There is the quality of love that makes the world seem real. At the fireside of a loving heart, one readily learns the true secrets of the world in which he dwells. There is nothing so potent as love to give vision to the soul, clearness to the eye, effective service to the hand. Then stir up the gifts of love. Build in your heart the fires of a quenchless affection that refuses to believe the worst, that will never give consent that anyone has gone too far in sin for reclamation, but ever believes that one more touch of kindness will bring the person back to God; a love that gladly sacrifices everything of value in his effort to redeem that which has no value; a love that knows no selfish interest and daily seeks the welfare of another. Then will the world cease to be hazy and fantastic, but will be as real as the ones of your own household, who gather each evening hour about your fireside. Let not your love for one single individual die; it robs you of too great a joy. Warm up your hearts by allowing the fires of faith in God, hope of heaven, and love for all men to blaze and burn in high, exultant flames that know not how to die. Without it your life will be as barren as the deserted house through which the winter winds pass undisturbed. Make your life homelike by keeping bright the hearthstone of the heart. XXVI THE UNOARED SEA Each one spends his childhood playing upon the golden sands of an unoared sea, over which in the after years he must find his way to shipwreck or safe harbor. How little does childhood in its helplessness know of life! Pleased with simple things, it greets the world with gladness, and shouts for very joy when finding a tinted shell or bit of seaweed. With spades of tin it undertakes to dig a hole “clear through the earth,” and smiles in contemplation of a vision of the Chinese sky. With chains of sand it undertakes to bind the rushing waters of the tide which granite cliff and flinty rock cannot subdue. The child undertakes great things while he himself is not strong enough to withstand the smallest wave, but, leaving his unfinished task, runs homeward at the coming of the tide. The waves roar with laughter and the spray sparkles with merriment as they destroy the feeble efforts of his puny hands. Childhood knows little of the unoared sea of life whose marvelous power of wave and tide threatens to destroy all the childish and manly efforts of his life.