We plead, let it be remembered, for no inactivity, for there are perils in idleness as well as amid the cares of business. If the latter destroy by crushing, the former wastes by rusting. But our urgency converges upon this point--men ought not so to plunge into this world's engrossments--so to be entangled by this world's cares--so to laden themselves with this world's clay--as to leave neither liking, nor time, nor strength, for fervour of spirit in serving the Lord--"Inasmuch as ye did it not unto me," will tarnish the glory of all such doings. Every moment as it passes, in the life of some busy men, may be a moment of high-souled integrity between man and man; and yet there is danger, /lest all the moments summed together/ should be one long act of complicated robbery--a robbery of God, because he was forgotten--a robbery of the soul, because it was neglected for things which often melt as we grasp them--a robbery of those dependent on us for religious guidance and example, because we are strangers at home, or, when we appear there, it is rather as the careworn speculator or the hoarding miser, than as the kindly, genial, sympathizing husband, father, brother, friend. THE PERILS OF BUSINESS. We know that it is the golden maxim of some, that religion must give way to business. We have been told by one who could stand unabashed on the Exchange, that "/God did not expect us to be too strict in these things/;" and swayed by that maxim, if religion do not give way at the bidding of cupidity, its control is boldly disowned. Now, we need not add, that the man who has adopted such an opinion has at once dismissed the Word of God from his counsels, and consented to forego the use of reason in the highest of all its spheres--he has laid his soul, a manacled victim, on the altar of Mammon. That man is not seeking /first/ the kingdom of God and his righteousness; that is, he is deliberately setting aside one of the simplest, plainest, and most unequivocal injunctions contained in the Word of the Supreme.--It is well known that, among the ancient heathens, the god of traffic was also the god of fraud. The Romans, moreover, had a goddess of thieves, whom one of their poets thus addresses:-- O fair Laverna, grant me power to cheat, And yet appear arrayed in saintly guise; Let sable night enshroud my deep deceit, And clouds conceal my fraud from prying eyes.[17] --And is there no reason to fear that that spirit has been perpetuated to modern times?