ere of
daily life, and warm and clear the air of our homes, there is a great
waste in our religion.

We have been on our knees, confessing humbly that we are as awkward in
heavenly things, as unfit for the Heavenly Jerusalem, as Biddy and Mike,
and the little beggar-girl on our door-steps, are for our parlors. We
have deplored our errors daily, hourly, and confessed that "the
remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is
intolerable," and then we draw near in the sacrament to that Incarnate
Divinity whose infinite love covers all our imperfections with the
mantle of His perfections. But when we return, do we take our servants
and children by the throat because they are as untrained and awkward and
careless in earthly things as we have been in heavenly? Does no
remembrance of Christ's infinite patience temper our impatience, when we
have spoken seventy times seven, and our words have been disregarded?
There is no mistake as to the sincerity of the religion which the church
excites. What we want is to have it _used_ in common life, instead of
going up like hot air in a fireplace to lose itself in the infinite
abysses above.

In reproving and fault-finding, we have beautiful examples in Holy Writ.
When Saint Paul has a reproof to administer to delinquent Christians,
how does he temper it with gentleness and praise! how does he first make
honorable note of all the good there is to be spoken of! how does he
give assurance of his prayers and love!--and when at last the arrow
flies, it goes all the straighter to the mark for this carefulness.

But there was a greater, a purer, a lovelier than Paul, who made His
home on earth with twelve plain men, ignorant, prejudiced, slow to
learn,--and who to the very day of His death were still contending on a
point which He had repeatedly explained, and troubling His last earthly
hours with the old contest, "Who should be greatest." When all else
failed, on His knees before them as their servant, tenderly performing
for love the office of a slave, he said, "If I, your Lord and Master,
have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet."

When parents, employers, and masters learn to reprove in this spirit,
reproofs will be more effective than they now are. It was by the
exercise of this spirit that Fenelon transformed the proud, petulant,
irritable, selfish Duke of Burgundy, making him humble, gentle, tolerant
of others, and severe only to himself: it was