opportunity must be bought if it is to be of real value to us. Again, it seems a simple thing to do a kind act, or to say a kind word, and who shall estimate the greatness of the good that we may do? But it is often not at all easy to do a kind act, or say a kind word, without giving offence and doing more harm than good. We need to watch for the right time and place and manner at, perhaps, a considerable cost of patience and self-restraint.

As for a word of counsel or good advice, we all know how hard it is to give. It will probably be resented just in proportion as it is needed. People are usually very angry when some one else gives them a warning which their own conscience has been already suggesting to their reluctant will. How invaluable the warning may be! It may save a soul from ruin and destruction. It may do simply incalculable good, yet if we are to seize the right opportunity, if we are not to harden where we meant to soften, to push over the brink where we wish to restrain, what care, what forethought, what skill, what preparation, what earnest prayer for guidance do we need! The opportunity will not come by chance. It must be bought ; bought often by anxiety and labour and suffering; and even more by risk undertaken in faith.

We must be willing, says the Apostle, to buy up our opportunities, even at heavy cost to ourselves because the days are evil. They certainly were so when St. Paul wrote and they are still evil to-day. We are all, I suppose, given to thinking that our own times are worse than any others of which we have heard; and it would be foolish to deny that in many ways there is much to be thankful for in the times in which we live, in spite of the troubles of war and unrest by which we are beset. Still it is probably true that in the present day the times are evil in a way that they have not always, perhaps not often, been in the past. The special evil of to-day is the widespread tendency to confuse good and evil, to make out that there is little or no real difference between them, thus sapping the very foundation both of religion and of morals.

There have been times in the past of Christianity, when

there has been not less, or even more, evil rampant in the so-called Christian world than at present, but for the most part men sinned knowing they were sinning, and often repenting as vehemently as they had done wrong. They did not, as to-day, say that they had not sinned, or that there was no such thing as sin, unless it were the failure to live one's own life to the fullest, and to get all the pleasure and profit that was to be got out of it. It is this spirit which is the special evil of the present day, and we need to make use of all the opportunities of good if we are to counteract its influence on ourselves and on the world.

When we take a full and complete view of life it gives no justification for that narrow materialism and ignoring of spiritual issues of which we have spoken. Life is full of difficult problems and man has his material as well as his spiritual side, but the spiritual is in the end by far the most powerful and can only be ignored at his own peril by the man who is, as St. Paul says, a fool, because he takes into consideration only some of the factors of which life is composed.

God give us all grace to see life, not as a part, but as a whole and in the strength of Christ to buy up, at whatever cost to ourselves, our opportunities of service; for after all "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? "

XXXV. THE TWO PENCE

On the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care o him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.—ST. LUKE X. 35.

THE

HE whole story of the Good Samaritan is a story of kindness, sympathy and care for one's neighbour in

He

his trouble, but this last action of his sums it all up. might well have been satisfied that he had done so much

more for the poor sufferer than any one else had done, that he had attended to his wounds, that he had brought him into the caravanserai on his own beast, that he had done all he could to make him comfortable and to ensure his recovery. He had surely done all that could be expected of him, especially for a man of alien and contemptuous race, surely he might well have left him to take his chance, left some one else to complete the work of kindness while he went his way. Probably most of us would have argued in this way. It was no business of ours anyway. We had already done more than any one else would do. What more could any one expect of us? This, however, was not the good man's view of his duty, which went far beyond the least that could be expected of him. When he had to resume his journey he took out two coins, unfortunately translated "pence" in our version, and gave them to the keeper of the caravanserai, telling him to look after the man and promising to repay him whatever more it cost him. The denarius, the coin here mentioned, was the ordinary day's wage at the time and would therefore have been equivalent to about ten shillings to-day at the present value of money. As we should say: "he gave the man a pound note and said." He recognised that for a day or two at least the wounded man would be helpless, and he wanted to do all he could for him, although it was in no sense any business of his in particular.

We recognise here a great guiding principle of all Christ's teaching, the principle of brotherhood, the teaching that every man is our neighbour, and our neighbour our brother. This thought lies at the back of all our Lord's words and was exemplified in all His acts. He went about doing good, healing the sick in body and in mind, and they appealed to Him not on account of what they deserved, but just because they were in need. Nor was His help given simply in the fashion of a great person dispensing gifts. It was accompanied by a ready sympathy and understanding which made it come home to people's hearts.

At the Wedding Feast of Cana He understood the

shame which the bridegroom felt at being unable to provide hospitality for the unexpectedly large number of guests. When He healed the leper He understood the shame and shrinking which the victim of the foul disease felt in the presence of the healthy, and He stopped and touched him before He healed him. He understood the feeling which made Mary sit at His feet, and listen to His words, in spite of Martha's reproaches at her inaction, and He spoke up in her defence. It was she, not the overbusy Martha, who was in the right. When He had raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead and all the people were pressing round the girl and plying her with questions, it was He who remembered her weak condition, and gave the common sense order, that every one else had forgotten: Give her something to eat." In all His acts and words we see this constant sympathy and care and thought for others, and it is just at this point that so many of us fail, and our selfishness and preoccupation deprive us of the power of really helping others, even when we feel genuinely sorry for them. How often does one hear stupid sympathisers trying to console a broken-hearted widow by telling her that her husband is "better off now," whereas the last thing in the world that she believes, or wants to believe, is that he can anywhere be better off for being separated from her care and her love. Or you hear them telling a bereaved mother that her loss is nothing to what they have themselves suffered, whereas the poor mother's only consolation is the thought that no one ever suffered so great and overwhelming a loss as that which has befallen her.

How often is a nervous child made ten times more stupid and helpless by the impatience and lack of understanding of parent or teacher, who attributes to stupidity, what is really the result of nervousness or fright. How much misery is often caused in a family by the fact that parents forget that the sense of justice is very largely developed in children, and that favouritism and partiality cause the most cruel heartburnings among those who are often, perhaps, quite unjustly disliked and put in the background! How often do misunderstanding and bitter

ness arise between husband and wife, because the man forgets when he comes home, that his wife has been also working all day and is tired, or the wife forgets that her husband has worries and anxieties in his business, and looks for peace and quietness at home! How many of our social and industrial troubles to-day are due to the fact that people persist in looking at matters only from their own self-interested point of view, that employers think only of their profit, and forget that the welfare of men and women is inevitably bound up with the way in which it is made, while those who are employed forget everything but the amount of the wage or profit that they receive, and forget that they owe in return honest work, and some consideration for the anxieties of the employer, who cannot make a profit for either himself or them without their co-operation. Each often thinks only of his own point of view, to the heavy loss, in many cases, of both alike.

The teaching of Jesus Christ would save us from most of the troubles of life if we would only be content to follow it.

We are brothers in the one great family of God, and we can really best secure our own happiness by seeking to secure the happiness of the whole family. Not being really Christian, people will not believe that no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. They think that they can secure happiness by being selfish and putting their own interests first, and caring little or nothing about those of their neighbour; but they are grievously mistaken.

Christ says: "Love your neighbour as you love yourself." Think of his needs and be sympathetic with all his troubles. Try to understand his point of view, and you will be unconsciously helping yourself as well as helping him. As the Apostle sums it up, "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."

This kindness, thoughtfulness, sympathy, for your fellow men is the very essence of the Gospel on its manward side. It is brought out most clearly in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats where it is the deciding factor in the final judgment. Christ will accept no excuse for failure to