which they must endure. Because they are accepted of God -temptation must prove them."

Such trials are undoubtedly severe to our corrupt and stubborn nature, but they are salutary, and by aid from on high may be safely encountered. Religious resolution, pure and firm, is the grand instrument of triumph. Pyrrhus tempted Fabricius first with an elephant, a greater and more powerful beast than he had ever before seen; the next day he tried to bribe him with gold and promises of honor; but the upright Fabricius replied, "I fear not thy force, and I am too wise for thy fraud."

"Gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity." The choicest spirits on earth know not the best strength hidden within them, till temptation calls it forth, and shows them how much, in a righteous conflict, they are able to endure. Every evil we make our slave by subjugation, instead of our tyrant by indulgence, becomes an efficient auxiliary for good. The Sandwich Islander believed that the strength and courage of the enemy he slew, passed into himself; in like manner, but in a nobler sense, we win strength from the temptations we resist.

Our desires are the feet of

Perpetual watchfulness is the only guaranty of present purity and eternal joy. The Egyptian hieroglyphic for God, was an eye resting on a sceptre, indicating that he sees and rules all things. "Fear ye not me, saith the Lord, and will ye not tremble at my presence?" the soul, on these we stand or fall. best guide for ourselves. "I keep possesses but little of the dignity of a man, whose heart is led by his senses; and he is still less a Christian, whose senses are not restrained by his heart.

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Apostolic practice is the under my body." He

CHAPTER VII.

INTEGRITY;

OR, THE TRADESMAN PROSPERED.

We

"THE integrity of the upright shall guide them," Proverbs 11: 3. What Solomon meant by integrity will be easily perceived from various passages hereafter to be adduced. will arrange the present discussion under the following heads. The integrity of the upright insures safety the most secure; honor the most exalted; profit the most enduring; and rewards the most glorious.

In the first place, strict integrity insures to its possessor the most secure safety. It is not always innocent to be quiet in the possession or pursuit of what in a worldly sense is lawful. Because a man's bed is his own, it does not follow that he is therefore allowed to idle away his precious time thereon; neither will the legality of any branch of business justify a man in the sight of God who destroys body and soul in its intemperate pursuit. Honesty is ever the best policy; the only way to be secure from harm in our pursuits, is to be habitually frugal and upright. Sir Mathew Hale had learned from Solomon, that "a wicked man taketh a gift out of his bosom, to pervert the ways of judgment." But he always repelled such temptations with courteous integrity. A wise and upright conscience will never justify an evil practice. "Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain." The rules of the Gospel are decisive on this point. Let us not "do evil that good may come. Let not your good be evil spoken of. Ab

stain from all appearance of evil." Hale was a consistent Christian, in his life proving that he belonged to the

"Salt of the earth, the virtuous few,

Who season human kind."

He knew well that, however deep in the bosom of the unrighteous his gift might be hid, a day approaches when the great Judge of all will "vindicate his omniscience from all the insults put upon it in the world by those foolish men, who were not ashamed to do those things in the face of God himself, in which they would not have wished the meanest of his creatures to detect them." No sin has a deeper dye of wickedness than bribery, and none is more clearly marked for awful punishment. All the faithful will remember the command given to Abraham, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect."

"Shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ?

And sell the mighty space of our large honors,
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon,

Than such a Roman."

But it requires stern integrity and high moral courage to withstand the temptations of worldly policy and selfishness. “To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one picked out of ten thousand." Our will must be conformed to the high principles of immutable justice, or personal integrity cannot be maintained. "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely; but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.” sons must encounter difficulties; to overcome them is the prerogative of the pure and the just. They who enter the furnace in faithfulness to themselves and the highest virtue, shall not miss the form of the fourth in the flames, but shall come forth unharmed; as the Babylonish captives were delivered

All per

through the fire from the infinitely greater calamity of apostasy. For turning aside from the true and safe path, Jacob was chastened to the end of his days, Peter was openly rebuked, Judas and Ananias are left on record, beacons as frightful in their doom as they should be powerful to warn. Man in his best estate is weak, and needs to pray with David, "Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I may not be ashamed. I will walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be merciful to me."

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Integrity is a lofty virtue, one that is a prime element in every trust-worthy character. Says Solomon, "A faithful witness will not lie; but a false witness will utter lies." A true man is moved neither by smiles nor frowns, neither by pecuniary gain nor personal obloquy, to swerve from truth. He is actuated by the strictest law of verity, and therefore is the man to trust.

"His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth."

This leads us to remark, secondly, that integrity is the most exalted honor,—a principle which is declared in the following Scripture. "The poor man walking in truth is better than a rich man of a lie." The man of untarnished integrity may, to preserve his innocence, render himself the poorer in this world's goods; but, in the placid delights of an approving conscience, he carries the greatest wealth-" a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets where no crude surfeit reigns." His outward vision may not glut itself on extended estates and glittering displays; but the immortal tenant of his perishable body grows familiar with those unfading treasures held in reserve, and daily surveys them with rapture through “that inner eye which is the bliss of solitude." Perhaps the angels may say of him that,

"His sober wishes never learned to stray,

But thro' the cool sequestered vale of life
He held the noiseless tenor of his way;"

still the suffrages of all pure and exalted spirits would declare that he whose penury resulted from allegiance to truth, bore the highest honor and deserved the brightest reward.

"Honor's a sacred tie-the law of kings,

The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,

That aids and strengthens virtue when it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not."

Milton finely stated the duty as well as the honor of integrity, and his life was a noble commentary on his precepts. In the introduction to the second book of his "Reason of Church Government," he says, "Surely to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing, to be the displeaser and molester of thousands; much better would it like him, doubtless, to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own true happiness. But when God commands to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal. * * * This I foresee, that should the church be brought under heavy oppression, and God have given me ability the while to reason against that man that should be the author of so foul a deed, or should she, by blessing from above on the industry and courage of faithful men, change this her distracted estate into better days, without the least furtherance or contribution of those few talents which God at that present had lent me; I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all my life after, of discourage and reproach. Timorous and ungrateful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest; what matters it for thee or thy bewailing? When time was, thou couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast