ught us that all our doings without charity are
nothing worth;

"Send Thy Holy Ghost and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of
charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues;

"Without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before Thee;

"Grant this for thine only Son, Jesus Christ's sake." The ritual rang
upon that note. The music of the hymns of charity was part of the light
that penetrated her, poignant, but tender.

Poignant but tender, too, were the aspect and the mood of the Canon as he
ascended the pulpit and looked upon his congregation.

There was a rustling, sliding sound as the congregation turned to listen
to their vicar.

"Though I speak,'" said the Canon, "'with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or as a
tinkling cymbal."

He gripped his hearers with the stress he laid upon certain words,
"angels," and "cymbal." He bade them mark that it was not by hazard that
the great prayer for Charity was appointed for the Sunday before Lent.
"The Church," he said, "has such care for her children that she does
nothing by hazard. This call is made to us on the eve of the great battle
against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Why, but that those among us
who come off victors may have mercy upon those weakly ones who are
worsted and fallen in the fight. The life of the spirit has its own
unique temptations. It is against these that we pray to-day. We are all
prepared to repent, to use abstinence, to mortify the body with its
corrupt affections. Are we prepared to bear the burden of our brother's
and our sister's unrepentance? Of their self-indulgence? Of their sin? To
follow in all things the Divine Example? We are told that the Saviour of
the world was the friend of publicans and sinners. We accept the
statement, we have gone on accepting it, year after year, as the
statement of a somewhat remote, but well-authenticated historical fact.
Have we yet realised its significance? Have we pictured, are we able to
picture to ourselves, what company He kept? Among what surroundings His
divine figure was actually seen? In what purlieus of degenerate
Jerusalem? In what iniquitous splendours? In what orgies of the Gentiles?
And who are they to whom He showed most tenderness? Who but the rich
young man? The woman taken in adultery? And Mary Magdalene with her seven
devils? Which is the divinest of the divine parables? The parable of the
prodigal son who dev