A youth may be inclined to vicious courses, but he may abstain from them, because he fears the diseases, suffering, and misery they may entail on him; or he may be tempted to commit some crime against the laws of his country, but he abstains from doing so, fearing the consequences the punishment that may follow. Or a man may do some act of charity, because he thinks it will secure him a good name and the applause of his fellow-men. Another may be inclined to drunkenness and gluttony, but he keeps temperate, because he fears that to do otherwise would injure his credit. In all this there is no regard to right, conscience, or duty, and therefore it cannot be regarded as more than mere outward morality. The conduct of such persons is actuated by no good motives.

On the contrary, take the case of a man in distress and suffering from hunger. He may be tempted to rob others to satisfy his necessities, but he abstains from doing so because it is unjust a wrong to his neighbour. Another may relieve distress, and spend his life in doing good, purely because it benefits society. In these cases there is a regard for what is right, and in accordance with conscience and duty. This may be called inward or true morality. There is the presence of good motive.

Thus the motives which influence different individuals vary according to their conscientiousness, or, in other words, according to character.

It is not only very possible, but very common, for men to be ignorant of the chief inducements of their behaviour, and to imagine that they act from one motive whilst they are governed by another. If we examine our views and look narrowly into our hearts, we shall find that they more frequently deceive us in this respect than we are aware of, by persuading us that we are governed by much better motives than we are. The honour of God and the interest of religion may be the open and avowed motive, whilst secular interest may be the hidden and true one. How many go to a place of worship out of custom or curiosity, to show themselves to advantage, or to avoid singularity, who would be thought to go there only from conscientious motives! How many are restrained from cheating and robbing their neighbours from fear of being found out, and yet who are deemed really honest people! By thus disguising our motives, we may impose upon men, but, at the same time, we impose upon ourselves; and whilst we are deceiving others, our own hearts deceive us. And, of all impostures, self is the most dangerous, because least suspected.

Outward actions may have a fair show, but unless they spring from right motives, they are as mere dead leaves, because there is no life in them.

Let us, then, vigilantly search the

spring and real motives of our actions, if we would conscientiously do our duty. Unless we do this, we shall never be able to form a right judgment of what we do.

Let us remember that the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.'

ANECDOTES OF MEN WHO DID THEIR DUTY.

The rules of conduct followed by Lord Erskine a man of sterling principle-are worthy of being engraven on every young man's heart. It was a first command and counsel of my earliest youth,' he said, 'always to do what my conscience told me to be a duty, and to leave the consequences to God. I shall carry with me the memory, and I trust the practice, of this parental lesson to the grave. I have found it the road. to prosperity and wealth, and I shall point out the same path to my children for their pursuit.'

As another instance of sterling integrity, we may point to the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon's aim was 'glory,' Wellington's watchword was' Duty.' The former word, it is said, does not once occur in his dispatches, the latter often. Though his natural temper was irritable in the extreme, his high sense of duty enabled him to restrain it. The equal of

Napoleon in generalship, he was as wise a statesman as Člive, and as pure-minded as Washington, and he left behind him an enduring reputation.

The performance of duty is always attended by some kind of reward. A veteran of the old French army was recently received at Fontainebleau by Louis Napoleon on account of the following incident. After the victory of Eversburg, in 1809, this old veteran was posted at the entrance of a building in which the great Napoleon had taken up his quarters. His orders were not to allow any one to pass unaccompanied by an officer. In the evening, a person in a grey coat appeared, and wanted to pass. The soldier lowered his bayonet, and called out that nobody should pass; but the person in the grey coat went on without noticing the challenge, and the soldier, bringing his bayonet to the charge, was about to run him through, when the noise brought out the whole staff. The man in the grey coat was the Emperor. The soldier was committed to the guard-house, and told he was lost. But the Emperor sent for him, and gave him a decoration. 'Grena

dier,' said he, you have done your duty; you may put your ribbon in your button-hole; I give you the cross.'

99

A KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAWS OF NATURE ESSENTIAL TO A LIFE OF VIRTUE.

The whole force of life and experience goes to prove that right or wrong doing is sure in the end to meet with its appropriate reward or punishment.

Believe the muse, the wintry blast of Death
Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread,
Beneath the heavenly beams of brighter suns,
Thro' endless ages, into higher powers.

But when we in our viciousness grow hard,
(O misery on't!) the wise God seal our eyes;
In our own filth drop our clear judgements; make us
Adore our errors; laugh at us while we strut
To our confusion.

I connect everything, both in common and in religious life, with the idea of law-with the natural course of things or the usual order of Providence in the one case; in the other, with settled, gracious, spiritual arrangements. I wish you to understand this, and to understand it in relation not only to the present world, but also to the future. In respect to one, as well as to the other, it may contribute not a little towards saving you from perilous procrastinations, presumptuous sins, deceitful hopes, irrational and criminal indifference, and from fears and apprehensions, contradicted by experience, unsanctioned by Scripture, displeasing to God,