on your Sunday clothes; but, at any rate, it was much pleasanter for me, and I will not quarrel with you for doing so. But when you have not been addressing me personally, when in passing through the streets you live in, or when coming upon a group of you chatting together, I have heard you talking to each other freely and without restraint, I have shuddered at the coarse, horrible, and often even blasphemous words which have reached my ears. I quite believe that you have often no conscious intention of “taking God's name in vain," though you bandy about that solemn name in your conversation so much too readily. You do it from habit; from infancy your ears have become accustomed to the sound, and you use it and hear it mechanically, scarcely knowing that you have heard or said it. Nor can I think that you attach any real meaning to the terrible curses you utter against one another when you are in a passion. You do not really wish that the awful judgments you call for should descend on the heads of your companions. I suppose you do not believe in anything except eating, and drinking, and working; for if you did believe in a future of reward or punishment, you could not dare to utter the terrible denunciations which seem to flow so easily from your lips. Remember, "curses, like chickens, come home to roost,” and every hateful wish for another's hurt leaves its mark on your own soul.

But besides this habit of cursing and the irreverent use of the holiest name, there are other expressions constantly on your lips, words as you use them quite meaningless, but which you seem to imagine give a flavour to your conversation. I may remark, however, in passing, that some of the most apparently meaningless oaths are really corruptions of very sacred words. You can converse without polluting your lips with such expressions; for if you have occasion to speak to an employer about your work, you manage to make yourself perfectly well understood, and to use quite sufficient emphasis without uttering bad words. Why, then, do they flow so readily from your mouth when you are

speaking to one of your companions or acquaintances? Have you less respect for men and women in the same social standing as yourself than you have for those in a higher worldly position? Surely it cannot be so! It must then be that the tyrant Habit has you so firmly in his grasp that you do not know how to struggle free. You can make an effort for a short time, but when the necessity for restraint is removed you return at once to what is, unfortunately, your habitual way of speaking. But I think we must look deeper than habit, however strong, to get at the root of the evil. In the old days, when our Lord lived on earth, the Pharisees had very strict laws concerning eating, and drinking, and washing. When they observed that Jesus and His disciples were not particular in keeping these rules, they were much displeased; but Jesus remarked to them: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." The disciples did not quite understand Christ's meaning, so He explained Himself further: "Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man." He also said on another occasion, "How can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Look, then, to your hearts, and strive with God's help to banish all impure and unholy thoughts, so will you find it easier to banish filthy and profane words from your lips. It will be a struggle to get free from old habits, but the harder the contest the greater the

victory.

I will conclude with an anecdote which may help you, perhaps, in your efforts to get rid of the custom of using bad language. It is taken from the diary of a man who died at a very great age: An officer and another gentleman were travelling together in a stage coach, and the conversation happened to turn upon the Rev. Robert Robinson of Cambridge, who lived in the last century. The officer then said, "I met him in this very coach when I was a young man, and when my tone of conversation was that universal among young officers, and I talked in a very free tone with this Mr. Robinson. I did not take him for a clergyman, though he was dressed in black, for he was by no means solemn; on the contrary, he told several droll stories. But there was one very odd thing about him, that he continually interlarded his stories with an exclamation, bottles and corks! This seemed so strange that I could not help at last asking him why he did so, saying that they did not seem to improve his stories at all. 'Don't they!' said Mr. Robinson; 'I'm glad to know that, for I merely used those words by way of experiment.' 'Experiment,' said I, 'how do you mean that?' 'Why, I will tell you,' he replied; I rather pride myself on telling stories, and wish to make my stories as good as they can be. Now, I observed that you told several very pleasant stories, and that you continually made use of some very strong words as interjections. Now, I can't use such words, for they are irreverent towards the Almighty, and I believe actually sinful; therefore I wanted to try whether I could not find words that would answer the purpose as well, and be quite innocent at the same time.' The reproof," added the officer who was telling the story, "had an effect on me, and very much contributed to my breaking myself of the habit of profane swearing."

Now, my friends, I only add, think of "bottles and corks," when some more objectionable word is half-way out of your mouth, and stifle it before it succeeds in getting utterance.

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Religion.

HERE is but one religion," said an Irish countryman to me one day.

"You mistake, my friend," I replied; "there are many religions, and there is but one way

of salvation."

This set me thinking. There are indeed many forms of religion in the world: to enumerate them would be to waste time and paper to no purpose. In the ice-bound regions, and under the sultry sun's unclouded glare; where the gentle dews and rains descend, causing "fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," and in the vast, trackless, arid deserts-in every clime and age man has had a religion. And yet but one Saviour-but one Saviour provided for all this earth with its teeming millions! But one since God first formed it, and placed man in the earthly paradise. But one for the Jew; but one for the Turk; but one for the Germans, and the French; but one for the English; but one for the Irish !

In the time when this Saviour trod the earth, being wearied by a long journey, He one day sat on the side of a well, until there came a woman out of the city near to draw water. Sorely in need of rest and refreshment, yet His "meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work." She was ready enough to talk about religion of different modes of worship-though she was leading a wicked life; but our Lord showed her that "God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth;" and led her on to feel and confess herself a sinner, and own Him as her Lord.

This reminds me of a very striking incident in the life of a lady who has been much used in proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation, which I do not remember ever to have seen in print. Passing along a road one day, distributing books and tracts, she met a gentleman in a clerical dress,

and offered him one. He received it somewhat ungraciously, remarking stiffly,

66

'Madam, I have a religion."

"And, sir," she replied, "I have Christ!"

Some time afterwards, she found herself hemmed in by a crowd, in the grey twilight of declining day, when some one pressed up closely to her side, saying in low but distinct. tones, "I have Christ now!" and immediately was lost in the throng.

I

These thoughts occupying me, I slept and dreamed. dreamt I had been introduced into a large and spacious mansion, which was to be my abode from thenceforth. I was very much gratified by the style and grandeur of the place; its height and architecture; the lofty rooms opening out of one another-to say nothing of its adornings and appointments. After proudly enjoying all this to my heart's content, I felt a desire to descend into an open space which ran round the basement story, and which, strangely enough, I had failed to examine ere I passed up the broad staircase to the apartments above. To my great surprise, as I walked round I discovered that the windows here were low and mean; and not only so, but some of them were partially closed up, so that they could have admitted very little light. They shook and rattled in the old rotten frames, so that I thought every moment the few remaining panes would fall out. This led to the desire to look into the interior; so I entered by an aperture, and found that the view inside was just as dismal and discouraging as it was outside. Here all appeared to be wood-work, without any solid masonry; and that in the worst and most dilapidated condition. The staircases (and there were several) which led to the chambers of state overhead were broken away and worm-eaten : walls, passages, and bare floorings were all in the same rotten and shaky condition.

"Ah me!" I exclaimed; "what an unsafe state in which to live! This house must assuredly come down, and then all who are in it will come down with it. What madness