Simulated Virtue

"When atrabilarious Hamlet, in his choleric interview with his mother in the cabinet, invprudently advised her "Assume a virtue if you have it or not," he unwittiag-ly laid down a general rule of high valué to individuals and the community, s'ays John MoELroy in the Popular Science Monthly. Simulation of virtue, thougii far inferior to the real article, is still the next best thing to it, just as whitewash, though much inferior to marble, is yet greatly superior to dirt.y nakedness. It is very desirabie that all men and all women 6hould stand, together on the very hig-hest plane of goodness; but the largest portion of theni do not - probably never will. It is unreasonable to expect that the mass of humanity will btí steadily alig-ned on the most advaneed standards of moral ity, especially whcn those standards are pushed f orward asrapidly asthcyhave been in the more recent centuries. Kthics is aconstantly develöping' science. What was a high, Lrade of morality in the eig-hteenth cuntury wouiil lie a very ordinary one to-day; justas the man who, in our colonial' times, wouid have been regarded as neat and eleanly in his person, would seem a pood deal of a sloven to-day. Then, as now, men and women would assume to be mueh cleaner, morally and physically, than they roally were, and by sheer force of persistence and habit beeaine cleaner than they at firot pretended to be. Persons with the bump of approbiitivenesjs highly developcd constaatly forge to the front on lines which they think will win them the esteem of their fellows, and the latter follow with unequal steps, flrst sliovving outward respect and eonformity to better ideas and practioes, and theii making them more or less of realities in their lives.