Again, there is an order of thought more practical than this, and surely more suitable to form the sequel of a service of prayer; namely, ideas concerning duty in all its forms, religious, social, and personal. It is amazing, considering the place which Christianity in every phase assigns to obedience to the will of God, how exceedingly small a space lessons and discussions concerning what _is_ that Divine Will, as regards every-day conduct, ever take in Christian instruction. We are eternally exhorted to repent; but what are the sins and failures which ought to be included in our penitence, few preachers take the pains to inform us. We are exhorted to “renounce the devil and all his works”; but what those “works” may be, as distinguished from works of righteousness in the shop, the camp, the bar, the exchange, the interior of our homes, we are left to find out for ourselves. Sermons treating carefully and thoughtfully any subject of the kind are among the most rare of clerical addresses. Bishop South confesses, indeed, that two-thirds of Christianity are a Christian temper. But how many times have any of us heard rebuked from the pulpit that odious sullenness which makes the unhappy inmates of the same home with the sulky person live in a perpetual November, or yet the despotic violence and anger which threaten them like a perpetual thunder-storm brewing in the distance? What master of a household is told, by the only man who _dare_ tell him, that his tyranny, his harshness, perhaps his cruelty, exercised hourly on wife or child or any luckless dependant, make up a sum total of misery to them and of offence on his part, worse than the results of many a sudden crime, and certainly involving no less guilt? What wife and mother is told that her selfishness, her bickerings, her discontent, her spitefulnesses, are sins for which no prate of high religious feeling or incessant fussing about church-going can possibly atone? And, again, as regards other offences,--let us say, lying and dishonesty,--when have we heard wise and just definitions of them from our pastors, or fitting exhortations to nobler standards of veracity and probity than are common in the world? In the upper classes of society, a certain slipshod rule of thumb on these subjects is pretty generally received. But where did we learn it? Certainly not when we occupied our seats in church, but rather at the dinner-table, in the playground at school, at the club, or in the drawing-room. Among the lower ranks, where this traditional code, of honor rather than of morality, does not hold equal sway, the ignorance which prevails concerning the very rudimentary principles of truth and probity is often no less startling than deplorable. The neglect of the clergy of all denominations to draw clear definitions on these matters of hourly concern, so that their flocks may at least _know_ what is right, supposing they are so fortunate as to be able to inspire them with a