fore you were aware of it, opposing what they were doing, although it was right, simply because you wished to show that you disapproved of the way in which the thing was being done? Of course the worldly, selfish man will often be arrayed against the man who faithfully performs his duty. But a man who will do duty in such an unlovely way as constantly to arouse the opposition of fellow Christians is, to say the least, still a child in Christian usefulness. Don't let the right be made unlovely by doing it in an unlovely way. Now, thoughtfulness alone will save you from this. If you wish to do your duty in the best, the wisest way, you must study ways and means and methods, you must study men, you must study yourself-you must be thoughtful, constantly, keenly, patiently, conscientiously, humbly thoughtful -you must, like Paul, learn how to become all things to all men that by this means you may win them to the right and to God. The great trouble with Christian workers in doing their duty, the reason why they are not more successful in their work, is because they do not think enough how to do their work. If we gave one twentieth of the thought to discover how best to do Christian work, how to influence men for the right, how to bring them to Christ, that we spend in trying to learn how we can best invest our money, or how we can best cultivate our farms, or how we can make our dresses even so that they shall look best, and yet look a little different from anything any of our acquaintances have, there would be more harmony in our churches, and better and more glorious harvests gathered into them for the Lord. Successful duty-doing, believe me, is conditioned on personal thoughtfulness. The North was successful in the civil war, not simply because it had more men or more money than the South, but because it went to the war

and fought out the war with thinking bayonets. And that is the way every church should fight the hosts of sin and wickedness and unrighteousness in its community. Let every member in it become a thinking bayonet in the Lord's host. Just in proportion as we become thinking Christians will we be successful Christians. Just in proportion as a man thinks out well his duty will he do well his duty.

It is only by individual thoughtfulness that what we accept as our belief can have any power in our life; that we can know our duty; that we can know how to do it. "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Let every man be thoughtful. Think out your creed; think out your duty; think out how to do your duty and then do it. Let no man take thy crown.

SELF-GIVING THE LAW OF THE GLORIFICA

TION OF LIFE.

BY REV. FRED G. CADWELL,*

Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Lansing.

Text: "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." John 12:23-25.

Jesus here lays down, as Godet says, "the fundamental law of human life." The same author says that this text contains the "substance of the moral philosophy of Jesus." Jesus not only taught the profoundest truths, but he also presented them in the simplest forms, in forms that all could easily understand. This I take it is the mark of the great teacher. Jesus knew

that men think largely through the imagination, and so he illumined his teachings with illustrations. No teacher or preacher ever used more illustrations than he. In this text he first sets forth a fact concerning himself; then he illustrates this fact from nature; and finally he crystalizes the general truth which is in the

* Fred George Cadwell was born at Morenci, Mich., March 22, 1868. After two years at Adrian College he took three years at the University of Michigan, graduating 1891, and from McCormick Seminary 1894. Pastor at Pana, Ïll,, 1894–95; at Albion, 1895-97; at Lansing, 1897-.