over hundreds of millions of men and women because he never faltered in his career as a saint. He could not be bribed away from his goodness, nor his privilege of helping humanity, by wealth, or ease, or luxury, or power. He was a poor man, but his very poverty makes his name a watchword for the entire human race. He had not where to lay his head, but millions of homes are consecrated in his name, and thousands of cathedral spires reach up toward heaven to enshrine his name, and recall men to the glory and helpfulness of his career. Christ's power has been permanent in the world, and has been always growing, because he held goodness, purity, sainthood to be far above and beyond power. And the politician, or the business man, or the society woman who deviates from goodness, and kindness, and from sincere and genuine sainthood, in order to gain power, to-day, is guilty of a folly as great as would have been the folly of Jesus if he had sold his purity, or exchanged it for the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, in answer to the devil's offer.

Many others are tempted to sell their goodness that they may have pleasure. Men say to themselves, "Happiness is the greatest thing in the world, and life is not worth the living unless I can be happy." And as they pursue that gaudy butterfly called pleasure, there comes a time when he high standards of Christianity, the pure, holy laws of goodness, seem to run directly athwart the path. on which their promised pleasure leads the chase. And pleasure wins the verdict, and goodness and sainthood are sacrificed that the pleasure may not be lost. What multitudes there are, who in the beginning did not mean to be bad; who started out with high ideals; who expected to lead pure and noble lives; who intended to come to the end of their career with the shield unstained; but the pursuit of pleasure brought them into this place of temptation. The tempter said to them in the witty proverb of the day, "Be good and you will be lonely." Goodness and disappointment, sainthood and defeat of pleasure, seemed to be bound up together. In order to have pleasure it seemed to be necessary to sacrifice those high ideals of righteousness and devotion to God and duty with which they began the Christian life. And so they determined to be happy, and consented to not be saints. No soul ever made a greater blunder or committed a more terrible sacrilege than that. A blunder because permanent happiness was exchanged for pleasure of only a temporary and ephemera nature. Permanent happiness, which issues into the

abiding peace which is like a river, is never disassociated from goodness. The perfectly genuine and saintly soul can never be really unhappy. Disappointment and temporary sacrifice and defeat may chafe the bosom of the thoroughly good man or woman, as the wind-storm sweeping across the ocean may fret the surface of the mighty deep into white-caps; but as the great depths of the sea will be undisturbed by the wind, and after the wind has died down will mirror the face of the sun and reflect the stars in their quiet bosom, so the true and noble heart that abides faithful to duty may be fretted for the moment by disappointment or self-denial, but in the long years of life there is a happiness and a peace which the world never gave, and which the world has no power to take away. Now let us not for a moment be misunderstood. It is possible for one to have money and what it stands for-business success, power, happiness—and yet be a saint; but the sainthood must never be made a secondary thing. Abraham had great flocks and herds and was rich in all the wealth of the East, but it was to him a secondary matter. The first great fact in Abraham's life was that he was "the friend of God." And so in order to keep untarnished our career as a good man or a good woman, goodness, the keeping our faith with God, must be held as the first and highest thing in life. Then everything else falls naturally into its place.

There could be no greater folly than for a young man or a young woman to imagine that to give one's self with all the heart and soul to God's calling to be a saint, will narrow the horizon or make life less rich and splendid. There is a Scripture often misquoted and misinterpreted which says, "To the pure all things are pure," but it is certainly true that the pure heart will find the pure and precious gold in every department of God's world, and yet escape the poison which other men find in the search.

A little while ago there was an auction sale in New York city which brought to the block many famous horses. They were race horses, the finest trotters in the world. And yet that stable had not been gathered to afford a basis for gambling, or to make money out of it in any sense, but to gratify the owner's love of the horse and his delight in studying and training and driving him. Robert Bonner had an intuitive sympathy with horses that was remarkable. He loved horses and understood them. As some one has said, in Mr. Bonner's hand a pair of reins meant something more than two long leather straps. They were the wires that carried his personality

to the horse. No one could ever get more out of a horse than he. There was something in his touch to which the animal responded. There is a common notion that contact with horses, especially fast horses, is bad for human character; but it was not so with Mr. Bonner. He was a simple-hearted, pure-minded Christian man, one who loved God and sought to bless his fellows and live the saintly life. More than everything else on earth, he loved the best and highest things in the spiritual life and worked to promote them; and yet no ten gamblers in America ever got out of a trotting horse one tithe of the happiness that came to Mr. Bonner. I recall this incident because it seems to me a very striking illustration of our theme. Christ never said anything truer than the declaration with which I began, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"-all the other natural joys and blessings of life will be the sweeter because you have fulfilled the first great commandment of God.

I bring back to your attention and press home upon your hearts that you are called to be saints, and that that calling is infinitely more important to you than your calling to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a preacher, or a man of business, or a housekeeper, or a teacher, or any other calling the world honors and respects. Everything else will change or perish, but your career as a saint need have no sunset. All the flowers of life will fade, but the bloom and fragrance of a pure Christian character will abide forever.

Dr. W. L. Watkinson well says that the saint of God has really nothing precious to lose by the lapse of time. Time will take much from us physically-energy, fullness, bloom; it will take our bright eyes, our erect gait, our elastic tread, our firm grasp. It may probably take away from us intellectually. The old man thinks that he sings, paints, preaches, as well as ever he did, and all the while his friends smile. But character abides with us. Age cannot wither this, nor time destroy this bloom; it is the bloom of eternity. The perfections of the saint shine out all the more boldly and brightly as other perfections abate. Some of you have seen those famous gates in Florence which Michael Angelo declared fit for the gates of Paradise. They are covered with exquisite pictures and noble imagery in bronze. Now those gates were once gilded, and Dante speaks of them as "Golden Gates;" but the centuries have worn away the gold-you can hardly discern a gleaming particle. Still the splendid work of the great artist abides in the solid bronze, look

ing perhaps all the more impressive in its own severe, undecorated simplicity. So years rub away the gilt from us all; but inwrought graces, faithful work, duty honestly done, and noble deeds wrought in helpful kindness abide untouched by time and change; these the years cannot mar, they shine all the more splendidly as the transient and temporary charms of earth vanish away.

This is no unreal and impossible portrait which I have been trying to make stand before you. Perhaps Richard Burton has portrayed him more strongly in lines of poetry. Speaking of "The Modern Saint," he says:

"No monkish garb he wears, no beads he tells,
Nor is immured in walls remote from strife;

But from his heart deep mercy ever wells;

He looks humanely forth on human life.

"In place of missals or of altar dreams

He cons the passioned book of deeds and days;
Striving to cast the comforting sweet beams

Of charity on dark and noisome ways.

"Not hedged about by sacerdotal rule,

He walks a fellow of the scarred and weak;
Liberal and wise his gifts, he goes to school
To justice; and he turns the other cheek.

"He looks not holy; simple is his belief;

His creed for mystic visions do not scan;
His face shows lines cut there by others' grief;
And in his eyes is love of brother-man.

"Not self nor self-salvation is his care;

He yearns to make the world a summer clime
To live in; and his mission everywhere

Is strangely like to Christ's in olden time.

"No medieval mystery, no crowned

Dim figure, halo-ringed, uncanny bright;

A modern saint! A man who treads earth's ground
And ministers to men with all his might."

143

BLESSINGS CHANGED TO CURSES.

"I will curse your blessings."-Malachi 2:2.

Among the more ignorant colored people in the South one may hear a great deal about the "Hoodoo." There is a belief among them that certain persons have the power to cast a hoodoo over their enemies so that they will not be able to prosper. If they sow seeds in the ground they will rot, or if they sprout and grow up they will rust in the stalk. In short, nothing that these persons do will succeed. That fatal hoodoo will follow them and bring them bad luck in everything they undertake. Now this superstition of the ignorant is a blind seeking after a great truth. There is such a thing as bringing a hoodoo on our lives, so that whatever we do will come to failure in the end. There may be many a day of smiling promise, but the end will always be disaster.

In the Scripture we are studying we are assured by the Lord, through the mouth of the prophet, that this hoodoo is sin; that if we sin against God he will curse our blessings, and those things which were intended for our good, and which in the natural order would bring us happiness and comfort, will be changed into curses and bring us unhappiness and sorrow. In this case the Lord was not speaking of individuals, but of a people and a nation. The same truth holds good with regard to to-day, and there never was a time in the history of the world when a nation needed to hear it more than our own nation.

There seem to be a good many Americans who take it for granted that because we have grown rapidly from feeble colonies into a great Republic, rich and powerful, that therefore we are to continue to grow almost in spite of ourselves, whether we deserve it or not, and are in some degree absolved from the ordinary conditions of success. There is a feeling that we are invulnerable to attack, and that nothing can break down our national greatness or eclipse our national glory. But there is one thing that can very speedily bring America to ruin, and that is her sins. The fact that we have grown rapidly makes it all the more likely that we will die speedily. Mushrooms that grow in a night are not proverbial for