d rather be pure
in heart," she said. When asked the reason for her choice, she
answered: "If I could but have a pure heart, I should then possess all
the other qualities of the beatitudes in the one." The child was
right. A pure heart will build a beautiful life, a fit temple for
Christ. Thinking over God's holy thoughts after him will make us like
God. Thinking habitually about Christ, Christ's beauty will come into
our souls and shine in our faces.

CHAPTER XIV.

DOING THINGS FOB CHRIST.

"We can best minister to him by helping them
Who dare not touch his hallowed garment's hem;
Their lives are even as ours--one piece, one plan.
Him know we not, him shall we never know,
Till we behold him in the least of these
Who suffer or who sin. In sick souls he
Lies bound and sighing, asks our sympathies;
Their grateful eyes thy benison bestow,
Brother and Lord,--'Ye did it unto me.'"
--LUCY LARCOM.

If Christ were here, we say, we would do many things for him. The
women who love him would gladly minister to him as did the women who
followed him from Galilee. The men who are his friends would work to
help him in any ways he might direct. The children who are trying to
please him would run errands for him. We all say we would be delighted
to serve him if only he would come again to our world and visit our
homes. But we can do things for him just as really as if he were here
again in human form.

One way of doing this is by obeying him. He is our Lord. Nothing
pleases him so well as our obedience. It is told of a great
philosopher that a friend called one day to see him, and was
entertained by the philosopher's little daughter till her father came
in. The friend supposed that the child of so wise a man would be
learning something very deep. So he asked her, "What is your father
teaching you?" The little maid looked up into his face with her clear
eyes and said, "Obedience." That is the one great lesson our Lord is
teaching us. He wants us to learn obedience. If we obey him always we
shall always be doing things for him.

We do things for Christ which we do through love to him. Even
obedience without love does not please him. But the smallest services
we can render, if love inspire them, he accepts. Thus we can make the
commonest tasks of our lives holy ministries, as sacred as what the
angels do. There is a legend of a monk who painted in an old
convent-cell p