the spirit of tolerance. He will recognize the fact that it is possible for other people to be quite different from himself and yet be right. God has made us different, and different in our religious temperament as in our other dispositions. To some the emphatic word in religion is worship- they look up to God; they get great help from a beautiful, enriched, elaborate service, with colors and candles and incense and banners. To others the emphatic word in religion is salvation -- they look in at their own souls. Their test of what may best be done in church is the test of spiritual utility measured by their own experience; the most. important part of the service is the sermon. While with others the most emphatic word is work they look out toward their brothers; they are chiefly interested in commending theology to the reason of men, and in employing the energies of the church for the mental and physical, as well as spiritual, improvement of the community. And, accordingly, there are High Churchmen and Low Churchmen and Broad Churchmen, and always have been, and always will be, and always ought to be. There is room in a right Christian parish for all kinds of religious temperaments. The Christian who

sees some things in the conduct of the parish which do not especially minister to him will reflect that they are probably meant for somebody else. He will desire to have in the parish everything that can help anybody.

Finally, the Christian will be loyal to the parish. He will praise everything which it is possible to praise, and praise it at all possible times and to all possible people, understanding well that even a parish grows better in the sunshine. There are, indeed, conditions under which a parish may need something quite different from sunshine, when it may invite a ministration of hailstones and coals of firelike the parishes of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the ordinary parish needs nothing so urgently as sunshine. The loyal Christian makes the best of everything, knowing that that kind of conduct, persistently maintained, will in course of time make everything the best.

THE CHURCH AT WORK.

"To every man his work."- ST. MARK Xiii. 34.

YES, and also to every woman. "To each one his work;" so it reads in the Revised Version.

There is no excuse for idleness in the kingdom of God. So much is to be done that every hand is needed; and so various are the kinds of work that every sort of ability can find full occupation. The cry of the unemployed comes up in these days out of the market-places, where men stand with no man to hire them; but there is no lack of religious opportunity: God has work for all. Every Christian in the parish ought to be doing something. There ought not to be any unemployed Christians.

Sometimes we fail to recognize the divine character of the task. We do not see that it is something which we do for God.

Thus, the very hardest task that God gives a human soul may be just to lie still and do nothing. Apparently the time is wasted; the

empty days go by without accomplishment. The soul, eager to be of service, is fast bound by the chain of the body and imprisoned in the dungeon of the sick-room. Under such difficult conditions people regret their uselessness, account themselves as good for nothing, and fret and grieve because they are not able to do anything. But we may not choose among tasks. It is God who apportions the labor, "to each one his work ;" and what we are to do is just that, and nothing else. If God wished you to move mountains, he would put a lever in your hand and set you down at the foot of the hill. Just now he wishes you to undertake this other burden, to carry a great load of pain; to be sick patiently for his sake. That is your work. Take the day exactly as it is, as God's own wise assignment of duty, and meet it in that spirit.

Some people think that they are not doing any work for God because they are simply attending to their own business. They are occupied every day, and every minute of the day, with those industrial tasks which have to do with human livelihood. One goes to the shop, another to the nursery, another to the kitchen, another to the mill. It may be

that these suspicions are well-founded.

Not

all work is work for God. It may be done for self; it may be done for the devil. But all work may be done for God. "Whether we

eat or drink," the apostle says, mentioning our commonest occupation, the remotest from the sphere of conventional religion "Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do," we may "do all to the glory of God." Service is described as a duty owed not alone to an employer, but to God himself: "not with eyeservice, as men please, but as the servants of God." That is what we ought to be in all our tasks the servants of God.

Accordingly, the honest fulfilment of any duty, however humble, may be as genuine an act of religion as the offering of prayer. To sell a yard of cloth, to sweep a room, to cook a dinner, to build a house, to keep a ledger, to work in a factory, and to do the duty well, with diligence, with carefulness, and with a conscience, is to do that which God desires of It is just that which he expects from us. For the present, for to-day, that is our mission; and when we fulfil it we serve God as accept

us.

ably as ever Paul did when he preached on Mars Hill.