kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Again, with regard to the search for truth, St Paul speaks as emphatically as Jeremiah: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." And lastly, as to the social 'value of manliness, implied in the words "I will pardon it," we find the same idea expressed by Christ in such passages as the following-"Ye are the salt of the earth;" "For the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Now, all these scattered thoughts seem to be gathered up and forcibly expressed in the passage which I have chosen as a text.

In the present sermon we must restrict ourselves to the first test of genuine manliness. The question whether or not a human being deserves to be called a man, in the highest signification of that word, is to be decided in the first instance by the criterion, Does he or does he not do right? It is a matter for serious reflection, whether real, genuine men are not almost as rare in England

to-day as they would appear to have been in Palestine in the days of Jeremiah.

Just. think, first of all, of the frauds daily perpetrated in commerce. You have heard the phrase "commercial morality," and you know it is a euphonious expression for the immoralities of trade,-immoralities which men try to persuade themselves the force of custom has rendered moral. The commonest form of cheating is perhaps the adulteration of food. There is scarcely anything we eat or drink which is not, to a greater or less extent, different from what it professes to be. I need not remind you that there was a time when chalk and water were continually being sold for milk. Thanks, however, to the invention of the lactometer and the vigilance of the inspector, this practice is not so common as it was. milk is about the only article of our diet over which a careful watch is kept. To this day an immense quantity of what is called by way of courtesy port wine, is made, and made with impunity, in London. And we are very lucky if we only get worthless ingredients in our diet; we are very lucky if we are not supplied with downright poisons. Poisons are unfortunately so very cheap, and so easily worked up into the semblance of food. I any one discovers that his

But

marmalade is made of turnips and treacle, he should be thankful it is no worse. For however nasty this composition may be, it is not actually poisonous. The adulterators as a rule supply us with what is positively deleterious. Stilton cheese sometimes grows green, not with age, but by the aid of copper nails. Tea is not unfrequently mixed with a considerable proportion of iron filings, because they are so conveniently heavy. What is euphemistically called butterine has been analysed into Thames mud and pounded stones. It is of course the smaller tradesman who is most tempted to resort to these extreme dodges, and it is therefore the poor who are the worst sufferers from commercial dishonesty in its most disgusting forms. As Tennyson says:

“Chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,

And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life." And you will find the same kind of conduct running through all the trades. You buy a horse. You see, as you think, that he is so many years old; but, poor man! you are taken in. The other day that horse was made to grow a year or two younger in five minutes by the skilful operation of a dentist. You buy a picture which has all the appearance of being ancient. But again you are deceived: this appearar ce was created a week

ago by a few pennyworths of paint. You buy some silver. It has the mark which stamps it as antique; but that mark is a forgery, and was put on the day before yesterday. You buy a house, which you imagine will be a shelter from wind and rain; but if it is built on nineteenthcentury principles-that is to say, of the very worst materials that can by any possibility be made to hold together-by the time your house has "settled," as they call it, there will not be a single window that will shut, nor a single door that will fasten.

Think, again, of the frauds so common on the Stock Exchange. There, as you know, it is a common practice for a man to spread false reports in order that he may further his own speculations. Think of the immense number of persons too respectable to steal, but not too respectable to make purchases for which they have no intention of paying. Think of the enormous amount of crime that has been perpetrated this century in connection with public companies. A very large number of these companies have been begun, continued, and ended in chicanery. Often they could only be started by the publication of that string of lies technically known as "rigging the market"; and the promoters were well aware

that their pockets could only be filled if those of the shareholders were emptied. Thus, on a foundation of falsehood has been based a superstructure of robbery; and when the whole concern falls to the ground, those who are buried in the ruins find out, too late, that they have trusted, not in men, but in knaves.

Sometimes these knaves are diabolical enough to veil their rascality with a hypocritical cloak of canting religiousness. One of the directors of the Glasgow Bank, you remember, was too pious to read Monday's newspaper because it was printed on Sunday. Tennyson, in his "Sea Dreams," has given us a striking sketch of this kind of creature "With his fat affectionate smile

That makes the widow lean.

Who, never naming God except for gain,

So never took that useful name in vain,—

Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool,
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool."

There is nothing in the universe so contemptible as a hypocrite. It is bad to be a knave, but it is infinitely worse to be a pious knave.

The professions, I am sorry to say, cannot by any means be exonerated from the charge of dishonesty. There are doctors who never tell a patient they can make nothing of his case, or that it is one which requires the attention of a