and mice 'ill ate you into nothin' for their Sunday breakfast, and there won't be much left after that, will there, my darlin'?" Whereupon Tim went to the embers, and, inserting therein a black clay pipe, began to smoke. Tim had hired a bed for that night in the aforesaid lodging-house, and there he carried Chuckie, whom he set down upon the sanded floor of the drawing-room, where stood, sat, leaned, lay, smoked, spat, ate, drank, cursed, and quarrelled a motley crew, the aristocracy of the begging and hawking profession. Now, as ill luck, or Satan, would have it, the aristocracy were at that very moment engaged in a religious dispute, and the argument ran fast and furious, so that when Tim dropped a hint that something ought to be done to get a pair of secondhand breeches for Chuckie, Sandy McSquirter, a Scotch tramp, who was violently anti-popish, said, "I'll no gie a bawbee tae get a pair o' breeks tae the callan till I ken mair about him. Maybe his faither and mither belanged tae the Papists." 66 'And what if they did? said Tim, the Papist. "Could they belong to anythin' better than the mother church?" 66 Get away with your Scotch hypocrites and your Romish priests," said Bully Poundem, a tall Lancashire man, who curiously enough made his living by dragging a tame bear along the streets. Get away and leave the boy alone. Don't you know as all them as is born in Manchester belong to t' owd church, and they was all christened when they was babies; and there's nothin' like t' owd church." "There's twa sides to that question," said Sandy McSquirter. "Twa sides, Mr. Poundem; and if this were time and place I could gie ye substantial reasons for believing that the gude auld kirk o' Scotland is baith the auldest and the best." "Get off wid yer spakin'," said Tim. "Don't you know that St. Peter was the first man in the world, and the blessed Virgin the first woman? Our religion comes from St. Peter. There, can ye touch that ?" "Awa, man, yer haverin," said the Bible-taught Sandy. "Have ye never read about Adam and Eve?" "And what about them?" said the infuriate Tim. "They were the first man and wife, and it was through that silly body, Eve, takin' some of the apples that sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." This puzzled Tim a little, whereupon Mr. Bully Poundem said,— I'll tell you what it is, gentle men. This boy has been born in Manchester. Now, Manchester is Protestant and church, and so he belongs to t' owd Church of Eng. land.' 66 Hear, hear," was the general shout of the aristocrats, from the organ grinder, who made ten shil lings a day, to the lame beggar, who got better every night and became bad again in the morning, but whose lameness was a paying occupation. This "hear, hear had a strong influence upon Tim, who grasped his old hat convulsively, threw it upon the floor, placed his left foot there upon, and cried aloud,— 66 Who's for a fight? who's for a fight? Any man that says that St. Peter wasn't the first man and the best man let him come here." Uttering his threat, Tim danced around the drawing-room throwing out his hands. Mr. Bully Poundem (whose real name, if he had any, was a mystery), looked grimly for a little at the vociferating Hibernian, and, watching his time, gave him such a terrible blow on the ear as felled him to the ground, saying, 66 I'm for a fight. Curse the Pope and St. Peter!" When Tim arose again his ortholoxy was not so effervescent, and he was prepared to look in a cool and business manner at the question of what was to be done with Chuckie, who, while his friends were fighting about the religious difficulty, was shivering before an expiring fire, and crunching the last remnants of his scanty supper. Poor little Chuckie! Look at him. His face is well shaped, his eye sharp, and his mind clearly as good as that boy to whose prattle a wealthy father listens with pride, and over whose warm bed a fond mother bends and says," God bless him, he's a beauty." Chuckie, why are you left shivering amidst nakedness, hunger, and dirt, while your more favoured brother rolls amidst comfort, sweetness, and light? Why do even the mud aristocrats quarrel over thee, and devour one another before feeding and clothing thee? What strange ideas must thou have of that stuff they call religion, which, while it removes the homes of peace and beauty far from thy hovel, and allows the elect ones to pasture at ease amidst fertile vales and purling rills, puts hatred into the hearts of those who might save thee! The anger of Tim, Sandy, and Bully having passed, they went to bed, leaving him alone at the fireplace. The landlady, throwing him an old petticoat which she had confiscated from a tramp who would not pay her lodging, said, 66 on us a There, cover yourself with that, and make no noise till you hear some stirring i' th' morning." Chuckie wrapped himself and slept on the floor. He awaked cold, stiff, and hungry. But no one cared. He was only a dirty brat in Deansgate; and if he died, he died, and there was the end of it. Hark to the clang of city bells! Bells calling to worship God,-that God who delights more in mercy than in sacrifice. The streets are fall of holy men and devout women who crowd God's house, each with a shibboleth all their own, about Jesus the carpenter, the Saviour of the lost. But how many care for poor Chuckie ? But if Jesus came to Manchester as a carpenter, would he hurry into our fashionable chapels, or even into our conventicles, or would He take the way to Deansgate and such places in search of the lost? He has said some queer things about leaving the ninety and nine to shift for themselves, and seeking the strayed ones till He find them. But then science was not so far advanced, nor literature so much spread, as now. The march of mind had not advanced with such giant strides. Certainly not. But what does all your science and march of mind do for Chuckie, as he sits there on a cold floor in Deansgate munching a crust? As nobody seemed to care whether Chuckie had soul or body, and as his stomach was crying aloud, "give, give," the boy very naturally looked around him for something to stop the clamour of that stomach. He was in this state of mind when Tim, who had risen early, put his head into the drawing-room, and, seeing Chuckie, said,— 'By the powers, are ye there still ? Have you had ever a bit of breakfast ?" "Och, and by the powers, I forgot! Where's your breeches ?" "Father popped them along with the bedclothes to get a sup of beer yesterday, and because mother was angry he beat her." "And a dirty brute he is, shure; but wait a bit, honey, and see if Tim Flannagan don't get ye as purty a pair o' breeches as ever ye seed," whereupon Tim vanished and returned with breeches and a small jacket in the one hand; bread and cheese in the other. Chuckie's eyes glistened. He seized and devoured the bread, then jumped into the breeches. "Come along, my darlint," said Tim, elated with his convert (not the first conversion which has been made through the stomach). They reached the Roman Catholic Chapel, and there Chuckie first beheld religion. He was amused, frightened, and tired by turns. They came back and had scarcely entered, when Sandy McSquirter cried out, "Here he comes. Here's the papist. Hoo daur ye tak the laddie and mak' him into a papist like yer sel' ?" This brought out Bully Poundem, who advanced to Tim and, holding his elevated fist before his nose, said, "Leave that there boy alone, will you?" "I am not doing him any harm, shure." "Leave him alone. What business have you a meddlin' with other people's childer, and sneakin' away wi' them to that counfounded chapel of yours?' Tim. But the boy's a Catholic," said "Who told you?" "He said so himself. Ain't you. Chuckie?" Chuckie, who feared a beating, and had some cunning, looked first at Bully and then at Tim, and, as he feared them both, he held his peact and began to cry. This did not mend matters. Tim was angry because he would not be a papist, and Bully because he cried and did not say that he was not a papist. So to settle the matter Sandy McSquirter said, 66 'He's a deceitful wee brat. Let him gang whaur he likes." Whereupon, with the common consent of the mud aristocrats, Chuckie was cast out into Deansgate upon Lord's day forenoon, in the year of grace 1860. (To be continued.) "ABHOR THAT WHICH IS EVIL." (Romans xii. 9). BY THE REV. A. M. STALKER. "DISSIMULATION" in "love" receives emphatic condemnation from the fact that the entreaty to shun it is immediately followed by the command of the text. From a loathsome branch the apostle proceeds to the corrupt tree, and gazing, upon it in all its revolting deformity he says to his friends, " abhor it" abhor that which is evil." But what is the meaning of the word—what is EVIL? That which opposes the will of Him who "is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin." There is an essential distinction, however, between good and evil, independent even of the Divine will. There was moral beauty, there was excellence in virtue, prior to God's proclaiming it to be His will that His intelligent creatures should be conformed to it. There was deformity, there was odiousness in vice, prior to His commanding the moral universe to shun it. Moral actions -altogether apart from the Divine will-differ in their character. That will cannot render justice injustice, cannot cause that which is inherently wrong to become inherently right. While it is a truth that God cannot err, it is equally true that an action is right, not bebecause God wills it, but that He wills it because it is right. Had the Divine Being been malevolent, and not "Love," and His will the standard of rectitude, cruelty behoved to be esteemed excellent; but we all know it could never be thus regarded,--that Omnipotence itself could not render it estimable. What then follows? Clearly, that excellence is the result of the Divine nature, and not the mere result of the Divine will. The Divine will, however, is always in conformity with the Divine nature. Hence, we have indisputable evidence that an action is right when God commands it, and that it is wrong when He forbids it. The Divine command and the Divine veto indicate alike clearly what is good and what is evil. That command and that veto comprise the Divine will. Obedience to it, therefore, is "that which is good"-disobedience to it is "that which is evil." But how shall that will be ascertained? Conscience is a revelation, injured, it is true, by the Fall, but through its very desolations "the" Divinity," in a "stirs within us." Yet He who placed conscience in our bosom, has placed the Bible in our hands; and while He declares that many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law," He distinctly assures us that" as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law,"-" that the word which He has spoken, the same shall judge us in the last day." Would you, therefore, ascertain what that is which, as " EVIL," you are to abhor, we reply by askingWith the book of Conscience and the pages of Inspiration before you, "HOW readest thou ?" "The meek He will guide in judgment-the meek He will teach His way."-In considering the command in the text, we say, measure, as First. STUDY THE COMMAND IN ITS INTENSITY. "Abhor that which is evil." Clearly we are to refrain from doing "that which is evil.” Forbidden fruit we are not to pluck; forbidden paths we are not to tread. The reason is obvious: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law;" "He that committeth sin is of the Devil." These plain and deterring considerations receive solemn emphasis from the earnest, the Divine cry: "Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate!" But the command implies not only refraining from evil doing, it takes for granted that we shall discountenance "that which is evil." The light of our countenance is never to fall upon it. To us it is to look in vain for patronage. Far from being blind to its enormity, and conniving at it, we are to frown upon it, "turn from it, and pass away." But we are to do more than even this: we are to condemn it. Thunders are to peal against that "which is evil," and lightnings to scathe it. 66 Yet even "words that burn" are cheap; they cost nothing. Verbal thunderbolts are easily launched. To be worth anything, they must be winged by the soul's moral dislike. Some roll evil as a sweet morsel under their tongue." Their moral taste is vitiated; their spiritual sensibility is benumbed; but even where it is not, even in cases where evil is condemned because it is evil, the condemnation may originate not in deep, but in trivial feelings of aversion. Such feelings fall short of the command "ABHOR that which is evil." The word is full of meaning. Its etymology points to starting back from-to stiffening with-horror. The whole moral nature is disturbed-dis turbed to shrinking, shuddering, recoiling, standing aghast, terrified, and loathing. Loathing, as a Saxon word, may be a variation of loading of overloading and thus expressive of the nausea of an overloaded stomach. To be sickened, while petrified with terror to the core of our being, in view of "that which is evil," best expresses, perhaps, the command in its intensity-" ABHOR that which is evil." "O for a principle within, of jealous godly fear; A sensibility to sin, a PAIN to feel it near !" Secondly. STUDY THE COMMAND IN ITS ABSOLUTENESS. "Abhor that which is evil." Be its aspects, its phases, its plausibilities what they may, and however bewitching, they cannot change "that which is evil." It is "evil" still, and, however bedizened, only "evil." It is to be abhorred, therefore, 1. By whomsoever committed. Here, however, we are to be careful not to confound things that differ. To abhor evil is one thing-to abhor him that commits evil is another. We are always to do the former, the latter never. The man who does evil we are to blame, but we are also to compassionate him. We are to denounce his deed, but we are to remonstrate with and pity himself. Regard for him, however, is not to abate our abhorrence of what he has done. In this matter we are to "know no man after the flesh." A superintendent of police, having a certain hour after which no leniency was extended to any street-disturber, was addressed in familiar tones by one whom a policeman had clutched, "You know me, Baillie; you know me." The reply was peremptory: "I know no man, sir, after ten o'clock." How strongly does the conduct of Adam, when, overcome by the charms of his other self, "he did eat, because she gave unto him, contrast with the bearing-"glorious in holiness"-in which Christ ap proached one of the dearest of His disciples, who sought to "entice" him : "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.' 2. We are to abhor evil, howsoever small the evil may seem. Accepting an apple from a loving hand seemed a little matter, but it ruined the parties concerned, and even a world. The offer and its acceptance were both inlaid with full-fledged rebellion. Attenuate sin as you like, iniquity's core is in it. The Bible knows no classification of sins that justifies us in regarding any sin as a trifle. The smallest is as cer |