THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

N.B.-An alternative lesson for younger children is given at the end of this.

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HIS is the second law of the Second Table; the second law of brotherhood. The first law of brotherhood is the law of Love; the second law of brotherhood is the law of Purity.

The Sixth Commandment, as we have seen, lays down as the first foundation stone of human society THE SACREDNESS OF HUMAN LIFE: the Seventh Commandment lays down as the next foundation stone of social life, the SACREDNESS OF

MARRIAGE.

This law, then, regulates the relation of the sexesto women, and women to men.

-of men

By God's law a man can have but one wife; and a woman can have but one husband.

By a man's own preference, or by his position, he may not have a wife at all, and a woman may not have a husband at all. But the man is bound to regard all women, or all women except his wife, as mothers or sisters: and the woman is bound to consider all men, or all men except her husband, as fathers or brothers.

If a man leaves his own wife, for any reason whatever, and takes up with another woman, he commits adultery, he is an adulterer.

If a woman leaves her own husband, for any reason whatever, and takes up with another man, she commits adultery, she is an adulteress.

But the Seventh Commandment does not merely apply to the relations of married people. The law of purity extends to all.

By this law a man is bound to regard all women, and especially the one woman whom he hopes to make his wife, as his sister, for her sake, and for His sake who also calls them

sisters, and not only to regard them as sisters, but to treat them as sisters, to defend them, to be jealous for their honour.

By this law a woman is bound to respect herself, as she hopes to be respected, to honour her own womanhood, as she hopes others to honour it.

Sins against this Commandment by married people break up families, introduce strife, produce untold misery and disgrace.

Sins against this Commandment by any person, married or single, destroy self-respect, cause moral degradation, lower and debase the character, and end in utter ruin of body and soul.

But yet this is not the chief reason why we should avoid all sins against this Commandment.

Not the chief reason, because not the highest motive. We must have a higher motive for right action, than self-interest.

Rather we should avoid and hate all such sins, because they are sins against that sacred human nature that sacred manhood and sacred womanhood, which the Son of God has taken into Himself by His holy Incarnation.

And even more because sins against purity are specially sins against that Holy Spirit who dwells within us, because they grieve that Holy Spirit, and dishonour Him whose Holy Name we bear, and into which we have been baptized.

ON THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

HE first meaning of this Commandment is that husbands and wives should be true and faithful to one another. But it has a meaning for children also, which I will try and explain to you.

The Commandments teach us our duty to God and to our neighbour; but this Seventh Commandment teaches us what is our duty to ourselves.

We owe a duty to ourselves as well as to God and to our neighbour. And the duty which we owe to ourselves is to keep our bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity.

Now I will tell you why we are bound to keep our bodies holy and pure. First of all, God made our bodies as well as our souls, and He made them that we should keep them pure.

Then our Lord Jesus Christ had a body like we have, only a perfectly pure and holy body. And because our bodies are like the body in which Jesus sits at the right hand of God, we are bound to treat our bodies with respect and honour.

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Then the Holy Spirit has made our bodies His dwelling place. Know ye not," said S. Paul, "that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, that dwelleth in you." At our baptism our bodies, as well as our souls, were dedicated to God.

We could not bear to see a Church, which had been set apart for God's service, all foul and dirty. So it is a shameful thing that our bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Ghost, should be made foul and bad by sinful and bad thoughts and words and deeds.

We must keep our bodies clean and our hearts clean. This is what is meant by keeping our bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity.

Temperance means self-control, being moderate in all things.

We are so made that we like eating and drinking what is pleasant. So we are tempted to eat more than is good for

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us, to think too much about eating and drinking, to be dainty and fanciful. But temperance will keep us within bounds, and teach us to be strictly moderate in what we eat and drink.

There is nothing more painful than to see a greedy child. Remember there is no harm in enjoying food that is pleasant. What is wrong is not being moderate, caring too much about it.

Soberness generally has the meaning of moderation in the use of wine, or strong drink. Perhaps the best moderation, for children at any rate, is to do without altogether. Then we are to keep our bodies in "chastity," that is, in purity.

This means that we should be modest in every way; modest in our manner of speaking; modest in dress. This applies to boys as well as to girls. It is quite right and natural to boys to wish to be manly. But the bravest and manliest

men have been the most gentle and modest.

The

I will read you a few words from a newspaper. writer says, "He appeared to be as gentle as he was strong." Whom do you think it was he was speaking of? The man who was as gentle as he was strong was General Gordon!

It is not manly, but unmanly, to be rough and rude, and ill-mannered.

But girls especially should strive to be modest, and gentle, and retiring. For a girl to be loud, and bold, and rude is an offence against her womanhood.

Let children, both boys and girls, think of Jesus their Elder Brother. Let them say, I am one of Christ's little brothers and sisters, and I must not do anything, or say anything, which Jesus would not like his little brothers and sisters to do or say.

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.

Thou shalt not steal.

THE Moral Law may be considered as a sort of break

of vice and lawlessness from sweeping away the foundations of human society. And of this great moral breakwater the dovetailed blocks are the Ten Commandments.

The first block of this moral breakwater is the sacredness of human life; the second, the sacredness of marriage; the third, that which we are going to speak of to-day, the sacredness of property.

It is a reproach to the law of England that it is so much. more severe upon the breaches of the law of property than it is upon breaches of the laws which guard a man's life and his honour.

But no such charge can be brought against God's Law. There everything is in its proper place. In God's Law' the law protecting property comes third-not first in the moral code.

Now you will have no difficulty in understanding that the sacredness of property which this Eighth Commandment guards is absolutely necessary to the existence of anything like civilized society.

Who would settle down to hard and continuous labour unless he felt sure the law would enable him to keep what he had earned ?

Who would plough the fields and sow the seed, if any stronger neighbour might come in and reap his harvest?

What shopkeeper would go on with his business, if at any time some reckless spendthrift might come and empty his till? Who would toil and save to provide his children with a maintenance, if he did not feel sure they would be left in peace to enjoy the provision that he made for them?

But this Commandment, like the others, applies not only to society as a whole, but applies to each individual.

It not only guards the welfare of the community by de