is at variance with the code of morals, manners, and tastes they have instituted and set up as the standard of perfection, is accounted ignorance and stupidity, and every infringer of it is regarded as a brute and a savage, and becomes the object of their unmitigated contempt. We would recommend to their perusal those fine lines of Wordsworth, which form part of a poem already twice quoted:

"He who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties

Which he hath never used; and thought, with him
Is in its infancy."

Whatever the worth or the attainments of the Excluded, if he were a very Howard in benevolence, a Solon in wisdom, should he be so unfortunate as not to have been stamped with their stamp, and sealed with their seal, vain in their eyes and valueless, all his sterling qualities; he would be voted inadmissible within their charmed circle. A New Zealand chief, fresh from his cannibal banquet, their fastidiousness might tolerate, or a Hottentot, in his naked simplicity and grandeur, or an Esquimaux, redolent of whale blubber, but not an Englishman or Englishwoman, if guilty of the smallest infraction of conventional forms, and undistinguished save by piety and virtue.

A little less of political liberty, and these worthies, in the spirit of private despotism which such a condition would induce, might carry their intolerance to the height of inflicting corporal

punishment upon all persons who failed to conform, in word and deed, with the regulations they had prescribed. Possibly they might, in their abhorrence of things unclean, emulate that heroine of Arabian story, who caused her husband's thumbs to be cut off because he had omitted to wash his hands after eating garlic.

The worst of it is, the folly does not remain. confined to the ultra-aristocratic circles in which it first was generated. It extends, for folly is very infectious, and descends, step by step, through the ranks of middling gentility, until it reaches those of would-be-gentility, the lower grades of the professions, and the trades, whose members learning by hearsay, or through the medium of fashionable novels, those supposed interpreters of patrician life and manners, that great folks do such and such things, and scout such and such others, must needs attempt to imitate them, if not according to the letter of their code, in the spirit of it.*

Christianity enjoins toleration in small matters as well as great, and surely if its blessed founder

* A popular novelist, perhaps at the present moment the most popular living, has, in a recent work, with a few strokes of his vigorous pen, shewn up this species of intolerance in its true light. Had he written volumes on the subject, they could scarcely have been more to the purpose than the following short but emphatic sentence. After narrating some traits of peculiar excellence in the character of the noble-minded merchant brothers, he thus proceeds: "Good God!" thought Nicholas, "and there are scores of people of their own station, knowing all this and twenty thousand times more, who wouldn't ask these men to dinner, because they eat with their knives, and never went to school!"Vide, Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

could bear with the faults and infirmities of mankind, which must have been daily and hourly obtruded upon him, and which must, to his divine nature, have been especially obvious, we, imperfect that we are, and burdened with our full share of human frailty, ought to exercise forbearance towards one another. Until we do this in the true spirit of the gospel, "in lowliness of mind esteeming others better than ourselves," admitting at least that those who differ from us may have reasons equally cogent with our own for their modes of thinking and acting-until we allow this, and cease from ridiculing and contemning whatever does not agree with our own notions of good taste and propriety, we can, I repeat, derive but little either of pleasure or profit from social intercourse.

Let us get rid, as fast as possible, of our hyperfastidiousness; which, although we may flatter ourselves with the notion that it is a proof of our refinement, is, in reality, no such thing, but only a sickly substitute. I could adduce more than one example of very fastidious persons betraying, by many an act and word, that they have no true refinement of mind.

This life does not offer us so very large a portion of enjoyment that we should slight and reject it when it comes within our reach. Were we truly wise, knowledge, which to the right-minded constitutes a very high degree of enjoyment, would be welcome to us from whatever quarter proceeding. In steering clear of fastidiousness, it needs not

that we descend into vulgarity, or wantonly and knowingly violate established rules of good-breeding. Attention to the external forms of refinement will undoubtedly, to a certain extent, produce refinement of mind; and it is equally certain that the more pure and elevated the mind and manners become, the more worthy do we render that image of God, the mortal body, which he has destined for the temporal habitation of the immortal soul.

RELIGIOUS EXCLUSIVISM.

There is another species of Exclusivism of a much more important character than the last commented upon; but this is a subject approached by me with fear and trembling, lest my observations, and the object which actuates me, should be misconstrued. I allude to the Exclusivism of the selfstyled Religious world.

I would ask any individual belonging to that widely extending community, if he or she can conscientiously affirm such Exclusivism to be conformable to the doctrine taught by Christ. I believe the majority of persons professing these religious opinions, to be perfectly sincere; I expect them also to be candid. I would have them examine their own hearts, and see if there lurk not pride, most subtly disguised, perhaps, but nevertheless pride, in some corner of them. Exclusivism! the very term is in itself unchristian; and the names by which individuals designate one another, such as "the people of God,"-"the pious,"-"the

elect,"—"the religious world," &c., savour far too much of Pharisaical self-righteousness. "Who

maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" Thus did St. Paul rebuke those who were inclined to esteem themselves too highly.

There are, I am aware, divers texts of Scripture, which serious people are fond of quoting in justification of their exclusivism; among others, the following, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive ye." This text I have seen written on the fly-leaf of religious books, given, as presents, to young persons, by their friends; an injudicious selection, since young persons are only too prone to hold themselves separate and distinguished from their fellowmortals, be it through pride of superior sanctity, birth, beauty, or talents. Moreover, I am inclined to think, that this text, like many of those enjoining faith, is sometimes misinterpreted, and that it ought to be considered with reference to the circumstances of the period in which it was written; a period when separation from the idolators was vitally essential to the new doctrine.

If we read the three texts immediately preceding the one in question, we shall probably discern the import of the whole four more clearly. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrigh