den manna, and with a new name written on his breast.

That is the dignity and significance of the person in the sight of God. Sometimes one hears it said that the young people of to-day think too much of themselves. Quite the contrary is the truth. The fundamental peril of their life is that they shall not think enough of themselves, shall not believe enough in their own capacity, significance, and place, shall permit themselves to be submerged in the crowd, and imagine it impossible to be personally called of God to a service which no one else can do. Out of the mass of people, like this in which we gather here, there is detached in religion the single soul; and it is as if it slipped away from this whole world of companionship and entered solemnly and alone into the sacred presence, and found a name for itself among the purposes of God.

But this is not quite all. For this name with which one comes into God's presence is not, according to this passage, one's old and familiar name. It is not what you pass for here; or what you have done; or what you are supposed to do; or what the world

thinks of you; or even what you think of yourself, that is written on your breast. It is, says the passage, a new name; a name that no one knows save you the name not of your achievements, but of your ideals; not of what you have done, but of what you have sincerely desired to do. Behind all the conformity and unreality in which you seem to be involved stands the "God of things as they are,” knowing what you want to be, and justifying your dreams.

And does not this bring to many a life new courage? If you were to be judged by what you have accomplished, that would be sad enough. But that is not the promise. It is that you shall bear the name, not of what you have done, but of what you desired to do. In the midst of your ineffective, misdirected, and fickle life there has leaped up sometimes the sincere desire for effective service, like a flame that flickers and then goes out; and now God takes that meagre, incomplete, visionary ideal and accepts it as the true self, and lights the flame afresh, and gives it a new name, which no man knows save he for whom it is written; and the life that felt itself defeated and humbled

and solitary enters into the power and peace of this companionship of God.

Such are the two things which religion does for you. It takes you out of the mass, and it takes you at your best. First it detaches you from the crowd and gives you the hidden manna of personal significance, and then it gives you the new name of your ideals and dreams. First it gives you your identity, and then it restores your idealism. First you find yourself, then you believe in yourself. First, in the midst of this mass of college life the Christian religion gives you the capacity to lead a life of your own, and then, as you try to live this life, the best you can do is translated into the better you seem withheld from doing.

That is what one would like to say if he could, in the name of Christ, to a throng of light-hearted people pausing for a moment in the rush of life and detaching themselves from the busy world. Is it possible, any one of us might ask, for me to live that life of which I sometimes dream? No, probably not. It would be very rarely that one could get beyond the region of a partial, ineffective, unsatisfying life. But this may

happen, that as you live much short of what you dream, God will take you at your best, and translate the real into the ideal, and in the secrecy of His companionship will confide to you the new name of your desire and dream. And that means peace, courage, persistence, hope. You can live in the imperfect in that light of the Eternal. Your life is judged, not by what you accomplish, but by what you want to do. You find your peace, not in success, not in applause, but in this promise, that the poor little reality of your achievement shall be forgotten, and the new name - the name of that which you desired to be-shall be written upon your breast.

"And this one thought of hope and trust
Comes with its healing balm,

As here I lay my brow in dust

And breathe my lowly psalm,

That not for heights of victory won,

But those I tried to gain,

Will come my gracious Lord's 'Well done!'

And sweet, effacing rain."

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XVII

THE SACRAMENT OF SERVICE

(Thursday before Easter.)

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God; he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments, . . and began to wash the disciples' feet. — John xiii. 3–5.

N this Thursday before Easter Sunday the Christian world commemo

rates the last day of the life of Jesus Christ, - a day whose afternoon and evening are crowded with incidents which make it the most solemn time in the history of the world. First, there is the supper with his disciples, and its symbolism of remembrance, which has ever since remained the centre of Christian worship. Then there is the garden, with its final struggle of the human will and its perfect committal of spirit: "Not my will, but Thine be done." Then there is the mob, spitting and buffeting; and so the night passes and the day of the cross dawns.