'In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride.'
'God overthroweth the words of the transgressor.'

The last four of these verses point distinctly to the inference that God recompenses our motives by the direct results of our words; the statement about the fruit of the lips' being repeated no less than four times in similar terms.* Elsewhere, again, we are told that 'The preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the Lord' teaching us that there is such a possibility as governing, in His Strength Who made it, that 'unruly member.' It was His express promise to Moses and Jeremiah, as we have already noticed, to be with their mouth' and teach them what to say; a promise renewed by our Lord to His disciples. He told them how the special office of the Divine Spirit of Truth should be thus to guide them in word as well as act; and His promise was visibly fulfilled when the Fiery Tongues descended upon them at the Pentecostal outpouring, the emblem of their wonderful power henceforth to speak 'the words of life' to people of every language under heaven. Long before, those 'cleansing fires' of the Holy Ghost had been typified by the 'live-coal' laid upon the lips of the Prophet Isaiah; now all had come to pass, and even the tongue of every baptised Christian was to be 'holiness to the Lord.' But is the power of speech so employed throughout Christendom? That is a question for each individual conscience to press upon its own self-examining thoughts; and it will not be answered satisfactorily, unless there be a real 'keeping' of the mouth with patient, heedful care.

The Germans have an admirable proverb

'Sprechen ist silbern,
Schweigen ist golden.' +

And the very pith and core of Solomon's advice on this subject is to the same effect.

'In the multitude of words. there wanteth not sin; but he that refraineth his lips is wise.'

'He that hath knowledge spareth his words.'

'He that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.'

These truly golden precepts might, we think, with advantage be impressed upon the minds of every young person at the outset of life. 'Silence is a great power!' was once said to ourselves by a wise and experienced friend, and the axiom made a lasting and most useful impression. It is indeed a 'power' in so many ways-a check on temper, a guard against untruthfulness, impurity, and malice, and the greatest of all restraints on being angry without a cause.' For it is indisputable that anger controlled and kept back from hot, fierce expression in the first moment of rage, becomes easier of subjugation than if

* Proverbs xii. 14; xiii. 2; xviii. 20 and 21.
+ Speech is silver, but silence is golden.

it had been allowed unbridled vent, and permitted to gather intensity from expression. This is doubtless the reason why our Lord associates together the sin of anger and the use of unchristian terms of reproach (S. Matthew v. 21-22); and S. James joins the 'slow to speak, slow to wrath' which we quoted in a former chapter. Nor must we forget that S. James makes this duty of strictly guarding the tongue his test of the very existence of religion: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue. . . . that man's religion is vain.'

But Solomon lays down specific prohibitions against certain kinds of words; foremost among them being of course every class of untrue

ones.

'The lip of truth shall be established for ever; but a lying tongue is but for a moment.'

'Lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.'

'Deceive not with thy lips.'

'An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour.'

'He that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.'

'As the madman that casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, "Am I not in sport?""

'A flattering mouth worketh ruin.'

'A false witness will utter lies.'

'A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.'

In some of these verses all the different forms of inaccuracy in making statements about our fellow-men, which are so common, are condemned and classed with 'false witness.' In others, the habit of what are called 'polite white lies'—a kind of falsehood terribly common among even the professedly religious-are attacked. All those flattering speeches administered to gratify our neighbour's vanity and conceal our own extremely scanty share of good-breeding, or hospitality, or generous pleasure in another's welfare, are by Solomon bluntly called 'hypocrisies,' as they deserve to be. When shall we realise what Carlyle has fitly termed the 'eternal bankruptcy' of these paltry shams, and that falsehood is literally 'current' but for a moment,' while truth alone shall 'prevail' and last for ever? Who is deceived by these pretences of society? Why can't we learn to be truly courteous, instead of hypocritically polite, in matters small and large? One of our choice writers has said-Charity and prudence are not parasitical plants which require poles of falsehood to climb up upon. It is often extremely difficult in the mixed things of this world to act truly and kindly too; but therein lies one of the great trials of a man, that his sincerity should have kindness in it, and his kindness truth. . . . . It will be the business of a just and refined nature to be sincere and considerate at the same time. This will be better done by enlarging our sympathy so that more things and people are pleasant to us, than by increasing the civil and conven

tional part of our nature, so that we are able to do more seeming with greater skill and endurance.'*

And it is so; we allow ourselves in falsehood, and actually stoop to the uttering of 'small lies,' (IF there be such? Solomon does not seem to recognise them !) rather than compel our churlish hearts to feel kindly towards an interrupting visitor, magnanimously to a triumphant opponent, or liberally towards some claim which compels us to sacrifice personal convenience to the comfort or welfare of another. Who was it that, with every knock at his study door (or such like hindrance to his important work) used to remind himself that it, also, was God's Voice, demanding his patient and willing attention? Would it not be a great help towards courteous sincerity thus to meet all the petty distractions and tediums of everyday life? 'It is my Father's call to help or cheer another of His great Family.' The difficulty of being agreeable and yet truthful would to a great extent vanish, if we thus began at the right end, and trained our hearts instead of only our manners. And, oh! how much more easily would children learn thus to be nicely behaved in company,' as the phrase goes; for children are as a rule warm-hearted, but careless of appearances; they would infinitely sooner control themselves from the higher motive of a real charity (that 'seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, doth not behave herself unseemly ') than for the irksome and often incomprehensible dicta of mere 'propriety.'

SHORT PAPERS ON THE LAW OF ENGLAND.

No. I.

ONE of the fundamental maxims of English jurisprudence is, that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse,' or, as it stands in Latin, ignorantia legis non excusat, that is to say, that ignorance of the law is never admitted as a plea in defence of a wrong-doer, for every one is supposed to know the law. At first sight this might seem a somewhat hard saying, since no one yet has ever mastered thoroughly English law in all its branches, while by far the majority of English men and women have the very barest acquaintance with its rudiments; and yet, if the reader will consider a moment, he will at once see that if ignorance of the law were once admitted as a valid excuse, it would be impossible either to redress wrongs or punish crimes, unless it could be proved that the offender had full knowledge that what he had done was forbidden, and to attempt to prove such knowledge on his part would in many, I might say most, cases, be well nigh a hopeless task. Wisely then does the law proclaim that ignorance cannot be pleaded as a shield for offences against its authority, and that every man

* Friends in Council,' Essay on Truth. We have italicised the closing sentence because of its exceeding and useful suggestiveness in this question of social truth.

shall be deemed to have full knowledge of his country's code; for no mere human system of government can enter thoroughly into the motives that sway humanity, or make full allowance for the possible circumstances and temptations of offenders against its rules.

The maxim quoted above, however, seems perhaps more severe in our own country than in others where it is also received, for no existing system of jurisprudence is more complicated than the English law, founded as it was originally on the feudal customs of our ancestors, and supplemented by the decisions of judges during eight centuries, and the statutes of successive Parliaments.

All law is founded on the conscience of mankind, not, be it observed on the consciences of individuals, but on the general feeling of the community, and hence its provisions must be at best general, and bear hardly, at times, on particular cases. Not even the noble system of Equity, introduced into our legal code by the piety and wisdom of the medieval Church, and afterwards administered by the Court of Chancery, can be said to be perfect in its working, though of all human codes it comes perhaps nearest to the golden rule on which it was ostensibly founded, viz., 'that men should do unto others as they would have others do unto them ;' while the harder and narrower system administered by the ordinary tribunals, and known in distinction from equity, as law, too often deals bitter injustice to those whom it was designed to protect; for the more consolidated and crystallised any human system of government becomes, the more likely is it to leave many wrongs without remedy, while if on the other hand it aims at redressing all evils, its decisions and rules are apt to become uncertain and even contradictory, since new forms of crime and fraud are ever starting up, and have to be dealt with as new and unprecedented cases.

I hope my readers will have sufficient patience to wade through these preliminary remarks, for it is only right that they should know somewhat of the hardships which beset our law-makers, and not expect the code under which they live to be perfect and infallible; but remember that unswerving justice cannot be always expected from laws framed by fallible men to meet the needs of a daily-increasing population, and an ever-advancing state of society.

I have been emboldened to write these few papers on the laws of England, from a feeling that in these days more knowledge of this important subject of which they treat is becoming an imperative necessity to the mass of the laity, and especially perhaps to English women, who are too often left, through no fault of their own, in situations of the greatest difficulty; situations for which the law makes no allowance. These papers therefore must be considered to be written mainly for the use of the lady readers of the Monthly Packet, but I shall be only too glad if they prove to be of use to others.

We hear much in the present day of the higher education of women, we even see them too often forsaking their natural duties for vocations

in which their success is doubtful, if not impossible, owing, so some tell us, to defects in their previous training, but more probably, I believe, to their positive want of natural power to grapple with such pursuits; yet with all this talk about higher education, how often do we find the wives and daughters of professional and business men utterly ignorant of the A B C of ordinary business details. This prevailing ignorance on the part of ladies, I can assure my readers, is one of the greatest difficulties solicitors have to cope with: when called suddenly to arrange and wind up the affairs of deceased clients they find themselves unable to extract the slightest information from their nearest and dearest relatives, obliged to work almost entirely in the dark, and liable to make mistakes more or less important at every step, however cautiously they may proceed.

No one can feel more acutely than the family solicitor the gravity of the situation when a client, engaged either in an active profession or in commercial pursuits, dies suddenly, leaving perhaps a young widow or an only daughter totally ignorant of, and incapable of grappling with, the difficulties of her situation. The clergyman may give spiritual comfort in the first days of mourning, and the medical attendant show both kindness and sympathy to the bereaved one; but when the first shock of the loss has passed away, and the mourner has to face her position and liabilities, then the solicitor's task begins, and, believe me, it is no easy one. He finds her probably ignorant of the merest details of her husband's or father's affairs, often not aware even of the extent or source of his income, unable to say if he has made a will or not, unaware of the amount of his debts; and the difficulties of the situation too often only increase with time. An infinity of trouble and vexation, and no little expense would be spared were ladies better acquainted with the rudiments of law and general business, and the design I have in this and the subsequent papers, is to give my lady readers some insight into such matters so that they may not, if left suddenly in such a situation as I have above depicted, feel utterly lost and helpless.

Let us imagine now the case of a lady left suddenly the widow (a too frequent case) of a gentleman engaged in busines, who, perhaps, beyond giving her an allowance for housekeeping expenses, has left her in total ignorance of his income and liabilities, she naturally, as soon as she is able to attend to business, sends for her late husband's solicitor to advise her what course to pursue, and he, most probably knowing little more of her husband's affairs than she does, depends on her for information as to how to proceed. He remembers probably that the deceased made a will, and asks where it is-she does not know. Has she got it. She does not know where it can be. The solicitor suggests that it may possibly be with the bankers of the deceased, and asks what are their names-the widow is uncertain. Has she the banker's book? She is not sure-oh, yes, she has a book in a leather covering bearing her husband's name. Is it a banker's