popular clergyman has occasion again and again to deprecate the fulsome and nauseous praise of which he is made the victim by indiscreet friends, — praise which is sure to provoke in many minds the very opposite impression to that which is intended. Who, again, has forgotten the unfortunate phrase of one of James G. Blaine's political friends, the "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," which in all probability cheated that statesman out of the Presidency of the United States when it was apparently almost within his grasp? How many authors, who think no more highly of themselves than they ought to think, or perhaps even underrate their own abilities and achievements, are supposed to be full of self-conceit, and consequently are ridiculed or scoffed at by the small critics of the day, because their publishers have blazoned to the world, in advertisements and circulars, all the over-laudatory newspaper notices of their books, notices which are more offensive to such authors than the most savage criticism! How much has the cause of temperance been damaged by intemperate advocacy! Finally, and worst of all, how much have the Bible and Christianity suffered from hasty and illconsidered "apologies" by their friends! The damage which all the open attack of the Tolands, Bolingbrokes, and Paines, as well as the covert innuendoes and sneers of the Voltaires and Gibbons, failed to inflict, has been done in no small degree by the arguments of weak and ill-equipped champions of the truth. Let all such zealots ponder the words of Sir Thomas Browne: "Every man is not a proper champion of truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity; many, from the ignorance of those maxims and an inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto

the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; 't is far better, therefore, to enjoy her with peace than to hazard her on a battle."

Classic Wit.

FEW persons are aware that the man who thundered against Verres in the Roman Senate, and blasted Catiline with his lightnings, was a wit as well as an orator, and even deigned to pun when he could make a hard hit by doing so. Though but few of his jests are preserved, they are of such a quality as to show that he had a keen, razor-like wit that could draw blood when he chose. A Roman lady having told Cicero on a certain occasion that she was but thirty years old, "It must be true," replied Tully, "for I have heard her say so these twenty years." When Pompey, who had married Cæsar's daughter, asked Cicero referring to Dolabella, who had joined Cæsar's party - "where is your son-inlaw?" Cicero retorted, "with your father-in-law." nouncing Verres, he declares that he was indeed Verres, for he swept the province; and again punning on the name, others, he says, may be partial to the jus verrinum, which might mean "Verrine law," or "boar-sauce," but not he. When Cicero saw his diminutive son-in-law, Dolabella, girt with a gigantic weapon, he asked, "Who has tied Dolabella to that sword? " "Rem acu tetigisti" ("You have pricked the thing with a needle," that is, you have handled the subject acutely) was the orator's ironical compliment to a senator who had formerly been a tailor.

De

Quintilian celebrates Cicero's urbanitas, the word by which the ancients expressed that peculiar elegance of humor which smacks of the cultivation of a capital; but

the great orator sometimes stooped to coarse facetiousness, as when, in allusion to the Oriental custom of boring the ears of slaves, he replied to a man of Eastern and servile descent, who complained that he could not hear him, "Yet you have holes in your ears! " Of the same character, though perhaps more excusable, is the following retort, mentioned by Mr. Forsyth in his late life of Cicero: "It is never right, nor in good taste, to make a jest on a personal infirmity; but Plutarch mentions a sarcasm that almost justified an exception to the rule. To understand the point, we must remember that a short, thick neck, like that of a bull, was thought by Romans the sign of an impudent, unscrupulous character. Vatinius, a rude and insolent man, whose neck was swollen with tumors, came before him, when sitting as prætor, with some petition or request, which Cicero said he would take time to consider. Vatinius replied that if he were prætor, he would make no question about it. Upon which Cicero retorted, 'Yes; but you see I have not got so much neck [we should say cheek] as you have." "

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A recent English writer, speaking of what he calls the quips" of Cicero, says that "they are among the most trying witticisms extant." Far different was the opinion of the great German scholar and historian, Niebuhr. "The predominant and most brilliant faculty of Cicero's mind," he says, "was his wit. In what the French call esprit, light, unexpected, and inexhaustible wit, he is not excelled by any among the ancients." No doubt there was a flavor of bitterness at times in his jests, and they left a sting behind which was neither forgiven nor forgotten. "He would have been a match for Talleyrand," says his able biographer, William Forsyth, "at a repartee."

A Safe

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THERE are some persons who regard it as Preacher. the highest encomium on a clergyman to say that he is "a safe preacher." By a safe preacher" is meant one who travels by easy stages on the old, orthodox roads; who never bothers his brains with queries about new or improved ones, but jogs on at a comfortable pace, now and then looking out of the coach window to see that all is right, and then dropping to sleep again.

To Christians who love to be "at ease in Zion," such preachers are very acceptable. They never startle the ears of the hearer by original thoughts or novel interpretations of Scripture; and, after listening to them once, he feels that he can doze in his pew without danger. Such preaching promotes Church unity: the hearers are never at loggerheads about the soundness of the doctrine. They had such a preacher once at Rouen, in France. A French priest, speaking of the excitement produced there by Bourdaloue's preaching, when the merchants and mechanics, lawyers and physicians, left their occupations and thronged the church, added: "But when I went there to preach, I put all things right again. Not a man of them left his business."

Little Sins.

Ir is said that in some harbors the timbers of a ship are bored by a little insect, which pierces the stout oak as by a thread of fire, so that it snaps under its own weight, and crumbles into dust. How many men fall to pieces in just the same way! Though made apparently of the sternest stuff, — of the very heart of oak, and proof against the severest strain, they startle us by collapsing in a single day. The truth is, the "Pontic pine" of their minds and hearts was eaten

THE ARTIFICIALITY OF MODERN SOCIETY. 223

into by a swarm of little sins, petty microscopic vices,

till, before they were aware, it was riddled through and through, honey-combed, so as to break at the smallest pressure. Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves; be conscientious about little sins, and you need not trouble yourself to avoid great ones.

The Artificiality of Modern Society.

In looking over a file of old papers, we were much amused by an account of an accident which befell a Southern "carpetbagger." The man, who seems to have been of the composite order of architecture, abused an "honorable gentleman," a fellow-member of a Southern Legislature, whereupon the "honorable gentleman" knocked him down. The wig flew from the carpet-bagger's head, his glass eye was smashed, and his ears dropped under his coat-collar. Considering the extent to which human limbs and organs are now manufactured, that men wear not only false hair, but wooden legs, glass eyes, mineral teeth, guttapercha noses and palates, silver arteries, and ivory-pegged bones, it is not strange that political economists and moralists talk so much about "the artificial construction of

modern society." Who can be sure that any person he talks, trades, or travels with, or even makes love to, is entirely human? As one goes about to-day among his neighbors, he is often tempted to question whether they are entirely human. The whole population seems like the enchanted prince in the Arabian Nights, - upwards flesh, and downwards marble, or like Milton's lion, whose foreparts were live and rampant, while the hinder-parts were "of the earth, earthy," to which they clung. When a policeman picks up a gentleman or lady knocked down by a Jehu