Olivarez was requested by his royal master to resign, just at the moment when the death of Richelieu (1643) opened to him an almost royal road, it might seem, to success. “O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready, with every nod, to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep.” Such is the state of man, as Shakspeare’s Hastings feels it. And this is the state of man, as Shakspeare’s Wolsey finds it: to-day he puts forth the tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, and next day comes a frost, a killing frost, and,—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely his goodness is a ripening,—nips his root, and then he falls. Shakspeare’s Belarius again, will furnish us with another text, of practical application:— “... Then was I as a tree, Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night, A storm, or robbery, call it what you will, Shook down my yellow hangings, nay, my leaves, And left me bare to weather.” And as with the pride and pomp and circumstance of life, so with life itself. Typical for all time is the fate of Lycidas:— “Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind fury with the abhorrèd shears, And slits the thin-spun life.” _INVOCATION AND INACTION._ EXODUS xiv. 15. With the Red Sea close before them, and with Pharaoh and his host close behind them, what were the children of Israel to do? Was it for this that Moses had brought them out of the house of bondage, which yet had its fleshpots and creature comforts after all? What were they to do? They lifted up their eyes, and saw the sea in front, and the enemy in the rear; and then they lifted up their voice in querulous fear and expostulation. Should they go back? Then Moses lifted up his voice, and bade them stand still, and they should see a great deliverance. But the will of God was not that they should either go back, or stand still and merely look on. For “the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” Invocation may be excellent in itself, but, as a concomitant, inaction mars it. A hallowed thing is prayer; but to pray and sit still, when the need is to go forward and push on, is the sign or stigma of feeble folk. * * * * *