out, "Be strong; I am with you," we need not fear.

As the old Eastern proverb has it, "With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes satin." Years ago, Mr. Beecher preached to his young people after this manner: "O impatient ones, did the leaves say nothing to you as you came hither to-day? They were not created this spring, but months ago. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long, and next season it will unfold. So God is working for you and carrying forward to perfect development all the processes of your lives." And as if he had fitted it on to the thought, George MacDonald said, " God can afford to wait; why cannot we, since we have Him to fall back upon?'

In the new military tactics there is a manœuvre, "advancing by rushes." In this the soldiers rush forward for a short distance and then drop to the ground, repeating this course until the charge is ended. The manoeuvre is supposed to give the men respite from the fierceness of the enemy's fire. So when the great charge toward San Juan's heights began, the order was given, "Advance by

rushes," and for a part of the distance was executed. But the Spaniards seemed to secure the range of the Americans, halting as well as advancing, and our losses were constantly growing greater. Half-way up the hill a commander gave the order for another rush. The bugler, seeing the fearful devastation that was being wrought in our ranks by the Spanish fire, sounded instead, the "long charge." On the instant the soldiers leaped to their feet and began that unremitting advance toward the enemy's lines that has become historic and unsurpassed in the annals of great assaults.

Life is the "long charge," and uphill, but our commander is the triumphant victor.

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A Christian man's heart is laid in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and his heart is a shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow and on the other is joy, and the shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and forth carrying the thread which is white or black as the pattern needs. And in the end, when God shall lift up the finished garment and all its changing hues shall glance out it will then appear that the deep and dark colors were as needful to beauty as the bright and high colors.BEECHER.

That blessed mood

In which the burden of the mystery, in which the heavy and

IV

LIFE'S MYSTERY

THE other name for life is mystery. Life is only a convenient term for a mysterious something, never defined, nor analyzed, nor understood. We speak the familiar word with an appearance of wisdom, but it is clouded with densest darkness and ignorance. Even the separate events of our earthly existence are clothed with the garments of unanswered query, "why"-" what "-" when "-and only the echo comes back. Frequently the divine commands are issued without explanation and beyond the possibility of human comprehension. The pathway is through night, and forest, and peril. When that old-time hero of faith and obedience received the strange and startling order from heaven to leave his home and possessions and friends and journey to a country of which he did not know, but must discover and adopt as his own, he began that famous career which reached its climax of mys

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tery and loyalty on the mountain-side when he laid his only son on the altar of sacrifice and learned, best of any man, the meaning of the Father's relation to the atonement on Calvary. How it must have stunned his heart and turned the last dark hair snow-white to hear the familiar voiceAbraham." He instantly replied, "Here I am." Then strange, overwhelming demand! God said: "Take thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering." When he recovered from the first shock, preparation was made and the journey began. No voice answered the oft-repeated questions in the deeps of his soul, but the mystery thickened and closed in upon him as he lovingly pressed his boy's hand and led him through the darkness. The heart of the one was as heroic as that of the other. When the faithful son made himself a willing sacrifice, without any light from human reason, he placed one of the most harmonious notes in the music of the world's redemption.

The kingliest attitude of man is the acceptance of mystery with unconditioned obedience. Even the Son of God never rose higher than when He