sake of your own sanity, not to mention your little ones at home, to raise yourself from the death of this sin, and live again unto righteousness?" Certainly every individual rescued from the slavery and degradation of lust, gambling, and drunkenness does something to break the entail of the physical and mental weakness which is the predisposing cause of idiocy and madness.

In old and populous communities the battle of life presses with a very heavy strain on all classes. Only the other day an advertisement for a door-keeper received nine hundred answers, so hard is it at the present time to get a living. And yet if we can say from our hearts, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want," we can also say with, St. Paul, "None of these things move me." Over-anxiety would never make us mad if, believing that God careth for us, we would cast all our anxiety on Him. But no one becomes mad who only desires enough; it is greediness that maddens. When a man permits money-making to be his ruling passion, and the barometer of his emotions rises and falls with the changes of business, it is not wonderful that his mental balance should be endangered by any sudden storm of financial trial. The only cure for such a man is to believe St. Paul's assurance that "Godliness with contentment is great gain," since we really ought to want nothing more than food and shelter, considering that we brought nothing into this world and can carry nothing out.

This subject ought to make us more charitable, for the more we study cases of insanity the more we see the intimate connection that exists between body and spirit.

A man's

moral nature may become impaired by an attack of sickness or by an accident. What seems to us great wickedness in another may be ill-health or insanity, partial or complete, temporary or chronic. We see people fall into violent passions, especially little children. Now a violent passion or fit of obstinacy may be caused by a temporary congestion of the brain. The consequence of beating a child for this is that the brain, which was already for some cause or other filled with blood, becomes more crowded still. It is hardly ever right to beat a child when in a fit of passion. You will do more with a little one of three or four years of age by management. Take him on your knee and say, "My dear child, you are not well; but when you give me a smile I shall give you a kiss in return."

We may remember reading some years ago in the newspapers of a dignitary of the church, who was both a good and a learned man, having committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity. Sad and strange as it may appear, the fit was caused by nothing greater than a cold. On a Tuesday the bishop had been at a religious ceremony in the open air and caught a chill which produced congestion of the lungs, and on Friday evening he became delirious. But there was no serious apprehension, for he was left alone on Saturday morning. Thus left, he locked the door and wounded himself fatally. When the door was burst open, and his wife and others stood appalled at the ghastly scene, he beckoned mournfully for writing materials, and when a pencil and paper were given to him he could write but one word, mad! We learn from this that it is our duty to take care

of the health of our bodies, for the loss of it may cause our sorrowing friends to see "that noble and sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.” Our mental and even spiritual maladies are often occasioned by some very slight bodily ailment. You must regulate your diet, and otherwise obey nature. Take rest and change the air if you can. Many a time the whole emotional atmosphere which has got wrong gets righted by a good walk. Don't go on wrangling with your wife; go out and change the scene, and you will come back with a sweet temper ready to forget and forgive.

Madness means an unbalanced state of mind. A mind exaggerates things which ought not to have any importance —a word, a look, anything rankles. The religion of Christ has power to change all this. "Let your moderation (sweet reasonableness) be known unto all men," says St. Paul to the Philippians. Let a man pray for power to know and to obey those laws of health which our Father in heaven has appointed in order that His children might have sound minds in sound bodies; let him do this, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep (as a protecting garrison) his heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

"I believe that it is not good for man to live among what is most beautiful; that he is a creature incapable of satisfaction by anything upon earth; and that to allow him habitually to possess, in any kind whatsoever, the utmost that earth can give, is the surest way to cast him into lassitude or discontent."-Ruskin.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments."-Ecclesiastes xii. 13.

E cannot but fall into great error if we attempt to build up systems of religion and morality from a few chapters or verses of the Bible. When that book is put on the rack, and quoted

unfairly, it may be made to say anything. Even the atheist has Scripture authority for his negation in Psalm xiv. 1, "There is no God," if he will only suppress the preceding words, "The fool hath said in his heart." It is the spirit of God's Word taken as a whole, not a few texts

torn from their context, that makes us tion."

"wise unto salva

But however true this is of other books of the Bible, it is especially true of the Book of Ecclesiastes. In this portion of God's Word there are verses that might be used by an unfair disputant to justify both licentiousness and irreligion. The reason is plain. The Book of Ecclesiastes is the record of a man's experience of life. In it the royal preacher, or whoever the writer was, has jotted down all that he did and all that he felt. Bad doings and feelings are put down with honest simplicity—not so in modern biographies or even in autobiographies-as well as good ones; so that we must not stop at single chapters, much less verses, but read the book through and judge of it as a whole.

The Book of Ecclesiastes narrates Solomon's quest or search after the chief good for man-after that one thing wherein his highest happiness consists. It is the log-book, so to speak, of a stout mariner, who, smiting the sounding furrows, struggled hard to touch with his bark of life "the Happy Isles."

In all ages and countries thoughtful men have speculated much about the chief good or greatest happiness of manthe end he should propose to himself all his life long. An ancient writer tells us that in his day there were two hundred and eighty-five summa bona, or chief goods, each of which was advocated by different schools of philosophers.

Solomon devoted himself to this quest after the best thing for man. He endeavoured to find the key to happiness by experiencing every kind of life. He would believe