The Duty Of Example.

I spoke just above of the sacredness of the duty of example. It is a theme on which I entreat my younger Brethren very often to reflect, with self-scrutiny before their Master: I may be wrong, but I cannot help thinking that here is a duty which is decidedly less remembered now, among young Christian men, than it was in other days. With exceptions many and bright, I yet fear that there is a decline in this matter as a rule. That unhappy _individualism_ which is the bane of our day, and which is the fatal enemy of all true and healthy _individuality_, breathes its malaria through even earnest Christian circles. In the formation or allowance of personal habits, in particular, it is sadly common to see young Christian men practically quite forgetful of the power and responsibility of example. I do not think that this was quite so common twenty or thirty years ago. Not that I wish to take up the futile part of a mere _laudator temporis acti_; I believe that the phenomenon has its reasons, its law so to speak, in the peculiar conditions of our day. But then the Christian man is never to be the slave of the conditions of his day, while he _is_ to "serve his own generation by the will of God." [Acts xiii. 36.] So I appeal most urgently to my reader, if he should chance to need the friendly call, to awake to a renewed attention to the responsibility of example, and to watch accordingly over consistency in everything.