flesh had lost its victory-infidelity, atheism, another name only, for Devil, had lost its game in him. "Safe in the arms of Jesus.' The same hand that led and sustained the martyrs in their afflictions. Thank God, all Christians meet on the common groundThe Divinity of Our Lord.

There are not words enough in the English language (and how we love that tongue and what a faithful study we have made of its beauties) to express our horror of that man, or that woman, who having had, all the benefit of school and college, of culture and travel, who has been especially favored by going from kingdom to kingdom, from Cathedral to Court, from gallery to Salon, to Club, who has seen nearly all, or had a bite, at all, of the glorious under this sun; and then, with his head and mind packed with knowledge and erudition casts his eyes (and his writings) about, contemptuously on those "simple folk," who have not lost their mother's and father's faith, have not made shipwreck of their Bible, and who still cling to the teachings and the hymns of the old roof-tree-"The God Man, Christ Jesus."

Were it not, emphatically, wrong; and wronger in a body and Christians, to use any form of strong words, we should simply say, imperatively (as we say to a child: "sit!") "Damn you!" But more's the pity, we cannot make these people sit, neither may we damn them. But there's a bad time coming for them, we fear! There is one thing we would do were we rich-we would say: "Come, now! We offer one million dollars ($1,000,000) in gold, if any one of you who say (honestly) you'd not believe in the Bible (but in Prof. Von Serpent) do not believe that the Saviour was more than a good man, an example, a pattern; if you will come forward, to a well-heated furnace or even to a pot of boiling lead, or oil, and consent to put in, without any compelling, put one of your little fingers and have it burnt clean off, or boiled or broiled off, in confirmation of your belief" Not one man or woman in Europe or America would respond to our

most generous offer. See how they quake, and shake and shiver, in their shoes, when they think death is approaching, if their "mind is clear!" Oui, Madame. Now, mark! If a persecution of Christians was to arrive the blessed morrow how quickly would another book be filled with the names of maidens, wives. and mothers; the son, the husband, the father who had laid down their lives as readily as St. Stephen! Don't talk.-"The God Man, Christ Jesus."

LOOTING.

"Trifles make perfection and perfection is no trifle." The printer of a few years only, of experience (not an "ancient" exactly) has but to insert the little word "up" after your "climbing," for instance, and your article, prepared with thought and care is spoiled and you stand (innocent victim) before your readers an ignoramus and a dunce. But that journal, that "Progressive Educatah❞ enters the homes of half the town-price, five cents. And you are sold. Moral:-Covet not the blue riband of Literature. Many of the ancient hymns and not a few of the early part of the present century have been so mutilated and marred, adapted, altered and abridged that the author would now hardly recognize his work-chalices of Royal Tokay poured upon the ground by the iconoclast and the fanatic, and refilled, alas! with something as tasteless as rice water. But this is an age of progress. The Bible too has been revised. We are glad to note the words of Bishop Coxe on that subject and rest it there:-"I have also survived that other 'revision,' ill-omened, ill-starred and ignominiously shelved by common consent of scholars and the common sense of devout Christian people."

But as the bump of the ludicrous covers our whole head nearly and has made a bridge for us over many a deep water we cannot refrain just here from quoting a few words more from "the cloth:"-"A clergyman reading the lessons in my church one Sunday, changed the phrase 'He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat' into 'filled his abdomen,' etc. I was very much annoyed, and asked him after service, why he had done that, and he replied that he considered 'belly' too archaic to use in a modern congregation."— It is said with regard to that

masterpiece of art-composition-poem, Gray's "Elegy" (the laurel was offered to Gray, but was declined) that not a word of it could be altered or exchanged without impairing its exquisite beauty and perfection.-A propos: It was this poem, you know, that Daniel Webster asked to have read to him in his last hours.

It is one masterful illustration of the marvelous power of language, and the true inwardness of a single word-that it can stand in its place as a priceless pearl with an individuality complete and perfect having no exact parallel-no precise counterpart or duplicate-no twin, if I may be allowed the expression; a sort of live human thing with properties or attributes so obvious as to be able to break and destroy the harmony, the music of a literary work if exchanged. Had we the Biblical knowledge of but one work of Almighty God, viz: Babel, it ought to be enough to make us all believers and Christians: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." And now for a very brief but concise resume:-It needs but the little sweep of the brush of acid across the canvas and your Reubens, or your Turner, is valueless; just one determined stroke of the hammer and the drapery of a Michael Angelo with its lines of beauty is no more; a very few threads of that exquisite point lace ruthlessly broken and the dainty fabric that is as fine as gossamer and that cost long years of patient toil and drudgery, and worth the price of an earl's ransom, is ruined beyond redemption or repair. Now then to come a step nearer to every-day life and the life of common mortals:-Just a sly trick of the eye, a shrug, a little delicate intonation of the voice; only, even, a slight "turn" on a word, and the innocent girl, so innocent as to be veiled even from a suspicion that she has an acquaintance who would or who could harm her by word or deed,-but, she is shunned nor dreaming why. "With late repentance now they would retrieve" says Dryden.

A SHORT SATURDAY SERMON.

"It is right to do wrong that good may come." "The end sanctifies the means." The Devil's Rosary.

A missionary spent the greater part of his life in a certain field. on the continent of Asia. His converts and followers were many and his work seemed thorough and complete.

After his death, for many years no one went there to take up his work; but when an apostle sought it out, at last, not one believer remained faithful-every man alive had gone home to heathendom! That missionary was zealous and earnest, and self-sacrificing enough withal, possibly; what was there, then, lacking in his methods and teaching, and why did his work fall to the ground and "come to naught." Such illustrations are food for thought. We need not go far to seek them; they are too often nearer home than Asia.

Bathe says in his little book, (Twenty-fifth thousand) "A Lent with Jesus" that "Satan is desirous to spoil work for God by making people neglect the very principle on which work rests," viz:-putting the Eucharist to one side.

We may say prayers seven times daily and sing hymns after, if we will; but, if we neglect and slight the "Divine Liturgy" all is fruitless.

It is not your province nor is it mine to teach our Creator new and better ways than the "old paths" He has plainly marked out and which have been "beaten" by the wisdom and the sainthood of all the ages from the time of Melchizedek to A. D. 1897. Is it?

There is a religious training (so-called), broadcast, to-day, of prayer and praise (so-called) which is, indirectly, contrary to the New Testament teachings of our Saviour, as subtle and as hurtful