break off when time began, to recommence when time finishes; on the contrary, time is not so much as simultaneous with eternity; it is but a defined period of that boundless whole, as air within a bubble is simply a portion of that same atmosphere wherein the bubble floats.

Wherefore, if lawfully we may use such words, and well might we hesitate, for "shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood "yet (if we dare so speak) to eject God from His own appropriated day is to eject Him, so far as in us lies, from His own eternity; for He and none but He is that "High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity;" and in such proportion as our littleness bears when set in battle array against His Greatness, we by so doing do to our utmost displace Him from His everlasting abode; we make ourselves so far like Antichrist "that man of sin... the son of perdition; who op

poseth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4).

Here in our train of thought the Fourth Commandment joins itself on to the First: these two touch, as it were, and become locked together, completing that perfect circle of God's revealed Will which establishes man's range of obligation. For it has already appeared (at least, I hope so) that our major circle of duty towards God involves our minor circle of duty towards man, as inevitably and inextricably as the outer edge of a wheel entails its own close parallel the inner.

And as the Fourth and First, so are the Tenth and Fifth Commandments complementary of each other in a special sense, and beyond what applies to the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, or Ninth. The Fifth enjoins, the Tenth forbids. Both regulate not actions explicitly, but tempers, motives, dispositions. A breach of the Fifth Commandment need not indeed entail any breach of

Day.... In it thou shalt do no manner of work." And why? Because, as already dwelt upon, "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 seventh day, and hallowed it."

This reason for consecrating a Sabbath holding good from the foundation of the world, is quite independent of the added emphasis with which the same Festival was enforced at the period of the Exodus.

Presumably those only who work heartily and well are those who will even feel predisposed to rest heartily and well. For-if without irreverence we may append words and thoughts of our own to the inspired record-"God . . . rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made," because then looking back, "God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. ii. 2, i. 31).

Two sorts of persons appear, by inference, likely to transgress the Fourth Commandment: the Idler and the Money-grubber.

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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the Tenth; but the former is violated perforce by infringement of the latter.

And further. The First and Fifth Commandments standing parallel to each other, we infer that the Fourth and Tenth will likewise stand parallel. Whereupon we expect to find that the Tenth Commandment, like the Fourth, will serve as the searching test-commandment of its own Table.

What is covetousness? It is a desire of personal advantage, but is not necessarily any abstract wish for our neighbour's damage: spite for its own sake is characteristic of envy. Selfishness is the root of both sins: but envy is allied through hatred to murder; covetousness through lack of love to rapine. Envy tends to destroy an individual rankled against; covetousness to supplant a neighbour whether or not he be obnoxious.

Contentment is, perhaps, among virtues the one most of all opposed to covetousness, preoccupying the ground it would lodge upon, and exhausting the atmosphere it would breathe.