"Why did you not strike all the keys, little sister?" he asked. "You have left silent some of the sweetest and deepest. Listen! This is what you should have put into your song." As he spoke, his powerful hands touched the key-board, till the great cathedral seemed to tremble with the mighty symphony that filled it--"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!" High, sweet notes, like the matin-songs of sky-larks, fluttered away from his touch, and went winging their flight--up and up--beyond all mortal hearing. Down the deep, full chords and majestic octaves rolled the triumphal gladness. Every key seemed to find a voice, as the hands of the old musician swept through the variations of "Antioch." Tears filled the young girl's eyes, and when he had finished she said sadly: "Ah, only a master-hand could do that--bring out the varied tones of those silent keys, and yet through it all keep the thread of the song clear and unbroken. All those divine harmonies were in my soul as I played, yet had I tried to give expression to them, I might have wandered away from the simple motif that I would have the children remember always. In trying to span those fuller chords you strike so easily, or in reaching always for the highest notes, I would have failed to impress them with the part they are to take in the choruses, and they would not have gone out as they did just now, singing their joy to the world." Maybe some such master may turn the pages of this story, and feel the same impatience at its incompleteness. Here in this place he would have added, with strong touches, many a convincing argument. There he would have spoken with the voice of a sage or prophet, and he may turn away, saying: "Why did you not strike all the keys, little sister? You have left silent some of the sweetest and deepest." The answer is the same. Only a master-hand can sweep the gamut of history and human weaknesses and dogmas and creeds, touch the discordant elements of controversy and criticism in all their variations, and at the same time keep the simple theme constantly throbbing through them, so strong and full and clear it can never be forgotten. The purpose of this story is accomplished if it has only attracted the attention of the League to a neglected duty, and struck a higher key-note of endeavor. But the League must not stop with that. There is only one song that will ever bring universal joy to this old, tear-blinded world, and that is that the Lord is come, and that he is risen indeed in the lives of his followers. True, the veriest child may lisp it; but the League should not be content simply to do that. It should be the master-musician, so familiar with the great complexity of human doubts and longings, that it will know just what chord to touch in every heart it is striving to help.