time reached, where it formed a barrier, and whence it has retreated. But we are wrong in speaking of the retreat of the sea, for actually the level of the ocean is permanent, it is the land which rises, and as it rises leaves the sea below. And so perhaps it is with us. We lift ourselves above old convictions, scruples, principles, and the sometimes sleeping, sometimes tossing sea of conscience no longer touches those points they once fretted. Do we congratulate ourselves on this elevation? Perhaps so, and yet few of us can contemplate the raised beaches left in our hearts by the retiring waves of conscience without a sigh, and a doubt.
Mr. James Welsh said and wrote and did many things as a public journalist and a professional politician which as a boy or young man he would have looked upon as dishonest, false, and mischievous. His conscience no longer troubled him in his business, but in home relations he was blameless.
Perhaps one reason why the sea-level alters with us, is that we are always endeavouring to reclaim land from it, thrusting our sea-walls of self-interest further out, to take in more field from being overwashed. We make our line of conscience co-terminous with our line of self-interest. Outside this line the waves may toss and roar, within they may not cast a flake of foam, or waft a breath of ozone. How much thunder and buffet we permit outside our seawall of self-interest against any rock or sand-bank that stands unenclosed! but we only suffer the water of self-reproach to sweep with a shallow swash and soothing murmur the outside of the bank we have cast up.
What excellent words those are to conjure with and wherewith blind our own eyes as well as those of others—Political Party and the Public Weal! We regard ourselves as devoted to the respublica, when, in reality, we care only for our private interests; and our zeal for the public good is hot or cold according as our dividends are affected.
If we can show that the welfare of our party can be
