fort of the humblest living creature, will be their entire uselessness. They will be seen to serve no purpose whatsoever, save to put one of man's most intelligent and willing and faithful servants into a condition of needless suffering.

To do to others as we would have them do to us is a rule so wide and far-reaching that it takes in every creature that the good God has made. It includes the cattle. God looks upon every tortured horse, whether he be tortured in anger by a brute of a driver, or whether he be tortured in ignorance and thoughtlessness for the sake of following a foolish fashion. And God cares.

A Hebrew prophet promised long ago, that in the millennium "Holiness to the Lord" should be inscribed upon the bells of all the horses. Yes, and on all their harness-"Holiness to the Lord" on every strap and buckle! And nothing left in all the harness upon which that sacred phrase could not consistently be set; nothing left which would offend the sight of the righteous and merciful God, who cares even for the cattle.

Christian people ought to be more thoughtful, more attentive to the comfort of those dumb creatures who can only look at us and cannot

speak, and who depend so utterly upon us. Another Hebrew prophet, who looked in his time into the golden age of the ideal future, saw a reign of perfect peace, in whose benediction even the wildest of the animals shared with man. A little child, he said, shall lead them. And a Christian poet, who likewise in vision dreamed of the blessed world to come, beheld those living creatures joining in the adoration of men and angels before the throne of God. "The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." The "creature" is the brute creation, the cows and the horses, the cats and dogs, the sheep and goats, of our fields and streets and homes and stables. And the "sons of God" - that means us, as we ought to be. And the lesson is that God has made these animals dependent upon us for protection, for guidance, for help, for betterment, for inspiration.

animals into our care.

God has given these

He looks to us to min

ister to them, to be kind to them, to love them. Every man in a stable has a responsibility which God puts upon him. The whole great brute creation, travailing in pain, too often at the hands of man, waits with "earnest expectation" for that redemption of the creatures which will

begin when we are all better Christians than we are at present.

To be tender-hearted ought to be one of the characteristics of the Christian. To make this world a better and happier world to live in for all the men and all the women and all the little children and all the living creatures that are in it, is the mission of religion in which we ought to be missionaries.

THE POWER OF PERSUASION.

"I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." - EPH. iv. 1.

THREE chapters of the Epistle to the Ephesians are represented by the word "therefore." These chapters are occupied with statements of doctrine. Predestination and redemption, the nature of God and the mission of Jesus Christ, the election of the Jews and the position of the Gentiles, are here considered. The truth taught is that the love of God embraces every inhabitant of the world; that the blood of Christ was shed for every man who lives; and that all the old walls of partition are cast down by him, all nations brought together, the last made first, the remote made near, the Gentiles recognized as fellow-heirs of all the promises; "therefore," we are to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.

The word stands in the right place. The presence of it marks the difference between religion and theology. Religion is theology

with a "therefore." It is doctrine brought into intimate and practical relation with life. When doctrine is stated simply as doctrine, and stops there, appealing to the mind but not to the will, expressing truth, but not applying it to conduct, then it belongs, with other problems of philosophy, to the student. It is a mistake to think that the accepting of it in this shape is a religious act. He who assents to the propositions of the creed is no nearer salvation, if he stops there, than he who assents to the theorems of Euclid. It is this "therefore" that is needed to bring the creed into living relations with religion.

"I believe in God the Father," therefore I must try to live like a son of God. And so on through the creed. It must be applied, every article of it, to the details of our daily behavior; else it is spiritually worthless. Set this down for sure, that nothing is believed in God's sense of belief-which is not used. Our creed is as long or as short as our application of it in our words and deeds. God sets absolutely no value whatever upon intellectual orthodoxy. He looks at our lives to find the orthodoxy that he wants. True it is that God loves us, and that Christ has redeemed us, and that we are