Notes on Insects: Water Beetles Beetles Page 80 322 553, 655 Notes of a Voyage amongst the Pacific Islands. (By the Notices to Correspondents 112, 224, 336, 448, 560, 668 Not Lost, but Gone Before. (By Mrs. A. Gatty.) 284 Poetry : Fingal's Cave, Staffa Prayer Royal Rose-buds. Historical Sketches: Francis Phoebus, King of Navarre and Bearn, 1483 Children of Francis the First and Queen Claude, 1520 1540 560 290 13 124 The Law of the Wood. (By Mrs. A. Gatty.) The Saracen Pirates in the Mediterranean. (By A. M. G.) 542 368 23, 143, 247, 384, 496, 568 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. (THE LAW OF MERCY.) Helena. This is the first of the four commandments which the Catechism sums up in, 'To hurt nobody, by word or deed.' Audrey. I suppose because of St. Paul's saying that they are briefly comprehended in the saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Mary. Because love 'worketh no ill to his neighbour.' Miss O. The very essence of love being to wish no ill to our neighbour. You know this commandment is one of those which our Lord took as an illustration of the full development of the Old Law. Mary. In the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. v. 21-26.) Miss O. Yes; you observe that after forbidding the violent word, our Lord enjoins full and absolute forgiveness and reconciliation, as needful before His Altar can be approached. No one can draw near to Him who partakes of the spirit of the devil, the 'murderer from the beginning.' Helena. The blow and the word are not only forbidden, but the thought. Miss O. Which is the prompter of both. The word and blow depend on boldness, strength, opportunity. VOL. 14. 1 PART 79. There may be the same passions in the heart, not 'inclined to keep this law,' even though tongue and hand be impotent. Audrey. And even the actual blow, struck in a moment of passion, and repented at once, may not be as guilty as secret, cowardly hatred long indulged. Miss O. So that the only safety is in absolute forgiveness-nay, in the returning blessing for cursing, kindness for injury, and so 'not being overcome of evil, but overcoming evil with good.' I think, however, that we must. keep the subject of forgiveness for its place in the Lord's Prayer, and dwell on the varieties of sin that are included in this commandment. Mary. To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart.' Audrey. Or as it is in the Litany, Envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.' Miss O. Envy, then, to begin with, as the hidden source of almost all the rest. It was 'through envy of the devil that sin entered into the world.' Helena. And the first murderer was led on by envy. Miss O. Yes, and by perhaps the most devilish and the most fearfully subtle of all the many kinds of envy. Mary. Envy, because Abel's sacrifice was accepted. Miss O. The faithful sacrifice. See what St. John says of him. Mary. Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew bis brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.' Miss O. Then follows Marvel not if the world hate you,' which seems like an amplification of our Lord's own words, that the world would hate His disciples, as it had hated Himself. That envy and bitter hatred of darkness against light, of unfaithful against faithful, as witnesses against them, always seems to be especially of that wicked one.' Audrey. It was what stirred up the Jews against our Lord Himself. Mary. And against the martyrs. Helena. Martyrs-witnesses to the faith, like Abel. Miss O. I cannot but think it remarkable that the accident of our language has made our usual form for this commandment, which in Exodus stands, 'Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt do no murder,' which I believe is the same word as martyr, as if to teach us not only not to kill, but to have no share in persecuting our Lord's own witnesses to His doctrine or practice. Helena. Only very wicked people would do that. Miss O. I am not certain of that, Helena. Where there is some wrong doctrine—or what we think suchjoined with much better practice and stricter habits of devotion than our own, I am afraid that envy of the good gives force to the violence of condemnation of the error. Helena. You mean such as made the house of Valois so furious against the Huguenots. Audrey. Or the Puritans and Loyalists against each other. Miss O. I have read somewhere that each person has a standard of his own, and is tempted to condemn those who fall short of it, and to think those extravagant who go beyond it; and in the last case, I am afraid it is a gratification to our worse nature to find any loop-hole for condemning and hunting down what is a reproof to ourselves. I do not know whether Mary would like to tell you a history that happened at school, which, when she mentioned it to me, seemed like a pattern of much that goes on in the world. Mary. Do you mean about Rachel Baxter, Ma'am? Helena. Rachel Baxter-she was that nice girl, who was here for one year, and had lived with a dissenting aunt. Mary. Yes, Miss Helena. Well, she used always to say her Grace to herself before she would eat a bit of anything, even so much as a penny bun; and that was why we none of us could bear her. Miss O. Not that she teazed you by putting the custom forward or reproaching you? Mary. O no, Ma'am, for when they mocked her, she left off doing anything but just a little moving of her lips. I think that made us most angry of all, for it seemed to say. we were bad girls. I remember one of them saying she had no notion of the chapel-people setting up to be stricte than us, and she would put it down. Helena. And you say that is the way of the world? Miss O. Yes; and not only the outer world, but I have felt the same spirit in myself. There is a tendency ta dislike and envy the good in which we cannot ourselve glory, and it is this which gives rancour to party spirt and turns to 'tyrannous hate' of the better example that we will not follow. Helena. It makes faint grudging praise. it Miss O. And too often, where it has the power, turns to active persecution. And I am afraid the right tone is most difficult to be gained, for persons who have naturally the spirit of toleration, are too apt to be careless as to correctness of doctrine. Audrey. And what is the right tone, and how is it to be had? Miss O. We come back to the Love of God and of ou neighbour. Love of God, too great to see His teaching misinterpreted, real love of man, such as can rejoice in his virtues, even when they tell against our own opinions 'Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, Have thine own faith, but hope and pray for all.' Audrey. 'Pray for all,' I suppose that is the secret loving all. Miss O. Prayer and watching of our words. That suppose is what we have to say of such envy of good |