It is said, on good authority, that the West India slaves of a past generation could be trusted to carry bags of gold from one part of the Spanish Main to another, and that they were constantly so trusted with entire impunity. They would kidnap, and on occasion stab or cut a throat; but if they were trusted, they would not break their faith. The honesty of the Turkish porters is so well known that it has become almost proverbial. Does not the honesty of these pirates and pagans put to shame the Christians who with the professions and the faces of Pharisees "devour widows' houses"? --For as to the business of life insurance, savings banks, and trust companies, it is somewhat more, or surely somewhat other, than mere business. And so those who practise it and profit by it profess that it is. A life insurance company is a grand combination philanthropico-financial corporation whose motto is, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days thou shalt receive it again." But the truth of the matter turns out to be that if you cast your bread upon the waters, the chances are that you will see it devoured before your eyes by financial sharks. One case in point has come directly to our knowledge. A gentleman, a Government officer, who has a moderate salary, with little or no hope of acquiring property, insured his life twenty years or more ago in what was thought a good company. His premium was always promptly paid even in the flush times of the war and afterward, when the fixed salaries of public officers lost more than half their purchasing power. Within the last few months he has suddenly found that his policy is not worth the paper on which it is magnificently printed. But worse than this: within the last few years, as age has crept upon him, there has come with it a disease which is incurable although he may live for some time longer. Now, however, he cannot get his life insured at all; no company will take his life; (it is a rueful jest to say that the company in question _did_ take his life); and he has the prospect before him of a widow left entirely without provision, although for nearly a quarter of a century he and she stinted themselves to provide against such a contingency. Meantime the officers of the company lived luxuriously, and used the money in their hands for speculation, and in living which if not riotous, was at least shameless and dishonest. And they were all men of reputation, were selected for their positions because it was thought that men of their position and habits of life and outward bearing were incorruptible. Have they not devoured that prospective widow's house? If He who condemned the hypocritical Pharisees of old were on the earth now, would he not pronounce Woe upon them? And much would they care about His condemnation if they could get their commissions, and their pickings and stealings, and live in splendid houses, and be known as the managers of an institution that