deeds.

We know them by their fruits. We think of a man in connection with the books he writes, the railroads he builds, the buildings which are his creation, the work of his hands, the work of his brain; but the hidden forces that dictate all these things are never displayed in public. Our career, whatever it is, is born in the secret place of whispers. The output of life is noisy enough, but in the silence of the inner self is decided what that output shall be.

I went through a tin-mill not long since, the greatest one in the world, where thousands of men are employed. I saw multitudes of machines, with tremendous power, running noisily in the working rooms. After a while I was taken where two mighty steam engines had their place in the power-house. And I found that the quietest place about that great mill was the power-house itself. Outside, where the power was exerted, was clanging roar; but inside, where the power was generated, and from whence it was sent on its mission, a child might have slept undisturbed.

Now all life is like that. We see men and women in the market-place, and in the public competitions of social and business life; and we hear the noise, and the turmoil, and the strife of contending forces; but when you want to get to the secret cause of it all you must go into the inner chamber of the heart. It is the heart that dictates whether a man's life shall be good or bad. Solomon understood this when he said, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Christ was teaching the same truth when he declared that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. The illustrations which he uses are striking. A sweet fountain can never send out bitter waters, neither can a bitter fountain send out sweet waters; men do not gather grapes of thorns, and the thistle does not yield figs; a good tree always brings forth good fruit, and a corrupt tree always brings forth evil fruit. And he had the same thought in his mind when, urging upon his disciples the value of secret prayer, he declared that the rewards of secret communion with God are bestowed in public influence and power. The soul gets close to God in secret whispers in the closet, but the Lord repays in the noonday and from the housetop.

This, then, is the message which I bring to you this morning: that your power to do great things, to achieve great things for the Lord, must come from hidden communion and secret fellowship.

The story of God's dealings with men and women throughout all time illustrates our message. Abraham was known as the friend of God because God defended him in battle, and gave him flocks and herds, endowed him with wisdom in public life; but the secret of it all was in the altar in his desert-camp, and the hidden communion of his daily worship. Jacob went out to meet Esau with a confident face, but his confidence was born in a midnight. wrestle with the angel; a whispered conference in the darkness. Elijah dared four hundred of the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel; he faced the wicked king Ahab in the matter of the stolen vineyard, and his life was full of sensational and marvellous exhibitions of the divine presence; but the secret of Elijah was in such experiences as came to him in the mountain cavern when God spoke to him in the "still small voice." Daniel went down into the den of lions in public, and it stirred a whole kingdom. His associates went into the fiery furnace with a nation looking on. But in both instances the power was the result of the worship of God in their own chambers, with their windows open toward Jerusalem. David faced Goliath with his sling and stone, without fear. But his courage was born amid the quiet hills of Bethlehem where he had communed with the Almighty. Job in the day of his desolation declared, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;" but he had learned confidence in the midnight watches. Stephen's face shone like an angel's in the midst of his persecutors; but it was in secret prayer, and through communion with the Holy Spirit, that that radiance came to him. Paul and Silas could face opposing mobs with the calmness of veteran soldiers; but midnight songs in prison dungeons had given them their composure and sublimity of soul. John has given us marvelous visions, that have captivated the heart of the world; but he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day" when the visions came to him. And what God did in his dealings. with patriarchs and prophets and apostles and saints in olden time, he is still doing in his dealings with his children. We are his children in the same sense that were they; we are just as near to his heart; his loving-kindness is over us just as truly. If we open our hearts to receive him, he will come and abide with us, and we shall have calm and confidence; we, too, shall see "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" we shall go into our den of lions without trembling, and to our fiery furnace without harm, when the form of the "Fourth" is with us; "the still

small voice" still speaks to the troubled and the distressed, and midnight songs are sung, and faces shine like the faces of angels and men see visions of heavenly things, when there has been much secret prayer and communion, and when we are "in the Spirit on the Lord's day."

It is right to be nobly ambitious, to be the largest and truest men and women we may be; it is right to seek to equip ourselves for great achievements for the blessing of humanity and the triumph of the Lord; but let us not forget that great deeds and great characters are born in the whispering places of the imagination, in the silent chambers of the soul. To be great in public we must be pure and reverent and humble and devout in the secret place of devotion. What we show forth in light, and shout from the housetops of life, must be breathed into our ears in whispers.

THE GREATEST BATTLEFIELD IN HISTORY

"I have fought a good fight."-2 Timothy 4:7.

The attention of the whole civilized world has been for some time centered on South Africa, and the great struggle which is going on there. The old folks as well as the children have set themselves to study geography, and we are getting a new dictionary with such words as "drift," and "kop" and "kopje" and "trek" and "laagar," and many others like them, in the forefront. The world rushes along at a fearful pace these days. Day before yesterday Grant, and Lee, and Sheridan were the great generals. Yesterday we were talking about Shafter and Wheeler and the dash of the "Rough Riders" with Wood and Roosevelt at the head. But today it is Cronje and Lord Roberts whose names. are on every tongue. The whole world has just been looking on in admiration at the courage and fortitude of a few thousand men, surrounded by ten times their number, who for nine days lived in a burning hell of battle ere they surrendered. Courage is admirable even in our enemies, and there is something about a man who counts principle and patriotism to be worth infinitely more than life which wins our respect and admiration, though he be our foe.

There is a battlefield, however, greater than Paaderberg Drift, more fiercely fought than Majuba Hill, more important than Waterloo, more desperate than Gettysburg. It is the battlefield of the

human heart, where in every age, and in all times, and among all peoples, the battle is going on. It is about that battle that I wish to speak, for some of you are in the heat of the conflict, and others will go down in defeat unless they have help. It is said that on the afternoon of Waterloo, Wellington took out his watch to mark the time and said: "Oh, for night, or Blucher!" Blucher came, and, so far as human eyes can see, changed the map of the world for centuries. So there have been many men and women ready to despair and give up the battle in defeat, to whom, at their cry of appeal, Christ has come with a reserve force that has hurled back their enemies, and sent them forward in triumph over all their foes.

It is not a question whether we will take part in the battle of life or not. We must do so. We cannot help ourselves if we would. It is only a question whether or not we shall win. The Christian religion is sometimes called a religion of self-denial, and that is true. But all life is a system of self-denial, and let no one for a moment suppose that he escapes life's difficulties and struggles and fierce battlefields by rejecting Christ. The way to hell is not an easy one.

Since we are in the fight, let us study some of the characteristics of a good soldier, and take notice from history and observation, that we may learn how to win victories, and above all how to win the great victory at last.

If you have been reading carefully the story of the struggle in South Africa, you have noticed the importance of the position taken by an army. It is important to success that they have a high position, that covers the position of the enemy. Again and again the British army coming to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Ladysmith was compelled to retire from important intrenchments which had been captured at great cost, because it was found that, high as the position was, some other fortress of the enemy commanded it and made it untenable.

Position is just as important in the moral and spiritual world. It makes all the difference between success and defeat whether you have intrenched yourself in some low swamp of policy or expediency, or have climbed up to the rugged heights of righteousness, and planted your guns with the solid "Rock of Ages" beneath them. It is true that "Honesty is the best policy;" but no man is ever safe in his business life who is only dealing honestly because it is the best policy. If a man gets to looking at it from that standpoint,

there is certain to come a day when dishonesty will seem to be the best policy, and when for the present he has to lose money in order to be honest. Then comes the failure of the man who is honest for policy's sake; and that is the explanation of the shipwreck of so many men who have stood well in the business world, but who in some sudden trial have collapsed and been guilty of deeds at variance with all their previous conduct. The difficulty with them lay in the fact that they had never been honest from any high motive, but because for the time being it seemed expedient. The only man that is safe, and sure to go through all the experiences of life and come out true gold on the other side, is one who is honest because it is right. The question of expediency does not enter into the matter with him. Such a man will be as honest in adversity as in prosperity. How clearly this appears in the temptation of Jesus. The devil sought to bring Christ to bend to the emergencies. He was hungry, therefore let him make bread out of the stones under his feet; God had promised the care of the angels over him, therefore let him hurl himself from the pinnacle of the temple and test their fidelity. But Christ refused to make any compromise with Satan; he preferred hunger to eating the devil's bread. And so I say to any young man or young woman tempted to compromise with what is wrong in order to present success. It will mean defeat to you every time. There is only one safe course, and that is to take your position on the high motive of right. Then you are safe from the guns of the enemy.

Another thing is very important, and that is the question of armor and arms. A politician was killed the other day, in one of our States, who, it is said, wore a full suit of chain armor which would have turned a pistol ball or an ordinary rifle ball without difficulty. but he had not reckoned on a Kragjorgensen rifle. It sent a bullet straight through armor and all. King Ahab had the finest armor that could be made, but an archer found the joint in it and sent an arrow into the one uncovered spot. Goliath of Gath wore enormous sheets of brass, but the smooth stone from David's sling found the one soft spot there was about him, in his head, and he went down in defeat. You may be sure that the enemy will find the weak spot, and that it is necessary that your armor shall be of the kind that can turn away all the darts of the evil one. Christ will furnish

you an armor that can do that. Paul, who fought such a good fight, tells us in his letter to the Ephesians all about this armor.