by Thanksgiving; but if you get into it by New Year's, you will do well. It is true, unexpected hinderances arise. Contingencies which the builder could not foresee have prevented its completion, and he is not at fault. But the wonder is that unexpected contingencies arise with such a remarkable regularity that one scarcely expects his house to be done at the time agreed upon. Again, your little boy is anxiously waiting his first pair of boots. By special contract they are to be sent home on Wednesday, so that his halfholiday may be made glorious. But the halfholiday drags drearily by in old shoes, and when the boots will come home "God and the shoemaker alone know," as a little boy once despairingly said, in such a case. Your little daughter's cloak is to be finished on Friday, to make sure of her having it for Sunday. Saturday morning you call and beg the dress-maker to report progress. It will be ready for you in the afternoon. At seven P. M. you call again, and by waiting two hours in your carriage, on a frosty night, you get it to bring home, with the seams yet rough, and the cape half sewed. The artist who furnishes the illustrations for your monthly magazine solemnly affirms that he will have them completed in time for a seasonable issue. By dogging him morning, noon, and night, you get your magazine out a week after the proper time, and after your table is loaded with letters informing you that the

writer's February number has not been received, and begging to know why. You are going down to the annual meeting of the Tract Society to report the proceedings for your paper. You meet a friend who says he is going, and offers to report for you. That is the last you hear of him, and your paper goes to press without the report. A load of coal is to be brought on Tuesday, and it comes on Thursday. Your "country cousins" are to visit you "the first of next week," and you are kept at home from a pleasant party by their coming down upon you on Friday. Your friend is to call for you at half past six, and he comes lounging along at seven.

This is all wrong. A good business character and a good Christian character require that we should meet our engagements. Unnecessary failure is alike unthrifty and sinful. If we are so unfortunately constituted that we cannot recollect our promises, we ought not to make them. Say frankly, “I will do it if I do not forget; but the chances are that I shall forget." Then make an effort to remember. A great deal of our memory, bad and good, has its seat in the heart. Love thy neighbor as thyself, and thou wilt not forget thy neighbor's parcel any sooner than thine own. It is selfishness that gnaws holes in our memories. We will not take the trouble to try to remember, and so we cause our friends great inconvenience, and injure our own souls. But many

forget their own affairs with great regularity. They are as great a trouble to themselves as they are to others. To such, one can only recommend constant effort to overcome an inconvenient habit, and constant scrupulousness in making engagements. Let them always make it clearly understood that they are not to be depended on, and so avoid the appearance of evil. Let tradesmen promise less recklessly. If they have already engaged to finish by Saturday as much work as they can finish, let them not engage to do more. It is both a wrong and a bad policy. If they state their inability, the work may go to a rival establishment; but if they deceive, somebody will be, not only disappointed, but exasperated, and they will have a poor chance of a second job from the same quarter. Extraordinary skill in workmanship can stand such strains awhile, but the conscience suffers irremediably. If a carpenter does not know that, so far as his plans are concerned, he can begin a barn on the first of March, let him not engage to begin it then. If it is contingent on the completion of another job, let him mention such contingency. The carpenter may lose money, but the man will gain manhood. If it is doubtful whether the tailor can finish the coat in season, let him state the doubt. His neighbor may get the job, but he will keep his word.

Let the world do as it may, the Church should

free its skirts from such sins. If pecuniary interests are not strong enough to keep us in the right path, religious interests should be. All these things come within the scope of religion. The Christian name should be a tower of strength. It should stand for probity, integrity, truth, and honor. But the matter rests with us.

Religion will do for us just what we will it to do, and let it do. If we are content to be furbished for Sundays with an additional coating of respectability; if, when our names are enrolled on the church lists, we consider ourselves booked for heaven, with nothing further to do than show our tickets at the stations; if we look upon religion as something to be adopted, and whose adoption keeps us from going to balls and theatres, reading immoral books, driving and walking on Sunday, and using profane language, then religion will do this for us, and nothing more. But if we stop here, we come sadly short of the glory of God. Stop here we shall, unless we press with determined purpose towards the mark for the prize of a higher calling. Religion will not come down into our lives, purifying, refining, softening, elevating, making every day beautiful, every house the gate of heaven, every body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, unless we bring it down.

T is not religion that gets into religious newspapers now and then, and looks and acts so much like slander, spite, hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, that, if we did not know, we should certainly christen it by such names; nor is it religion that creeps into the churches, and sows seeds of dissension, which spring up and bear fruit a thousand-fold, in ex parte councils, seceding cliques, angry minorities, insolent majorities, degrading rivalries, heart-burnings, and jealousies. Examining some issues of the "religious press," and observing the charges and refutations, the criminations and recriminations of religious men and religious bodies, one feels constrained to cry out imploringly:

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,

For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight,

For 't is their nature, too: