want to be believed in by others. The most long-lived imposture is preserved-not by its probabilities or improbabilities, not by its mysteries or trickeries, but by the contagion of faith.

TU QUOQUE.

No

You may oftener gain hints of the character of a person by observing what are those qualities in others he is most free to blame than by noticing what he generally applauds. Το σε see ourselves as others see us" would no doubt be useful, but it would reveal to us more about others than about ourselves. kind of reproof is so irritating as caricature, and the defects of character that are most apt to make a man angry are natural caricatures of himself. When a man is more than commonly earnest or ready in denouncing any particular fault, depend on it a part of his reproof is meant for himself.

OUR FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF THE DEITY.

Our fundamental idea of the Deity is that of personified Justice. This idea is the

foundation of all theological argument. If an unjust God were conceivable, there is a principle in the mind of man which would dare to defy Him, spite of omniscience and omnipotence. To prove that any religious doctrine or theory involves the shadow of injustice on the part of the Deity is to prove that the doctrine or theory is hollow and utterly worthless.

THE WILL.

Wonders can be worked, no doubt, by the aid of a strong will. No other extraordinary power of the human mind can be compared to a superior will. Resolve and keep your resolution, persevere and endure to the end, and you may really perform miracles. But consider first whether the end to be accomplished is worth the cost, before you devote a lifetime to the pursuit of an idea. Is the object won dearly purchased, or not, by all the efforts and sacrifices made for it by a man of resolution who will do what he purposes? I believe nothing more than force of will is needed to enable any man living of average

abilities and common sense to make himself distinguished in literature, or politics, or science, or the social scale; but I very much question whether the distinction achieved would be an adequate recompense for all the labour of securing it. That which is to be the prime object of years of a man's life should be something not only desirable in itself, but desirable for him—something that is not only worth all the labour some men would bestow on it, but all the labour he must give for it. Your men of remarkable will, who form one darling purpose early in life, and never swerve from it, and can find in their thoughts no room for anything else, are not, I fancy, the happiest of mankind. Determination and perseverance are properties ever to be honoured, nevertheless; for in truth there are more failures in the world for want of will than there are for want of anything else.

CREDULITY.

Credulity is not the certain mark of artlessness, as some appear to think; nor yet the leading characteristic of ignorance, as others

usually consider it: but it is an indication, greater or less, of an ill-balanced mind. People are easily deluded-not generally because they are so unsophisticated, nor because of their absolute ignorance, but because of the irregular development of a particular faculty of their minds. It is no difficult task to persuade a self-conceited man that he is wonderfully clever, or a devotee that he has been the subject of a miraculous visitation. Men are so apt to magnify that which engrosses their attention that after a time they will believe what any microscope tells them about it.

SOCIAL PUNCTILIOS.

You may take it as a general rule that those people who in society show most determination in exacting all the offices of politeness have the least sterling coin belonging to them wherewith to repay the trouble society is forced to take about them. They are usually the very plain-featured, or the peculiar, or the unpleasant-tempered section of a company. They are sensible of their infir

mities (for it is only an idiot who does not know himself better than his neighbours know him)—and are perpetually troubled with the feeling that their acquaintances are sensible of them also. They afford fine spoil for the flatterer. Notwithstanding their punctiliousness, there is no one so certainly propitiated by those who will take pains to please. If they demand every duty of courtesy, they attach a higher value to it than others do, and in order to be esteemed a paragon by them you have only to be supremely civil.

WHEN CHARACTER IS FORMED.

The characters of men and women are formed for the most part between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. It is generally during those five years that the pliant native material of character settles down and hardens into the configuration by which it is known throughout life. People talk much of the lasting duration of early impressions, and of the ease with which the mind of a child may be moulded; but it is when the child has grown up, to reason before he trusts and to