ergies
waiting for she knows not what? What of the girl by the fireside
crushing down the sense of an Under-call that will not let her rest? The
work to which that Call would lead her will not be anything great: it
will only mean little humble everyday doings wherever she is sent. But
if the Call is a true Call from heaven, it will change to a song as she
obeys; and through all the afterward of life, through all the loneliness
that may come, through all the disillusions when her "dreams of fair
romance which no day brings" slip away from her--and the usual and
commonplace are all about her--then and for ever that song of the Lord
will sing itself through the quiet places of her soul, and she will be
sure--with the sureness that is just pure peace--that she is where her
Master meant her to be.

Not that we would write as if obedience must always mean service in the
foreign field. We know it is not so: we know it may be quite the
opposite; but shall we not be forgiven if we sometimes wonder how it is
that with so much earnest Church life at home, with so many evangelistic
campaigns, and conventions, there is so poor an output so far as these
lands abroad are concerned? Can it be that so many are meant to stay at
home? We would never urge any individual friend to come, far less would
we plead for numbers, however great the need; we would only say this:
Will the girl by the fireside, if such a one reads this book, lay the
book aside, and spend an hour alone with her Lord? Will she, if she is
in doubt about His will, wait upon Him to show it to her? Will she ask
Him to fit her to obey? "And this I wish to do, this I desire;
whatsoever is wanting in me, do Thou, I beseech Thee, vouchsafe to
supply."

Forgive if we seem to intrude upon holy ground, but sometimes we see in
imagination some great gathering of God's people, and we hear them
singing hymns; and sometimes the beautiful words change into others not
beautiful, but only insistent:--

The Lord our God arouse us! We are sleeping,
Dreaming we wake, while through the heavy night
Hardly perceived, the foe moves on unchallenged,
Glad of the dream that doth delay the fight.
O Christ our Captain, lead us out to battle!
Shame on the sloth of soldiers of the light!

* * * * *

Good Shepherd, Jesus, pitiful and tender,
To whom the least of strayi