he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave." Then it was revealed to the prophet the mistake of judging by external appearances. He had believed and declared that he alone remained among those who had not been seduced or overcome by the forces of evil, but the Voice declared that he was but one of seven thousand who had refused to bend the knee to Baal. This beautiful story suggests that the real power of the living universe is not resident in the vaunting materialistic phenomena or expressed in spectacular physical manifestations, so obvious to the bodily eye, nor yet those things that to the physical senses seem most impressive or formidable. The latter are ephemeral manifestations that like the gorgeous robe of autumn last a day and are gone, leaving the skeleton trees defenseless to the storms. Some time since two men were in the White Mountains. A great forest fire was raging on a neighboring slope, and one of the observers exclaimed: "Is it not a magnificent sight to see those mighty billows of flame, a veritable sea of fire, not unlike the ocean in a tempest; but here the waves of flame are swept upward toward the farthest timber line as though they would even lick up the rocks that garment the mountain's crest. How glorious the spectacle!" "To me," replied the other, "it is sinister, awesome and tragic, but far from glorious. This," said he, stretching his arm toward another slope, "is something infinitely more splendid." His companion's eye followed the direction of his hand that pointed to a vast mantle of emerald, flecked here and there with the gold and crimson of early autumn. "That sea of green represents life, growth and beauty," he continued. "For centuries it has been toilsomely clothing the once sere and barren mountain slope; clothing it with life that ministers to life; tirelessly, ceaselessly adding to the beauty of the world, the comfort of man and the service of living things. The sea of green typifies the beauty and the service that flow from the heart of life; but the lurid flame speaks only of destruction. It is marked by the roar of an army in action. It attracts the attention of all for the moment with its spectacular appeal to the eye, but it leaves behind it a tragic waste of blackness and death. Centuries will be required to remantle that fire-swept slope, for the flames are eating up the thin covering of loam that has accumulated on the rocks through generations since the forest began to grow." These watchers typify the two great classes in society to-day: those who are most impressed by outward show and the spectacular appearances that appeal to eye and ear, those who see little beyond the veil of materiality, who worship Mammon and the things that minister to the physical senses; and the men and women of spiritual discernment, who see that which is real, that which lives, that which feeds the springs of greatness, beauty, life, and joy that knows no alloy, the sweetness that has no bitter after-taste. Again, it is worthy of note that an age never, or rarely ever, discerns the real sources of its greatness or the men and influences that are destined to give it fadeless glory and to influence the courses of life in the generations that are yet to come. The chief priests and wealthy Pharisees of Judea thanked God that they were not as other men. They moved haughtily through the streets of Jerusalem, experiencing the gratification of little natures as they saw the homage shown them by the passing multitudes. Pilate, the haughty Roman judge, moving with his friends, looked down in supreme contempt even on the chief priests and the Pharisees, who imagined themselves the most important individuals of the Judea of their day. He would have confidently declared that history, if it took note of any great ones in the Jerusalem in which he exercised his official power, would surely accord the highest place to the Roman judge who represented Cæsar in this far-off dependency. But who would have imagined that the serene young man who lingered by the well of Samaria talking with a strange woman on the worship of God, or who, followed by a few ignorant fishermen and persons whom the Pharisees and Scribes of the age regarded as distinctly undesirable citizens, traveled from his humble home in Galilee to attend the feast at Jerusalem, there to die for an ideal or because he dared unflinchingly to stand loyal to a truth, would become the most potent spiritual and moral personality in the civilization destined to lead the world, while the high priests, the haughty members of the Sanhedrim and the Roman judge would be remembered only in their relation to the Prophet of Galilee ? Socrates, living or drinking the hemlock, attracted little attention from the wealthy and influential Greeks of the City of the Violet Crown, but Socrates was the spiritual father of Plato and the master mind-molder of Xenophon, and the life and teachings of this great man have been one of the potent dynamic forces contributed by Greece to civilization. What is true in the world of spiritual verities and philosophies is also true in the sphere of transcendent genius and imagination. If any one had told Leicester in the hey-day of his popularity, or even the great Cecil, that an obscure playwright and actor in the London of Elizabeth would outshine in fame and far transcend in influence over the thought of the world the entire nobility of the day, such a rash prophet would have been adjudged insane. And yet the thought of Shakespeare, reflecting as it does a genius or insight equaled by no other depictor of character and rich in ethical philosophy germinal in its influence on the mind of man, has for generations appealed with increasing power to the imagination of millions of human beings. When Louis Napoleon was showering honors and favors on the sycophants around him, and the world was taking note of the men high in his favor, there was a Frenchman standing on a rock-girt little isle north of France, an exile, who was writing great novels, poems and essays instinct with ethical truth and moral idealism. Yet how few at that time imagined how completely Napoleon and his sycophants and favorites would vanish into oblivion, while the moral force and luminous thought of Hugo would sweep on as the light of dawn that heralds the day, -sweep on, inspiring and helping millions of lives? We repeat, it is the still, small voice, the silent currents that thrill with life and express themselves in beauty and service, the moral idealism and intellectualism that are born of truth, justice and right, that are the mighty dynamic forces of the universe. He who is leagued with these energies cannot fail. This is one of the capital lessons that reformers should ever keep in mind. To make too much of a reality of the aggressive, materialistic phenomena that have to be uncovered and exposed is to court destruction, because the moment doubt, fear or discouragement,-in a word, pessimism-usurp the throne of faith or rational optimism, the strong arm of the reformer is paralyzed. The torch-bearer, above all others, must be a man of faith,-of unshakable faith. He must be able to see beyond the seemingly impregnable and arrogant materialism of the market and the ostentatious spactacle presented by the worshipers of Mammon, to the reality that rises beyond material phenomena. He must know that "Evil is only the slave of Good, He must know that in spite of the seeming of the moment, time will prove, will surely prove that "Ever the Truth Comes uppermost, He who works for justice and the right, he who, regardless of self, seeks the ends of truth, he who becomes the servant of moral idealism and the apostle of the faith that knows no faltering, cannot be other than a victor. His influence also will aid greatly in hastening the day when ".. the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." We are all so prone to be misled by the superficial physical phenomena and to overlook the mighty currents that are eternal and that make for the triumph of all that is true, just and fine in the ideals that have touched the brain of man, that it is all-important that from the uncovering of evil we constantly turn our gaze to the deathless realities of life. There is no such word as failure to the faithful soul who lays firm hold on the great eternal moral verities and regardless of all thought of personal advancement seeks the well-being of others, and who ever keeps the fires burning on the altar of faith. To such |