all consider well at election times, and at all times, who they put into their cages and for what reason; if they would only all ask what can that man’s motives be for throwing such dirt at his neighbour; if they would only all set aside all the letters they will get during the next fortnight that are avowedly composed on the old principle of calumniating boldly in the certainty that some of it will stick, what a service they would do to the cause of love and truth and justice, which is, surely, after all, their own cause also!  The very best papers sin sadly in this respect when their conductors are full for the time of party passion.  And it is inexpressibly sad when a reader sees great journals to which he owes a lifelong debt of gratitude absolutely poisoned under his very eyes with the malignant spirit of untruthful partisanship.  But so long as our public cages are so kept, let those who are exposed in them resolve to imitate Christian and Faithful, who behaved themselves amid all their ill-usage yet more wisely, and received all the ignominy and shame that was cast upon them with so much meekness and patience that it actually won to their side several of the men of the fair.

My brethren, this is the last time this season that I shall be able to speak to you from this pulpit; and, perhaps, the last time altogether.  But, if it so turns out, I shall not repent that the last time I spoke to you, and that, too, immediately after the communion table, the burden of my message was the burden of my Master’s message after the first communion table.  ’If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.  A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.  Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be My disciples.  These things have I spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.  Know ye what I have done unto you?  Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am.’

BY-ENDS

   ’Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat
   of the loaves.’—­Our Lord.

In no part of John Bunyan’s ingenious book is his strong sense and his sarcastic and humorous vein better displayed than just in his description of By-ends, and in the full and particular account he gives of the kinsfolk and affinity of By-ends.  Is there another single stroke in all sacred literature better fitted at once to teach the gayest and to make the gravest smile than just John Bunyan’s sketch of By-ends’ great-grandfather, the founder of the egoistical family of Fairspeech, who was, to begin with, but a waterman who always looked one way and rowed another?  By-ends’ wife also is a true helpmate to her husband.  She was my Lady Feigning’s favourite daughter, under whose nurture