"A good name is better than riches;" it is beyond all price; you can't afford to lose the smallest bit of it.

Once more; least of all, last of all, can I afford to lose or to endanger my soul and its eternal interests. Let every one of us reflect upon these wise words spoken by our Saviour,"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" And if even such gain would be a loss, how then when all that a man gains, all that he gets in exchange for his soul's eternal salvation and happiness is only some brief pleasure of vice that leaves remorse and misery behind it, and, perhaps, sinks a man in poverty and shame, and sends him to an early grave. No! this is what I can't afford; what, my friend, you can't afford either. For your soul and for mine, the world, the flesh, and the devil may bid high; but they never can bid high enough; and if the tempter were to say, and if he could keep his word, and, pointing to all the kingdoms of the world, made the offer—“ all these things will I give thee," on the condition "if thou wilt fall down and worship me," our wisdom would be, in the conviction that we can't afford to strike the bargain, to say "get thee behind me, Satan." And yet there are poor blockheads by the thousand who sell their souls for drink or for lust. There is a queer old proverb to this effect, "how ugly you look, as death said to the man who had cut his throat ;" and, in a similar jeering manner, Sin and Satan turn round upon the stupid wretch who, having sold himself to vice, is ruined by it. Rely upon it we can't afford to lose our souls, and therefore can't afford to sin, for through sin the soul is lost; and can't afford to reject the good news by which we are told to believe in Jesus, for by such believing the soul is saved.

Such were some of the thoughts suggested by what I saw as 1 rode on the top of the omnibus on the occasion to which I

referred at the beginning of this address. These thoughts I leave with you, in the hope that they are conformable with sound sense, and capable of doing good in showing us all some of the things which, if we know our own interest, we shall feel that "we can't afford."

GEORGE PHILIP AND SON, PRINTERS, LIVERPOOL.

"THE ENGLISH OF IT."

THE use, the very common use, of this expression is just one out of a thousand evidences that might be mentioned of the Englishman's very good opinion of himself, of his perfect satisfaction with his own character, of his serene conviction and thankful assurance that he is not as other men,—that, in one important moral property at all events, he is greatly superior to all the rest of the world. For what does this expression mean, or, to speak more carefully, what do we intend it to mean when we use it? Whatever the it may stand for when we say "the English of it,” we wish to convey the idea that "the English of it" is the truth of it,—the plain, simple, straightforward, blunt, out-spoken, unvarnished, and unadorned "truth of it." Now the phrase in question indicates the Englishman's belief that it is the proud distinction of his noble self and of his noble race to love the truth, to speak the truth, and to abhor and shun all falsehoods, shams, unrealities, and humbugs. "The Irish of it" may be this, "the Scotch of it" that; "the French of it" one thing, "the Italian of it" another; in all these ways of saying or doing a thing there is more or less of prevarication, of equivocation, of dissimulation, of hypocrisy, of pretence, of make believe, and many other bad things; but "the English of it" is all veracity, candour, frankness, ingenuousness, and everything else that is good. I do not know whether the

Englishman stands quite as high as all this in the estimation of those whose superior he believes and declares himself to be. We have now and then heard of "perfidious Albion." Anyhow, it may be well for us to bear in mind the sensible words of Solomon-"Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips." If "the English of it" were a phrase of foreign invention, if it had originated in a deep and strong impression made by English character upon the minds of Dutchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, or other foreigners, I think it would have great value; but being, as I have reason to suppose, a purely native expression, we must take off it the discount due to our self-love, and to that proverbial blindness to their own faults from which Englishmen can boast no exemption.

Let us hope that "the English of it" is a phrase of which we are not altogether unworthy; let us try to make ourselves ever more and more worthy of it; but there are a good many facts that rather tell against us, and show that we take rather too much for granted when we assume that "the English of it" and the truth of it are one and the same thing. It is possible for an Englishman, a true born Englishman, an Englishman in whose veins there is not a drop of un-English blood, to say and to do many things that are not in harmony with what is meant by "the English of it." He may be a sneak, he may be a coward, he may be a liar, he may be a hypocrite, he may be two-faced, he may say one thing and mean another; and it is all nonsense to say that such a character and such conduct are un-English, if Englishmen are no more free from these faults than other people. When we just think of the many swindles-great and small-that are perpetrated by Englishmen, one's faith in "the English of it," as expressive of truth and honesty and honour, is a good deal shaken.

I