the Admiralty wish him to go. In that way, great pieces of information and great plans are kept secret, even from those who are the most concerned in carrying them out. But this system has been largely changed by the introduction and use of steam and the telegraph. A man can reach a ship, or the Secretary of the Navy, or the Lords of the Admiralty by telegraph. Trains and ships now come and go by schedule time. When a ship leaves Sandy Hook it is expected that in six days and five hours it will sight the light on Fastnet Rock-so accurately determined are the times, so nicely adjusted are the ways in which an ocean steamship goes-and even when a steamship is to go to far distant ports, it may be reached by the ocean cable.

As soon as an engineer of a locomotive comes into a station it is reported by the conductor just what time the train arrived and telegraphic orders are there as to what he shall do next. By telegraph, the train dispatcher in the central office knows where each train is at each moment, and the whole movement is directed by one central will and thought. We are so accustomed to have our trains and ships directed thus, and to be punctual and prompt to the minute that there is anxiety if they do not arrive. What is the matter? at once we say. The ship is overdue by so many hours. "What has happened to it?" Twenty-four hours pass away, and we ask, "What has broken upon it?" After fortyeight hours we ask, "What about the people that are on it?" We know something has happened to a ship that does not come in punctual to its appointed time and almost to its appointed hour.

In looking at the heavenly bodies that move punctual to their appointed second about their way, and knowing all the laws that govern the minute things of life, the flowers that bloom and the birds that sing, the belief has come to some men that human life, if we

could only understand its laws, could be reduced to a time schedule; and the thoughts, acts and feelings of men might be mechanically guided and directed and thus brought under fixed laws to certain results.

Some think that education and development of the human mind is simply a matter of scientific knowledge and scientific method, and therefore, education has come to be a science. It is looked upon as a science, under the name of Pedagogy. It rests on physiology and psychology and becomes then a question of method. It is claimed that you can develop a man very much as you can develop a flower, by ordering certain thoughts, and by bringing to bear certain motives. So again, religion is supposed to be a matter of scientific method. The creeds and dogmas with which we are familiar are simply the attempts to develop a human soul along a prescribed path and by a certain ascertained method. Souls are saved by a plan of salvation. That is the science of theology.

Those of you who in early days read Marryat's novels, will remember the exceedingly entertaining novel, "Mr. Midshipman Easy," and you will also remember his father was a philosopher, with a method for reforming criminals. Criminals, he said, are so because of the shape of their heads. He had been reading Combe's Constitution of Man, and the new science of psychol ogy had fascinated him. So he said there was a lack of benevolence which caused a man to commit murder. He said if a man could be put in a machine so that the wanting bump could be lifted up you could make that man a good, kind man. And so if the bump of acquisitiveness is over-developed all you have to do is to press upon this and develop the wanting faculty. Here, then, was a simple and easy method of reform. These are but illustrations of the thoughts in our minds, that if we could only understand them, there are laws of

human nature, of mind and soul, by which we could as easily reduce human nature, in all its powers of activity, to a science, as we can move ships and railroad trains punctual to their appointed minute.

It is my belief that there is not quite as much faith in this as there used to be. Men have tried these schemes, a great many of them, and yet the desired result has not come. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, outlined many things which he believed would make the perfect state and perfect happiness; and I think there is not one thing that Thomas More, a very wise man several hundred years ago, sketched out as being characteristic of the perfect state, that is not here to-day in full, complete operation. Yet we have not arrived at the perfect state and the happy man. So again, the philosophy of the plan of salvation has never worked as perfectly in dealing with men as it has on paper. And the sermons which I wrote very carefully, and some of which I was reading the other day with a good deal of interest, worked out under that plan, have never had just that effect that the professor thought they would have when applied to a man. For a flesh and blood man or woman never could have fitted into those sermons. So they are used now as scrap books for the children to paste in any pictures they may please to cut out, and I have reason to believe they are very much more valuable as scrap books than as sermons.

One does not hear so much of the science of education as he used to; there are doubts as to whether what we call a human soul is so responsive to mechanical conditions that it may be brought up as a flower. And the political economy, which seemed so certain in the time of Jeremy Bentham and John Mill, has so utterly passed by that there are few now left to teach a political economy that seemed absolutely scientific and

certain twenty years ago. For the human soul is not a machine; it is not something that is mechanical or that is responsive to mechanical conditions. It has something within it which we can not name, but which sweeps, pushes, impels and draws it by yet other laws than men have discovered. There are yet means of education which have not been discovered by any student of education. There is a salvation which somehow finds its way into a large and noble life without the knowledge of any plan of salvation. There is happiness, sweetness of life and prosperity, without making use of that old-time political economy. And there is reform, which is not mechanical. Let us say that there is no scheme, no plan, no science yet discovered which can adequately control and rule the human soul.

This is suggested to me by this incident in the life of Jesus and of Peter. We will have to go back of this chapter in order to get its full significance. The disciples are walking along the way and are quarrelling among themselves as to who shall be greatest. One prefers his claim and another prefers his. This one will have the place of honor, and that one thinks he will have the place of trust. Jesus has heard them, but has given no sign; but after supper, in this little upper room, he takes a basin of water and girds himself with a towel and begins to wash their feet. It is the work of a servant; it is what was known then and what would be known now as menial service-service that one does not willingly do for another except in the necessities of love. Peter, recognizing that it is not right, protests. "What do you do?" he says. And Jesus says, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Then Peter says, "Thou shalt never wash my feet; I am not worthy." Jesus says, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me,"

still talking enigmas. Then Peter, leaping to the other extreme, says: "Wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." "No," says Jesus; "he who, before going out in the morning, has bathed himself, needs only that the soil that has gathered about his hands and feet from treading the way or handling things should be washed away."

Jesus teaches that the greatness of life consists not in power and influence, but in service. He is greatest who can do most for other people; who thinks most of their comfort and welfare, and losing sight of his own pleasure seeks to serve them. Greatness is measured, not by the power we wield, not by the influence we exert, not by the place we occupy, but by the helpful service that we do. Peter will learn this lesson, and when he learns it, all at once, from obscure incident and enigmatic words, there will shine forth a great light, and the experience of to-day will throw its light back upon the words of yesterday, and that which he knows not now, hereafter, when he himself comes to do life's work, he shall understand.

Out of which comes this thought, the consciousness of the mystery there is about our lives. We can not understand why we have to do things. We do not understand the experiences of to-day. Some imperious word says to us, Go forth. We go, as Abraham went, not knowing whither we go. Something says, Do this. We do it. If we ask the reason, the word within us says, What I do or command thou knowest not now. Thou shalt know hereafter. And all our lives go to throw light upon yesterday and the day before yesterday. Again and again we come up in life to some experience out of which comes knowledge which makes clear the darkness of some past thing. What he does, the great Over Control, we do not know now; but there is to us the promise, we shall know hereafter.