g incident, how true and living becomes the thought in the
old, old lines!--

"Cast thy bread upon the waters, waft it on with praying breath,
In some distant, doubtful moment it may save a soul from death.
When you sleep in solemn silence, 'neath the morn and evening dew,
Stranger hands which you have strengthened may strew lilies over you."

Our good friend, Henry Drummond, in one of his most beautiful and
valuable little works says--and how admirably and how truly!--that "love
is the greatest thing in the world." Have you this greatest thing? Yes.
How, then, does it manifest itself? In kindliness, in helpfulness, in
service, to those around you? If so, well and good, you have it. If not,
then I suspect that what you have been calling love is something else;
and you have indeed been greatly fooled. In fact, I am sure it is; for
if it does not manifest itself in this way, it cannot be true love, for
this is the one grand and never-failing test. Love is the statics,
helpfulness and service the dynamics, the former necessary to the
latter, but the latter the more powerful, as action is always more
powerful than potentiality; and, were it not for the dynamics, the
statics might as well not be. Helpfulness, kindliness, service, is but
the expression of love. It is love in action; and unless love thus
manifests itself in action, it is an indication that it is of that weak
and sickly nature that needs exercise, growth, and development, that it
may grow and become strong, healthy, vigorous, and true, instead of
remaining a little, weak, indefinite, sentimental something or nothing.

It was but yesterday that I heard one of the world's greatest thinkers
and speakers, one of our keenest observers of human affairs, state as
his opinion that selfishness is the root of all evil. Now, if it is
possible for any one thing to be the root of all evil, then I think
there is a world of truth in the statement. But, leaving out of account
for the present purpose whether it is true or not, it certainly is true
that he who can't get beyond self robs his life of its chief charms, and
more, defeats the very ends he has in view. It is a well-known law in
the natural world about us that whatever hasn't use, that whatever
serves no purpose, shrivels up. So it is a law of our own being that he
who makes himself of no use, of no service to the great body of mankind,
who is concerned only with his own small self, finds that self, sm