dering at the strange Shape and Fashion of it: But Mr. Cotton, says she, are you sure it is a Shoe?"

It is natural to say next, Be honest; separate yourself and your immediate interest from your reasoning. This is required of the magistrate, and the man should require it of himself; not that his interests are to be renounced, but that they are to have no part in forming his judgment. It is not very easy to reach this state of mind. One feels allegiance to his party, his friends, his property, and it may be an effort to disregard this. Merely for an example,-when a man is making up his mind, or his vote, upon the question of a protective tariff, unless he is on his guard he may almost unconsciously be swerved towards a decision favourable to himself, while if his interests had been upon the other side he would have reached the opposite conclusion. An English statesman was praised and censured in this couplet:

66 Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."

President Roosevelt has wisely said that "in any office the personal equation is always of vital consequence."

It is in view of this that no judge or juror is allowed to sit in a case in which any interest of his own is involved. We cannot forget Lord

Bacon and his fate. The fate may not have been deserved, but he should not have taken the risk; not merely lest he should fall, but also lest he should fail to be just. We declaim against prejudice and partiality, and all miscarriage of justice, and our just censure should protect us. It was a story told by Hugh Latimer, that in the time of Cambyses, the emperor, there was a judge who took gifts and bribes, and sold his judgments. A poor widow whom he had wronged complained to the emperor, who caused the judge to be flayed, and then put his skin in the chair of judgment, that other judges might sit upon it and be admonished. That was severe. But it might not be amiss for all of us to sit upon our hatred of injustice and time-serving and bribery, and all meannesses, when we are reasoning out the way of truth and duty.

I have said that we should be independent. This does not mean that we are not to seek advice, to take counsel with men in whose integrity we have good reason to believe, to make use of their wisdom in causes like those before us. The judge consults his associates and predecessors. He refers to authorities. But he does all in reason, that his decision may commend itself. In his consulting he must not omit himself. Those were strong words of one of the strong men of the old time, who had a difficult piece of work to do, and who did it,-he said,

"I consulted with myself." It is wise to seek the opinion of wise men; but when it comes to action we shall probably go further if we let our own courage execute the decrees of our own reason. It is wonderful assistance for a man to have his reason and conscience back of his opinions and desires.

There is much more in reason than dry logic. We must recognize the fact that the reason has allies in the man's own nature. These are to be consulted and to have influence. When arguments have failed, some deep conviction, some unconquerable feeling, may assert itself and prevail. To feel a thing in one's bones, as the vulgar phrase is, may go far towards directing us in rational ways. It is our whole nature pleading; dispensing with words, but compelling attention. We should be very cautious in yielding to arguments unless there is behind them this conviction, clear and abiding. For myself, I should not dare to make any important decision, or to enter on an important work, unless I felt that this was the thing to do. A conviction, which cannot be shaken off, which lives side by side with reason and conscience, will often save one from the trouble and peril of weighing arguments, and our conviction may prevail with others. It is a very simple incident which comes to my mind in this connection. When I was in college the Faculty changed the time for Class

Day, very much to the disgust of the students. With another man I was appointed to wait on the President and secure the reversal of the edict. Our chief argument was that the proposed change would take the Day out of strawberry time, and what would Class Day be without strawberries! The wise man, and who was wiser than James Walker?-heard us, and gave his answer in these terms, "Young gentlemen, your feeling is better than your argument." But we prevailed, and Class Day and strawberries still come together.

There is a great store of wisdom, upon which we can draw when we would be wise, in men and in books; in poetry and song; in laws and usages. In proverbs; in wise saws and modern and ancient instances, in which the wisdom of all times and lands takes on a snug and portable form. Proverbs are most convenient, suddenly appearing without call and doing their work in the moment; and they are hard to refute or deny. They are usually long in the making, but they have tenacity when they are made. Sir William Temple remarked that they "receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed." If "experience is dried pleasure," proverbs are dried experience. It is the reason in them which constitutes their worth. While they are not equally rational, the best are keenly reasonable.

Many proverbs are the deliberate expressions of thought, the result of study. Others seem to be born rather than formed. They are the spontaneous utterance of wisdom acquired by experience, or by watching the course of things, the relations of causes and effects. In all cases they are preceded by knowledge and reason, though their appearance is sudden and their form without premeditation. The uses of proverbs are various. When the Duke of York would abuse Queen Margaret he passed beyond the recital of her faults to employ an old maxim:

"It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud Queen; Unless the adage must be verified,

That beggars mounted run their horse to death."

Or the attempt is made "to patch grief with proverbs." I overheard a man standing in a jail, by a cell door, encourage the prisoner behind the bars by reminding him that " It's a long lane that has no turning." It was less happy when a good man on meeting one who had just been released from the State prison suggested to him that he had proved "the way of transgressors is hard.” When one does not know what to say, it is a help to take refuge in a proverb. It gives a measure of confidence to the sentiment and protects the speaker from originality. Yet there is an insufficiency in proverbs. They are apt to be one-sided and so incomplete.