authority, to the story told of Sir Matthew Hale, High Chancellor of England, who advised that, if there were no higher motive, the Sabbath should be kept sacred as a matter of _policy_; remarking that, for his own part, he could almost foretell his success during the week to come, by the way he spent the Sabbath.
The others, influenced by a variety of considerations, united with him in this effort, and the day passed off not only with pleasure, but with profit. Robert had always thought in his heart that this story of Sir Matthew Hale smacked strongly of superstition; but when he came to reflect that if the Bible is true, of which he had no doubt, the God who speaks to us now is the same who spoke to Moses, and who actually prospered or hindered the children of Israel according to their observance of the Sabbath, he changed his opinion so far as this--he resolved for the present to adopt the advice of that great man, and then to watch whether the same results were verified in his own case. And although his reflections upon this point partook of the merely philosophic character that, to some extent, marked the operations of his mind, the course upon which he resolved had several good effects; it made him realize more sensibly his practical relation to God, and caused him to watch more closely the consequences resulting from the discharge or neglect not only of this particular duty, but of duty in the general. That resolution, apparently so trifling, and expressed to no one, started him on a perfectly new track, and enabled him to learn, from his own experience, that "_whoever will watch the providence of God, will never lack a providence to watch_."