but activity he must have, because he has found it to be the only law of life. He must work at something, because through work alone he is able to satisfy his conscience and feel himself united with the working universe; because through work alone he is able to help others or able to acquire the best means of self-culture; because through it alone he is able to enjoy beauty, acquire truth, work righteousness, and feel the approbation of his God. But such persons must also have their seasons of active waiting, of silent preparation for more active working. They will have their nights upon the mountain, their days of temptation in the wilderness; but these are only to help them work the work of him that sent them, while it is day. While they wait in the market-place for some great cause to claim them, they learn the heart's full scope, and at the eleventh hour climb speedily from hope to hope, and stand side by side with the earlier laborers in the realization of their longing. It is in their hours of active repose that those great accidents happen to them by which they are led into some new land of promise. In such moods, lying idly in the orchard, a falling apple brings secret messages from the Almighty which make known the laws that bind all worlds together into one. It is said that all great inventions, like the telescope and the polarization of light, were the results of accident. But it is to be remarked that the accidents happened to good mechanics or shrewd inventors, never to the passively passive people. These persons are not envious of worldly success, for they find a better within themselves.

But so few are found who combine both these essentials that God supplies society with many of each. Yea, his providence wrings a reaction from the forced activity of the miser, the passive activity of the unconsecrated worker,

which enriches the soil of his vineyard. And thousands he has who live in the love of life, and who hope from an abundance of life to secure salvation-those who live for humanity, who are active and public-spirited, striving for culture and the highest development. Oh! how these prune and beautify the vineyard of civilization. But, thank Heaven! all around this vineyard stand those who can love and bless the worker, though they themselves must stand idle those who catch glimpses of light and beauty which the dust of activity conceals from the laborer. These too are servants of the Almighty. And blessed are they who see that it is so, and who do not grudge these waiting ones any reward that comes to them, whether it be in inmost character or in the love and homage of discerning souls. The ability to do this-to rejoice in the work or in the happiness of others, though we ourselves are doomed to idleness, or can not see that we are being rewarded for our toilis itself a sort of work and helpfulness which can in nowise fail of its reward.

"She stood outside the gate of heaven and saw them entering in, A world-long train of shining ones all purified from sin.

"The hero-martyr in that blaze uplifted his strong eye, And trod firm the reconquered soil of his nativity!

"And he who had despised his life and laid it down in pain, Now triumphed in its worthiness and took it up again.

"The holy one who had met God in desert cave alone,

Feared not to stand with brethren around the Father's throne.

"They who had done in darkest night the deeds of light and flame, Circled with them about as with a glowing halo, came.

"And humble souls who held themselves too dear for earth to buy, Now entered through the golden gate to live eternally.

"And when into the glory the last of all did go,

'Thank God! there is a heaven,' she cried, though mine is endless

woe.'

"The angel of the golden gate said, 'Where, then, dost thou dwell? And who art thou that enterest not ?’—‘A soul escaped from hell.'

"Who knows to bless with prayer like thine in hell can never be; God's angel could not, if he would, bar up this door from thee.'

"She left her sin outside the gate, she meekly entered there, Breathed free the blessed air of heaven, and knew her native air."

X.

ENDURE HARDNESS.

"ENDURE hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."-2 TIM. 2: 3.

YES, I even like the word endurance. For we have lost an element of strength in giving it up as a heathen virtue. It is not the highest virtue, it is not the most teachable state of mind in which to receive trial; but it is a source of strength. And as compared with the Christian virtue of simple meekness, is far more noble. There are times when there is nothing but endurance for us; times when hardness thickens into a terrible fate, in which, for the time, we can see no love, no pity, no reason. Blessed is the soul which can simply endure, simply exist, though it be dumb, or as

"An infant crying in the night,

An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

If it can do the first work, endure the first agony, and then the next, and the next, it shall be led to a vision of higher beauty, a sense of deeper harmony.

There is, first, that hardness, bracing his

There are three kinds of endurance. of the stoic, who endures hardness by whole nature against an iron fate. He shuts the avenues of his soul against painful impressions, and builds a wall of indifference around his susceptibilities through which nothing is allowed to pass which can disturb his boasted equa

nimity. Marcus Aurelius says, the stoic bids nature “Give what thou wilt, and take what thou wilt."

Another kind of endurance is the pietistic, which becomes oblivious to suffering and trouble through religious enthusiasm. The rapt soul gazes so intently on the Invisible and Eternal that all finite ills are swallowed up in the infinite beauty. They suffer every earthly loss and endure every degree of hardness while the entranced spirit walks the Elysian fields of religious fancy. It is the very opposite of stoicism; for while that loses the natural effect of hardness by excluding it from the heart, this loses it by receiving it into a soul too much occupied to attend to it; as you may lose the effect of a strain of music by stopping your ears and not hearing it, or by fixing your attention on something else and not attending to it.

"Before the power of love divine
Creation fades away;

Till only God is seen to shine
In all that we survey."

The third kind of endurance is the Christian, which has its fairest and best type in Jesus. It is not a stoicism which will not love, for fear the loved one may die; which will not feel, lest it give pain; which will not look into the dark abysses, lest it be terrified; which will not contemplate crucifixion for principle, lest it be unnerved by it. Nor is it a pietism which craves martyrdom, which covets pain, which hides suffering in beatific visions of future blessedness; but it conquers by love, opens all the windows of the soul to love and sympathy, and, twining the nerves of the spirit around every human relation, sensitive to the least and the greatest throbs of suffering, receiving it into all the channels of