belongs rather to the sixth Commandment, the practical exhibition of that duty in regard to almsgiving may be said to fall more properly under the eighth. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we see the measure which will hereafter be measured again to those who mete as Dives did to the poor; and how often our poet has alluded to that parable I shall have occasion to mention in a later section.*

The parable of the prodigal son has another, and more blessed lesson to teach, besides the evils and injustice of prodigality—a lesson fitted for the pulpit rather than for the stage; but the stage may seize at least upon that portion of the story which represents how the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty,' Prov. xxiii. 21, and how 'want shall come as an armed man' upon the sluggard and the dissolute, Prov. vi. 11.

All things that are,

Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker, or a prodigal,

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return;
With over-weather'd ribs, and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 6.

Mr. Bowdler has not spared this fine passage, but he has allowed what follows to stand without

* See below, Sect. 16.

curtailment. Oliver is speaking, in As you like it, to his unkind and unnatural brother, Orlando :

Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?

Act i. Sc. 1.

The same parable is alluded to in the 1st Part of King Henry IV. Act iv. Sc. 2; and again in the 2nd Part of that play, Act i. Sc. 2; in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc. 3; and once more in the Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 3.

On the other hand, the poor widow who, in putting her two mites into the treasury, gave ‘all her living,' Mark xii. 44, was, I suspect, in our poet's thoughts, when he wrote:

Fool. How now, nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs,* and two daughters!

Lear. Why, my boy?

Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my coxcombs myself.

Against the evils of covetousness, which the Bible denounces as 'idolatry,' our poet has given us, in like manner, no feeble or unfrequent warning. Thus, in King Henry IV. Part II., he bids us

note

How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object.

Act iv. Sc. 4.

And in Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo hands to the apothecary a sum of money in payment for

Fool's caps.

the poison which the latter, though forbidden to sell it under pain of death, had allowed him to purchase, we read as follows:

There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,

Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not sell :
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none;—

Act v. Sc. 1.

i. e. none as compared with that which I have given you. And, most of all, in Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 3, we find a full and very doleful catalogue of the sins and miseries which arise from the love of money-the root,' as S. Paul teaches us, of all evil.'

There is another species of injustice, of which (as of niggardliness or avarice) the tribunals of this world take no account, and into which, therefore, men are too apt to fall without thought or concern; I mean the misspending of our time and other talents, which God has lent us to occupy and to trade with for His glory, and for the benefit of our fellow-creatures. The notion of our stewardship in this respect, as well as in respect of our pecuniary means, is one which the Bible leaves us no room to doubt of; and accordingly our poet sets it forth with all faithfulness and with his wonted power :—

Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee.
Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, t'were all alike

As if we had them not.

Spirits are not finely touched

But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Both thanks and use.

Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 1.

Moreover, we know how the Bible condemns the purpose of doing evil that good may come; see Rom. iii. 8. In like manner, in the Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio had urged the Court to pronounce in favour of Antonio, against Shylock

Wrest once the law to your authority :

To do a great right, do a little wrong ;—

Portia at once virtuously rejects the plea :

It may not be.

Act iv. Sc. 1.

With regard to the administration of justice, I have noted only the following passages as coming within the scope of my design. It is recorded in the Acts how that

King Agrippa and Bernice came unto Cesarea to salute Festus. And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul's cause unto the king, saying, 'There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix, about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him. To whom I answered, it is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused bave the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.' XXV. 13-16.

Well therefore does Archbishop Cranmer, in King Henry VIII., entreat the Lords of Council who were assembled to condemn him unheard:

I do beseech your lordships,

That in this case of justice, my accusers,

Be what they will, may stand forth face to face, And freely urge against me. Act v. Sc. 2. And well too does the Bishop of Carlisle, in King Richard II., argue the same in behalf of his sovereign against those who had conspired to dethrone

him :

Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear,
Altho' apparent guilt be seen in them:

And shall the figure of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present?

Act iv. Sc. I.

SECT. 12. Of the use and abuse of the Tongue.

'I will speak daggers,' says Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2, using a metaphor which the Bible has made familiar to us. Swords are in their lips,' says the Psalmist, lix. 7. And again, Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows-even bitter words,' lx. 3. And no doubt there are many cases in which this is found by experience to be too true. For instance :

'Tis slander;

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue