ower garden. Do not break your heart and
tear your hair keeping books.

One of the sanest things I ever heard was spoken by an able preacher
who came one day to preach in my town. There was almost nobody out to
hear him. And he preached a wonderful sermon and closed with this most
sensible word: "I don't know what I have accomplished by coming to this
town. I only know that I have come with God in my heart and have done
my best. I am not keeping books. God is doing that. Some day on the
other side of the River I am going to take down my book and look at
it,--God will let me,--and I am going to see just what I accomplished
when I came to your town." That is sensible and that is religious.

And so the Lord was saying to Elijah: "It is not your business to keep
books. You do not know how to keep them, in the first place. You
added up a column of figures and got zero. I added it up and got
7,000. Yes, there are 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal. You
have been a help. You have been an inspiration. You have not been a
failure, because you have walked with me." God doesn't fail and the
man who walks with him will not fail. He may not accomplish his
ambition. He may not realize many of the great hopes of his life, but
if he lives in the secret place of the Most High his life will never be
a failure.

I read not long ago of a young woman who consecrated her life to God
for mission work in India. She was ready for the great enterprise, but
just before she was to set sail for that far country, her mother was
taken sick with a lingering disease. She had to stay and nurse her for
some three years. Then the Angel of Release came and the mother went
home.

Preparations were made a second time for her setting out to India. But
from a little home in the distant west there came a call for help. A
widowed sister of this would-be missionary was sick and there were
three little children to be cared for. She went to her sister's
bedside. In a short time the sister died and the three little orphans
were left on her hands, and the one big hope of her life had to be
given up. It seemed strange. It seemed hard. Yet she remained true
to the task that lay nearest. At last all three children were able to
look after themselves. But by that time she herself was too old to go
to her loved mission field.

Then one day one of those orphans for whom she had given up her life's
dream put her arms around her nec