our spiritual instincts and impulses, the right to freedom and happiness that belongs to each. It is to do more than that. It is to recognize that every other man and woman and child, however degraded and besotted, of whatever color, class or condition, has an equal right with ourselves; it is to adjust our life, then, by that golden rule which Jesus Christ announced: Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. What a simple measure; what a rule of action this is: to question a thousand times a day. how would I like another man to treat me if he had my place and had my power! This is the perfect law of liberty.

Let thy blessing rest upon us, that blessing of attentive hearing and of application of thought, until these truths of thine, so simple that we only need to state them, so universal that there is not a star so far or a moss so fine, but what it obeys, shall become operative in our social life. Then will all disorder and clamor cease. Then we shall have peace, the peace which passeth understanding, God's peace, when every part in his infinite universe knows its place and does its work, interfering with nothing, living to the full its largest possibility of life. Amen.

BOYS ARE SCARCER THAN DOLLARS.

"Is it so far from thee, thou canst no longer see

In the chamber over the gate that old man desolate,
Weeping and wailing sore, for his son who is no more?
O Absalom, my son!

"Is it so long ago, that cry of human woe

From the walled city came, calling on his dear name,
That it has died away in the distance of to-day!
O Absalom, my son!

'There is no far nor near, there is neither there nor here,
There is neither soon nor late in the chamber over the gate,
Nor any long ago to the cry of human woe.
O Absalom, my son!

"From the ages that are past the voice sounds like a blast,
Somewhere at every hour, the watchmen on the tower
Looks forth and sees the fleet approach of hurrying feet
Of messengers that bear the tidings of despair.
O Absalom, my son!

"He goes forth from the door; he shall return no more; With him our joy departs, the light goes from our hearts, In the chamber over the gate we sit disconsolate. O Absalom, my son!

"That 'tis a common grief bringeth but slight relief; Ours is the bitt' rest loss, ours is the heaviest cross.

And forever the cry will be, 'Would God I had died for thee,'

O Absalom, my son!"

BOYS ARE SCARCER THAN DOLLARS.

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"And the king went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

II SAMUEL, xviii, 33.

a

WEEK ago Saturday evening a friend and I were at the theater listening to the play, "A Gold Mine." Those of you who were there, as I trust many were, will remember the incident. This man had come from Grass Valley, Cal., with a gold mine which he is just on the point of selling, when he finds a young boy there in grave financial trouble. He had lost ten thousand pounds through speculations which his own father had set up, all unknowing that he had spread a net for the feet of his own son. Coming to the knowledge of this, the man from California questions in his mind as to whether he shall give this money for which he is about to sell the mine to the rescue of the boy. It will leave him poor, but says he,

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Boys are scarcer than dollars. Boys are scarcer than dollars." He tells the story of his own brother, a young boy whose head had become confused, whose feet were swept from underneath him by the fierce. speculation of Wall street; and who in despair put a bullet in his head and his life had gone out. "I got there," said this man, "twenty-four hours after. would have given my whole fortune to have saved him if

I

he had only told me of it. You remind me of him, and I will help you. Boys are scarcer than dollars." Let us repeat it, until the pathos of it and truth of it shall get a little lodgment in our hearts-Boys are scarcer than dollars.

As my friend and I went home that night, we talked together of a man I had known in times past, a business man, successful beyond the expectation of most men. I do not know that in his business history there was one single page of dishonor. I do not know that he ever did anything that the business world would not permit; but I do know this, that his life had been engrossed in his business to the exclusion of that careful attention to his family which it would seem they needed. The fierce, electric force of a passion for wealth's sake had consumed him. He was away from home much. To his already large business he kept adding new business. At no time could one go to him but this passion for more, this cry for wealth, seemed to be continually ringing its changes in his ears, and eating like a consuming force at his heart. His family could not have known much of him. I do not question he made adequate provision for all their physical wants. I never heard they lacked anything except a father's presence and a father's kindness and thought. As the years went on and he became more and more wealthy and more and more engrossed, gradually his son disappeared from him. He lost his boy; lost him to honor and truth, virtue, temperance and self-respect—lost him ; I do not know whether absolutely so, but at any rate to-day he wanders through the far west somewhere, lost to his family.

And now I want to know what is the profit to a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his boy? To this man dollars were scarcer than boys. He may have had a million of them-I do not know-but he still