In Ray's collection of proverbs we find, "Reckon right, and February hath thirty-one days." What the significance of this can be utterly baffles us. "A little chink lets in much light," but this necessary chink is not as yet forthcoming. "They are well off that have not a home to go to" is another enigma. It sounds distinctly silly. Denham, we see, in his collection of proverbs, has the boldness to declare it "an apposite remark, often quoted by those who, sitting comfortably by their 'ain ingleside,' hear the pelting of the pitiless storm without." We would fain hope, for the credit of human nature, that this adage is not quite so apposite as this Denham would have us believe. Bad-hearted proverbs are, fortunately, not very numerous in proportion to the sound ones, but there are yet too many of them when we remember how the clinching of a matter by a proverb is to some people almost equivalent to supporting it by a text. In some cases an evil meaning that is not justified is read into a proverb; thus, to declare that "Charity begins at home" is to enunciate a great truth, for he that careth not for his own flesh, we are told, is an infidel. Too often, however, this adage is made the excuse for withholding any wider sympathy, a meaning that it really gives no warrant for. "Honesty is the best policy" is an oft-quoted saying, and it is, as far as it goes, a true one, but it fails because it puts the matter on too low a footing. Honesty for the sake of right, one's duty to God, to one's neighbour, and to one's own conscience and self-respect, is a right worthy aim, but honesty because on the whole it pays best is an ignoble thing. The man whom such a maxim helps is a poor creature, and one whom we should be unwilling to trust very far. The saying, "Every man for himself, and God for us all," while it clothes itself in sham invocation to Providence, is at heart bad--a mere appeal to selfishness--the weakest going to the wall and trodden under foot, or what is more deftly called "the survival of the fittest." The French put it more unblushingly as "Better a grape for me than a fig for thee." How scoundrel a maxim is the declaration that "It is not the offence, but the being found out, that matters"; and how mean a view of integrity and uprightness is shown in the statement that "Every man has his price"--only bid high enough, some perhaps requiring a little more than others, and truth and honour and righteousness become mere merchandise. "As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" is an utterance equally unsound.