the heart,
At once, above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, "O Lord, THOU ART."

_--C. Smart_

THE STORY OF A CUP OF WATER

BY THEODORE T. MUNGER

[From "Lamps and Paths," by courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

--James Russell Lowell: _Sonnet IV_

Restore to God his due in tithe and time:
A tithe purloined cankers the whole estate.
Sundays observe: think, when the bells do chime,
'Tis angels' music; therefore come not late.
God there deals blessings. If a king did so,
Who would not haste, nay give, to see the show?

--George Herbert

O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!

_--King Henry VI.,_ Part II.; i. I

_"And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the
water of the well of Bethlehem, that is at the gate! And the three brake
through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of
Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David:
but David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord, and
said, My God forbid it me, that I should do this thing: shall I drink
the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy? for with
the jeopardy of their lives they brought it. Therefore he would not
drink it."_--I Chronicles xi. 17-19

If any of my young friends ask why I have read this long-time-ago
Bible-story as a text for a sermon to-day, I will not only answer, but
thank them for the question; for nothing helps a speaker at the start so
much as a straight, intelligent question. I have read this story from
the Chronicles, because I want to connect this beautiful occasion with
some beautiful thing in the Bible; for beautiful things go together.

My main object and desire in this service is to have everything
beautiful and pure and high. For I know how well you will remember this
day in after years; I know how every feature and incident is imprinting
itself upon your minds; I know how, twenty and forty years hence, when
we older ones will be dead and gone, and you will be scattered far and
wide, some in the great cities--New York, Chicago, St. Louis--some in
California, and some further off still--I know how, on quiet June
Sundays years hence, you will recall this Festival of Flowers in North
Adams. You may be in some of the great cities, or on