reason leave nothing for the imagination, and rob affection of its sweet prerogative to dream and to adore. Without the discipline of toil and the developing strain of antagonism, how should faith grow strong, and broad, and deep? Most of us start in the life religious with an inherited, fostered, unreasoning belief, which therefore is weak, puny, and unstable. It is the storms of doubt and difficulty that rouse it to self-consciousness, stir it to activity, urge it by exertion to growth and expansion, and compel it to strike deep roots in the soil of reality. For in such conflict the soul is driven in upon God. It is forced to make actual proof of its possessions, to realise and employ properties that hitherto were known to it only through the title-deeds or as mere assets available in case of necessity. With wonder faith discovers the rare value of its inheritance, and enters for the first time into actual enjoyment of its spiritual treasures. It is no longer faith about God, but is now faith in God. In its agony and helplessness the soul is compelled to press close up to God, to take tighter hold of His hand, to fling itself on Him for help and comfort, just as a sick child clings to its mother. And ever after such a struggle there are a fresh beauty and sacredness in its relation to God. There is that pathetic tenderness of affection friends have who by some misunderstanding were well-nigh sundered, but having overcome it, are nearer and dearer to each other than ever before. There are a quiet community of knowledge, and a restful confidentiality of affection, that were not there before, that come of having had to fight that you might not be severed from each other. The recoil of joy from the dread of loss, and the memory of the agony that thought was to you, make God dearer to you now than ever. Out of the very strife and doubt there is born a new assurance of your love, in the consciousness you have acquired of the pain it would be to you to be deprived of your Divine Friend.