fhould be inftructed, that to pick fruit out of a garden, to take sweetmeats, or any other thing, from a fhelf, a table, or a closet, is a breach of this commandment; and the children of the poor ought in like manner to be told, that to take the turnips out of a field which is not their own, or the ftakes out of a hedge, or the apples which are lying in an orchard, is the road to greater thefts, and is a fin both against God and against their neighbour.

Servants need to be on their guard against temptations of the fame fort. If they would be ftri&tly honest, they as well as children must take care not privately to tafte any thing which is not intended for them; neither should they give away meat or drink to any perfons to whom they dare not acknowledge that they gave it, nor in greater quantities than they would care to own. I will add, that they ought never to expend their mafter's money in any way whatever that is contrary to his wishes. Some fervants are apt to do this for the fake of maintaining, as they call it, the credit of the family, when the mafter is not at all defirous of that fort of credit, but thinks, perhaps, that the expence or fhew made in the housekeeper's room or kitchen is a great difgrace to him. Every mafter's money is certainly his own, and an honeft housekeeper, or other fervant, will feel himself bound to confider only how he may beft fulfil the expreffed or implied wishes of his mafter in every part of the expenditure intrusted to him. For a fervant to take perquifites which

he does not avow, becaufe, perhaps, he dares not, is another practice hardly reconcilable to exact integrity; for though taken in the first inftance from the tradefman, the amount, or perhaps more than the amount, is charged in one way or other to the mafter, so that the fervant should confider himself as taking it from the mafter, whose leave, therefore, he should have for doing it.

I am aware that a fteward, or housekeeper, who acts up to these principles, may be exposed poffibly to much reproach from thofe under him, and to many difficulties, to all which I have only to anfwer, that he who will act a Chriftian part, and endeavor to obtain the favor of God, must run the risk now and then of lofing the favor of his fellow-creatures, and muft himself become an example of felf-denial alfo. That fteward or housekeeper, it is to be feared, is not very honeft, however he may pride himself on his integrity, who has never yet combated any common cuftoms of families, and has never been charged by any one with being too particular.

In buying and felling nothing is more usual than for each fide to try to over-reach the other, and it is little confidered that to do this is, in other words, to steal or cheat. Let me now fuppofe, for argument's fake, that I have nine fheep to fell, and that having pretended there are ten, I take the money for ten, the mistake or ignorance of the buyer being fo great that he does not find me out. "Oh, how fcandalous! every one would fay; this is downright cheat

ing; this is robbing the other man of the value of one fheep. It is what any one ought to be hanged for." Well then, as this is not a reputable mode of cheating, being not a very common one, nor indeed a very easy and practicable way neither, I can effect the fame purpose in the following manner: I have only to pretend that cach fheep is about one-tenth better than it is, that it is one-tenth fatter, and heavier, and finer flavored, and older; I have only to give my word for it, that, for fome reafon or other, the fheep are each of them worth one-tenth more than in fact they are, and then, if I fucceed in my attempt, it is plain that I fhall get the value of one fheep more than my due, just as much as if I cheated in the other way.

To deceive in felling a horse, to cry up his virtues, but to fay nothing of his faults, and to endeavor to get as much money for him with all his faults as if he had no faults at all, is juft in like manner to cheat or fteal. To put falfe marks upon goods, in order to make them appear to be the manufacture of fome perfon in repute, who did not really manufacture them, or even to give a falfe outfide appearance to them, or to call them by a falfe name, or, in fhort, to lay any thing of them which is known by ourselves not to be true, in order to recommend them, is clearly an attempt to cheat, and is a breach of this Commandment.

On the other hand alfo, the way which fome buyers take in order to get what they call a good

bargain, although they may be very proud of it, is often little better than ftealing; they cry down the thing they want to buy, and pretend to fee a thoufand faults in it, not fully believing all they fay; and as to the excellencies of it, they utter not a word; and when perhaps they have driven a poor neceffitous fhopkeeper, or other dealer, down to their price, affecting all the while to think the thing fhamefully dear, they go away and tell their neighbors what a bargain they have got. This practice is as old as Solomon's time: "It is naught, it is naught, fays the buyer, but afterward he boafteth."

In fettling the wages of labor, there is often much fraud attempted on each fide. When a workman or fervant pretends to do more work than he really performs, when he spends more idle time than his mafter knows of, and yet claims the fame wages which are due to one that is diligent, he then on his fide may be faid to cheat or fteal; and, on the other hand, when a mafter works a fervant hard and pays him little; when he takes advantage of the man's willingness and good-nature, or of his modesty and implicity; whenever, in fhort, a master fails to raife his fervant's wages according to his deferts, then the mafter may be faid to cheat or steal. "Give unto your fervants," fays the apostle, that which is juft and equal." There is a cerain point, which may be called the point of juf ice and equality between man and man, which ach fide fhould aim at, and in proportion as this

is miffed, one or the other party fails in the ftrid nefs of his integrity.

To fmuggle, is undoubtedly to cheat or ftea nothing can be more clear than this, and it alfo forbidden in Scripture. "Render," fay our Saviour," to Cæfar, the things which a Cæfar's.". We are to pay "custom to who custom is due, tribute to whom tribute is due Our Saviour chofe rather to work a mirac than to fail in paying tribute himself, and y he did not live under the best of government It is the law of the land which decides to who property fhall belong in a vast variety even queftionable cafes; and both the law of th land and natural juftice are against the fmuggle for it is to be remembered, that if we pay le duty than the law requires, fome other fubje or fubjects must neceffarily pay more, and t fmuggle, therefore, is to take money, not from government merely, as fome felfifh and hal thinking people fuppofe, but from the pocket of these other fubjects.

It would be easy to add many other cafes, an to prove that even this Eighth Commandmen (the one which we are the most apt to make ou boaft of keeping) is broken by all ranks of peo ple, at least in the spirit of it, almost every day for let us confider only for a moment, what leaning there is in every man towards his own fide, whenever any queftion of property is to be decided between him and his neighbor. We ar fure to over-rate our own labor and our own fkill