The Idler has a standing quarrel with time. Punctuality would be his bugbear if he did not ignore it. He likes indeed, in a certain sense, to bestir himself: he may become a busybody, yet notwithstanding all his occupations, little or nothing will he have to show at the close of day. Sometimes he wastes time frankly by doing nothing, sometimes by misappropriating to a favourite avocation the period due to another he relishes less. He is systematically behindhand, and would be perpetually running after his work in the vain endeavour to overtake it, if only he ever would either run or work. He is not likely to be an early riser: the day which should commence at eight, dawns not perhaps before ten. Half-a-dozen desultory acts and interests wile away the first hour or two; his vessel buoyant, because without ballast, gets (so to say) underweigh towards noon. But time and tide alike wait for no man, and the occupation our Idler is commencing is the very one he ought then to be leaving off. He has not leisure to be thorough, neither has he energy

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to be prompt. Whether his lot be to labour for a livelihood, or-not less awful-simply so to labour that at the final reckoning his day's work may pass muster, he falls short of both the earthly and the heavenly standard, and his wages are contempt from earth and from heaven. He who will not exercise so much self-discipline as to map out his six days with tolerable accuracy, is the last man to draw an unswerving line of sacred demarcation around the seventh day. His mind is lax; his habits are unstable as water, dribbling out in this direction, overflowing in that, running short somewhere. It is out of the question that once a week he should gird himself to worship with zeal, to teach the ignorant with perseverance, to shut his mental door peremptorily against the lounging concourse of every-day interests which keep it on the jar, or even to rest throughout and not beyond the enjoined period of rest. Six consecutive days enervate him, and the seventh cannot brace him mechanically as clocks are wound up once a week; in fact, if he resembles

any clock (and few may those clocks be which resemble him!) it is one with a light-weight pendulum, fussing along in an unmeaning hurry, and marking no particular time; or one which proceeds by jerks, and stops irrespective of the solar system. Everywhere and always, whether or not they drop into Church, Idlers and Pleasure-seekers, as such, are conspicuously indisposed towards observing a set day of religious retiredness cares of this life may not choke their souls, but riches and pleasures do. Even the woman-let alone the man-" that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth."

The Money-grubber repudiates Sunday from far different motives. Six days are all too brief for his engrossing toils; the seventh day cannot be sacrificed to a mere imaginative punctilio. It may not answer to outrage popular opinion; so in some places (alas! not in all, even in Christendom) shops, counting-houses, business quarters in general, are closely shuttered during one day in seven, outsides are whited over and garnished, while within ledgers

and such like unfold fascinating pages. Or if not literally thus, if importunate decency transports our Money-grubber into his pew on Sunday morning, then before his mental eyes ledgers and their kin flaunt themselves, where neighbours only discern Bibles, Prayer-books, Hymnbooks, on the desk. His bales of goods, cattle, hay-ricks, would be no more out of place in Church than is he himself; his money - bag would occupy a seat as worthily; they would put full as much heart into their attendance, and full as much spirituality. Indeed, in one sense they are present, he is absent; for he carries them in his heart into the holy place, while yet all the time his heart tarries outside among them.

Now what command could God Almighty have framed for man's good alway, that should neither be "rest" nor "labour"? There is, perhaps, nothing which brings more irresistibly home to conscience the alienation of the human from the Divine Will than this law of a day of religious rest. We make ourselves like those of old:

"Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength and ye would not. But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift” (Isa. XXX. 15, 16). And such a doom is incurred. rather than comply with terms which ensure safety and prosperity!" If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" (Isa. lviii. 13, 14).

Time (like life) is a talent bestowed on the whole human race without respect of persons. Time is a part of eternity. Eternity did not