The truly courteous man is never caught napping. He is courteous not only in crowds, where every one can see him, or in social life, among his equals; but also in little things, at odd moments, when no one of importance is by, and to the poor and ignorant. He is courteous, too, in his own home. That, perhaps, is the final and hardest test of all. It is easy to be polite when we are out at a party of friends, though even there it is sometimes hard to show real Courtesy. In giving advice to young men, Thackeray said: "Ah, my dear fellow, take this counsel: Always dance with the old ladies, always dance with the governesses!" He meant: show your gentlehood by being kind to those who have not many friends. But it is hard to be Courteous in the home when things do not please us, and we are out with the world. Yet it is there we must begin to practise Courtesy. It is there we must learn that kindness, and cheerfulness, and good manners which will earn for us the epitaph of Tennyson's friend: "And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman." No. XXII. REPENTANCE +We are often sorry when we do wrong; this is the first step towards Repentance; but Repentance itself is more than being sorry; it is ceasing to do wrong, and beginning to do right.+ Man differs from the most intelligent of the lower animals in having a moral nature, called a soul; that is, he is responsible for his actions. One great evidence of this is to be found in the fact that, after he has done evil, his conscience generally reproaches him sharply, and he feels remorse, which is the keen pain brought about by the memory of wrongdoing. But we must not mistake this pain of remorse for Repentance. It should be the beginning of Repentance; but Repentance itself must go much further than that. Two men with evil-looking faces were seen to enter a great church in Rome one day, where, in little chapels attached to the church, people were making confession of their sins to the priests, and obtaining absolution from them. These two men looked as though something very serious was weighing on their minds, as they searched for a priest to whom to confess. A short time after they had found one, they were again seen, coming down the aisle of the church, laughing together, and looking as jolly as possible. Next day they were arrested for attacking a traveller on the highway and almost murdering him. Probably those two men felt the pangs of remorse when they were in the church seeking to confess their sins. But there was no Repentance, because they went back at once to their evil courses.