spends his whole life for others he is so much like Christ I shall call him a Christian. I do not depreciate a public profession of Christ in the ordinary church modes, but I believe that the grandest profession of the religion of Christ is that Christ-like, self-denying charity which finds its chief pleasure in ministering to the woes and brightening the lives of our fellow-men.

These lines describe the feelings and actions of a Christian:

"Blest is the man whose softening heart

Feels all another's pain;

To whom the supplicating eye

Was never raised in vain;

"Whose breast expands with generous warmth,

A stranger's woes to feel,

And bleeds in pity o'er the wound

He wants the power to heal.

"To gentle offices of love

His feet are never slow;

He views, through mercy's melting eye,

A brother in a foe."

III.

THE USEFUL WOMAN.

HAVE you not had your admiration excited by hearing it said of any one, "She is a useful woman"? Would that I could inspire you with an abhorrence of being useless and an ambition to be useful. Shrivel not into a despicable selfishness, cherish a yearning after benevolent activity, and feel as if it were but half living to live only for yourselves.

"O woman, forget not thou, earth's honored priest,
Its tongue, its soul, its life, its pulse, its heart,
In earth's great chorus to sustain thy part!
Chiefest of guests at love's ungrudging feast,
Play not the niggard; spurn thy native clod,
And self disown:

Live unto thy neighbor, live unto thy God,
Not unto thyself alone."

Woman's heart is supposed to be the very dwelling-place of mercy, and a useless and selfish woman is a libel upon her sex. We call upon you to be our sisters of charity, to go forth on errands of mercy to the abodes of

sickness and poverty without abjuring all pretensions to the character of wifehood and motherhood. Loathe that spurious sentimentality which weeps over the imaginary woes of a novel, but turns away with a callous heart from those real sufferings which abound on every hand. You do most for yourselves when you do most for others. It is not enough that you pity the sorrows of the poor and the suffering; what your heart pities your hands must do; what you pray for you must strive to attain.

If you have a desire to live in the true sense of the word, you can least afford to be useless. It is lamentable to see how many women live only as a waste and weight on fast-flying time. O you poor souls living in uselessness, how can I make you see what you are losing! What can I say but

"Rise up, ye women that are at ease,
Tremble, ye careless daughters,"

and repeat the old call, "Awake, ye that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light."

In the woman form of merciful ministry humanity feels the touch as of an angel from heaven. Say not the doors of useful service are closed against you when there are so many

poor to help, so many sick longing for the sound of a woman's voice and the touch of a woman's hand. If you have an earnest purpose, it will not want for a sphere, it will make its own sphere. Would you realize the divinest of womanhood's ideals and be "as the angels," listen to the moans of suffering around you. Hearken to the voice that whispers in your soul; begin with some plain, practical, petty duty immediately at hand, and in faithfulness to the lowly duty your life will gradually be brought under the power of a supreme purpose,

"And so make life, death, and that fast forever,

One grand, sweet song."

If you should die to-day, could friends look upon your quiet face and feel that death had bereft them of a benefactor? Could they lay snow-white flowers against your hair and smooth it down with tearful tenderness and fold your hands with lingering caress? If you should die to-day, could woe-worn humanity call to mind with loving thought some kindly deed the icy hand had wrought, some gentle word the frozen lips had said, errands on which willing feet had sped? Would you be mourned? A dry-eyed funeral is a sad sight. Be always sure of being useful. This will

make your life comfortable, your death happy, your funeral sad, your account glorious, and your eternity blessed. And remember,

"It isn't the thing you do, dear,

It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,

The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts to-night.
"The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's way,

The bit of heartsome counsel

You were hurried too much to say,
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone
That you had no time nor thought for,

With troubles enough of your own.

"The little acts of kindness,

So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be angels,
Which every one may find;
They come in night and silence,
Each chill, reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,

And a blight has dropped on faith.

"For life is all too short, dear,

And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late;
And it's not the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun."