Is it not,

cise ourselves with lower matters? rather, ignored again and again when it most presses for recognition? Take, as a single instance, the question assuming every day more and more of prominence, and certain to become immediately the subject of legislation, that of obtaining for every child born in our midst the advantage of what is called education. There are those, we know, who are holding bravely to their view that education without religion is a misnomer, and that to put knowledge into the hands of a growing child is merely to give a weapon that can be used for evil as well as for good. But these are the minority; and the cry from all sides is "education without religion." This is to be the panacea for all our woes. Teach every child to read, and write, and cypher, and evil is to disappear. Drunkenness, dishonesty, profligacy are to pass away; and at length we are to be a prosperous and virtuous people. Is this a vox populi which we can safely trust as an echo of the voice of God? Has knowledge a tendency to produce good rather than evil? Can a secular education inspire with the love of goodness, or deepen the conviction that fidelity to the image in which man was created is the first and only condition of his prosperity and great

ness? And yet this truth, if it be a truth, is not one which we find embodied in the resolutions of crowded and enthusiastic meetings. "Knowledge," not "righteousness," is the cry which is heard above all others, and if only to make us wise on this question let us recall the teaching of the first chapters of Genesis; of the creature made in the image of his Creator, to share His moral nature and do His righteous will; and of that creature who fell from his high eminence because he preferred knowledge to obedience, and loved power more than goodness.

A great philosopher of Germany used to say that there were two things which filled him with wondering awe, the starry heavens and man's sense of right and wrong. It may never have occurred to the author of this saying that in the earliest lines of the Hebrew Scriptures the two objects of his wonder appear side by side, as emanations from the Almighty workman. The story of the creation of the world, and of the stars which rule the night, is told in the same chapters which speak of a right and wrong between which a free will is allowed to choose. It is the latter that concerns us truly; for it alone is eternal, because it is the harmony with, or separation from, that

"For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." The Book of Genesis tells us of two creations; of one which is for a moment, though measured by thousands or millions of mortal years; and of one which is eternal, even as He by whom it was first breathed. Let us, my brethren, while we turn to God's Word to learn the secrets of our spiritual being, not linger upon questions which minister to strife and envying. And when our earth has played its part in the economy of the universe, and is seen by the few spheres which are within its ken to pass away as a wandering fire, Right and Wrong will not have lost their primeval significance; and the souls which have yearned and laboured for rest in the home of spirits, will find that rest in Him who was, and is, and is to be.

SERMON XXIII.

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF WIT AND

HUMOUR.

(APRIL 18, 1869.)

"Nor jesting."-EPHES. v. 4.

JESTING is one of a catalogue of offences against which St. Paul warns the members of the Ephesian Church as unbecoming their character of saints, and I have singled it out from the rest as inviting inquiry on our part which they scarcely demand. That the Apostle should denounce profane or immoral conversation in those whose standard of holiness was so high is no matter for wonder. But the word which our translators have rendered "jesting" stands upon a ground of its own. The original Greek word is evтρаπeλía, implying in its derivation nothing of grossness or irreverence, but only readiness, quickness, pliability of mind; that quality, or combination of qualities, which gains

for its possessor the character of a wit. This accomplishment, then, is denounced by St. Paul as incompatible with the saintly character, or at least as a blot upon it. We have to consider to what extent modern society is liable to the same temptations, and needs the same warning.

The word translated "jesting," implying that quickness or cleverness which enables a person to say the happiest thing at the happiest moment, appears to have degraded in meaning before the time of the Apostle. One temptation incident to those who are endowed with the gift is to exaggeration and carelessness about truth. Hence the word had come to be used for insincerity and unreality. Another obvious temptation which they experience is to use it as an instrument of ridicule or contempt. Accordingly the word had become associated in meaning with those feelings; and Aristotle defined the very word here rendered "jesting" as a "cultivated" or "refined" scorn.1 Here, therefore, long before the time of the Apostle, are certain moral qualities associated with the word. If the ready wit to which St. Paul refers were connected in men's minds with offences

1 Пeπaidevμévn üßpis.—See Trench's "New Testament Synonyms," sub voce.