adjunct, but not the object of his life, if he be a true clergyman, any more than his fee (or honorarium) is the object of life to a true physician. Neither is his fee the object of life to a true merchant. All three, if true men, have a work to be done irrespective of fee-to be done even at any cost, or for quite the contrary of fee; the pastor's function being to teach, the physician's to heal, and the merchant's, as I have said, to provide. That is to say, he has to understand to their very root the qualities of the thing he deals in, and the means of obtaining or producing it; and he has to apply all his sagacity and energy to the producing or obtaining it in perfect state, and distributing it at the cheapest possible price where it is most needed.

And because the production or obtaining of any commodity involves necessarily the agency of many lives and hands, the merchant becomes in the course of his business the master and governor of large masses of men in a more direct, though less confessed way, than a military officer or pastor; so that on him falls, in great part, the responsibility for the kind of life they lead: and it becomes his duty, not only to be always considering how to produce what he sells, in the purest and cheapest forms, but how to make the various employments involved in the production, or transference of it, most beneficial to the men employed.

And as into these two functions, requiring for

their right exercise the highest intelligence, as well as patience, kindness, and tact, the merchant is bound to put all his energy, so for their just discharge he is bound, as soldier or physician is bound, to give up, if need be, his life, in such way as it may be demanded of him. Two main points he has in his providing function to maintain: first, his engagements (faithfulness to engagements being the real root of all possibilities, in commerce); and, secondly, the perfectness and purity of the thing provided; so that, rather than fail in any engagement, or consent to any deterioration, adulteration, or unjust and exorbitant price of that which he provides, he is bound to meet fearlessly any form of distress, poverty, or labour, which may, through maintenance of these points, come upon him.

Again: in his office as governor of the men employed by him, the merchant or manufacturer is invested with a distinctly paternal authority and responsibility. In most cases, a youth entering a commercial establishment is withdrawn altogether from home influence; his master must become his father, else he has, for practical and constant help, no father at hand: in all cases the master's authority, together with the general tone and atmosphere of his business, and the character of the men with whom the youth is compelled in the course of it to associate, have more immediate and pressing weight than the home influence, and

will usually neutralise it either for good or evil; so that the only means which the master has of doing justice to the men employed by him is to ask himself sternly whether he is dealing with such subordinate as he would with his own son, if compelled by circumstances to take such a position.

Supposing the captain of a frigate saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his own son in the position of a common sailor: as he would then treat his son, he is bound always to treat every one of the men under him. So, also, supposing the master of a manufactory saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his own son in the position of an ordinary workman; as he would then treat his son, he is bound always to treat every one of his men. This is the only effective, true, or practical RULE which can be given on this point of political economy.

And as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last man to leave his ship in case of wreck, and to share his last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the manufacturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it with his men, and even to take more of it for himself than he allows his men to feel; as a father would in a famine, shipwreck, or battle, sacrifice himself for his son.-U. T. L., I.

123. THE BUSINESS-MAN AS SAINT (A PICTURE BY CARPACCIO).—The calling of Matthew;

visible, this, in a bright day, and worth waiting for one, to see it in, through any stress of weather.

For indeed, the Gospel which the publican wrote for us, with its perfect Sermon on the Mount, and mostly more harmonious and gentle fulness, in places where St. Luke is formal, St. John mysterious, and St. Mark brief,-this Gospel, according to St. Matthew, I should think, if we had to choose one out of all the books in the Bible for a prison or desert friend, would be the one we should keep.

And we do not enough think how much that leaving the receipt of custom meant, as a sign of the man's nature, who was to leave us such a notable piece of literature.

Yet observe, Carpaccio does not mean to express the fact, or anything like the fact, of the literal calling of Matthew. What the actual character of the publicans of Jerusalem was at that time, in its general aspect, its admitted degradation, and yet power of believing, with the harlot, what the masters and the mothers in Israel could not believe, it is not his purpose to teach you. This call from receipt of custom, he takes for the symbol of the universal call to leave all that we have, and are doing. "Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple." For the other calls were easily obeyed in comparison of this. To leave one's often

empty nets and nightly toil on sea, and become fishers of men, perhaps you might find pescatori enough on the Riva there, within a hundred paces of you, who would take the chance at once, if any gentle person offered it them. James and Jude-Christ's cousins-no thanks to them for following Him; their own home conceivably no richer than His. Thomas and Philip, I suppose, somewhat thoughtful persons on spiritual matters, questioning of them long since; going out to hear St. John, and to see whom he had seen. But this man, busy in the place of business— engaged in the interests of foreign governments -thinking no more of an Israelite Messiah than Mr. Goschen, but only of Egyptian finance, and the like-suddenly the Messiah, passing by, says, "Follow me!" and he rises up, gives Him his hand, "Yea! to the death;" and absconds from his desk in that electric manner on the instant, leaving his cash-box unlocked, and his books for whoso list to balance!-a very remarkable kind of person indeed, it seems to me.

Carpaccio takes him, as I said, for a type of such sacrifice at its best. Everything (observe in passing) is here given you of the best. Dragon deadliest knight purest - parrot scarletestbasilisk absurdest-publican publicanest; a perfect type of the life spent in taxing one's neighbour, exacting duties, percentages, profits in general, in a due and virtuous manner.