time to learn it. It is hard to learn to love unreasonable people. It is hard to love your enemies. It is a long lesson to become perfect in loving; nevertheless, there the lesson stands -"Be ye perfect." And it must be learned, -not in a day, or in a year, but like all great lessons, slowly, to-day a little, and tomorrow a little. Some one writes among New Year's lessons:

"Speak a shade more kindly than the year before; Pray a little oftener; love a little more;

Cling a little closer to the Father's love;
Thus life below shall liker grow to life above."

This is the way in all our learning and growing. It is thread by thread that makes the web. It is note by note that makes the thrilling music of the great oratorio. It is block by block that builds the majestic temple. It is touch by touch of the brush that paints a marvelous picture. It is line by line that makes the beautiful life. "Speak a shade more kindly" until you have learned always to speak kindly. "Pray a little oftener," till your whole life becomes a prayer. "Love

a little more," until you have learned to love every sort of person, and can give your life in loving, serving the worst.

We must remember that it is not in any easy or self-indulgent life that Christ will lead us to greatness. The easy life leads not upward, but downward. Heaven always is above us, and we must ever be reaching up toward it. There are some people who always avoid things that are costly, that require selfdenial or self-restraint and sacrifice, but toil and hardship show us the only way to nobleGreatness comes not by having a mossy path made for you through the meadows, but by being sent to hew out a roadway by your own hands. Are you going to reach the mountain splendors?

ness.

Life's Open Doors

"Cast out all envy, bitterness, and hate;

And keep the mind's fair tabernacle pure..
Shake hands with Pain, give greeting unto Grief,
Those angels in disguise, and thy glad soul
From height to height, from star to shining star,
Shall climb and claim blest immortality.”

CHAPTER XIV

Life's Open Doors

IFE is full of doors. A door is a very simple thing. It may be only a plain, unadorned piece of

board. Its significance is not in the material of which it is made or in its costliness or its artistic beauty, but in the fact that it is a door which opens to something. One may open to a noble gallery of pictures; enter, and you stand amid the finest works of art. Another opens into a great library; enter, and you find about you the works of the wise men of the ages. Another opens to a school, a great university; enter, and you are listening to distinguished teachers whose learned teachings will enrich your mind. It is not the door itself that matters, but that to which the door is the entrance.

Life's doors are not shut and locked. They may not be gilded and they may not invite to ease and pleasure, but they open to the