devils of those they swore to succour and to bless. CONCLUSION." It is not good that the man should be alone." So saith the Almighty; so saith the deepest instincts of our nature; so saith human experience. Yet better a thousand times be alone, better be on " the corner of a housetop," better in the howling wilderness amongst the prowling beasts of prey, better anywhere than with a "brawling" wife. Yet many wise and noble men have had to endure this. When Socrates was asked, " Why he endured his wife," " By this means," he replied, "I have a schoolmaster at home, and an example how I should behave myself abroad. For I shall be the more quiet with others, being thus daily exercised and taught in the forbearing of her.” here indicated. First: Malignity. "The soul of the wicked desireth evil. The "evil" here is injury to his neighbour. "His neigh bour findeth no favour in his eyes." He injures his neighbour not merely to gratify his greed and ambition, but his malice. He delights in suffering for its own sake. The throes of anguish are music in the ear of the wicked. "The poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood." (Rom. iii. 13-15.) This is the very spirit of hell-this is Satanic sin. Sin is malevolence. Secondly: Derision. “The scorner is punished." We have frequently met with the "scorner" before. The " scorner destitute of all sense of reverence, of every sentiment of humility. He is haughty, profane, and heartless. 'Fools make a mock at sin." Wickedness scoffs at the sacred and the divine. Here we have the wicked men presented to us " is one 46 II. AS SUBJECT TO DIVINE PUNISHMENT. "The scorner is punished"- "God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness. The certainty that unrepentant wickedness will be punished may be argued, First: From the principle of moral causation. God has established such a connection between character and condition that misery must ever spring from sin, and blessedness from virtue. Our present grows out of the past, hence our sins must find us out. What we morally sowed yesterday, we reap in experience today, and so on for ever. Secondly: From the operations of moral memory. Memory recalls sins, places them before the eye of conscience, and sets con science aflame. Thirdly: From the declarations of Scripture. The wicked shall not go unpunished."The wicked shall be turned into hell with all the nations that forget God." Fourthly: From the history of mankind. Nations are an example. The Antediluvians, the Sodomites, the Jews. Individuals are an example. Moses, David, Judas, &c. Here we have the wicked presented to us III. AS STUDIED BY THE GOOD.-First: The influence of their punishment when studied by the simple. "The simple is made wise." Elsewhere Solomon has said, "Smite a scorner and the simple will beware." By the simple" is to be understood the inexperienced; those who 66 are comparatively innocent. When they see the wicked punished they are "made wise." They see what comes of sin, and they learn to shun it. Secondly: The influence of their punishment when studied by the wise. "And when the wise is instructed he receiveth knowledge." The simple become wise, and the wise increase in knowledge by it. Even David learned wisdom by the punishment of the wicked. "Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love thy testimonies. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." (Ps. cxix. 119.) Thirdly: The influence of their punishment when studied by the righteous. The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the wicked; but God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness." Dr. Boothroyd thus translates the verse: "The righteous man teacheth or gives instruction to the house of the 66 wicked, to turn away the wicked from evil." Dr. Wardlaw's remarks on this rendering are as follows: "A forced and unnatural supplement is thus avoided, and the difficulties, in a simply critical view, are at least greatly lessened. In the Vulgate Latin version the same turn is given to the second part of the verse. "The just man thinks maturely concerning the house of the wicked, that he may draw away the wicked from evil,' Thus the wicked, in their malignant and scoffing spirit, and the punishment that follows them, become useful to the simple, the wise, and the righteous, as they are made the subjects of serious and devout reflection. Thus good men can get good out of the wicked, and true souls by thought can get good out of the devil himself. cry of the poor." The poor have pity and claim our helping hand. II. SOCIAL HEARTLESSNESS. "Whoso stoppeth his ears." There are those who stop their ears at " the cry of the poor." At this moment pauperism in England (where it should scarcely have any existence at all) has reached an extent greater than in any past period of her history, and it is increasing every week. "The cry of the poor" is deeper and louder in England than ever, and getting new volume every day. There are two classes of men that should regard this cry." First: The wealthy. Material good is limited, the material universe itself is finite. The more one man has of this world's goods the less remains for others. In this country there are tens of thousands who have appropriated to their Own use more than their own moral share. Justice, to say nothing of mercy, demands that they should distribute of their abundance to the relief of the distressed. Secondly: The legislating. The resources of the country are in a great measure in the hands of our rulers. They can enrich them and impoverish them, they can develop and direct them, and their grand object should be so to manage imperial matters that there should be no want and complaining within our borders. It is for them, by the cultivation of waste lands, and the promotion of emigration, to provide for the working classes fields of remunerative labour. This, however, they have shamefully neglected. Even the members of our present Government, notwithstanding the wonderful philan 66 and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too, in my time; but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the poor, uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe, yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thought as to circumstances in the lots of friends and neighbours, than I ever yet met with, except in the pages of the Bible." Secondly: The undeserving. A large number of the poor in all countries have brought poverty on themselves. From laziness, extravagance, intemperance have sprung indigence and their woes. Far be it from me to suggest that all those who have got into penury and want by their own conduct, have no claims upon our compassion. There are many whose grief for their past conduct greatly intensifies the wretchedness of their poverty. Many who fruitlessly struggle to relieve themselves of their indigence with the determination to adopt a new course of life in the future. their Such call for our thropic profession which before they obtained power they rung into the ear of the country, are doing nothing to check poverty? What, for example, is the member for Birmingham, who for upwards of a quarter of a century has been dealing in that tall philanthropic talk by which he has won his popularity and power, doing to mitigate the growing pauperism of England? He and his colleagues talk of retrenchment, and what do they retrench? Do they demonstrate to the nation the honesty of their professions by voluntarily surrendering a portion of the enormous incomes which they themselves derive from the State? No. They discharge poor labourers from the dockyards, and humble clerks with large families, and thereby only augment the poverty of the land. In the name of Heaven, what is the good of a Government if it cannot Overcome pauperism? III. SOCIAL RETRIBUTION. The text tells us, "whoso stoppeth his ear at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard." Alas, there are many of the rich and the ruling who stop their ears. Their ears are opened to fawning flattery and panegyric adulations. The cheers of platforms and the laudations of journals are music to their souls. But the long, deep wail of the poor, which not only comes up from all the alleys of the towns and cities of England, but from thousands of the wretched hovels. in rural scenes, they cannot hear. For such retribution will come. With what measure they mete it shall be meted to them again. They shall one day cry, but shall hot be heard." 66 He shall have judgment without mercy that have showed no mercy." This retribution often occurs in this life; it is certain to occur at last. Inasmuch as ye have not done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto me." Go to now, 66 66 ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you." CONCLUSION. Heaven forbid that we should stop our ears at the cry of the poor." Let us commiserate them, let us help them to the utmost of our ability. Howard's rule is this, a rule which he embodied in his noble life, "That our superfluities give way to other men's convenience: that our conveniences give way to other men's necessaries, and that even our necessaries sometimes give way to other men's extremities." Charity," says Chrysostom, "is the scope of all God's commands." 66 The Pulpit and its Handmaids. THE AUGUST METEORS. A VERY ancient tradition prevails in the mountain districts which surround Mount Pelion, that during the night of the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6th) the heavens open, and lights, such as those which surround the altar during the solemn festivals of the Greek Church, appear in the midst of the opening. It has been thought by Quetelet, and Humboldt considered the opinion probable, that this tradition had its origin in the successive apparition of several well-marked displays of the August meteors. If this be so, the date of the shower has slowly shifted-as that of the November shower is known to have done-until now another holiday is associated with it, and the simple peasants of Southern Europe recognise in the falling stars of August the fiery tears of good St. Lawrence the Martyr." It is wonderful to contemplate the change which in a few short years has come over all our views respecting these meteors. Ten years ago it was considered sufficiently daring to regard the August system as part of a zone of cosmical bodies travelling in an orbit as large perhaps as that of our own earth. Now, the distance even of Neptune seems small in comparison with that from which those bodies have come to us, which flash athwart our skies in momentary splendour, and then vanish for ever, dissipated into thinnest dust by the seemingly feeble resistance of our atmosphere. Accustomed to associate only such giant orbs as Saturn and Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, with orbits which must be measured by hundreds of millions of miles, the astronomer sees with wonder these tiny and fragile bodies traversing paths yet vaster than those of the outer planets. And even more remarkable, perhaps, is the immensity of the period which the August shooting-star has occupied in circling around the central orb of our system. Each one of the bodies which will be seen next Tuesday has been in the neighbourhood of the earth's orbit many times before; yet the last visit made by them took place years before the birth of any person now living, since the period of meteoric revolution has been proved to be upwards of 118 years. Another strange feature of the August meteor-system is the enormous volume of the space through which, even in our neighbourhood, the meteorstratum extends. The famous. November system is puny by comparison. Striking that system at a sharp angle, the earth traverses it in a few hours, so that if the earth went squarely through it the passage would occupy, it has been estimated, less than one hundred minutes. Thus the depth of the November meteorbed has been calculated to be but one hundred thousand miles or So. But the earth takes nearly three days in passing through the August meteorsystem, although the passage is much more direct. For the August meteors come pouring down upon our earth almost from above, insomuch that the radiant point on the heavens whence the shower seems to proceed is not very far from the North Pole; whereas the November meteors meet the earth almost full front, as a rain-storm blown by a headwind drifts in the face of the traveller. Thus the depth of the August system has been estimated at three millions of miles; and this depth seems tolerably uniform, so that along the whole of that enormous |