36 True Nobles and Fleroes.

“Onward, onward, let us press, in the path of duty ;
Virtue is true happiness, excellence true beauty !”

But whilst I urge you to remember that
confidence in God makes heroes of those
who trust in Him, do not forget that ‘“ con-
science makes cowards of us all.” To be
truly noble, there must be a “ conscience
void of offence towards God and man,” a
conscience purged from sin.

In the 1867 Paris Exhibition I saw two
pictures which are more firmly fixed in my
memory than any others. In one the artist
had represented a dead body lying beside a
streamlet, with the murderer flying away in
great affright, every blade of grass looking
like a scorpion, mockingly accusing him of
his frightful crime as he ran. The hedges
and trees assumed the shape of hobgoblins,
pointing their fingers jeeringly at him as he
tried to run away from—what no man ever
yet escaped—his own guilty conscience.

The other picture was an amphitheatre,
represented as crowded with spectators,
awaiting the sport (2). You saw the one-
half of two cells. In one, a roaring, hungry
lion, almost ready to tear the bars out; and