average for the whole world, and for all time, often worse, seldom better. Here and there a man or woman of the noblest type, in whom the divine grace is not to be mistaken, with a touch of genius in them, or heroism, or a touch of pure goodness, caught perhaps, if we knew their secret, out of centuries of cultivation, choice garden flowers, to whom a religious life in some true sense is as natural as singing is to a lark. And then, beside these, outside the fences of distinction, we put down this whole wild growth of us, in the shadow and in the sun, in the marshes and by the wayside, not very beautiful and not very sweet, except as with the good Christ you can make a large allowance, and see the touch of God's finger, where most of us are sand-blind to such revelation; the base things of this world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not except as God has chosen them; wild things, that have to be got under sometimes in ruthless ways, or they would ruin the hope of the harvest, but which still hold a gleam of the divine grace in their heart, and a breath of the sweetness coming forth from God, though the whole Church say they are of the Devil, and going back to God as the sole heart that can understand them and take them in.

This is the large general truth; and then, within. this, I find a truth which is more special and personal, which I do well to lay to my heart and to believe,that, if I think I am of the garden, it will be a good

thing for me to look through the bars sometimes to those who are in the wilder reaches, as the Christ did, and consider them in the light of his gospel tenderly, and to remember that just as I exclude them from God's regard, I am unworthy the name Christian. He met such men and women frankly, and treated them with a divine regard, and would have them be true to their own better nature; and then he was content, because I suppose he understood how God had ordained wild things, and made room for them, and touched them with beauty and a fragrance of their own, and bid them occupy until he comes to bring in the nobler order, and the better day.

Or if I feel, as well I may, that there is a wild quality in my own nature and condition, and that I am of the wilderness rather than the garden, common and unnoted, in the way sometimes, and beset by the thorns of harsh and evil circumstances, and so disheartened at my poor, low place, and at the little I can do to amend things, let me think of these wild things in the pasture on Mount Tabor, with the thorns about them, and how they manage somehow, after all, to keep sweet about the heart,. and to maintain the upward look, and the color which gleams like a glimpse of heaven; and then listen for the word of Christ, "Consider the lilies," and so believe that I am very near and very dear to God, when all is said and done; and I can do my

best, and be my best, can keep the touch of sweetness in my heart, and the upward look from among the thorns, and be patient and not over-troubled about what is going to happen to me, for the wilderness is God's land as certainly as the garden, and is better beyond all telling, even for wild things, than it could be as a blank desolation.

I am here for some true use, or I should not be here in the divine economy; and the one thing I know is that I must be my own true self, and then there will be a better for me, climbing always toward the best. The one thing I must not do is to grow sour and sad, and hang my head until it is soiled with the mud, or let the thorns have it all their own way; for how many men and women I have seen, who have lost their chance through this deliberate downward dip! and how many I have seen beset with thorns, obscure and of no account to the world, who were still sweet and good at the heart when you once got at them, with gleams of the very grace of heaven shining in and through them, wild witnesses for God in the thick of harsh and evil surroundings where he wants wild witnesses!

If I have those very dear to me, who take to wild ways while still, after all, as so often happens, there is a real native grace in them, and goodness; who can not and will not conform to the order of my home, or after all my care and pains will not

stay in my church, but take up with what seems to me to be a wild idea, in which, as I think, there can be no help to the soul, and so bring me trouble and dismay instead of the blessing I expected, let me then consider the lilies, and God's hand in them, and his care for them, and sorrow not as those that have no hope. It is right that I should be true to my own light and my own nature, and look to those who are to me as my own life to be like me; but my nature may be one thing, and theirs quite another, and then all I can do is to help them to be and to do their best under the new order. How many children have been lost, who would have been saved if fathers and mothers had understood this secret of the new and wild variety, and made a large allowance for the difference they could not understand! the sons of ministers, and members in good standing, and widowed mothers who were left to train them the best they knew; wild boys, but not wicked, the old Berserker blood afire again in their veins, plunging into the strong floods of life while the guardians believe only in the quiet eddies, — told sternly that this is all godless and the way to hell, until they believe it, but do not care, and then told of God's hatred until they hate in return, or sink into a blank and utter atheism. In no one thing I can ever encounter do I need so much this large look of Christ as when I have raised a wild boy, and

must still have the grace to make him believe in himself, and become the best he can be, and to believe that God cares for wild boys as he cares for wild lilies, and will still be with him to challenge him, and help him to master the thorns, and grow sweet and good through it all. Multitudes of men have been lost for the want of it, killing out the last germs of self-respect, and saying, "God has no place in his providence for such as you: your end is to be damned."

We want the whole world we care for most, to be of the garden. It never has been so, and, until the whole race has risen into the better life, never can be. But, when those that are very near and dear to us take to these ways, we can do our best for them, and not break our hearts about it, when we believe with Jesus that God has a purpose for the children of the wilderness as surely as the children of the garden and the conservatory.; that the noblest were wild once, and the wildest will grow noble at last through the divine grace and our own true endeavors.

And I must be sure of this finally, that this whole world is God's world, and all this pottering about the way in which he must stand related to us and we to him, because we believe certain dogmas and observe certain ordinances of this or that church, is time thrown away, except as it can result in making me a better man all round and all through; and I desire to speak in no narrow spirit when I say that