reached! But God's windings are never
wasteful and purposeless. The apparent deviations are always gracious
preparations. We are taken out of the way in order that we may the more
richly reach our end. George Pilkington yearned to go to the foreign
field, and God sent him to a dairy farm in Ireland. But the Irish dairy
farm proved to be on the way to Uganda; and all the experience and
knowledge which Pilkington picked up in this strange business proved
invaluable when he reached his appointed field. "He bringeth the blind by
a way that they know not."

So I will remember that the "short cut" is not always the finest road.
God's round-about ways are filled with heavenly treasure. Every winding is
purposed for the discovery of new wealth. What riches we gather on the way
to God's goal!

"The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heavenly fields
Or walk the golden streets."

OCTOBER The Thirteenth

_THE ROYAL AIR_

GALATIANS iii. 6-14.

Emerson says somewhere that he has noticed that men whose duties are
performed beneath great domes acquire a stately and appropriate manner.
The vergers in our great cathedrals have a dignified stride. It is not
otherwise with men who consciously live under the power of vast
relationships. Princes of royal blood have a certain great "air" about
them. The consciousness of noble kinships has an expansive influence upon
the soul. The Jews felt its influence when they called to mind "our Father
Abraham."

So is it with men and women of glorious kinships in the realm of faith.
Their souls expand in the vast and exalted relations. "The children of
faith" have vital communion with all the spiritual princes and princesses
of countless years. They have blood-relationship with the patriarchs, and
psalmists, and prophets, and they dwell "in heavenly places" with Paul,
and Augustine, and Luther, and Wesley.

Surely, such exalted kinship should influence our very stride, and set its
mark upon our "daily walk and conversation." It ought to make us so big
that we can never speak a mean word, or do a petty and peevish thing.

OCTOBER The Fourteenth

_COMMONPLACE PEOPLE_

JOHN i. 35-47.

Our Lord delights to glorify the commonplace. He loves to fill the common
water-pots with His mysterious wine. He chooses the earthen vessels into
which to put His treasure. He calls obscure fishermen to be the
ambassadors of His grace. He p