LET us think now for a short time about something that you see and use every day, that sometimes brings safety, and sometimes danger, and that divides one from the other. Can you guess? You have a good many of them in your house, and you are moving them all day long. We are going to talk about a door. How impossible it is to open a door and walk in, if it is locked and bolted against us! Open doors take us into delightful places, but they can also take us into prison. What important parts of a house they are! How safe you feel in bed at night knowing that all the house doors are shut and fastened inside! A door is sometimes a man's salvation. Here is a man fleeing for his life! He is unarmed and defenceless, another man is pursuing him sword in hand. He means to kill him. The frightened man comes to his house, he dashes in at his door. He draws the stout bolt and locks it. His enemy is outside. He breathes freely. We are glad we have a door to shut out our enemies, but do we ever shut out our friends? There was an old woman who lived in a little cottage in Scotland, not very far from Balmoral, the Castle that belongs to our Kings and Queens. When Queen Victoria was alive, she was very fond of visiting some of the old people who lived near her. One afternoon this old woman sat in her cottage alone. She was in a very bad temper. She had quarrelled with her nearest neighbour, and because some of her friends had been gossiping about her, she shut her door and locked it, saying viciously to herself: "Ay, I'll keep myself to myself in future. I won't let 'em in when they come to try and get a dish o' tea out o' me." Presently she heard a soft knock at her door. She set her lips and nodded her head. "Knock awa'," she whispered. The knock was repeated louder now. "Knock awa' till doomsday," she called out in a angry voice. "I'll not let ye in!" The knock was not repeated, and footsteps outside were heard going away. The old woman nodded her head and smiled. "They won't trouble me for a bit," she assured herself. But she did not smile the next day when she was told that her Queen had stood outside her door, and knocked for admission, and she had refused to let her in. The Queen never visited her again. There was a poor man in Liverpool who could not pay his rent. He lived in a little house by himself, and was in great trouble lest his landlord should turn him out. One day he heard a knock at his door, and thinking it was his landlord, he locked the door and slipped out into his back garden, hoping people would think he was out.