At first sight one might expect liberality or generosity to be the antagonistic excellence: on the contrary, these may even incline the heart to greed, though of a sort which grasps mainly for the sake of lavishing the more abundantly. But contentment is that infallible antidote we seek nothing of any kind can be coveted, which is not so much as imagined preferable to what is already in possession. Contentment mirrors Omnipotence, inasmuch as it wills whatever is. The pious contented soul is an image of God Almighty, Whose Will no creature resisteth (see Rom. ix. 14-24), and more especially of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who rejoiced in Spirit when He said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth... even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight" (St. Luke x. 21).

The objects we are not to covet arrange themselves under two heads: first, what our neighbour is; secondly, what he has.

For by "house" I think we may fairly understand, not merely any tangible house of bricks and mortar, but also that position in the king

dom of nature or of grace, or in the subordinate conventional kingdom of society, which our neighbour fills. One man inherits a throne and authority, another is a born leader of men, on another love is lavished; another enjoys riches, or knowledge, or pleasure, or intellect, or genius; one is favoured by his circumstances, another by his friends; on some individuals even lofty spiritual endowments are freely poured out. May we not then lawfully covet these good gifts and such as these? St. Paul himself bids us covet earnestly the best gifts," alluding to a class which, however good, did still not amount to spiritual graces (1 Cor. xii. 27-31). But these gifts, as St. Paul contemplates them, were stored in the overflowing treasury of Providence, and were not already assigned to individuals. "Covet to prophesy," he says again, which words recall how, centuries before, Moses, pre-eminent among prophets, had coveted for the whole people of God a supply of his own gift by largess of the Divine Spirit (Num. xi. 24-29). To open our mouths ever so wide, craving to have them filled,

is not to covet wrongfully unless the special morsel we desire belongs to another. Neither can we, speaking accurately, covet such appurtenances of our neighbour as in their very nature are not transferable; for the sake of these we may envy him, but to render covetousness possible his loss must not be simply his loss, but must be contemplated as in some shape or other the condition of our own gain.

That covetousness does strictly involve the idea of superseding, supplanting an owner, as well as of appropriating goods, can (if I mistake not) be illustrated by the following passages from prophecy, which, moreover, bring out the wide meaning of the word "house,"-"Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it" (Hab. ii. 9-11). "Woe unto them that join house to

house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant" (Is. v. 8, 9). Here the penalty foretold is not that the encroacher shall himself become houseless and homeless, but that his house shall remain vacant of its tenant: and connecting this circumstance with the standard of retribution set up under the Jewish Dispensation, "... Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (Ex. xxi. 23-25), and with the special enactment against a detected false witness, "Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother" (Deut. xix. 19), we infer that the deadly venom of covetousness lurks not in simple desire of acquisition, but in willingness or callousness as to dispossessing another.

If we may view the house as in fact representing the personal standing,—that is, to all intents

and purposes the actual personality of our neighbour, we the more readily conceive why "house" stands foremost in the prohibitive list. St. Paul, in his Christ-like zeal for souls, shows us how to desire yours is very short of desiring you (see 2 Cor. xii. 14); covetousness, by a sort of reverseparody of heavenly-mindedness, is so to desire that which another possesses as to become recklessly indifferent in regard to the lawful owner.

At which point comes to light a parallel between the Fourth and Tenth Commandments. Both are observed by such self-mastery as defers to the prior claim, be it of God or man, on somewhat which otherwise we might innocently have wished to appropriate and enjoy; both are violated by rebellious disregard of that claim, however our conduct may outwardly shape itself. And the Sabbath-breaker (to use the old term) who dispossesses Almighty God of that day which forming a portion of time forms no less a portion of eternity His habitation (Is. lvii. 15) corresponds with the covetous man whose evil will would fain supplant his brother man.