rth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.

Here is Jesus' ideal of character--poor in spirit, mourning, meek,
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, merciful, pure in heart,
peacemakers, persecuted for righteousness' sake. To be these is to be
blessed. And here is Jesus' ideal of what, over and above the inherent
blessedness of such a character, constitutes the true blessedness of a
soul--the possession of the kingdom of heaven, comfort from God, the
inheritance of the earth of which the inheritor may not own a yard, full
satisfaction of the longing after righteousness, the obtaining of mercy
from God, the name of sons of God, and, last as first, the possession of
the kingdom of heaven. Is Jesus' ideal yours? Do you believe that such a
character is the highest that a man can attain, that in itself it is
truly blessed, and will bring about results in contrast with which all
baser-born joys are coarse and false? Happy will you be if you so
believe, and if so believing you make the ideal which He paints your
aim, and therefore secure the blessedness which He attaches to it as
your exceeding great reward.

SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR

'Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his
savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of
men.'--MATT. v. 13.

These words must have seemed ridiculously presumptuous when they were
first spoken, and they have too often seemed mere mockery and irony in
the ages since. A Galilean peasant, with a few of his rude countrymen
who had gathered round him, stands up there on the mountain, and says to
them, 'You, a handful, are the people who are to keep the world from
rotting, and to bring it to all its best light.' Strange when we think
that Christ believed that these men were able to do these grand
functions because they drew their power from Himself! Stranger still to
think that, notwithstanding all the miserable inconsistencies of the
professing Church ever since, yet, on the whole, the experience of
history has verified these words! And although some wise men may curl
their lips with a sneer as they say about us Christians, '_Ye_ are the
salt of the earth!' yet the most progressive, and the most enlightened,
and the most moral portion of humanity has derived its impulse to
progress, its enlightenment as to the loftiest truths, and the purest
portion of it