or worldly prudence to reflect maturely before we decide, the very contrary ought to be our rule of action in matters involving the problem of right and wrong. In the latter case the verdict lies with our moral feeling; here, with very rare exceptions, the spontaneous impulse of our nature is on the side of virtue, and here, therefore, we may with far more safety trust the native promptings of the heart than the interested arguments of the head.

Amongst the trite sayings that have come down to us, none are more placed under contribution than "Think well before you decide," and "Second thoughts are best." Not a word is to be said against these maxims, so long as their application is restricted, as has been just remarked, to the ordinary transactions of commercial life or of worldly prudence. But they fail when applied to moral questions, with respect to which it is safer and better to act on the principle that first thoughts are best; because the Almighty Creator has manifested Himself within us by the all-powerful agency of conscience, and where the heart is not depraved by habitual sin, and where conscience is not blunted by a long uninterrupted course of vice, the first promptings of our inward monitor may be fairly considered to give out the oracle of God; by its voice our steps should be guided and our actions regulated.

We ought to be on our guard, so that we be not led to misapply the object of the precept which forbids us "to follow the multitude," by construing it so as to justify singularity, or the affectation of

it, in the ordinary courtesies of social life; neither should we make it our excuse for acting apart from the commonly accepted maxims of good breeding in relation to outward demeanour and universal custom. Every prudent person should carefully avoid the affectation of singularity, and refrain from exhibiting himself in the garb of eccentricity. The text has wholly and exclusively a moral bearing, and relates to things that come properly within the domain of religious sentiment and of practical ethics. In every instance of this kind, when a whisper of remonstrance is breathed forth from our conscience, it behoves us to maintain our integrity and to avoid the common path, notwithstanding the thousands or tens of thousands by whom it may be trodden, for human example can never plead for us a justification for saying or doing anything which is in conflict with our moral sense. In all matters appertaining to ethics it does not become us to determine our course by the counting of heads, for we have a far higher motive for action in the verdict pronounced by a tribunal from which there is no appeal the tribunal of our inner spiritual sense. Heaven forefend that truth, with its manifold relations and dependencies, should ever be made to rest on the number of people who profess to receive it, or rather who do not care to differ about it, from clamorous demagogues or the unthinking mass; for then, indeed, few things would assume such a variety of shifting and fleeting shapes as this so-called truth.

Nor should we be indifferent to the good opinion of those amongst whom our lot is cast, nor heedless

of their censures; but both the one and the other might well be held by us in light esteem when weighed against the convictions of our reason and the verdict of our conscience. If I rightly appreciate the significance of the text precept, it forbids us to receive the law from another in matters involving ethical action, but to decide for ourselves as moral and responsible beings. Let it not be supposed that this is a very easy matter, or that it can always be put into practice by those who are deficient in strength of character. To take an independent course in certain cases may expose us to the risk of losing the favour of those with whom we desire to continue in friendly and intimate relationship. Sad enough it is that honest differences of opinion should sever social and friendly ties that may have been preserved for years; still those ties can hardly be of the strongest if they be capable of being snapped asunder by reason of an honest conviction which does not permit us to think and act precisely like one who professes himself our friend. But be the consequences what they may, all private and personal considerations must give way to a paramount sense of moral duty. It costs us pain at times when we are obliged to oppose ourselves to the cherished opinions, and, as we may think, the honest prejudices, of those with whom we have been living in friendship and brotherhood; but no friendship, how much soever cemented by time and mutual obligations, ought to prefer a claim to coerce conscience or to impose silence and inaction when duty demands plainness of speech and promptness of deed. If human

friendship is only to be maintained at the sacrifice of principle, we must reconcile ourselves to letting it go. If few have the moral courage to brave the battle, especially when the voice of the majority is against them, the greater is the merit of those who are ready to vindicate the in-dwelling of God in their hearts, by resolutely adhering to what they feel to be right and good in the face of the world's difference, holding firmly to the principles of honesty and truthfulness, and cherishing that independence of mind which Scripture enjoins us to preserve when it admonishes us "not to follow the multitude for evil."

XVII.

THE DAY OF BLOWING) יום הזכרון ON

THE TRUMPET" (NEW YEAR).

בצל כנטותו נהלכתי :

"Like a shadow, as it declineth, I am passing away."Ps. cix. 23.

LISTEN, congregants, to these monitory words; attune your reflections to their gravity; and then you may perchance catch something of the living colour of the day which finds us met together in holy convocation. The text is, I grant, deeply tinged with meditative poetry, but there is in it more of sober prosaic reality than of hyperbole. It chimes in with the reflections proper to a day from which the Synagogue has long been accustomed to date the New Year,' and it describes in

1 The custom of combining with "the day of blowing the trumpet" (yn D1') the festival of New Year dates back to a period subsequent to the Babylonian exile, and it is probable that it may have had its origin in the emancipation of the people of Judah from the Chaldean bondage. The Mosaic law fixes for the beginning of the year the vernal equinox, which corresponds in point of time with the exodus from Egypt, but for more than two thousand years the Jews have made the new year coincide with the autumnal equinox. This change from the month of Nisan to that of Tishri, according to Dr. Kalisch, was introduced when that growing consciousness of human

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