o soul and sense
The feeling which is evidence

{184}

That very near about us lies
The realm of spiritual mysteries.
With smile of trust and folded hands,
The passive soul in waiting stands,
To feel, as flowers the sun and dew.
The one true life its own renew."

{185}

LXXIV

THE WEDDING GARMENT

_Matthew_ xxii. 11-14.

Here is a man who has the feast offered to him, but is not clothed to
meet it. He is unprepared and is therefore cast out. He does not wear
the wedding garment and therefore is not fit for the wedding feast.
This seems at first sight harsh treatment; but one soon remembers that
it was the custom of an Oriental feast to offer the guest at his
entrance a robe fit for the occasion. "Bring forth the best robe,"
says the father of the prodigal, "and put it on him." This man had had
offered to him the opportunity of personal preparation and had refused
it. He wanted to share the feast, but he wanted to share it on his own
terms. He pressed into the happiness without the personal preparedness
which made that happiness possible.

Every man in this way makes his own world. The habit of his life
clothes him like a garment, and only he who wears the wedding garment
{186} is at home at the wedding feast. The same circumstances are to
one man beautiful and to another, at his side, demoralizing. You may
have prosperity and it may be a source of happiness, or the same
prosperity and it may be a source of peril. You may be at a college
and it may be either regenerating to you, or pernicious in its
influence, according as you are clothed or unclothed with the right
habit of mind. God first asks for your heart and then offers you his
world. The wedding feast is for him alone who has accepted the wedding
garment.

{187}

LXXV

THE ESCAPE FROM DESPONDENCY

1 _Kings_ xix. 1-13.

This is God's word to man's despondency; and when we strip this man's
story of its Orientalism, it is really the story of many a discouraged,
despondent man of to-day. Elijah has been doing his best, but has come
to a point where he is ready to give up. His enemies are too many for
him. "Lord," he says, "it is enough. I have had as much as I can
bear. I am alone and Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men."
So he goes away into solitude, and looks about him for some clear sign
that God has not deserted him. But nothing happens. The great signs
of nature pass before him, the s