have taken his opportunities of learning true happiness. The butler who is found out as a petty thief feels that if he only had used his cleverness on a grand scale, he might have been a "captain of industry." The harsh and merciless woman, as her later years have fixed her character, wonders if her life might not have been different, had she earlier in life cultivated tenderness. Only one type is withheld-that of the clergyman who by debasing his preaching to please worldly men and ideals and by compromising with truth has gained high and lucrative position, the rectorship of a rich parish or the episcopate, but has lost all spiritual power, and cannot touch the hearts and consciences of men.

Then, unexpectedly, comes the tradition that on midsummer eve a magic forest appears and all who go into the forest have a second chance at life. "A second chance!" they exclaim, one by one, with the most intense longing, and go out into the mysterious wood, each appearing to get a vision as he enters the forest, the vision of a second chance.

Next we see them as they carry out the opportunity of a second chance. Alas! the root weakness remains uncorrected and life works itself out in another way, to be sure, but with the same result. The thieving butler becomes an unscrupulous, but successful financier, almost just across the line of honesty and justifiable methods, but managing to retrieve himself by other tricks. The hard, stern woman who had insisted that he be sent to jail for stealing her rings, condones his sharp practices on the large scale which the world applauds. The philanderer makes love again to another than the woman he deems his own wife, though in the forest she is the very woman he was faithless to in real life. The seeker for pleasure leads only an empty existence. The artist has an object for his true affection in a sweet daughter-a "might-have-been"-but he fails to achieve success in his profession. The mercenary woman marries the rich man, only to be cast off and reduced to beggary. All make a mess of life over again. They had, as each supposes, a second chance. Something was lacking. Mere

experience could not eradicate or correct the root fault or infirmity.

That is the play, in its first acts. It is true to life. Sir James Barrie is a shrewd observer of men. He is also a very powerful preacher. Go to see the play, but do not miss the lesson. It is the teaching of God's dealing with men. Let us try now to note the underlying truths.

I. There is no second chance in life. In the sense in which the expression is generally used there cannot be a second chance -a turning of the wheels of time backward. Character forms and crystallizes slowly but surely. So far as we are concerned, every underlying defect remains really uncorrected, even though it is deeply regretted, and perhaps superficially held in check. The temporal penalty of sin is this loss of balance in character. It is a defect, which may be spiritual blindness, deafness, lameness, or a withered and maimed spiritual hand and arm. Such a weakness can only be corrected by a Power outside ourselves. To know this weakness and to know how it may be corrected is to carry out St. Paul's experience "When I am weak, then am I strong."

II. St. Paul did not have a new chance. He had a new vision. Then a new power entered in. He turned obediently to the Vision of Christ Jesus. "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”

St. Paul could not revert to the days before he had assumed responsibility for St. Stephen's death and his later bitter and fanatical persecution of Christians. He never allowed those acts to fade from his own memory nor to be hidden from the knowledge of others. The past could not be undone, nor, so far as the new vision was concerned, need it be undone. Certain inevitable consequences to him would be his temporal punishment. The Jewish authorities would never forget that once he had been a thorough Jew, "a Pharisee of the Pharisees." Nevertheless, even in that persecution God's work had not been stopped. The direct result was that, as we would put it, Christ and His Church had been advertised.

The majority of us, like the characters in the play, take a

wrong attitude. We don't wish to be found out and exposed as failures. That constitutes the bitterest drop in our cup. We would gladly go back and begin over again, but the earthly vision. is still dominant. Bearing the penalty after learning the lesson, turning to the new and heavenly vision, is the true principle of that widely misunderstood experience of conversion, so continually confused with reversion which means a supposed "second chance." We may have continually a clearer and clearer vision. And at least once in the life of each of us there comes a new, a heavenly vision. The latter is the great crisis, the other experiences, lesser crises in life.

In Sir James Barrie's play, as the personages return, one by one, from the mysterious forest they are still held by the fancied events of their second chance. Then little by little they regain the environment of their former life and soon are back again in their old ways and habits. The philanderer soon is at his amorous advances to another woman. The butler, from the purseproud, overbearing multi-millionnaire, at the sight of the coffee tray, sinks back to the deferential manners of his old position. The woman who had been pitiless to him in the real life and condoned his successful dishonesty in the mystic wood, spurns him again as the butler. One or two of the group, however, have had a clearer vision and they go on with their life, not with a second chance, but with a better chance, because at last they are not disobedient to the aspect of their vision which came from God.

III. "So run that ye may obtain." The Vision of God, and all life and action and purpose and ideal as conditioned by that vision, are the goal of the runner. If he diverges from the right course, if he breaks the rules, if he falls, he cannot go back and begin the race over again. He can at pain and cost take up his course and fix his eyes on the goal and continue. A new strength will come to him. He will go on in that strength. He will not return to the starting-point and enter a second race. This is the thought of Browning:

"Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now-and bid him awake

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set Clear and safe in new light and new life, a new harmony yet To be run, and continued, and ended-who knows?-or endure!

The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest to make

sure

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this."

IV. What we all need at the present crisis in the world's history is a renewed and clearer vision of God's Will. The whole world is occupied with the effort to work out the various objects aimed at by the human will-the will to power, the will to possess, the will to pleasure, the will to indulge, the will to know. The will to holiness-nothing less-is the Will of God. There is no conspicuous seeking of holiness today. There are not wanting the few who aim at the attainment of "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." But no one pays much attention to them. There is a great deal of Phariseeism in the Christian Church on the part of those who consider themselves in a sound and wholesome spiritual condition because they have succeeded in the attainment of their "will"-the object of their ambition, perhaps high office in the Christian Society and prominence in the Church's activities, by what means, legitimate or worldly, they never ask themselves. They head charity organizations, "drives," missionary activities, societies for pure politics, for municipal betterment. They preach these things from Christian pulpits, and omit the "weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." Is it because they have lost the power and fear the disapproval of worldly men? When the deeper subjects come to the front, these have no drawing power, no influence, and frankly they have no interest in them. "These are wells without water."

The entire world of men at the present moment is much in the condition of the group of people in Barrie's play. All nations have more or less admitted, or have been convicted of the charge, that they have made a mess of their national lives. Three or

four years ago there seemed to be a yearning for a second chance. Could the war but be ended and the different nations revert to a former condition and begin all over again, how eagerly past mistakes, "wrong turnings" as the play phrases them, would be avoided. There was remorse, but not penitence. There lies all the difference.

Then came the armistice and the cessation of hostilities. The sessions of peace councils began. The nations and their leaders entered a mysterious forest wherein all were to get their second chance. And lo! they have quite failed to see and obey the heavenly vision. They are not asking, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" International affairs are as much messed up as ever, possibly in a different way, but still almost hopelessly confused. The wrong turning was made at once. No one high in office asked, what is the heavenly vision for the world, and learned that God's Kingdom was to be the great League of Nations. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. "The Holy Spirit is not continually invoked at the council table. Many who sit there do not believe in the Holy Spirit and His operations. Men are just seeking to work out things again by their own cleverness. And even now the interval of thirty years is seriously estimated as the period to elapse before the next effort is made to gain the ends at which the most guilty nation has by no means ceased to aim.

Each and every nation is in the same condition. There is not really a thoroughly Christian nation on the face of the earth. Our politicians, our lawmakers, our economists, all are going on in the same old way. All classes in every nation are selfish and unbrotherly. "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ," is not the watchword of any social, intellectual, economic, or even religious group. Strikes, unjust discrimination in the levy of taxes, exploiting of party catchwords to attract votes, the play to the galleries to get the masses-all are in full swing. The mystery is solved. There is no real forest and there is no second chance.

The Church shows up as badly as any other group, so far as her human leaders and adherents are concerned. She is at the