of a weary strawberry woman, or chaffer with his boot-black over an
extra shilling, I could not think that it was genuine love for his
fellow-men that prompted his ostentatious charities.

In no instance did I find any better estimation of him in business
circles; for his religion did not chasten the ardor of his selfish
love of advantage in trade; nor make him more generous, nor more
inclined to help or befriend the weak and the needy. Twice I saw his
action in the case of unhappy debtors, who had not been successful
in business. In each case, his claim was among the smallest; but he
said more unkind things, and was the hardest to satisfy, of any man
among the creditors. He assumed dishonest intention at the outset,
and made that a plea for the most rigid exaction; covering his own
hard selfishness with offensive cant about mercantile honor,
Christian integrity, and religious observance of business contracts.
He was the only man among all the creditors, who made his church
membership a prominent thing--few of them were even
church-goers--and the only man who did not readily make concessions
to the poor, down-trodden debtors.

"Is he a Christian?" I asked, as I walked home in some depression of
spirits, from the last of these meetings. And I could but answer
No--for to be a Christian is to be Christ-like.

"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This
is the divine standard. "Ye must be born again," leaves to us no
latitude of interpretation. There must be a death of the old,
natural, selfish loves, and a new birth of spiritual affections. As
a man feels, so will he act. If the affections that rule his heart
be divine affections, he will be a lover of others, and a seeker of