day, who kept London in an atmosphere of healthy humour for months at a stretch, worn out in body and brain, a victim of the sad despair which he had driven out of the lives of so many of his admirers, called on an English specialist for medical treatment, exclaiming: "Doctor, what can you do for me? I am so sad! It almost seems to me, at times, that my heart would break!" The famous physician made a most thorough examination, and, not knowing the professional character of his patient, innocently remarked: "My advice to you is to go and hear Matthews, Charles Matthews. What you need, man, is a laugh, a hearty laugh. Hear Matthews! His humour will act like a tonic on your soul. What you need is laughter-not medicine." "Ah," said the poor nerve-wracked comedian, "I am Charles Matthews!" The laughing genius had exhausted his inner supply of joy. He had given more than he possessed. He had lost his own inner equipoise. In truth he had no unseen and absolutely reliable source of solid joy. Exuberant joy is the secret of health and the absence of joy a sign of decreasing vitality.

The source of real joy ought to be found early in life. We must begin early if we would make sure of the best of earth's trophies. The years are so swift. In the vestibule of St. Peter's, in Rome, there is a door which is opened but four times in a century. Once in every twenty-five years the papal father enters that door. But the door of Youth opens but once in a lifetime. Who has not been startled by the parable of the "Terrible Clock" portrayed by

Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Each tick said 'Quick,' and each hour stroke 'Gone.'" A French beauty once exclaimed: "Two-thirds of my life are gonewhy should I worry about the rest?" Her remark was wantonly careless, but it expressed a startling fact in human experience, namely, the flight of the years. The famous artist impatiently remarked to his student: "Catch the sky while it lasts-yonder cathedral door, with its brazen wings, can be copied some other time." Raphael dies at thirty-seven and his half-finished picture, "The Transfiguration," is carried in the funeral procession as a symbol of time's brevity and life's incompleteness. Speed thee, oh, youth, speed thee !" The present moment dies. Only the eternal endures.

True joy is an inward possession. The secret of joy, genuine joy, is to find God-to find God in the universe-to find God in your neighbours-to find God in yourself. Elizabeth Prentiss, summering in the southland, surrounded by singing birds and blooming flowers, exclaimed: "I could almost have kissed the earth!" She had found God in nature. God and beauty are inseparable. Where you find God there you will find Beauty.

The secret of a real joy is right spiritual relationships. You will never be right until your soul is right. Dear old Lyman Beecher had a great sermon on the subject: "You Belong to God." The recognition of that fact is the first step in a world of harmony.

I stood in a great cathedral in Quebec while a

humble monk, touching the key on an electrical switchboard, flashed on the glory of one thousand incandescent lamps, kindling a blaze of light beneath a most magnificent dome. More glorious than that is the joy of a true spiritual relationship—the joy of a positive life. William the Silent knew that joy. Listen: "I have made an alliance with the God of hosts." Such joy is within the reach of each one. Queen Victoria, when she discovered the order of her own succession, exclaimed: "I never saw that before; I am nearer the throne than I had supposed." Spiritual joy is within the reach of all. Not even the narrow barrier of a kingly succession in the white hand of a dying monarch stands between you and the superb treasure. This moment you can make an alliance with the God of hosts and pluck the rare flower of spiritual joy from the rose garden of God's bounty.

Nothing glorifies life like a noble purpose. Joshua Reynolds said to an aspiring young student: “Finish one picture and you are a painter." An ancient genius, whose skillful hand caused his own peculiar type of beauty to glow on many a piece of ordinary canvas, began each day with the exclamation: "Joy, joy, joy, I am to spend this day as an artist-painting." Michael Angelo, at the advanced age of eighty, dares to undertake a new task, even the building of the greatest cathedral that ever lifted its spires of gold beneath nature's universal arch of blue. Oh, the inspiration of a noble purpose! Remember, sweet girl, that the maidens of Carthage

gave even their hair that it might be braided into bowstrings for Hannibal's archers. Samuel Rutherford smilingly remarked, when dying: "I would not change my master for all the kings of the earth!" A supreme joy had taken possession of him.

Jonathan Edwards, early in life, adopted a fivefold resolution—namely:

I. To live with all my might while I do live.

2.

Never to lose a moment of time.

3. Never to do anything which I would despise in another.

4. Never to do anything out of revenge.

5. Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

But the best piece of advice ever given to a young man, bearing on the question of amusements, was written by Susannah Wesley for the benefit and guidance of her son, John Wesley-it answers in a nutshell the oft-repeated question: "Is it wrong?" These are her words:

"Whatever weakens your reason, whatever impairs your tenderness of conscience, whatever obscures your sense of God, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind -that thing to you is wrong, however innocent it may be in itself." No modern philosopher, in the pulpit or out of it, has been able to improve on that bit of motherly advice. Follow it. Keep on good terms with your own conscience. Let God reign in the secret chamber of your soul. Conscience is king in the realm of the spiritual.

XIV

THE LAW OF COÖPERATION

The Secret of a Happy Home

YOUTH has three visions: The vision of God.

Y

The vision of Duty. The vision of Love.

The vision of God touches the realm of re

ligion and the soul. The vision of Duty concerns responsibility and achievement. The vision of Love finds its fulfillment and realization in the home life. That sacred threefold vision comes to us all. Happy the man or woman who finds that the glory of the vision hours of early youth loses nothing of its spiritual splendour with the increasing years. Louis IX of France, who married Princess Margaret of Provence, wore a ring on which were inscribed three words: "God"-"France"-"Margaret." He was accustomed to remark: "I have no other love outside this ring." In these three revered words he had crystallized and enthroned the visions of his youth; and to these three holy visions and sacred ideals Frances E. Willard has given a modern expression and a new emphasis in the happy and appropriate watchword of a great international organization: "For God and Home and Native Land."

Civilization rests on seven great pillars: First, stability of government. Second, the dignity of