ble in the present condition of European life. The grace of God that bringeth salvation teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present life, looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ, our great God and Saviour, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

"Fierce."

This relates to the manner of showing the features we have been deciphering. It denotes the outward face of these passions-ferocity in expression-fierceness and fury in gratifying the lusts of the flesh and revenging the restraints to which human law subjects them. The fear of God does not reign within, and the fear of man does not check without. Subjects can scarcely be said to petition for rights and privileges; they band together in vast masses, and demand and threaten and drive rulers into concessions of

equivocal value. The right of petition is the privilege of the humblest, and liberty to assemble in numbers in order to give weight to petition is justly claimed aud constitutionally conceded. But the propriety, or policy, or right of coercing by menaces and violence and agencies of revolution, are incompatible with the existence of the lowest type of society.

Fierce language is not the general clothing of deep and true convictions. Vituperation and violence and clamour and evil-speaking are not the evidences of Christianity or civilization. We may be uncompromising in our language without offending against

charity, or exhibiting the fierceness of the desert or the violence of the savage.

"Traitors."

This is a sad and, it is to be feared, too common trait.

The whole system of finance so disastrously exposed and so painfully felt in 1866, reveals the employer swindled by his confidential clerk-the widow and the orphan cajoled into shares in a bubble and bereaved of all-the exchequer fleeced-public trusts betrayedand charities plundered and religion affected as a passport to swindling, and robbing, and betraying. Easy virtue and a case-hardened conscience render craft and trickery and perjury welcome as accomplishments. Gambling is dignified with the name of enterprise— speculation is accepted as business, and he who most successfully and rapidly finances or floats some hollow scheme by a system of fraud and lying, is employed as a genius, and paid with unbounded liberality out of the incomes of the widows and orphans he betrays and robs. To accept a bribe for a vote is to betray one's trust and country both. To vote in parliament for what will benefit oneself though it injures one's country, is to betray the interests of the Sovereign and the subject together. The man who makes patriotic speeches at the hustings and settles down in parlialiament as one open to the highest bidder, or malleable into any shape by the various forces there brought to bear on him, is a traitor. The man who will endow the Romish Church from the national exchequer, or from

the spoils of the Church of Christ, betrays either ignorance of all he ought to know, or the very constitution of his country, and beyond all dispute the claims and sovereignty of Christ. Those ministers of religion who were ordained and are paid to teach Protestant truth, and yet teach Roman Catholic doctrines, and practise Roman Catholic rites, and court restoration to Roman Catholic communion, are traitors. They may do so for "thirty pieces of silver," or "with a kiss," or from a change of conviction; but in any case, or under any pretext or preference, as long as they so act they are traitors.

"Heady."

This feature denotes men impetuous-driven onward by conceit-by haste to be rich-by passion— headstrong, self-willed, and reckless of consequences. Thousands without thought, and in spite of the dissuasives of experience and friendship, rush into schemes they think grand enterprises-embark all they have, and discover, when too late, that they have enriched the swindler and ruined themselves. We blame justly the swindler, but it must not be forgotten that were there no "heady" persons making haste to be rich and bent on living at a rate their income does not justify, there would be no dupes and victims for the swindler to prey on.

Did people prefer to live quietly and usefully for a lifetime to breaking out in splendour and magnificence for a year, we should not read of so many broken-up homes, and so many ruined reputations.

To the "heady" we say festina lente, or still better, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently."

"Despisers of them that are good."

This indicates an evil condition of heart. To fail to be good, and to do good, and to love good is sad enough, but to despise them that are good is a depth of profligacy reserved to the "last days" for its development. To denounce is bad enough, but to despise the living exponents of purity and virtue and truth is truly revolting. It reveals an inner condition of heart nearest to that of fallen spirits. It is enmity against that which is the very character of God, the air of heaven-the nature of its inhabitants. To despise "them that are good" does not make us better or them worse. It is inexplicable folly set in inherent depravity. The heart of such despisers must be diseased by the entertainment or tyranny of vice; by inspirations that are Satanic, or evil habits that have become inveterate. Do we not find frequent proofs of this vice? Do we not hear pious men set down as fanatics? men who fear God described as cowards? men that flee from irreligious haunts as monks and "saints"? Are not the most sacred

sneer? Such a one is Another reads his Bible,

words pronounced with a "pious," do not trust him. do not believe his word or his oath. A hypocrite has been detected and exposed, therefore, all professors of religion are hypocrites at heart. Sacred writ is distorted into puns, and religious things are turned into jests, and good men, who illustrate religion in their

lives, and would die for it if needs be, are despised as weak and sentimental and silly.

"Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."

This is the summary of all these vices. What gratifies the passions and pleases the senses is preferred to what glorifies God and shines forth as duty. Sense and sight, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the love of the world give their impulse and law to all. They elect to despise the claims of religion; the interests of morality; the prospects of futurity, so far as these interfere with the gratification of appetite.

The pleasure thus passionately pursued need not be sensual. It may be intellectual, or æsthetic, or social; it may be the love of the fine arts, or of literature, or of science. The sin lies in giving to any passion preference or enjoyment or taste the preeminence, that should be occupied by the "love of God." It alone should be supreme-it is the noblest and holiest, and alone fitted to govern and guide. Before it every feeling, and taste, and love should bow, and from it all should seek direction, inspiration, regulation, and law.

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."

These manifold evils will often be gilded by the colours of religion. Men will use religion as a covert of iniquity; repeat the creed and take the sacrament on Sunday, and go forth and betray, despise, deceive on