faults, hiding the virtues, and while the beam is in their own eye exposing the mote in another's eye. One half of the conversation of ordinary life is made up of the reflections on others, and much of the pleasure men take in such other's society would be lost were they to avoid free judg ment of their neighbours. But it is written "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour him will I destroy."

Rejoicing in another' misfortune. The arrow, says S. Jerome, never fixes itself in a stone, but bounding back strikes him who shot it. So let the detractor learn while he sees thec unwillingly listen, not easily to detract.

It is, indeed, a miserable spirit to disguise a fact which would benefit or attribute a motive which would injure another, to distort the truth so that it ceases to be the truth, to exaggerate for the sake of selfimportance or to extenuate a sin, to be inaccurate and from a locse habit of talking or a fatal craving after p pularity in telling what is called a good story, to talk for the sake of talking and fritter away time and words in empty nothings, to give way to the habits of society and revel in the news of the day, all this while it lowers fatally our moral tone brings us within the warnings and penalties of this command. If a man bridfeth not his tongue his religion is vain,

life and death are in the power of the tongue, by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. How good, then, is that constant_guard of which the Psalmist speaks when he says I have steadfastly purposed that my mouth shall not offend, I said I will take heed to my tongue, I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me, Ps. 39.

False testimonials or if not actually false so far so as that under the plea of good nature we have closed our eyes to faults which we know the person we recommendto have and so have injured another to whom we have given the recommendation. It is to be feared that as a lie is thought little of among the poorer classes, so this which is but another species of fraud is too prevalent among the upper classes. The defect from the truth as well as the excess is equally a lie. We cannot be too careful on this head.

The Gospel must speak aloud in the Salons and say "lie not one to another.” Make not the intercourse of life, which should be based on human sympathies, be means of cultivating a system of organised deception where words are used to conceal and misrepresent thoughts to create suspicion, to propagate scandal. The Gospel must speak aloud in the market place, "lie

not one to another." Make not trade a system of fraud and delusion, where each article is different from what it pretends to be, where a glittering outside covers hollowness and worthlessness within." (Maurice.) And how carefully we should guard our speech on the most sacred subjects, the uneasiness on the holiest mysteries which marks the present day abundantly shows. The bitterest expressions are often used, fierce contention carrying us back to the covenanters of past time, epithets and terms the most uncharitable as well in conversation as in newspapers, while all things call to patience and quietude and prayer.

So we are taught the wonderful power for holiness, which the practice of silence has. To talk much, to throw oneself into the ordinary customs of society, and use the tongue for the empty nothings, or worse for the gossip, of life is to weaken the soul. We become vulnerable, are easily moved to overstep the bounds of truth, to be uncharitable and unreal, to speak for the sake of speaking, to forget the Presence of the God of Truth and the one object of an existence. Blindness comes over us and we fail to see what a waste of precious moments is this and what evil we are doing. But to be alone with God! Oh, my God, what is this ? To be like the Baptist often solitary, like Christ long hours in lonely communion

with the Father. And yet I am not alone. No,-in crowds, in the busy hum of men, in the company of the world we may be alone, but with God never. This, then, is what God calls us to do frequently, to retire from the world and be alone w th Him. So shall we take in floods of light and streams of love, so shall we get new strength from Him and new knowledge of self, and as He rose from prayer refreshed and with so beautiful a countenance, so awful in its beauty that men fell backward when He said "Let these go; I am He." So shall all who seek these Occasions of loneliness and find God in them rise with the calm beauty of peace to meet the enemies of their souls and bear the cross which shall assure them that they are His disciples.

"O solitude! wherein are formed the living stones of which the city of God is 'built. I will not be weary in so delicious a wilderness, because I shall find the secret, without quitting it, of walking in Paradise."

"Let us embrace solitude as being the mother of prayer and of aspiration; and there let us exercise ourselves in the knowIedze of God, and of ourselves, and we shall rid it of all weariness."

"He who reads, who prays, who meditates, calls Jesus Christ to be near him, and he is never less alone than when alone." (S. Bernard.)

His eyes sees no dangerous objects to seduce the heart; his ears hear neither calumnies nor perilous words; the tongue can but speak to God alone; and thou knowest how many sins these three organs occasion. Love solitude, then, since it delivers thee from these conflicts, and that besides this, it is the abode of peace and virtue, the death of vices and the life of the spirit. (Avrillon.)

CHAPTER XI.

COMMANDMENT X.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor anything that is his."

Rest and

This is the command of rest. peace are the reward to the mind stayed upon God, and God here teaches us contentment. God will provide. I shall lack nothing are the words of the sweet Psalmist, who in the power of the living God with stood the enemy of Israel. Here will I rest, for I have a delight therein, to know that God is our God, that His eye never sleeps and His love never grows cold, to know His Power and our own weakness and without