are. If he is too proud
or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it
chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself,
whom he thinks of as the herd.

As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy is love. Love
sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good,
hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil.

_THE TENTH COMMANDMENT._

"Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his."--xx. 17.

It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of
desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter "thy
neighbour's wife" is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it
has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment.

But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and
then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around
him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the
right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle,
to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw
that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who
nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not
rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights,
by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to
prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break
through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the
storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines.

But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour's sake
chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the
Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his perception.
"I have kept Thy testimonies," he says; but presently asks to be
quickened,--"So shall I _observe_ the testimony of Thy mouth,"--and
prays, "Give me understanding, that I may _know_ Thy testimonies." And
at the last, he confesses that he has "gone astray like a lost sheep"
(Ps. cxix. 22, 88, 125, 176). Starting with a literal innocence, he
comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of
power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the
necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The
cheers of a traitor, the flatte