into the treasury the thirty pieces of silver, seeing it was the
price of blood; but the gentility of the present day is less scrupulous.
There is a laxity of principle among us, Mr. Murdoch, that, if God
restore us not, must end in the ruin of our country. I say laxity of
principle; for there have ever been evil manners among us, and waifs
in no inconsiderable number, broken loose from the decencies of
society--more, perhaps, in my early days than there are now. But
our principles at least were sound; and not only was there thus a
restorative and conservative spirit among us, but, what was of not less
importance, there was a broad gulf, like that in the parable, between
the two grand classes, the good and the evil--a gulf which, when it
secured the better class from contamination, interposed no barrier
to the reformation and return of even the most vile and profligate,
if repentant. But this gulf has disappeared, and we are standing
unconcernedly over it, on a hollow and dangerous marsh of neutral
ground, which, in the end, if God open not our eyes, must assuredly
give way under our feet."

"To what, father," inquired my friend, who sat listening with the
deepest and most respectful attention, "do you attribute the change?"

"Undoubtedly," replied the old man, "there have been many causes at
work; and, though not impossible, it would certainly be no easy task to
trace them all to their several effects, and give to each its due place
and importance. But there is a deadly evil among us, though you will
hear of it from neither press nor pulpit, which I am disposed to rank
first in the number--the affectation of gentility. It has a threefold
influence among us: it confounds the grand eternal distinctions of
right and wrong, by erecting into a standard of conduct and opinion that
heterogeneous and artificial whole which constitutes the manners and
morals of the upper classes; it severs those ties of affection and
good-will which should bind the middle to the lower orders, by disposing
the one to regard whatever is below them with a true contemptuous
indifference, and by provoking a bitter and indignant, though natural
jealousy in the other for being so regarded; and, finally, by leading
those who most entertain it into habits of expense, torturing their
means, if I may so speak, on the rack of false opinion--disposing
them to think, in their blindness, that to be genteel is a first
consideration, and to be honest merely a