reference to the selfishness of our hearts when he said, “the love of money is the root of all evil.”  While selfishness is the dominant principle of our hearts, we can neither love God, nor yet our neighbor.  The Holy spirit can never enter our hearts, while this principle reigns supreme within.  He has been trying to expel the monster from the hearts of the human family, for nearly two thousand years; but as yet he has accomplished his object but partially.  He pleads for entrance, but too often pleads in vain.  We must relinquish our self-love, before we can love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Selfishness, self-love, or the love of money, as the apostle terms it, stands in the way of all that is noble, generous, and just, in our intercourse with our fellow creatures.  It is “the root of all evil,” all injustice, all oppression, all unrighteousness, all that mars our peace and happiness in this world, all tumults, all strife, all contention, all war, all blood-shed, all hatred, all misery in time, and all our woes to all eternity.

There are times when my heart sickens within me.  I feel, I know that there is oppression and wrong in our world, and that millions of my fellow creatures are interested in perpetuating those wrongs.  I know that wherever the human foot has trodden the soil, that might triumphs over right, that the strong oppress the weak, that the poor and dependent too often become the servants of the rich; that the man of quick discernment, too often overreaches and takes advantage of his simple, less gifted, and unsuspecting neighbor.  That the master, the land-lord, those who are endowed with superior knowledge, those who are in possession of wealth, power, and influence, too often become oppressive, tyrannical and cruel to their inferiors, servants and dependants.  I know that these evil exist, and that many believe that they would sustain damage by any attempt to mitigate, or remove them.  Self-love, self-interest, the love of money, the love of ease, the love of wealth, splendor, and power, stand in the way of any reformation.  Their prejudices, too, that have grown with their growth, and ripened with their years, must be removed.  They moreover imagine that not only their self-interests, but their honor, their ease and convenience, their all—­all that they hold dear in the world, will be endangered by any attempt to eradicate the evils alluded to.  Will they, under these circumstances, listen to the calls of suffering humanity, the voice of reason, the laws of Divine revelation, and the stern dictates of conscience?  Can we expect it, when so many interests are involved, when so many prejudices must be broken down, and old institutions rooted up, and a new order of things introduced?  Can moral obligation, a sense of duty, the dictates of conscience, overcome that instinctive passion of the human soul, the love of gain?  Oh! the love of money, that mighty leveller of power, the golden