those fervid periods to himself. And why? Just because this evil
principle manifests itself in such a variety of ways. A man who
detects worldliness in his neighbour with the greatest ease may be
absolutely incapable of seeing it in himself, simply because his own
and his neighbour's are so different in form. It is the old story.
David boiled over with indignation at the hard-hearted monster who had
taken the poor man's lamb; but the fact that he himself had taken
another man's wife, gave him no concern whatever.

It will be readily conceded that the miser is a worldly man. He loves
gold for its own sake; he hoards up riches, not with the view of
enjoying them, but in order to satisfy an inordinate greed of
possession; his chief object in life is to die worth his hundreds, his
thousands, or his millions. Though rich, he is frequently tormented
with the fear of ending his days in want, and is more anxious for the
morrow than the poorest of the poor. The only redeeming point in his
character is his self-denial--a truly noble characteristic when
associated with a generous disposition--which, however, in his case,
loses its value through the sordidness of its aim. Yes, he is a
worldly man, beyond the shadow of a doubt. But this is equally true of
the man whose manner of life is the very opposite of this--the
spendthrift. He values money only in so far as it enables him to make
a grand display, to spend his days in riotous living, to gain the
goodwill of the empty, useless, pleasure-living society in which he
moves. How totally different the latter from the former! How
frequently do they despise and condemn each other--the miser the
spendthrift, and the spendthrift the miser! And yet they worship, so
to speak, at the same shrine; they are victims of the same delusion;
they both make this world their all.

This love of the world leads in every case to separation from God. The
story of the Fall furnishes an apt illustration of this fatal result.
Stript of its poetic setting, what have we there depicted?
Covetousness--the desire of material good--the determination to obtain
it at all hazards. It was under this guise that sin made its first
entrance into human life--sin, which in its turn

"Brought death into our world and all our woe."

Now mark the effect of the first act of transgression. We are told
that when Adam and his wife heard the voice of the Lord God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day