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Love's secrets are known only to love. The things which pass man's understanding are revealed to man's affections, even as a mother's love cannot be compassed by the imagination, but is only known to experience. To love alone belong the words "perpetual," "steadfast." Love alone can cast out those subtle dreads that cripple life, especially for sensitive natures, for love trusts entirely, and is obedient unto death.

Pour into our hearts such love, we pray, that we may obtain Thy promises, by running the way of Thy commandments. May we ever remember that it is not a mere doctrine to be understood by the intellect, but that it is a life. Our Blessed Lord teaches us that if we bring a gift to the altar, and there remember that our brother has aught against us, we may not leave our gift until we are reconciled to our brother. We must be sure of our love towards man before we can be confident of our love towards God.

THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Collect. Lord of all power and might, who art the

author and giver of all good things; graft in our hearts the love of Thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy

great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Epistle. Rom. vi. 19.

Gospel. St. Mark viii. 1.

The Love which we implored last Sunday is now to be grafted in our hearts, is to bring forth holiness, and the end "everlasting life."

To-day might be called the Sunday of Growth, so closely do the lessons keep to that thought. As the graft is bound into the tree, so we by religion -binding back-are united to God; there to be nourished in goodness, in the close tie of service -the bond of our culture.

The Epistle shows the change which the love of God has wrought in us. Where we had been servants of sin, we are now servants of righteousness; where the fruit of our action was to ripen in spiritual death, we now look for the harvest of true holiness. But the harvest is from the Giver of all good things. Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but the vital forces are from above; even as the wedding garment is the gift

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of His love who said, "Behold, I make all things new!"

To show the power of God to multiply our feeble forces and render them sufficient to the great end in view, we have the miracle of the few loaves, which became, in the hands of the Lord of Life, abundance and to spare. How perfectly the free gift of God is here taught. The Author and Giver of all good things multiplies the handful of grain to fit the needs of His tender compassion. Without His compassion we would indeed faint by the way; for divers of us came from far when we turned to follow the Lord and Master whithersoever He should lead. But here in the wilderness we are satisfied. Our small stock of good traits, of good desires, become in His hands sufficient; nourishment for the daily life and abundance to share with others.

THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Collect.

O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth; we humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Epistle. Rom. viii. 12.

Gospel. St. Matt. vii. 15.

The Sunday of testing. If we are grafted into the life of God we cannot bring forth evil fruit. If we are the sons of God we must be led by the Spirit of God. A thousand things surround us; we must distinguish what is hurtful to this new life we have entered upon, and choose those things which are profitable to it.

"Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven." The essential point is to realize the end of it all: the self-sacrificing, loving surrender of our will to the Divine Will; becoming one in the mystical body of Christ, whose dying was the type of our death to the world, whose cross is our cross, whose life is our life.

There are times when this union with the divine comes home to the soul in an inexpressible way. So it comes to me in the phrase "joint heirs with

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Christ," "if so be we suffer with Him, we shall be glorified together." To act, to suffer, to enjoy with Him, is to partake the divine life in everything. The everlasting Son of the Father came to show us that we are meant to be sons of God, not merely highly developed animals; through His resurrection he reveals to us the coming powers, beyond what is possible to this flesh-hood. Deep within work the forces of life that tint a beautiful flower; deep within live the mysterious forces that make the "King's daughter all glorious.' Events lie with God. What we are to be, and where we are to be is His care; we may not take anxious thought for the morrows, our part is to abide in Him. We only ask that God's will may be made more and more clear to us, until that "latter day," when the mists shall roll away, and we shall know even as we are known of Him.