all heavenly qualities of love, joy, peace, trust. The friendship of Christ completes man's life and crowns it.

But the law of life is the law of growth. Seeds grow, and men must grow also. In the realm of intellect students grow, and their teachers too. Beginning with a mere impulse to follow Christ in thought and life, the Christian goes forward until thoughts, affections, and all ambitions are touched with the sacred fire. Every morning he begins anew his ascending march. Slowly he unfolds, going from littleness to full likeness to Christ. For let no man think that it is an easy thing to be a Christian. All high devel

opments for reason or taste or conscience are difficult, and represent drill and practice. It is hard to be born and maintain life as a babe. It is hard to be a little child and maintain health midst all the ignorances, distemperatures, and perils that come in like a flood against young life. It is hard to be a young man and to maintain one's spotless character midst the fierce flames of temptation that burst forth upon every side. If a man aspires to be a great jurist he gives himself to the study of great arguments, and the history of

celebrated decisions, and practices the art of bringing high truths to bear upon judges and jury, and slowly climbs to the level of Marshall or Webster. If a man wishes to be a great scientist he begins where Darwin began, by studying the earthworms under his feet, and noting the movements of bugs, the flight of pigeons, until slowly, by accurate observation and patient, persevering drill he comes to be a world-wide scientist. There is no royal road to the temple of melody, where St. Cecilia dwells. There is no short cut to the temple of the beautiful, where Apollo reigns as lord of the arts of color, form, and music. The eager aspirant for eloquence, or wealth, or wisdom, begins a long, long way from the excellence that crowns one's life work. Every morning Mother Nature whispers to the youth, "Strive, struggle." Every night her last message is, "Sleep to waken again to new struggles, wrestlings, and achievements." In the realms of conscience and character man must work out his own salvation through ceaseless struggling, toiling long, hard and patiently. And just in proportion as he goes toward excellence does the work become difficult.

The law of creation is that the higher one climbs, the more intricate and difficult the duties. It is easy to control the ox, and guide the beast across the field. The horse is higher in the scale, and his government asks for a higher degree of skill in guidance. Wind represents a more powerful agent, and happy the sailor who can always guide his boat midst the swirling storms. Steam can scald as well as push, and only experts dare use it. Highest of all is electricity. And he who controls that subtle, invisible, almost omnipotent, force must be an expert indeed. There are five thousand men who can guide the ox where there is one man who can guide the electric current. Not otherwise is it in the Christian life. It may be easy to subdue the forces that make for gluttony and drunkenness and theft, but it is not easy to meet storm with calm, to meet ingratitude with forgiveness, to meet slander and hatred with forbearance and pity. The higher one climbs toward the level of Jesus Christ, the more difficult the task. What an ideal is this, challenging everything in a man's man's nature! Blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the persecuted, the peacemakers. Love

your enemies.

Seek first the kingdom. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. A scholar once exclaimed, "Who knows whether or not Christianity is a success!" It has never been tried.

Have you practiced these things with the same degree of patience with which you have practiced chasing a golf-ball? Can you control your tongue in the use of wit and humor and rebuke with the same skill that an artist controls his brush? In abhorring evil can you condemn it as deftly and surely as a sculptor who chips away the marble, not too little and not too much? Ye are my servants if ye do whatsoever I command you, said Christ. Do you daily read his commands, lift up before yourself the picture of his life and then try to reproduce in yourself his portrait, with the same eager, passionate enthusiasm with which young pupils pursue the ideals of some artist master? The Christian life means growth, drill, and long practice.

But some young man of the higher education, moved by considerations of delicacy and honor, will say, "I am not good enough to join a Christian church." He feels that it is an unworthy and ungenerous thing for him to

announce himself as a disciple of Jesus Christ unless he represents those high and noble qualities that Christ represents. He thinks that the Platonist must have the qualities of intellect that characterized Plato. He believes that the disciples of Tennyson should have some of Tennyson's skill in mastering verse, and he feels that he who allies himself with the church of Christ ought to be patrician in the beauty and nobility of his character. Now, what is a church? It is a school of morals. What is Christianity? It is the science of right living and character-building. What is the Bible? It is God's hand-book, full of directions for the building of a worthy life, based upon the foundation of Christ. And who is the Christian? He is a pupil in Christ's school. But nobody is received into a school because he is a ripe scholar. When one child goes to a school like the Polytechnic, the principal says, "What do you know about grammar?" "I don't know anything about it; I want to enter the school to learn.” "What do you know about Latin and Greek?" "Nothing," the boy answers. "Are you up in history and science and literature?" "No; I am not sure that I know what those big