conscience is to the life. If the heart be kept true and tender, and the mind alert and keen, the conscience will never sting and lacerate the soul. It is only the wicked who flee when no man pursueth, and whose conscience is like the worm that never dies. "Leave her to Heaven," said Hamlet of his guilty mother, "and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her." But the righteous are as bold as a lion. Like Paul, they have the approval of a good conscience, and
"A heart unspotted is not easily daunted,
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just."
And the young people will not forget that tools are kept sharp by exercise, not by allowing them to rust like a sluggard's spade, which no true gardener would touch; but by keeping them sharp and bright like his own steel blade, which is warranted to cut through any sod. Yes, keep the powers of your mind strong and active through diligent application at school, and the faculties of your soul responsive by kindness, obedience, and prayer, and you will find that this is no mean part of the wisdom that will enable you to succeed in life. For at school, in business, and in religion, we have need of sharp tools.
If any one wishes to see or catch a coney, he must be up with the dawn. For, like the rabbit, it is generally to be found feeding in the early morning or at sunset; while a sentry, which is commonly an old male, is said to be posted to give warning by a short squeaking bark, at which signal they all scuttle away before one can obtain a glimpse of them. After all, it is the early bird that catches the early worm, and the coney has long since decided that it is the early coney that enjoys the sweetest aromatic shrubs. And therefore, if any aspiring sportsman wishes to bag Hyrax Syriacus (for that is its Latin name), he must be up and abroad with the dawn.
Indeed, the sharpest tools will avail us but little if the best hours of the morning are idled away in bed. The old adage cannot be repeated too often, that "he who would thrive must the white sparrow see." The lazy farmer who got up at daybreak to try and get a sight of this rara avis was not long in discovering the cause of his diminished fortunes. Everything was wrong at the beginning of the day. Dishonest servants came to their work an hour late, and others were helping themselves to everything they saw. On his farm, alas! there was neither an early bird nor an early worm. They were all late together, and he, the latest of them all, was simply being gobbled up by such birds as he had. Poor lie-a-bed had certainly got a glimpse of the white sparrow, and from the day he saw it his fortunes began to mend.
"I never had any faith in luck," says John Ploughman, "except that I believe good luck will carry a man over a ditch if he jumps well, and will put a bit of bacon into his pot if he looks after his garden and keeps a pig." Exactly. Solomon Slow will never be up in time to catch the coach, and then he will waste the rest of the day in blaming the hardness of his luck. But there is no luck about it. It is only downright laziness. And boys cannot learn the golden text too soon, that "drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."
"The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." They cannot fight with the lion, and they don't try. They run from the least appearance of evil, and so ought we. It is often one-half, and sometimes the whole, of the victory to know our own weakness. Discretion is always the better part of valour.
How many there are who have not this wisdom of the coney! They are feeble as he is, and yet they do not pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." They cannot turn aside the fiery darts of the evil one, and yet they carelessly play into his hands by dallying with that which is not good. But
"This is hypocrisy against the devil,
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven."
Far better to act as young Gareth acted when he lived among the "kitchen-knaves" of King Arthur's palace —
"If their talk were foul,
Then would he whistle rapid as any lark."
The pure-minded lad refused to listen to it, and he had his reward. They mocked him at first, but afterwards they turned and reverenced him. A like testimony was borne to John Milton when he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, at sixteen years of age. Because of his virtuous conduct he was ridiculed by his fellow-students, and nicknamed "the lady of Christ's." But the future author of "Paradise Lost" could afford to let them sneer. He had the testimony of a good conscience, and "they who honour Me, I will honour." And all those who are tempted to-day must draw their succour from a similar divine source. With the wisdom of the coney they must betake themselves to the safety of the hills, and say, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." And in that strong Rock of Ages all feeble ones will be eternally safe, for neither foe nor tempest can reach them there. Flee, then, as a bird to your mountain, or in the language of your hymn —
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