indifferent and unhealthy parson; become a cowboy and gain health, vim, vigor, strength, life. I suppose I had to come to it slowly, but come I did to the most important facts, viz.: that I could never be healthy indoors, and that I must live in the open. And as I got out more my intellect and spirit expanded as my body grew healthier, and I began to learn more from the objects around me than I had from all my schooling, all my books, and all my theological training and study. Nowadays there is no out-of-door occupation that does not appeal to me; a ditch-digger, a navvy on a railroad, a roustabout on a dock, a deck-hand on a steamer, a brakeman, a road mender, a plowman, a carter, a teamster--even these, the lowliest of the out-of-door callings, show to me men of rugged strength that delight and appeal to me. How one's very soul thrills in sympathy as he thinks of the marvelous achievements of the great explorers--all of them men of the out-of-doors; Columbus, Magellan, Capt. Cook, Kane, Sir John Franklin, Peary, Sven Hedin, Capt. Burnaby, Burton, Livingstone, Stanley, Major Powell, and a host of others. How the mere thought of them and their lives radiates the very spirit of energy, strength, courage, daring, independence, self-reliance! In their physical or spiritual presence you feel you are in contact with an entirely different set of earth's mortals than ordinary men, for they radiate unconsciously the largeness, the expansiveness, the majesty and strength of the vast out-of-doors. Rudyard Kipling in his _Captains Courageous_ fully explains what I mean about this largeness and nobleness of soul that come from the out-of-door life, in telling of the fishermen of the New England coast. In his vivid English he pictures their daily life, what their work is, how they have to brave the perils of the deep, the dangerous fogs, the uncertain storms, the sudden death that comes when a great vessel looms through the fog and cuts them down. Yet they go ahead as a matter of course. Their life enlarges their faith and trust; either it is that or they become used to looking in the face of danger and death and then calmly continue in their work. No man does this without deepening and broadening his life. When it comes to gardeners I fairly envy them. Think of the wondrous life that is theirs. To learn and know the life-habits of plants and flowers, and to see them growing from tiny seeds, or slips, or cuttings into all their rich and perfect beauty. I never knew a despondent gardener. His profession forbids it; his experience rebukes it. So of late years, in my crude way, I have been trying to become a gardener, when I am at home and have time.