The trouble with His law is made by us. Some of us try to get out of paying at all; some of us are angry because we would rather pay in something we have not. We would rather pay for food and clothes with money only, instead of with a little money and much thought and labour. We would like to buy our friend a birthday gift, instead of writing that birthday letter which costs us thoughtfulness and an ache in our pride. Because we cannot afford a holiday, we will not pay for comfort and pleasantness at home with the coin of gaiety, or a favourite dessert, or a new book from the Library. Each of you, and I, whatever our incomes, have our choices of this kind to make, and the price of them to pay. * * * * * --It is prayer-meeting night. Shall we stay at home?--Or rub up a penny? III THE ACCOUNTS WHEN a family have made a plan of yearly expenditure, they must have some way of testing at short intervals whether they are keeping to it or not, and some record by which at the end of the year they can tell whether their plan is a good one. These tests and records are furnished by _accounts_. Accounts are as old as the brick books of Assyria. They have been found necessary to business transactions for ages. One of the reasons that housekeeping does not receive its proper recognition as a business and a profession is that it does not bear the stamp of either in the form of accurate accounts and statistics. Perhaps these are lacking because so many women are driven to tears or fury by accounts. It is odd that they are, too, for they keep golf and tennis scores, and devote themselves to whist, and are madly fascinated with jig-saw puzzles, and all these things are a good deal like accounts.