ike the old sculptor, we
lose our very life in guarding it. We should be willing to die rather
than give it up to be destroyed. We should preserve the image of
Christ, bright, radiant, unsoiled, in our soul, until it transforms our
dull, sinful, earthly life into its own transfigured beauty.

No other aim in life is worthy of an immortal being. We may become
like the angels; what debasement, then, to let our lives, with all
their glorious possibilities, be dragged down into the dust of shame
and dishonor! Rather let us seek continually the glory for which we
were made and redeemed. "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it
is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall
be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he
is. And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself,
even as he is pure."

"Wonderful the whiteness of thy glory;
Can we truly that perfection share?
Yes; our lives are pages of thy story,
We thy shape and superscription bear;
Tarnished forms--torn leaves--but thou canst mend them,
Thou thine own completeness canst unfold
From our imperfections, and wilt end them--
Dross consuming, turning dust to gold."

A drop of water lay one day in a gutter, soiled, stained, polluted.
Looking up into the blue of the sky, it began to wish for purity, to
long to be cleansed and made crystalline. Its sigh was heard, and it
was quickly lifted up by the sun's gentle fingers--up, out of the foul
gutter, into the sweet air, then higher and higher; at length the
gentle winds caught it and bore it away, away, and by and by it rested
on a distant mountain-top, a flake of pure, white, beautiful snow.

This is a little parable of what the grace of God does for every sinful
life that longs and cries for purity and holiness.

CHAPTER X.

THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW.

"So much we miss
If love is weak; so much we gain
If love is strong; God thinks no pain
Too sharp or lasting to ordain
To teach us this."
--HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

There will always be mysteries in sorrow. Men will always wonder what
it means. It is impossible for us, with our earthly limitations, to
understand it. Even the strongest Christian faith will have its
questions, and many of its questions will have to remain unanswered
until the horizon of life is widened, and its dim light becomes full
and clear in heaven. Meanwhile, h