Greek legend, went after his companions in the palace of Circe, the enchantress skilled in the use of alluring and subduing spells, he found them changed into swine; and when she offered him her dainties, he declined, lest she should take his manhood from him. So there are excitements the Christian will shun, because he respects himself as the temple of the living God; there are dangers lurking in the "social glass," the "friendly hand at " this or that game for money, which he will recognise for what they are, and shun accordingly.

There is an extremely significant colloquial term, a phrase well worth looking at and examining, though we do not always use it in its literal sense-the phrase "played out." You come home from a hard day's toil, and you say, "I feel regularly played out." You have not played at all, you have worked; but by using that term you show your appreciation of the essential truth that play will wear us out more completely than any other form of exertion. And that applies more particularly, in a most sinister sense, to those kinds of amusement and indulgence to which we have just been alluding. Is there any sight much more unlovely, a more eloquent warning to all beholders, than the middle-aged man of pleasure, who is in the most real sense of the word "played out?" The sodden or sin-furrowed features; the lack-lustre eye; the hand a-tremble; the tell-tale, shambling gait, all speak of a reckless over-draft on the bank of life, leaving nothing but a picture of premature decay, with that in his glance every now and again which tells that he is in hell already. Hardship has slain its thousands, but unchecked passions and riotous appetites their tens of

thousands, taking their toll just among the gifted, the brilliant, the people of social charm, no one's enemies but their own. Poor Robert Burns, poor Phil Mayand how many more one could cite. Wherefore rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart but know thou that for all thy pleasures God will call thee to account-not because He is jealous of our joy and happiness, but because He bids us so to use the world as not abusing it. There are pure pleasures of which we shall never tire if we care to acquire a taste for them; pleasures of friendship and human society; pleasures inexhaustible of the mind, as springs of water whose waters fail not; pleasures in the silent companionship of nature, if we go to her beauties and wonders with an open eye and an open heart. In the old nature-myth it is said that the earth-born giant Antæus renewed his strength by every contact with his mother earth; shall not we, in communing with earth and sky and sea, feel refreshed by a veritable contact with our Father God, whose life pervades the life of all His works?

And that brings me to my last point, which is also practically the one on which I began, viz., the necessity for the consecration of our pleasures. The Christian, who is in the habit of submitting the rest of his activities to the judgment of God, will certainly not except his amusements. It is truly a paradox that people should think they can leave religion out of the matter when their quest is enjoyment; this is like dispensing with the services of your Alpine guide just when the path is getting more uncertain, the foothold more precarious, the ground more slippery—a course which nobody

pretending to ordinary good sense would take. Moderation, elevation, consecration-let these three elements be characteristic of our pleasures, and we shall be the better for them, returning from healthy play to healthy toil, braced and knit together, with the wastage repaired and fresh energy stored up for fresh tasks, ready for the better service of our Father and our brethren; for as our best joys are from Him, so they will surely and inevitably lead us to Him in whose presence is fulness of joy.

XXIV

THE HEART OF A CHILD

"The heart of a child."-PROV. xxii. 15.

We have often, in these talks, had occasion to feel how small a difference the lapse of twenty-five centuries or so has made in the essentials, the warp and woof of human nature. The changes are principally changes of garb, expression, appearance; but in the main we found these maxims, gathered so long ago in a fardistant land, entirely applicable to our own circumstances. The same motives sway us, the same frailties beset us, the same trials vex us, as beset and swayed these Orientals of a bygone age; and the line which tells us that

East is East, and West is West, and never the

twain shall meet,

is seen to be little more than a high-sounding superficiality after all.

But there is one respect, at least, in which we do feel conscious, and that sharply, of a diametrical difference between the outlook of these ancient sages and our own -or rather, perhaps, between that of the Old Testament and the New-and that is in the attitude of the Book of Proverbs to children. "He that spareth his rod, hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes"-" diligently," as the margin more

literally puts it. "Withhold not correction from thy child for if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die "-a cheery encouragement to some over-softhearted parent. Above all, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child: but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." All these utterances breathe a fervent belief in the virtue and wholesomeness of, let us say, drastic measures with children; there is in them no doubt of the parents' absolute authority; children are just naturally stupid and perverse, and the nonsense has to be knocked out of them for their own good, no doubt, but also for the peace and comfort of much-tried grown-ups who have something better to do than to be bothered with unruly youngsters.

It is not too much to say that when we turn from the Book of Proverbs to the Gospel-when we read Christ's "Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven "-we are at one bound removed to a different climate, and almost to a different world, certainly a different world for children; when we ponder such an incident as His setting a child in the midst of His followers, and telling them that unless they became as little children, they should in no wise enter the Kingdom, we realise something of the revolution Jesus effected. From the Old Testament point of view the heart of a child was simply a synonym for a mass of foolishness, to be got rid of as speedily and as thoroughly as possible by the application of a stout cudgel; from the Christian point of view it is a thing of awe and wonder and infinite possibilities, an object at once of utmost tenderness and reverence. It is not