the room without violence, ostentation, or impressiveness, which signifies vanity and display. Woman can speak the gentle word, and look the gracious look, and use the magical touch of friendship and trust, and, in short, can carry her own way without appearing to do so by the very force of tenderness, sympathy, and persuasiveness. Who would raise the foolish question whether grace or strength is the more desirable attribute? Each is desirable in its own way; a combination that is the very perfection of character. Strength and beauty are in the house of the Lord. The great column looks all the better for the beautiful capital which crowns and enriches it. Men should endeavour to cultivate grace, tenderness, all that is charmful in spirit, disposition, and action this cannot be done by mere mimicry; it is to be done by living continually with Christ, studying his spirit, entering into all his purposes, and reproducing, not mechanically, but spiritually, as much as possible of all that was distinctive of his infinite character. The Bible has ever given honour to woman. He is a fool and an unjust man who wishes to keep women in silence, obscurity, and in a state of unimportance; and she is a foolish woman who imagines that she cannot be gracious without being strong, and who wishes to sacrifice her graciousness to some empty reputation for worthless energy. It is not good for the man to be alone, for he is without grace; it is not good for the woman to be alone, for she is without strength: when men and women stand to one another in the right Christian relation they will complete one another, and together constitute the divine idea of humanity.

Chapter xi. 17-29.

THE SPIRIT OF CRUELTY, ETC.

"The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh" (ver. 17).

WE

E have already dwelt upon this sacred and useful thought, that a man cannot be good without enriching his own soul. Whatever we do in the way of mercy does not terminate upon the object to which it is addressed, but it comes back to the soul itself, enlarging its capacity and refining its whole nature. The cruel man is always inflicting trouble upon himself; when he thinks he is injuring others he is in reality thrusting the iron into his own soul. This is the dispensation under which we live. Blessed be God for its severity as well as its gentleness, for its awful spirit of judgment as well as for its sacred spirit of benediction. The cruel man creates his own hell; and, in a sense, the merciful man creates his own heaven. He wishes to repeat his acts of mercy because he is made glad by the happy issues of all his efforts to relieve the misery and lighten the burden of mankind. He that watereth others is watered himself; he that giveth away has most; he that would save his life shall lose it; he that would lose his life for Christ's sake shall find it. May we all enter into the mystery of that profound philosophy which says that our gain is what we lose for Christ. No man envies those who are cruel in spirit cruelty does not always show itself in the same way, by harsh blows or by cold neglect; it expresses itself in many subtle forms, many of which cannot be expressed in words, but all of which can be felt in infinite bitterness. He is cruel who does not speak the right word on behalf of the speechless and the downtrodden; he is cruel who withholds help when he can give it to deserving causes; he is cruel who selfishly seeks slumber for himself whilst others are sitting all night long in coldness and pain, and expectation that is full of torment.

Only the spirit of Christ can cast out the spirit of cruelty. The cruel man cannot be cured by the schoolmaster; no amount of knowledge which he acquires will have any effect upon his cruelty; he can only be made clement, tender, sympathetic, and really human by communion with the Son of God.

"As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death" (ver. 19).

Thus the way of the Lord is equal. When we complain of the severity of law we should remember the graciousness of mercy. When we see how evil-doing results in perdition we should balance the thought by thinking how good-doing always tends upwards, and finds its proper resting-place in heaven. Both the righteous man and he that pursueth evil will bear testimony to the truth of the doctrine of this text. The righteous man knows that the more good he does the more obedient he is to law, and the more tender-hearted to his fellow-creatures the more his sense of vitality increases, so that he abounds in life, and indeed touches the passion and the joy of immortality; on the contrary, he that pursueth evil is well aware that he is inflicting wounds upon his own soul, depriving himself of all the blessings of this life, concealing from his vision all beauty, and driving back from his ear all music, and evermore tending towards narrowness of view, and to all that is depraving and debasing in the most contracted prejudices. It is instructive to observe how even in the Proverbs we are kept closely to the twofold division-namely, life and death: there is no middle course; it is a question of heaven or hell, the right hand or the left, God or Satan, eternal bliss or eternal destruction. With so vivid a distinction before us every man has it in his power to elect his destiny. Thank God, it is not a question of circum. stances, of inborn faculty or genius, but a question of character; and surely over the formation and direction of his own character man has great power.

"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered" (ver. 21).

The uselessness of opposing God must be manifest from every point of view. God is omniscient, and knows all things; is almighty, and can do all things; is omnipresent, and is everywhere; so that no device or counsel or plot can succeed against

him. The image of the text is that of conspiracy, wicked men combining, saying to one another in effect, If each of us cannot succeed singly, we may by combination succeed as a unity: the possibility of such a conspiracy was foreseen, and the issue of it is foretold in these plain terms. Let men add money to money, genius to genius, influence to influence, counsel to counsel, still it is but like the addition of so many ciphers—the number being very great but the value being absolutely nothing. What one man cannot do in this direction a thousand men are unable to do. Fool, then, is he who supposes that because he has followed a multitude to do evil, therefore no harm will come to him. Every man in the multitude will be judged as if he were alone responsible for the whole mischief. Hands that are joined together in wickedness may be dissevered on any occasion and for the flimsiest reasons. It is folly for any wicked man to trust in a man as wicked as himself, for the very fact that wickedness renders security impossible, and turns all manner of association into a mere matter of temporary convenience, which may be varied or destroyed according to a thousand contingencies. All evil partnerships in business are doomed to failure. All irregular alliances in the household must come to confusion and disappointment, and may end fatally. The same law holds good in the state, and indeed in every department of life. There can be no security but in righteousness, in high wisdom, in unselfish enthusiasm; where these abound the security is as complete as it is possible for man to make it. Men cannot be joined wisely and permanently together unless they are first joined to the living God. Men can only be joined to the living God through the living Christ; he is the vine, men are the branches, and unless the branch abides in the vine it cannot bear fruit, but is doomed to be burned. True union, therefore, must be religious or spiritual before it can be human and social Neglect of this great law has ended in inexpressible disappointment and mortification on the part of statesmen, reformers, and propagandists of every kind.

"He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it" (ver. 26).

Truly this Bible is a people's book. It is not a book of the landlord as against the tenant, or of the proprietor as against the

peasant, or of the few as against the many. The Bible everywhere speaks for the people, giving them wise counsel, protecting their rights, and promising to them the largest blessings as a consequence of their obedience and loyalty to God. The text may be regarded as suggestive of a still higher thought than the one to which it is limited. If men have no right to withhold corn, what right can they have to withhold knowledge? If it is an evil thing to injure the body or expose it to danger, what is it to injure the soul or to expose it to the peril of eternal loss? If it is wrong to keep back bread from the body, what must it be to keep back bread from the soul? An important doctrine is involved in the whole text; there are some things which a man may possess, as it were, for himself, and enjoy without sharing his delight with others; a man may have many precious stones, and may conceal them, and permit no eye but his own to look upon them, or hand to touch them but his own so be it; the pleasure is a narrow and selfish one, and no great social consequences attend its enjoyment. On the other hand, it would seem as if no man could have private property in corn or in bread, in the sense of saying to the people, I have it, but you shall not possess it; though you offer double its price I will not allow you to take it from me unless you multiply the price five-fold. A man may talk thus about diamonds and rubies, but he is not at liberty to talk thus about bread. A man may have great property in pictures, but it is questionable whether he should have any property in land in any sense that makes the people dependent upon his caprice as to whether it shall be cultivated and turned to the highest uses. It would seem as if light and air and land were universal possessions, and that all men were equally welcome to them. In the case of the land, it may be necessary that there should be temporary proprietorship, or some regulated relation to it so as to prevent robbery; but with such regulated relation proprietorship might well terminate. All this issue, however, can only be realised as the result of the largest spiritual education. It is difficult to persuade any great landed proprietor that he ought to surrender his rights for the good of the commonwealth. This can only come after years, it may be even centuries, of education of the most spiritual kind; or if it come earlier by statesmanship it