noses, can say, 'Ha, ha! what is man? he is but a worm of the hour: what is woman? "frailty, thy name is woman ;"'-girls who think that man is inconstant ever, and who wait for the beautiful Ideal to turn up-such persons are cynics, but it is a dangerous game to play. We are not all young Hamlets or Byrons. If we indulge in it too much, we shall fall into a vile arrogancy, a dangerous conceit. A wiser estimate of his fellows is taken by the kindest, softest, yet most manly, the most pregnant, powerful, knowing, and trenchant intellect that ever lived-who never once stooped to be cynical nor to sneer -when he says, 'What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!' Surely the lowest specimen of a being so described, and described truly, is worth more than the curl of a boy's lip, the elevation of a turn-up nose, and the meagre salutation of

a sneer.

TOO-GOOD PEOPLE.

Saints-The Apostles not Saints in a modern sense-Hood's Lines-The Religiosus-Narrowing forms-Cowper-Confucius-Buddha-Stylites-Self-sacrifice.

D

ID a history of mistaken words exist, surely the word 'saint' would hold a chief place in it. It means much more and it means much less than people put to its account.

In

one sect of the Church, nay, in two (for the Roman and the Greek Christians have much reverence for saints), the word means little less than a Deus Minor or demi-god. Indeed, the invocation and worship of saints anticipate the judgment of God by the judgment of the Pope and the Church, which, by a canonisation legally conducted, places a man side by side with Christ, and makes him at the least a semi-mediator and quasi demi-god in the troops of the blessed. It is needless to refer the Pope

as did the patriarch of Constantinople-to the Scriptures, to prove that there is no tittle, no, not the shadow of a shade of evidence in favour of saint worship or saint invocation. The Roman Church has found the belief therein too profitable. Paul and Barnabas, while performing miracles at Lystra, so smote the hearts of the people that they would have worshipped them had not the ministers of Christ rent their clothes and cast dust upon their heads,1 and run in upon the people, crying out, 'Sirs, why do ye these things? We, also, are men of like passions with you.' And yet people are enjoined to put up prayers to these saints, dead, who, did they live, would think all such blasphemy! Or, again, to make the logical inference stronger, Paul and Barnabas, corrupt and living on earth, refused to be worshipped or invoked; but incorrupt and living in heaven, permit the dreadful sacrilege, because they are saints. Here, then, is one source of misapprehension. If Saint Paul, i.e., sanctus Paulus, the blessed Paul is a demi-god, we do not wonder at the Protestant or Bible Christian hating the name; nor

A sign of the intense horror with which these devout ChristianJews beheld anything like idolatry or man-worship. It would have been thought impossible to mark awe-full disapprobation in a stronger way; but the Book of Revelation affords a stronger instance. St. John wishes to fall at the feet and worship the angel of the Lord, and he is immediately and severely rebuked-'See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship GOD.' Apocalypse, xix. 10.