rn when attending his
children during an infectious complaint. It was proved that he had
sown broadcast germs of the disease. It would have been no
justification for him to say, What has anyone to do with the clothes I
wear? It is my own business. He was a member of the community. His
action was silently but surely dealing out death to others. He was
punished, and justly punished. We cannot live without influencing
others. We say perhaps that "we mean well," or at least we mean to do
no one any harm, but is our influence harmless? It is going from us in
forms as subtle as the germs of an infectious disease.

Say not, "It matters not to me,
My brother's weal is _his_ behoof,"
For in this wondrous human web,
If your life's warp, his life is woof.

Woven together are the threads,
And you and he are in one loom,
For good or ill, for glad or sad,
Your lives must share one common doom.

Then let the daily shuttle glide,
Wound full of threads of kindly care,
That life's increasing length may be
Not only strongly wrought, but fair.

So from the stuff of each new day
The loving hand of Time shall make
Garments of joy and peace for all,
And human hearts shall cease to ache.
M. J. SAVAGE.

(2) The power all have to do good. There are some who think they can
only serve God and man in a direct and premeditated way, by taking up
some branch of Christian work and devoting themselves to it; and if
they have no gift in any special direction, they think they are outside
of the vineyard altogether. But it is not so. The sphere of quiet and
unassuming Christian life is open to all. It is impossible to measure
the extent of our influence. Its

Echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.

Like those of the Alpine horn in the solitudes of the mountains, long
after the voice that caused them has ceased, they reverberate far and
wide. No man lives to himself. He could not do so if he would. (3)
The secret of good influence is to be influenced for good ourselves.
Our lamp must be first lit if it is to shine, and we must ourselves be
personally influenced by coming to the great source of spiritual power.
If Christ is in a man, then, wherever he may be, there will radiate
from him influences that can only be for good. Out of the life that is
in him "will flow rivers of living water."

Thou must be true thyself
If thou the truth wouldst teach.