fore, in essence, a miracle." Perhaps he is right. If we were only wise enough to believe that the great Ruler makes no utterly unalterable law; that He governs, teaches, and rules mankind, in some way, with or without infringing laws which He has made-we might believe that dreams were sometimes agents of the Lord; that, like Joseph, we might be "warned of God in a dream." It is certainly not inconsistent with His justice, nor with the known law of conscience, that the murderer of Maria Martin should be, as he undoubtedly was, discovered by a dream, dreamed repeatedly by the victim's mother; nor will it be inconsistent with the mercy of the great Ruler that Colonel Gardiner, on the eve of a guilty assignation, should be warned, and turned from his sinful purpose, by a dream. Mr. Vanderkiste, an excellent city missionary, relates, in his work on the Dens of London, a dream by which a young woman was prevented from committing murder; and, in the month of January, ten years ago, a curious dream was published in the papers, which was verified by the address of the dreamer, and by personal inquiry. A woman's husband lay convalescent in the hospital: the wife dreamed that he choked himself with a piece of meat, and ran to inquire about him. The answer given was, that the husband was well, and was at that moment eating his dinner. She turned away, and at that moment her husband did choke himself; and, although surgical aid was at once on the spot, and his throat was opened, he died. Here, then, was a futile dream without adequate result; and here we must leave the subject of mental history and phenomena.

We know very little what we do know we had better use in humility and faith. Even a dream may serve the purpose of Providence, or it may be simply ridiculous and empty. Man, at least, is not the only animal that dreams. Horses whinny and plunge in their sleep; cats catch mice, and in imagination start and purr; and dogs try over again the hunt :—

"The stag-hounds, weary with the chase,

Lay, stretched upon the rushy floor,
And urged, in dreams, the forest race,

From Teviot Stone to Eskdale Moor."

MONGST many of the ideas of a perfectly innocent life, which some persons take up, there appears to be one which delights in such an extreme generosity and want of caution, that people who take care of themselves pass for stingy, mean, and unworthy persons. It is a common saying which attaches itself to a man who is prudent, "Ah, he knows how to take care or himself!" as if doing so absolutely detracted from his virtue and value.

In good truth, this knowledge does nothing of the sort. A man or a woman who knows how to take care of himself or of herself is much the better person for it. If a man does not know how to take care of himself, how shall he know how to take care of others? The objection to the philosopher of old, who wanted to advise others how to govern a state when he could not govern his own wife, holds good here. So much is this the case, that in every community the first men are those who know "how to take care of themselves," and, having done that pretty well, they learn how to take care of others. Applying this in a large way, and finding that system, and

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system alone, succeeds in the world, and that the chief certificate of a man's success is a certain wise selfishness, a number of clergymen and others have commenced, first in Ireland, and then in England, a society called the Systematic Beneficence Society," by which they seem to intend to reduce almsgiving, and the charitable help which one man extends to another, to a certain system, as regular in its method as our present system of taxation: nay, what is more, one of them, Dr. Candlish, a gentleman of much learning and eloquence, proves that the early Christians did the same thing, and that the apostles recommended a certain amount of voluntary taxation, which, being made ready for them, and "laid by" at certain periods, was taken up every now and then by the travelling presbyters, or by the apostles, as early bishops of the church, and afterwards distributed to the poor.

Now, amongst the many fallacies of the careless and profuse, there is not one perhaps more prevalent than that which connects a causeless liberality and profusion with true religion. Generosity is of such an enticing nature, that we all love it. When a man foolishly spends his estate, to the great detriment of his neighbours and servants and the irreparable injury of his family, we are ready to pardon him. "Poor fellow!" we say, "he was too generous: he was nobody's enemy but his own." We pardon Charles Surface in the play, who would sell everything, even to the pictures of his ancestors, rather than Joseph Surface, who indulges in the vice of hypocrisy. We are not going to defend hypocrisy,

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nor to declare that Joseph, with his sententious maxims, was a whit more amiable than Charles. He was an unmitigated scoundrel a type of that taking-care-of-himself which we have no desire to recommend; but what we want our readers to consider is this, that both brothers were equally far away from true wisdom and goodness. Rackety, insane behaviour, midnight orgies, indulgence in loose society, and the mad profusion, miscalled generosity, which one sort of young man indulges in, are absolutely more widely harmful than the sly and less manly vices in which the other, who seeks the world's applause, indulges.

There can be little doubt that, knowing the uncertainty of life, its chances, changes, and accidents, the philosopher would be as careful as the Christian is enjoined to be, and that any man who reflected would find-as he does find-the necessity of laying by. But the Christian apostle goes yet further in ethics. He tells a man plainly that he does not live for himself, and that he must support others; he is rather indignant to find that when he comes among them he has sometimes to whip up the languid and ungenerous givers; and then, with a worldly provision and prevision which would do honour to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he says, "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come" (1 Cor. xvi. 2). Hereby he presses on us the duty of a provision for old age: he addresses also a community which earns its subsistence as the great majority of us do precariously, by trade or profession—and the