March 26. The thought that has been with me most these few days is that consecration means service: that it is not for one’s self alone,--not the mere endeavor after personal holiness,--but to give the life into which we enter to all other lives we can reach. (John xvii. 18, 19.) The spirit of these words of Christ is the true setting apart of life, for the sake of all human lives. The chapter for to-day--the going forth of Joshua into Canaan after that glorious Nebo-Vision of Moses, is full of suggestions for me. I have not yet possessed my whole life, none of us have, but we go forward courageously into it, in the name of the Lord. We have sketched, chiefly in her own words, for they have a greater significance, the history of a religious woman, finding her way into the Kingdom of Christ through the doorway of the Episcopal Church. She was a catholic, broad-minded Christian, and she became satisfied with the doctrine and worship of the Church. She looked upon it as one branch of the Church of God, but she also acknowledged other branches; it became as much a home to her as it was possible for any Church to be. She grew to love it, but the ideal and Invisible Church was ever before her mind. The religious history of her life is like that of many others--those who have become dissatisfied with a theology made up of men’s opinions, and who seek light and life in the personality of Jesus. There are many persons to-day, with natures capable of spiritual insight, who have been educated to appreciate the best in our literature, who believe in righteousness,--people with poetry in them, and a delicate sense of fitness and dignity, who are thinking of the Episcopal Church as a religious home. To such persons, a progress similar to that of Miss Larcom can be effected only by the Church emphasizing those qualities which attracted her. These characteristics of the Church may be summarized as the spirituality, the breadth, and the magnanimity of the Church. Prominent through all the services, the various organized forms of church work, the observances of festivals and seasons, must be the spiritual idea for which they all stand. This spiritual idea is the bringing of the individual soul into such relations with Jesus that it will find its truest self in Him and through Him, find its greatest activity in reaching other souls. This great aim is frequently lost sight of, because the Churches are so often business establishments for the collection of money, and the successful management of organizations. But there are souls longing to be fed, and these should be remembered when the church seasons come, by the administration of Sacraments as the simple offering of nourishment to those who need it, not with the theological accompaniments of argument, but in the sacredness of dependence on Christ, as in the first Easter communion of Lucy Larcom, at Trinity Church.