Master has come, and calleth for thee!" is miles and miles nearer to the Father in heaven than the most rapt Brahmin of them all so absorbed in God that he forgets all things in heaven and earth. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me!" saith the Lord. No! no! My soul must go forth to bless others. I pray for a blessing upon my own family. I desire for each one of them that the unspeakable joy of the Divine Presence may be felt by each one of them; that the large and noble ends of life may be dearer and dearer to them. I pray also for the dear ones joined to me in a common faith and hope, those who love the cause I love in the way I love it. I pray that they may be part of its triumph, that their eyes may see the coming of the Lord into the life and business and events of to-day, that their hands and hearts may be ready to answer the call of need, that they may grow in grace,-that is, in sweetness, in strength, in insight, in everything that makes for noble manhood and womanhood; that they may see the vision of God's mighty world and all the wonder that shall be. I pray also for all spokesmen of the truth, that they may speak nothing for strife or vain-glory, but all for God and Truth, and men and brotherly help, that they may preach the word boldly, broadly, and lovingly, and that a harvest of loving souls may be gathered in by them. I also for all teachers of the young. May pray they know whose they are and whom they serve! May they understand the mystery of the divine approach through them to the dear little ones whom He has intrusted to their care! May they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, when God Himself hath passed through their consciousness, through tender eye and voice and hand, and thus hath reached young and tender hearts. I pray also for all faithful workers for God and man; for all true physicians, whose God-sent mission it is to heal the sick; for all faithful statesmen, whose task it is to make God's thought of nationality a thing; for all students of nature, that in nature they may see God, may see that His infinite power is the servant of His infinite love; for all true artists, whose task it is to reveal the Divine Beauty to the ravished eyes of men, beauty in heaven and earth, in star and tree, in air and water, and above all in the human form divine; for all true poets, that they may sing the everlasting song of the triumph of Truth and Right and Love in strains so glorious that they shall woo all hearts to worship and service; for all workers in the great world of business, that they may learn and teach that they are the stewards of the divine bounty, that the grand power of directing the world's labor is their high duty and privilege; for all learned in the law, that they may through that learning make right prevail against wrong; for fathers and mothers, that the wonder of the divine love that builds all loving homes may rejoice their hearts; for all dear children, that they may give the blossom of their days to God and help and duty and goodness. Lastly I pray for all doubting hearts, for all the sick and sorrowful and forlorn; for the dying, that their eyes' last glance may see the gate of heaven; for all those sick of sin and selfishness, that they may have strength given them to quit the husks that the swine eat, and to return to their Father's house and be forgiven; for all the vicious, the criminal, the hardhearted, the hinderers of every good work; for all those who add to the dreadful weight of wrong that bears so heavily on the earth, who fight against the good ways of God, and delay His coming to dwell with men. May the everlasting gospel reach the hardest heart, and wash away the deepest stains of guilt! And now my prayer is over. But what of those who pray without ceasing for me, those my assessors in the world who stand by me and have stood by me year in and year out, in spite of a thousand shortcomings they must have seen; who believe in the word which God strives to speak through me, often and often though I have through thoughtlessness or indolence quenched His Spirit; what of the true and tender souls in earth and heaven, to whom my welfare is infinitely dear, whose prayers have helped me, when I was prayerless myself? Such thoughts were in me when I wrote this little poem which I call SHELTERED. Beneath the shelter which your prayers have reared, The storm which struck me down no longer feared, How strange a shelter! like a tent of glass Through it, I see the broken storm-clouds pass Strong-roofed it is, and yet the starlight fair Storm-proof it is, and yet the gentlest air Curious, I rise to touch it with my hands, No finest, airiest film between me stands Whom shall I bless? I bless the Lord of all, His Robe it is whose folds around me fall, All ill to bar. Yet must I bless, in Him, each faithful friend Whose fingers wove Out of that Robe this tent no storms can rend, FATE AND FREEDOM. The creation was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but through him who has subjected it in hope; because the creation itself shall be redeemed from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.-ROMANS viii. 20, 21. PAUL has been wrestling with that tremendous force in human affairs which the ancients called Fate, and thought stronger than the Gods themselves. He has felt in his own person the weight of the chain which mankind has dragged from the beginning, and has studied its action in the history of the world. But he has a firm faith that the God in whom he trusts, whose face he sees imaged in the face of the Jesus he loves, has power, through fate, to work out man's freedom, and that all mankind are destined at last to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Hardening of sinner and suffering of saint are alike made to work out one supreme end, the salvation of the whole human race. Weaker souls, like Augustine and Calvin, looked into the same mystery, and were appalled; for they saw in it the sure doom of the vast majority of mankind. They imposed their diseased thoughts upon |