Show I RELIGIOUS NEWS I AND THOUGHT ATfIERED FIV03I THE RELIGIOUS AND SISCULAH linES Worrts of Wisdom nil Thou hi IVortli Pomlcriiifj on Re1l lon + r add Moral Subjects If I should die tonight My friends would looK upon my quiet I I face And deem that death had left it almost I fair And laying snowwhite flowers against my hair Would smooth It down with tearful tenderness And fold my hands with lingering caress Poor hands so empty and so cold tonight to-night S I If I should die tonight My friends would call to mind with loving thought Some kindly aed the icy hand had wrought Some gentle word the frozen lips had said I The memory of my seloShness and pride My hasty words would all be put aside And so I should be loved and mourned tonight If I should die tonight Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me Recalling other days remorsefully The eyes that chill me with arrested glance Would look upon me as of yore perchance per-chance And soften In the old familiar way For who could war with dumb unconscious uncon-scious clay So I might rest forgiven of all tonight Oh friends I pray tonight Keep not your klbses for my dead cold brow Think gently of meI am travel worn I My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn Forgive oh hearts estranged forgive I plead When dreamless rest Is made I shall not need The tenderness for which I long tonight THERE IS NO DEATH Rev Minot J Savage the eminent Unitarian minister of Boston at a recent re-cent funeral made use of the following language Here lying In this casket ia I all that the eye can see all that the hand can touch of our friend but that which was he that which thought felt loved hoped that which served his fellows fel-lows Is not here and it Is not going to be burled today And he continued in the same fine strain I do not believe in death I do not believe that death came into the world as a result of any Incursion Incur-sion of ovll from outside I believe It is a part of the wise loving eternal order I believe It is only another kind of birth and when we can detach ourselves our-selves from certain selfish views we shall be able to see the divineness of death Our friend has simply graduated and gone into a larger field of study and labor THE RAREST VIRTUE Charity is not only the chle est of Christian virtues It Is the rarest This is suggested by Paul when he says that a man who has eloquence and knowledge know-ledge who has generosity and faith who is selfsacrificing and devoted may come short of the highest standard of Christian Christ-ian character by his lack of Christian charity < Wo see the truth of this on every side There are men who are openhanded open-handed and largehearted who lave the missionary spirit and who would die for their religious convictions who yet seem actually incapable of judging with charity those who differ with them in opinion or In practice or who are distasteful dis-tasteful to them personally They are rigid In their views of right and critical of any departure from the path of rectitude rec-titude but they never speak with loving estimate of those who are wrong in their beliefs or wrong In their doings They < even seem to think that the severity of their judgments is an evidence of their uprightness And of all forms of evil uncharitableness in others has least tolerance tol-erance In the minds of many of us Even those who serve Christ and who would die for Christ cannot always be Christlike In their charitable estimate of their fellows Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under tho roof S S Times WHO KNOWS Who knows we have not lived before In forms that felt delight and pain If death is not the open door Through which we pass to life again The fruitful seed beneath the sod In infant bud and bloom may rise But by the eternal laws of God It is not quickened till it dies The leaves that tremble on the tree Fall neath the stroke of autumns storms But by some mighty mystery With spring return in other forms As currents of the surging sea From undiscovered sources flow So what we were and yet may be In this brief life we may not know But oft some unexpected gleams Of past and unremembered years Break through the doorway of out dreams And some familiar face appears A kindred spirit lost awhile Amid the change from death to birth Whose beaming eye and loving smile Recall some former scenes of earth And thus unconscious of the tie Tho mystic link that love creates Perhaps we see our own who die In newer forms and other states Perhaps with every cycle passed In all the ages yet to bo Our loved will coma to us at last As parted waters find the sea Not wholly clad as they were seen When death unbound their robes of clay But with seraphic faco and meln And souls that may not pass away THQ GREAT MASTER I am my own master cried a young man proudly when a friend tried to < 1 G dissuade him from an enterprise which ho had in hand I am my own master Did you ever consider what a responsible re-sponsible post that is asked the friend Responsible is it A master must las < out tho work ho wants done and see that it is done right He should try to secure the best ends by the best means He must keep on the lookout against obstacles and accidents ac-cidents and watch that everything goes straight lest ho fall Well To be master of yourself you have your conscience to keep clear your heart to cultivate your temper to govern your will to direct a < nd your judgment to Instruct You are master over a hard lot and if you dont master them they will master you That is so said the young man Now I would undertake no such thins said his friend I should surely fail if I did Saul wanted to be his own master and failed Herod did Judas did No man is fit for it One is my master mas-ter even Christ I work under Gods direction When he is master all goes rlghtDr Bacon A 3IORAI AXIO3I When Jesus saw the savage man among the tombs untamable and naked He did not turn tailor and provide the lunatic with a suit of clothes He cast the evily spirit out of him and the man then put on his garments and went home to his family There are foolish philosophers phil-osophers who Ignoring the carnal nature na-ture that is the root of all external depravity insist that all that men need Is clean surorundlngs and they will be clean or right ideas and their reformation reforma-tion is secure Jesus still goes on chang ing the hearts of all who submit to Him from a state of sin to one of holiness holi-ness proving the folly of all that are not wise toward God and establishing it as a moral axiom that Ye must be born again A clean inner life insures a pure outer life Philadelphia Methodist Metho-dist THE PASTOR IN POLITICS On the other hand the wise pastor is never a partisan Ho is the minister to the whole community and men of every political party ought to be able to worship I wor-ship in the church he leads without any just cause of offence He stands for principles not parties To use his pulpit as a political platform is to degrade his high office to weaken his influence and place his church in a false position When political feeling runs high when preferences and policies are magnified into principles and men are especially sensitive to the statements of opinions which favor their opponents the wise minister will be more than usually careful care-ful to so state principles that they will not appear to be pleas for parties But any community which consents to have Its minister chosen and directed to accord ac-cord with the political preferences of one mon or a group of men put itself Into the hands of a local boss and is to be pitied Congrega tl coal fist DO IT NOW Dont put off the little kindly things you mean to do some time perhaps very soon but rather make It your business busi-ness to do them now One of the saddest sad-dest experiences and one that has come to some of us too often Is that of waking wak-ing up to the fact that the opportunity for doing the thing we meant to do is past If your benevolent plans seem to crowd each other make a choice in favor of the one that is to brighten the life that has least of brightness in it The Outlook JOY OF RESISTING TEMPTATION One of the great sensations of life follows a temptation resisted and overcome over-come The good knight of God is led to the end of the arena gentle hands loose his heavy helmet and strip off his bloodstained armor and hold a cup of sacramental wine to his lips Whether the scene of the conflict be a busy office or a commonplace room or the foot ball field or the roadside where the honeysuckle honey-suckle and dogrose mingle temptation must ever be a romance When one reads in the gospels that angels minister to the victors It is the poetry of truth The spiritual world follows fol-lows and overhangs us in this present strife and it may be that the faces are those who love us and whom we love 1 Our eyes are a ° yet holden so that the cannot see but our souls have a thrill of pure joy with which no pleasure or pain nor fame nor knowledge can be compared There Is something better than tho sight of an angels hand or the sound of an angels voice and hat is tho Well done of conscience l which echoes from the throne of God Himself Him-self Ian Maclaren THE STILL S3IAIL VOICE There Is a voice unheard by the natural nat-ural ear which speaks to human betas louder than the tumult of the marketplace market-place or eve which the rl I > af can hear and which the Htronjjfst of men cannot destroy It is called the still email voice but its stillness and smallness arc really the elements of Its greatness find power All men have teat + l It though all have not u 1lar too < l It nor yielded to its demands Michigan Christian Advocate Ad-vocate THE RIGHTS Off CHIIiDREJf Every young life has a right to an intellectual in-tellectual environment What fresh airs air-s to the plant the domestic atmosphere is to the child and in uronortlon to its overwhelming Importance Is the emphasis empha-sis of the obligation Ton are obllijed to give this strange new life created Ly your will the fairest shokest rain Your best self must be called forth your highest mstlnos must reveal ihein selves The home must DO not ulone ire shelter of the body but the cradle of the mindThe Jewish Voice AFTER LONG YEARS After long years wars is I vlai 1 1 lc I 7a agriculture you cannot see thM growth Pass that country two months after and there Is a difference WVs acquire firmness firm-ness and experience incessantly Every action every word every meal Is part of our trial and our discipline We are assuredly ripening or else blighting We are not conscious of those changes which go on quietly and gradually in the I soul We only count the shocks In our journey jour-ney Ambitions die grace grows and life goes on Frederick W Robertson FAITH AND WORK Faith stands for the religion of tho heart work stands for the religion of the life These two God has Joined together Let no man put them asunder for there is no genuine religion without them inactive in-active union Just as love In tho soul finds ar way to manifest itself so as to attract the attention please and benefit r M I I the one loved so genuine faith In the Lord Jesus moves its possessor to earnest earn-est joyful action along lines of practical Christian usefulness Where there is no such action there Is no genuine faith Religious Telescope S3II1ES AND FROWNS If I knew the box where sarnies were kept No matter how large the Key Or strong the bolt I would try so hard Twould open I know for me Then over the land and sea area + least Id scatter the smiles to play That the childrens faces might bold them fast For many and many a lay If I knew a box that was large enough To hold all the frowns I fneet I would like to gather them wary ene From nursery school and treat Then folding and holding Id pack them in And turning the monster key Id hire a giant to drop he box To the depth of the deep deep sea Maud Wayman in the American Jewess THOSE WHO HAVE DONE NOTHING It Is only those who have dono nothing noth-ing that fancy they can do everything and are always readiest at criticism and faultfinding with the works of others The Messenger of St Josephs THLUTICF ULVESS Thankfulness Is a most becoming pracc Its spirit adorns all acceptable worship Most people have at least a hundred reasons for being thankful for one for being sad and melancholy Religious Telescope HimTING OTHERS It needs therefore in us infinite carefulness and watchfulness as we walk ever amid other lives lest by some word or look or act or disposition or influence influ-ence of ours we hurt them irreparably Dr J R Miller AT PARTING Never part for a day without loving words to think of during absence besides be-sides it may bo that you will not meet again in llfeThe Baptist TRANSFORMED INTO STEPPINGSTONES STEPPING-STONES The stoutest difficulties when overcome by divine grace may be transformed into steppingstones leading upward to the atfrrf > nt of the perfect life Alabama Ala-bama Baptist |