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of holiness. God's love regards not a favored few, but the whole human race; so God's claim rests not on the few, but on all. Obligation is not nullified by denial of it. There is no hidingplace for the soul that repudiates the claims of duty; there is no recess in this universe where the authority of moral law does not penetrate, it is as pervasive and omnipresent as the atmosphere.

Have clearly in mind that there is one debt which rests on you all. It is neither unequal nor transient. It is not a burden, but a blessing; for it is the necessary condition of happiness and peace. When oughtness is met by willingness heaven is begun. "Great peace," said the Psalmist, grasping this truth, -"great peace have they who love thy law."

Often a distinction is made between duty to our fellow-men and duty to God; but there is no real distinction. The New Testament clearly recognizes that all duties are to God, and that pure love and service to humanity are the true worship.

But the formal distinction between philanthropy and religion is convenient for purposes of discussion.

(1) We are debtors, then, to our fellow-men. We owe them love and helpfulness in their toils

and struggles; sympathy in their sorrows, and service in their need. We owe it to them to practise virtue and charity, to afford them an elevating example, to share with them our blessings, and to impart to them our joys. The claims of a common humanity are continuous. The debt is persistent; it is not discharged by any single act of beneficence, but only by a life of constant generous service. All great souls have recognized in some measure the debt. Saint Paul said of himself: "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise." The altruism of modern scientific thought is but the tardy recognition of the law of Christ, which is the universal moral law.

(2) We are debtors to God. He gives us being and power, and the capacity for blessedness. We owe Him reverence and love and obedience; we owe Him the joyful worship of pure hearts. He claims this from us, and emphasizes His claim by the revelation of His nature and will in the person and life of Jesus Christ. His claim is uttered in the law given on Sinai; it is sung in the evangel at Bethlehem; it is breathed in the dying prayer of the crucified Jesus; it is trumpeted in the Apostolic call to repentance; it is voiced in the psalms

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of the redeemed who chant the praises of "the Lamb" in the Apocalypse. Every gift of God to us is a witness and evidence of our debt. Every sunrise proclaims it; every common blessing, such as life and air and food and power of limb and faculty of mind, attests it; every deliverance from peril or temptation declares it. Our debt to God finds expression in every holy hymn that makes melody amid the discords and strifes of the world. Every church spire pointing to the skies is a mute witness to it; every prayer acknowledges it. It is the one thing that makes the life of man intelligible and sacred.

Our life does not begin to take on dignity and significance until, in some way, we apprehend and acknowledge our debt to God. Subjection to this debt is not bondage, but liberty. It is to the soul what air is to the lungs, and light to the eye, and red blood to the beating heart.

But the debt is one; it is the duty of living in that love of man which is religion, that love of God which is philanthropy. Shun all debts but this. Recognize this and welcome it as the sign of your divine kinship and destiny, and pour out your life in glad and continuous and ever-increasing payment.

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You may depend upon it that there are as good hearts to serve men in palaces as in cottages. - ROBERT OWEN.

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A king can mak a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, and a' that;

But an honest man 's aboon his might,

Guid faith he mauna fa' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

Their dignities and a' that,

The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,

Are higher ranks than a' that.

BURNS.

High-dizened, most expensive persons, Aristocracy so-called, or Best of the world, beware, beware what proofs you are giving here of betterness and bestness! A select populace, with money in its purse, and drilled a little by the posturemaster good Heavens! - CARLYLE.

Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. JESUS Christ.

THE

HE use of the adjective “true" implies that there is a false aristocracy. Almost every good thing in the world has its counterfeit; and almost every evil institution or custom in human society is a prophetic or reminiscent counterfeit or caricature of a good institution or custom. The word "aristocracy" has primarily a political significance. It is from two Greek words, apioтos, "the best," and рáтоя, "power; ἄριστος, whence ἀριστοκρατία, which means the rule of the best. Webster defines "aristocracy" as "A governing body composed of the best men. in the state," and then significantly adds concerning this definition: "Obsolete and very rare." Such is the sense of the word in Ben Jonson's lines:

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"If the Senate

Right not our quest in this, I will protest them
To all the world no aristocracy."

Commonly the word has designated a privileged class of people who claimed superiority and rulership over the multitude by virtue of an assumed distinction in blood and consequent rights.

Intrinsically the aristocratic idea has a foundation in justice and the well-being of man. The best ought to rule; the best ought to set the

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