mayest have hope; the latter that thou mayest not hope too much."*

It may seem ungracious to suggest the benefit of suspicion in the contests of life, and yet as long as human nature is what it is we must not trust our rivals entirely. Many a game of chess is lost for want of suspicion of the adversary's moves; and this is equally true of the greater game, where men give and take more precious things than pieces and pawns.

Last of all, let not the earnest man be ashamed to ask the divine blessing upon his efforts. It showed a devout wisdom in Homer to make the prayerless come last in the race. We need not be surprised if it so happens in the great race of life.

V.-Success.

This is one of those results far more easily understood than described; and yet the word is an index to its own meaning. Success is the final step in a series, where one thing succeeds another, from its origin to its conclusion, in an orderly and progressive manner.

When a man is upright and wise, success is the general rule; but it must not be wondered at if good men do not always succeed, for success requires intellect as well as goodness.

Herein is seen the mysterious skill with which the Deity has interwoven our present and future, and made

* “ Greek Epigrams," Westminster Selection, i. 82.

† πανύστατος ἦλθε διώκων.

Iliad, xxiii. 547.

them dependent upon each other. The husbandman rejoices in harvest in proportion to his diligence in seedtime, and so our future prosperity depends on our present energy, and skill, and character. It should be deeply impressed on the youthful mind, that the repasts of the future will be the fruits of the seeds which we are sowing now.

It was a daring saying of Napoleon that Carnot had organized victory. Yet it is capable of a twofold interpretation. It might be profane and it might be sagacious. It cannot be doubted but a man may reverently and prudently organize success-by foresight, by calculation, by knowledge, and by promptitude. It was observed of the Athenians:*"They are the only people that succeed to the full extent of their hope in what they have planned, because they quickly undertake what they have resolved."

Sometimes success comes too easily and too rapidly. It was the saying of one: "I was ruined by too easy success in early life.” It could not have been good for Photius to be ordained sub-deacon, deacon, priest, and patriarch in four successive days. The Seer might say to many others besides Edipus : "This very success of thine has been thy ruin." +

Hence it will appear that some successes are apparent and not real. They are delusive to the winners. The gambler may be gaining money and at the same time be losing more than money's worth, losing character, usefulness and prospects. Sometimes the success is personally injurious and colours a man's character for life.

* Thucyd., i. 70.

+ Ed. Tyr., 442.

Horne Tooke had a quarrel with the Prince of Wales respecting a right of way, and defeated the prince. This success seems to have influenced his turbulent afterlife. Many have prided themselves upon high matrimonial alliances as means by which to mount to success, and they have not scrupled to use nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, as steps of a human ladder for their ambition; yet these very marriages have often been made the occasions of accusation and impeachment. Take one instance out of many. The prefect Plautianus gave his daughter in marriage to the eldest son of the Emperor Severus: an alliance which seemed to assure his fortune, but which in reality proved the occasion of his ruin.

There are blessings in disguise: there are also curses in disguise. Sometimes promotion, a word which sounds so sweet to most men, is a curse. Gallus was transported from a prison to a throne, where he exhibited his incapacity and cruelty. At length vengeance overtook him, and with his hands tied behind his back he was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor.

Prosperity produces both evil and good effects on men, and these opposite results deserve careful study. First we may consider in what ways it is pernicious to character. The insidious influence of prosperity is well seen in the deterioration of William Duke of Normandy. His bravery and candour procured him respect while at a distance, but he had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment of peace, than all the vigour of his mind relaxed, and he fell into contempt amongst those who approached his person, or were subject to his

authority. Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to womanish superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his treasure and the exercise of his government, that his servants pillaged his money with impunity and stole from him his very clothes.

It is a curious fact that the thermometer falls the more the higher it is raised; and it suggests the analogy that men are apt to decline in goodness the higher they rise in the world. The Earl of Torrington serves as an instance. In poverty and exile he rose from a voluptuary into a hero; but as soon as prosperity returned, the hero sank again into a voluptuary, and the relapse was deep and hopeless.*

Prosperity destroys the piety of some men. The sun shines on their fire, dulls it, and puts it out. But of course there are exceptions, and it is a noble sight to see virtues expanding with prosperity, as was the case with the Emperor Theodosius.

Adversity has a tendency to repress our faults and vices. Prosperity, on the contrary, develops the evil that is in us, and develops it in exaggerated and fanciful ways. Men had need to beware of the alcohol of prosperity, for it intoxicates like wine; and then they are guilty of all sorts of fantastic conduct. Of course it was consistent with heathen ideas of divinity to imagine that Fortune raised some from a very low to a very exalted position to make sport out of their grotesque sayings and doings.t

66

+ -voluit Fortuna jocari," Juv., iii. 40.-One becomes more reconciled to this daring image, on seeing some conspicuous eleva

An intelligent man in his prosperity must sometimes feel how different would be the bearing of friends and acquaintances if he were to be reduced to poverty. Such a reflection must tinge prosperity with bitterness. In Egypt there were two statues erected before the portico of the temple of Vulcan, one called Summer and another Winter. They honour and worship Summer, but they treat Winter in quite a contrary way.*

Envy is one of the fines of success. All the nobility hated Cromwell, the Lord Chamberlain, who, being a man of low extraction, had mounted above them. Envy followed Belisarius like a shadow. The people accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But, when he entered the palace, the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves.

The heights of prosperity have ever been regarded as dangerous as the heights of mountains-exposed to the thunderbolts of God and man. Lofty pines, lofty towers, lofty stations of all kinds are in greatest jeopardy. How many eminent ones pined in the Tower of London and died on Tower Hill, simply because they were great and conspicuous marks for royal caprice and bloodthirstiness. It is probably for these and such-like reasons that some

tion of incapacity, the overweening self-conceit of the pompous, the supercilious pride of rank, the richly endowed dogmatism of ecclesiastics, and the insane arrogance of infallibility. He that made laughter, shall he not laugh?

* Herod., ii. 121.