might laugh at such accounts of self-torture, as well as at people of our own acquaintance who, worshipping conventionality, are ever on the rack about 'the right thing to do,' about 'good form.'

But this sort of folly should not blind us to the value of good manners as distinguished from etiquette.

Were it not for the oil of civility, how could the wheels of society continue to work? Money, talent, rank, these are keys that turn some locks; but kindness or a sympathetic manner is a master-key that can open all. If 'virtue itself offends when coupled with a forbidding manner,' how great must be the power of winning manners, such as steer between bluntness and plain-dealing, between giving merited praise and flattery.

Men succeed in their professions quite as much by complaisance and kindliness of manner as by talent. Demosthenes, in giving his well-known advice to an orator—that eloquence consisted in three things, the first 'action,' the second 'action,' and the third 'action'—is supposed to have intended manner only. A telling preacher in his opening remarks gains the good-will of his hearers, and makes them feel both that he has something to say and that he can say it—by his manner. The successful medical man on entering a sick-room inspires into his patients belief in himself, and that hope which is so favourable to longevity—by his manner. Considering that jurymen are scarcely personifications of pure reason unmixed with passion or prejudice, a barrister cannot afford to neglect manner if he would bring twelve men one after another to his way of thinking. Again, has the business man any stock-in-trade that pays him better than a good address? And as regards the 'survival of the fittest' in tournaments for a lady's hand, is it not a 'natural selection' when the old motto 'Manners makyth man' decides the contest? At least Wilkes, the best-mannered but ugliest man of his day, thought so. 'I am,' he said, 'the ugliest man in the three kingdoms; but if you give me a quarter of an hour's start, I will gain the love of any woman before the handsomest.'

If kindliness of disposition be the essence of good manners, our subject is seen at once to shade off into the great one of Christianity itself. It is the heart that makes both the true gentleman and the great theologian. The apostle Paul (see speech delivered on Mars' Hill) always endeavoured to conciliate his audience when he commenced addressing them. And his letters, as well as those of his fellow-apostles, are full of sympathy and consideration for every one's feelings, because he had learned from Him whose sympathy extended to even the greatest of sinners.