bridge. It sank into the moldy lime. It germinated in the winter rain. It grew into a sapling, so small at first that a child's hand could have pulled it out. But there was no child's hand to do it. It was allowed to grow into a tree, and now digging its deep roots into the mortar, it has wrenched the solid masonry aside, so that its ultimate ruin can only be the question of time.

And so that bridge over which armies have tramped in the past and cannon thundered, that masonry which has defied the tempest of nearly two hundred years, has at length succumbed to a seed so small that it could be lifted by a gust of autumn wind! "Sow a deed and you reap a habit! sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."

But

II. Another reason why men disappoint their promise is because of the lack of concentration. They dissipate their energies in a thousand petty schemes and plans, and thus fail to accomplish anything great. This is the temptation of versatility. When you hear of a minister who is "a great doctor," "a wonderful artist," or an "author in his way," you do not expect of that man that he will be a pulpit genius. Of course, there are exceptions: men like Rossetti who "can paint as well as they sing," "and sing as well as they paint." these exceptions are so few as to prove the rule. If you want to succeed, you must make Paul's motto yours: "One thing I do." "Most men," says one, "achieve greatness, not by doing many things as well as others, but by doing one thing better than others." As the stream which flowing through inland hills makes quite a considerable brook, but comes at last to the long sands at the seashore and there dissipates itself into a marsh so shallow that you can hardly trace its track, so it is with many a life. It begins in a noble burst of enthusiasm, and for a while rushes onward in one steady current of strong endeavor. But the disease of instability, fostered perhaps by indolence, seizes it. It fritters itself away on one trifle after another, until at last it perishes in the sand. "It does not attain."

Are some of you like that? No one would perhaps call you absolute failures in life. But are you doing with life what you might? With talents and opportunities such as you possess, you might easily reach positions of influence and power in the com

munity. Are you doing that? Or are you a disappointment to yourselves and to all who know you? God was calling you to become one of his "mighty men," and for a while it seemed you were to be that. You fought and killed your lion "on the snowy day." But what have you done since then? Nothing. It has melted away like the snow of that day, and sooner or later you will drift into the class of moral and spiritual failures, "men who do not attain."

There is one great cure, and one only, for this instability of purpose. It is to have our souls overmastered by a great ideal; something so beautiful and compelling that it draws us on like a magnet, and unifies the aimless wanderings of what else were a scattered life. Any great ambition or affection may of course perform such a service, tho it can not assure us that the end to which we concentrate our energies will be a worthy one. It is the one Paul thought of when he said, "This one thing I do." In one of his letters to his wife, Charles Kingsley gives a description of the noble spire of Salisbury Cathedral. The lower part is broken up in the wildest confusion of tower and minaret, until "its selfwilled fancies exhaust themselves, and it makes one final struggle upward in a vast simple pyramid, and when that has dwindled to a point, it ends in a cross." It is a picture of the life of man, fretting itself in many a wayward striving, dissipating its energies now here, now there, tl catching sight of the cross it concentrates itself in one glad upward effort.

III. Another great reason why men disappoint their future is because they are too contented with what they have done in the past; they think they have "attained" already.

It may have been so with some of the men who are represented here as not attaining. I should not wonder, for example, that what kept Abishai (the second of those of whom our text speaks) from emerging into the ranks of real greatness was the splendor of his first achievement. One can at least imagine it so. One can fancy him going about afterward in a kind of perpetual swagger, saying: "Do you remember that day when I met the three hundred 'in the parcel of ground,' and smote them hip and thigh? Was not that a great achievement?"

But there were no other noble deeds after

that youthful victory. The years went on, and Abishai did no more. The very grandeur of his past was the rock on which his future was shattered. So at least is it with not a few-men who at school or college win a lot of prizes, and it is the ruin of them. It makes them self-satisfied prigs. They come to think that the whole of life is summed up in a college prize. They rest on their past. They have no outlook to the future.

A modern writer mentions somewhere that he once had a conversation with the manager of a large engineering shop in Liverpool, from which young men went out as engineers in ocean-bound steamers. Often there were six or more of these, and they rose from post to post by examination and seniority. But the curious thing was that the place where they most frequently failed was at the top. So long as they were rising they were steady and earnest, but when they became chief they often fell into carelessness or, became the victims of intemperance. They had gained their ideal. They were resting on their laurels. They thought they had already "attained," when life was only half done.

How different was it with him to whom I have referred already as the great contrast to the man who disappoints his promise!

What is Paul's language about his life's attainments? "Not as tho I had already attained but this one thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Not attained? No, tho he had the grandest attainments to look back upon that any man could have. Not attained? No, tho he could point to the very marks of the Lord Jesus in his body. Not attained? No, tho he had won trophies of grace in every land, and written books that would never die. Not attained? No, tho he had borne bonds and stripes and imprisonments and perils for Jesus Christ. Not attained? No, for he had his eyes fixt on something far above his own poor attainments. He had his eyes on Christ. That was the secret of his unresting progress. That was how he ever kept on the banner of his life, "Excelsior." "That I might be found in him." "Not as tho I had already attained."

Let this be our ideal; Christ and no less. Then we shall never be satisfied with our own past poor attainments, but pressing ever onward and upward shall at last be counted worthy to stand among those, the mighty men of God's host, who have come to the measure of the stature of a perfect man, the perfection of Jesus Christ.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.-2 Peter 3:18.

THIS text has a great setting, whether we view it from the standpoint of vision or of thought. Laying its hand upon the whole physical frame of things, its inward reach penetrates to the eternal mind and heart. Two of the great philosophic schemes are here-uniformism and catastrophism. One reads an orderly, evolutionary unfolding of the universe; the other discerns the changes and forward-movements incident to sudden upheavals of cosmic energy. It may be a kind of mental shock to mention the names of Huxley and Peter in the same breath. Nevertheless Huxley, a thoroughgoing evolutionist, says: "For millions of years our globe has taken the upward road, yet, sometime, the summit will be reached and the downward route will be commenced."

"But," says Peter, "according to his promise we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." And J. Arthur Thomson exactly expresses the apostle's underlying thought in his memorable words:

"The indestructible matter and energy will doubtless pass into a different expression, but a particular thought will have completed itself."

Thus, it would be interesting to dwell upon these doctrines of uniformism and catastrophism, not only in their relation to modern thought, but in their relation to New Testament thought also. However, my present purpose is more immediate and practical. For every older and younger generation, as you are aware, has mutual obligations to each other. Age tends to conservatism, while youth is progressive. Too often the hoary head thinks the skull of youth is sure to get cracked, just

as youth gaily asserts that age is hopelessly fossilized, and that the sooner its wisdom perishes the better it will be for mankind. Both attitudes are unwholesome, unjust, disproportionate, and ungodly. Age should remember that this is God's world and youth is God's opportunity of getting his truth a new and deeper foothold in the human consciousness. Youth should consider that truth unfolds itself very slowly, that it has required many generations to receive and nourish virtues and principles which are priceless. Where is the secret of a creative and constructive medium to be found? My text contains it. I like to think of it as holding the formula of life's final education: "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

I. The law of growth in life's education."But grow!" Apply it as we may, here is an exhortation that challenges us to consider one of the supreme facts of the uni

verse.

Growth is the key to the house of being. Is it not a many-roomed house! There are doors upon doors, rooms upon rooms, with infinite halls and confusing corridors. Yet, if you hold the key of growth in your hand, and know how to apply it to all the bewildering locks, you will go far through this house of wonder. To begin with, growth is the clue to the physical world. The astronomer gives his first chapter the title, "The Birth of the Earth." How did the seeds of life first get into the furrows of our world? An old question, it is of perennial interest. Wise men claim that the original life-germs were brought hither by meteors or aerolites. But however and whenever they came, those microscopic entities were astir with the genius of growth. Stars grow, rocks grow, crystals grow-not even the inorganic realm can escape the law. Our earth represents a tremendous growth, from the moment of its birth in the cradle of immensity on to the epoch when its present form shall have been changed into molds of matter of which we are entirely ignorant. Hurrying on to the world of intelligence, a thousand voices are commanding: "Beware lest ye fall back into the pit of animalism, lest ye be devoured in the jungles of wickedness, lest ye fall from your own God-called stedfastness. But grow-and grow-and keep on growing!" What a singular fact is this to which

the late Doctor William Hanna Thomson calls attention. Of the two cerebral hemispheres of the human brain, the mind uses only one. Moreover, if you are left-handed, you think through the right hemisphere, while, if you are right-handed, you think through the left hemisphere. Just why this is so well, now, just why is it so? What we do know, however, is this: The brain, the house of the mind, wondrously grows. "It is simply," says the anatomist, "the anterior termination of the spinal cord." Simply? Why not say "simply simple" and be done with it! The growth of the brain -that whitish house of soft matter which God leases to us for an uncertain tenureis so marvelous that, in pondering it, the futility of words is pathetic. Again: Why does every species of organism, passing from cell-life into highly complex forms, resemble one of its parents? Here is a universal fact, says Alfred Russel Wallace, that does not excite even wonder or curiosity among most people. "Yet," he adds, "it is to this day absolutely inexplicable." Furthermore, if we are going to visit the profound realms of moral being, we must get into the chariot of growth. "The earth beareth fruit of herself," says the Master; "first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear." We accept this as pure fact, but we strangely overlook the preceding thought which called it forth: "So is the kingdom of

God." Ah, we dare not stand still and watch the worlds and angels go by. We must morally march or morally retreat. We must leap over the shell-holes of iniquity or be engulfed in their stenchful glooms. For does not life teach us that physical and mental growth is easy as compared with forthright moral and Christlike advance? Surveying the law of growth in general, we find that it completes itself in its social bearings. "The universe is a system of social forces," says William Wynne Peyton, "a living majesty of society." There are no isolated physical forces; they are all in definite relation, from atom to star, from star to heliotrope's fragrance.

"The life on our globe is the work of physical, chemical, psychological, psychical forces of many kinds, working in correspondence, sternly opposed, finely balanced, delicately adjusted."

Now, if this is true of the physical, how are peoples to remain separated as in

former world-schemes? Why, you might as well try to separate the breath of spring from the throat of a bird. Wickedness infernal is stalking the earth to-day; chaos is boiling up from the blackest depths; the devil has momentarily discarded kaiserism and disguised himself in bolshevism, a sinister aspect of the human brute. But neither brute nor devil can triumph, because the Lord God omnipotent reigns. What if this world-tumult should prove, under the guid ance of God, to be a blind, groping, even a horribly wicked struggle of the peoples to get together? America, my friends, is in no danger of losing her national identity, if she sets her face toward the right; she can manage the menace, black as it is, of bolshevistic internationalism, if she will nerve her soul unto Christian righteousness; but if she refuses to do this, neither her noble dead nor her patriotic living can save America, or any other land, from ultimate doom. We must nationally grow in righteousness, justice, and truth, or nationally perish. It is just the irrevocable fiat of God, the powers of self-destruction organized in the structure of the worlds, the good or evil of a humanity that must either accept Christ's way or destroy itself.

II. The law of growth in its supreme manifestation.-Seizing the suggestiveness of Peter's counsel to grow, I have barely skirted a realm of thought which is boundless in its dimensions. It were picayunish to debate whether the apostle understood the large implications of his fertile world; that may safely be left in the hands of all dextrous hair-splitters. The fact is, he has not only set a spacious mental gate ajar, but invited us to walk in and inspect spiritual landscapes that are unique, magnificent, and inwardly satisfying. "But grow!" Yes, he says it distinctly, resonantly; but he says much more than that; he says you must grow after a certain type, according to a specific pattern: "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." So, if you count life, with Browning, just so much stuff "to try the soul's strength on, educe the man," you will find a vast deal of that heavenly stuff locked up in these two words-grace and knowledge -and their peculiar setting here. I think they are enchanting, refreshing, enriching.

Grace, as you know, is a beautiful old pagan word. In classical Greek it meant

the giving of joy or delight, hence charm, winsomeness, elegance, favor. There were three graces in Greek mythology. They were called Euphrosyne, joy; Thalia, bloom; and Aglaia, brilliance. Sprung from Zeus and Hera, they lived with the Muses on Mount Olympus. Perhaps the word charis, from which comes our word grace, originally signified external beauty mainly, tangible loveliness. But Christ has transfigured the word, deepened it into unfathomable depths, shot it through and through with the splendor of God's heart. Therefore, in its Christian value, grace signifies: The love of the Eternal released in his passionate energy of redemption through Christ, making it impossible for God or man to be satisfied with mere beauty of form, driving the soul back upon the ultimate source of beautyGod himself.

It is evident, therefore, that to grow in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, means that the soul has found the road which leads finally to the absolute beauty. Beauty without and beauty within -the life hid with Christ in God knows the accessible homes of beauty, dwells in them, and is inspired by them, even as it hurries on to possess larger mansions of loveliness. Clearly, the practical bearing of this truth upon the final education of a human being is inescapable. What a corrective it is to all the polite hypocrisies that curse our modern world! How it shames the chameleon character that thrives on hearsay! How it rebukes the compromises men are constantly making in the interests of popularity! How it drags into light skeletons grinning in the closets of religious tricksters, showing that while the original skin of the exposed skeletons was thin enough, the present supply is incapable of covering the ghastly bones! How it smites down, with wholesome iconoclasm, the thousand and one false idols set up in the name of God but in reality blinding us to the simplicity which is in Christ! I was recently talking with a tree-doctor over in Hoboken. While the men were pruning the trees and applying tree-tar to the wounded, bleeding parts, this arborist said that some trees would grow if planted upside down. "That tree," he said pointing to one close by, "would flourish if the roots were put up in the air and the branches down in the soil." Somewhat incredulous, I tried to match his

statement by reminding him of the scientist who says that "nineteen-twentieths of a tree's life comes out of the atmosphere." Both may be right and both may be wrong, for aught I know. What flashed through my mind while he was talking was this: Multitudes of men and women seem to have

been planted upside down! Their feet are kicking at the skies of reality while their heads, and all they contain, are thrust deep into the muck. Worse still, they are soullessly content with their attitude, their position in the scale of being. Nor am I thinking altogether now of those vicedriven creatures whose violation of the moral law renders them physically repulsive. For sin does not confine itself to the wearing of loathsome clothes; it may be most fatal when least obvious. The cloud of scorn may darken a classic brow; the poison of hatred may spurt from an eloquent tongue; 'the demon of unchastity may dwell in a bosom adorned with sparkling gems. Oh, yes! Sin bedecks itself in gorgeous raiment; it readily adopts philosophic cuts, scientific poses, artistic shapes. What is the most beautiful, graceful creature in the animal kingdom? Doctor Scully thinks that it is the South African green water-snake. Gliding sinuously through clear, still water, he affirms that it is probably unequaled for beauty in the entire brute creation. "The liquid medium,” he says, "enhances its gloss, until it resembles a living emerald. Its rhythmic curves weave patterns graceful almost beyond the possibilities of imagination." Yet, no matter how rich their attire, how incomparably beautiful their olive, green, pink, and velvet black; no matter how rhythmic their motion as they coil and swim, leaving, as Coleridge sang, every track a flash of golden firethey are still slimy, wriggling, creeping, repulsive snakes, some deadly, all loathsome. Nor is it otherwise when sin puts on dazzling raiment. It may wear the grace of Venus even while it conceals the very deadliness of death. The sting of death is sin; the strength of sin is the law; and the law exacts its pound of flesh in time and in eternity.

But to grow in the grace of Christ! That is the supreme beauty, because it is inner, moral, and spiritual. "If I had but two loaves of bread," runs a phrase in the Koran, "I would sell one and buy hyacinths,

for they would feed my soul." The grace of Christ is richer far than the food of angels or hyacinths; it is God's answer to the psalmist's prayer: "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us." It is God's handsome fulfilment of the ageless promise: "In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth." It is the spiritual realization of Swedenborg's golden mysticism: "In heaven the oldest angels are the youngest, for they are continually marching toward the springtime of their youth." To grow in grace, then, is to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ"; it is God's method of keeping our souls from growing gray and wrinkled; it is the divine secret of opening wells of inner vitality that rise to all eternity; it is the beauty that abides after the fashion of the world is frayed and faded. "The habits of the mind form the soul," said Balzac, "and the soul gives expression to the face." Naturally, faces vary in their expression, as well as in the quality they express. Facial tones and tints are as diversified as skytones and sky-tints. Yet, if Christ dwells deep within the soul, the face, that visible map of our invisible world, usually confirms the truth. "Whom not having seen ye love"-Christ somehow inhabits the invisible sanctuaries of being. He looks through the eye, he feels through the touch, he listens through the ear, he speaks through the voice. Hidden behind all outer horizons, the Lord Christ suffuses human nature with a glory excelling twilight skies enkindled by flames from altars of the infinite beauty.

"He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red-rose tree:

He kept his meaning to himself,
But gave a rose to me.

I did not ask him to lay bare
The mystery to me:

Enough the rose was sweet to smell,
And his own Face to see."

Is it not the grace of our Master that endows homely people with exquisite loveliness? Look at Paul, in bodily presence weak, in speech contemptible, a diminutive hook-nosed Jew, a human wart on the face of creation. But when that Damascus light burned into him, when that brightness brighter than the noonday sun pierced the substance of his being, Paul was henceforth inflamed by unearthly lusters, a human peak quivering with the dawn