wilderness journey to the Promised Land! It has been said of Alpine peaks that they pass through three stages: first, "absolutely inaccessible"; second, “a very dangerous climb"; third," a pleasant summer excursion." But how long do the heights of social reformation have to wait before they thus are climbed and conquered!

The upshot of it is that of all who start to live lives of Christian service, one suspects that only a small proportion carry through. Launchings are a gala sight. Amid cheers and music the ship, gay with color, takes to the sea. But every old salt knows that launching is not the test of a ship. When northeasters howl and billows roll mast high, will she beat up against the tempest and make port when other ships go down? Such is the severe strain to which man's wickedness, ignorance, thanklessness, his sluggishness, blindness, apathy, subject a life of service. The final resource of a serviceable man must be his own inwardly victorious spirit, sustained by motives which wear well, by unsmothered faiths, and by hopes which refuse to grow dim. Only a personality so equipped can easily see through to a triumphant close a life of sustained and sacrificial ministry.

V

With the ultimate efficiency and the abiding power of personal and social service thus depending upon inward spiritual resources, it is plain that not only does Christianity overflow in usefulness, but usefulness has need of all those sustaining and life-giving Christian faiths by which spiritual victory is gained in the souls of men. The final tragedy in human life is not physical poverty but whipped spirits, and whipped spirits are found on avenues as well as alleys, in palaces as well as hovels, in universities as well as barrooms. Men are beaten in spirit by the hugeness of the physical universe, until they think of it as a vast, pitiless machine, without spiritual origin, meaning, purpose, or destiny. Men are beaten by trouble until, maimed at the very center of their lives, they crawl through existence without God and without hope. Men are beaten in spirit by sin, and, like dogs that return to lick the hand that flogged them, these bewitched souls come back again and again to the transgressions that are their ruin. Men are beaten in spirit by hopelessness, until

they look out on the social life of man with no enthusiasm for any cause and with no expectation of any betterment.

Service to these victims of spiritual disillusionment, infidelity, and hopelessness cannot be rendered by man's fingers only. No thing that can be given greatly helps. Only spirits who are themselves victorious can minister to these deepest needs of men. Alice Freeman Palmer, first president of Wellesley College, was once reproved because she did not do more public lecturing; to which, out of her passion for personal service, she replied: "It is people that count. You want to put yourself into people; they touch other people; these, others still, and so you go on working forever." We easily applaud that program of service by personal contagion. But we may well inquire what richness of personality we possess that the world should greatly care whether or not we put our selves into people. How many who eagerly give themselves, have selves to give, so poor in quality, that for all their busyness the world is none the richer! The Master looked on service as too deep and inward an enterprise lightly to be undertaken. "For their sakes," he said, "I sanctify

myself."

Sir Bartle Frere was coming to visit a Scotch home. The master of the household, sending a servant to meet him, sought for some description by which the visitor might easily be recognized. "When the train comes in," he said at last to the servant, "you will see a tall gentleman, helping somebody.” That, in parable, is the Christian ideal. Over these sixty generations one Figure has towered, from the fascination and dominance of whose personality mankind never can escape. Height and helpfulness in him were perfectly combined. And the world has come to recognize his spirit, living again on earth, whenever there appears spiritual altitude blending with lowly service-a tall gentleman, helping somebody.

As

The issue of this line of thought, however, is not a life which seeks first to be right and then to go out to serve. Victorious personality and practical service cannot be so chronologically arranged. They grow together, are mutually influential, are indispensable each to the other's health and wholeness. one reads the New Testament he becomes aware that the Epistle to the Hebrews (6:4, 5) gives a true description of the fully Christian life of the first generation, and that the climax of this description is the gist of the matter: those

first Christians had "tasted the powers of the age to come." They believed in a new day of righteousness to appear upon the earth, when God's long-maturing plans would come to glorious fulfilment. That coming age they loved, to its ideals they were devoted, for it they would die. They were patriots for a day not yet arrived.

One outstanding distinction, therefore, between Christians and non-Christians in the first generation lay here: like Demas, non-Christians "loved this present age" (II Tim. 4:10), with all its unconquered evil, while the followers of Jesus were working and waiting for the age to come. If one would be a Christian, then, he must in this sense be a revolutionist: he must have his heart set on a new order of humanity where godliness, righteousness, and brotherhood shall have superseded the reign of bitterness and wrath. He must believe in, pray for, and labor toward the coming of God's Kingdom in the world. This is the central passion of a fully Christian life, its guiding star, its regulating standard.

If that supreme patriotism for a better world, divinely ordered, "rooted and grounded in love," once does take intelligent possession of a human life, impressive consequences are certain: personal penitence for sin that hinders the Kingdom's coming, personal desire for inward life worthy of the Kingdom's ideals, personal entrance into secrets of spiritual power by which alone the Kingdom's coming is assured, personal devotion to every good cause by which the day of Christian triumph is hastened. Victorious personality is not the fruit of cloistered piety. It is the accompaniment of full devotion to God's Kingdom:

"I ask no heaven till earth be Thine;
No glory crown while work of mine
Remaineth here.

When earth shall shine among the stars,
Her sins wiped out, her captives free,
Her voice a music unto Thee,

For crown, more work give Thou to me.
Lord, here am I!"

SCRIPTURE PASSAGES USED IN THE DAILY READINGS

RUTH 1: 14-18 (V-6).

ECCLESIASTES 1: 12-18 (IX-3).

ISAIAH III-17 (I-2); 2:2-4 (VIII-6); 3: 14, 15 (X-3); 19: 23-25 (IX-4); 62:1-5 (VIII-5).

JEREMIAH 7:3-11 (1-5).

EZEKIEL 22:29 (X-3); 33: 30-32 (I-6); 34: 1-10 (VIII-7). HOSEA 6:4-6 (I-4).

AMOS 2:6-8 (X-3); 5:21-24 (I-3).

MICAH 6:6-8 (I-1); 7: 2-7 (XI-5).

MATTHEW 5:13 (II-5); 5:13-16 (X-6): 5:21, 22 (VI-3); 5:23, 24 (II-2); 5: 29, 30 (V-1); 5: 43-45 (VI-7); 6:9-13 (X-7); 7:3-5 (VII-3); 8:T-4 (VIII-2); 8: 18-20 (VII5); 11:7-11 (VII-6); 12:43-45 (II-6); 13:44-46 (V-2); 16:21-25 (V-7); 17: 17-20 (XII-4); 18: 2-6 (VI-5) ; 18: 10-14 (VI-6); 20: 20-28 (VII-7); 21:12, 13 (VI-4); 22: 34-40 (VI-1); 23: 5-12 (III-5); 23: 15-19, 23, 24 (I-7); 25: 34-40 (VIII-3).

MARK 5:1-5 (II-3); 9:50 (II-5); 10:13-16 (VIII-1); 10: 23-27 (III-6).

LUKE 4: 16-21 (II-1); 5: 10, 11, 27, 28 (V-5); 6:31 (VI-1); 8: 11-15 (II-7); 10:30-37 (II-4); 12: 16-21 (III-3); 15: 1-7 (VIII-4); 16:19-26 (III-2); 18:9-14 (III-7); 19: 8-10 (V-4); 21:1-4 (V-3).

JOHN 4: 35-38 (XI-1); 8: 3-11 (VI-2); 10:9, 10 (IV-7); 14: 25-27 (IV-4); 15:9-11 (IV-4); 15: 12-15 (IV-1). ROMANS 1:8-12 (IV-3); 6: 12, 13 (IX-6); 8: 31-39 (XII-7) ; 12: 3-5 (VII-4); 12:9, 10 (XII-6).

I CORINTHIANS 1:11-15 (XI-2); 3:6-9 (IX-2); 15: 24-28 XII-5).

II CORINTHIANS 8: 1-5 (IX-5).

GALATIANS 513 (XII-6); 6:2, 3 (VII-4).

EPHESIANS 3:14-19 (IV-5).

PHILIPPIANS 2: 1-4 (VII-2); 3: 13-19 (IX-7); 4-10-13 (III-1). I THESSALONIANS 3: 12 (XII-6); 4:9 (XII-6).

II THESSALONIANS 3:7-13 (IV-2); 3: 11, 12 (VII-1).

I TIMOTHY 6:9-11 (X-1); 6:17-19 (III-4).

II TIMOTHY 3:1-9 (XI-6);' 4:6-8 (IV-6).

TITUS 15, 10-13 (XI-4).

HEBREWS 3: 12-14 (XII-2); 11: 32-38 (XI-3); 12: 1-3 (XI-7). JAMES 1:27 (IX-1); 2:1-9 (X-5); 4:1-3 (X-4); 5:1-5 (X-2).

I PETER 1:22 (XII-6); 4: 15, 16 (VII-1).

I JOHN 2:10 (XII-6); 3:14-18 (XII-1); 3:17, 18 (IX-1); 4:7-13 (XII-3).

SOURCES OF PRAYERS USED IN THE DAILY

READINGS

AQUINAS, THOMAS-XII-3.

BEECHER, HENRY WARD-VI-2; VI-6; X-2; X-7. "The Original Plymouth Pulpit," vol. III.

BERSIER, EUGENE-VIII-3, "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," S. F. Fox.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER-III-7; XI-2.

BOOK OF PRAYERS FOR STUDENTS-II-6: III-3; V-5; Vi-7; / VII-4; IX-6; X-5; XII-2.

BRENT, BISHOP CHARLES R.-VII-6. "Prayers for Today," Samuel McComb.

BROUGH, DR.-VIII-2; VIII-4. "Prayers for the City of God," Gilbert Clive Binyon.

CHRISTIAN PRAYERS-III-1.

CHURCH GUILD-V-6. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," S. F. Fox.

DEARMER, PERCY-VIII-6, “Prayers for the City of God," Gilbert Clive Binyon.

ELLIS, RUFUS-XI-1. “A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," S. F. Fox.

FRENCH CORONATION ORDER-I-I. "Prayers for the City of God," Gilbert Clive Binyon.

GELASIAN SACRAMENTARY-II-1. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," S. F. Fox.