plaining humility, or your loathsome depravity, the world rolls on with a kindlier light, or in a deeper shadow. These, my friends, are not conjectures, but facts. So sure as you act at all, a ray streams out from your life, small, it may be, yet beautiful and inspiring like that which fills the urn of a star, baleful like that which comes from the pit, or ghastly like that which glimmers over some mass of deadness and corruption.

One cannot ask himself a more pregnant question, then, than this: "How do I live?-especially, what is the tendency, what is the influence, of my life, as to others?" Surely, the spirit of such an inquiry has nothing in common with pride or conceit. It does not imply the notion that we win heaven by mere good works, or that we can ever do enough. It is consistent with the lowliest dependence upon God's grace, and a deep sense of unworthiness. Indeed, it is not a selfish consideration, but an endeavor to act beyond self.

And while this view of good works affords a mighty impulse for virtue, it also encourages us with the idea that we may be, so to speak, agents of God, and, while we can never return his mercies, may use them for his purposes, may help

carry forward his ends, and cause the gift to serve the Giver. We may so hold it up before the world, that it shall reflect his glory. We may so use our powers and opportunities that they shall be instruments in leading others to virtue, to happiness, to the Divine Life of Religion. Without ostentation, without self-seeking, I say, we may do this, working out our own simple task of daily duty. For such an effect, it may be, others have had upon us. All unconsciously to them, we have been moved and strengthened by their silent doing, as by no words or book of human teacher. For the mightiest energies in the world, rebuking our scepticism, confirming our faith, encouraging our effort, deciding our choice, come from silent example, the living out of trust and duty, from the serene face of patience, the meek obedience of resignation, the untiring diligence of love. And this moral fulfilment, this steady force of doing, often shines with a planet-calm and brightness from humble spheres of life, rather than from fields of noisy endeavor and glittering achievement.

Let us, then, realizing the intrinsic excellence of spirituality, of personal Religion, keep its flame

burning in the soul, nourishing it with prayer, and inward as well as outward discipline. But, also, let it shed abroad the influence of a blessed example. Let us remember, that in the world there is no testimony for truth, righteousness, God, so forcible as a good life. Let us do what our hands find to do, seeking no vain or ostentatious ends; let us do what our hands find to do, and let our light shine. It may be feeble, but who can determine its results? As the traveller on some lonely moor, beneath the clouded night-sky, catches the gleam from the distant cottage-window, and finds his path, -- as the sailor, tossed upon the stormy deep, hails the humble beacon-light brooding above the billows, like a star,—so may it be with your practical example of faith, patience, truth, love. Some one may look upon it, and it may bless him. Unknown to you, some way-faring man in the world's rough paths may see it, and turn to the Father's house; some guilty and troubled spirit, drifting on life's great ocean, may welcome its suggestion, and find the port of Peace!