should be analyzed, and that some formula for its application should be arrived at. That the State should stand aloof is impossible, and becomes more impossible with each succeeding lapse towards Socialism. We must find some guiding principle before the momentum becomes irresistible. We cannot entirely remedy our present evils by laws, economic or moral. Something they can do, but the less we rely on them the better. In far greater part are these remedies to be sought in the formation of character, and in the stimulus of individual effort. The Outlook.

Thus the

State may endeavor-nay, should endeavor, to provide for its citizens equality of opportunity, by an intelligent fiscal and economic system. But there the function of the State ends. The reward of the worker, he having opportunity, must depend upon himself and his merit. And so, as a beginning of a larger formula, let us say that the State shall never do anything which can be done as well, or nearly as well, by private enterprise. That will do as

a first application of the brake to a vehicle which is already encroaching on the speed limit.

I.

Mrs. Thrush. What do you think of that hawthorn?

Mr. Thrush. Oh, no, my dear, no; much too isolated, it would attract attention at once. I can see the boys on a Sunday afternoon. "Hallo, there's a tree that's bound to have a nest in it." And then where are you? You know what boys are on a Sunday afternoon? You remember that from last year, when we lost the finest clutch of eggs in the county.

Mrs. Thrush. Stop, stop, dear, I can't bear it. Why do you remind me of it? And as for Sunday afternoons they never ought to have been invented.

Mr. Thrush. There, there, compose yourself, my pretty. What other suggestions have you?

Mrs. Thrush. One of the laurels, then, in the shrubbery of the Great House. Mr. Thrush. Much better. trouble there is the cat.

But the

Mrs. Thrush. Oh, dear, I wish you'd find a place for me; I assure you it's time.

Mr. Thrush. Well, my notion, as I have said all along, is that there's noth

Mr. Wren. Listen then. If we use the nest-box there's nothing to do, no fag of building, but we have to put up with visitors peeping in every day and pawing the eggs or the kids about. If we use the letter-box we shall have to line it, and there will be some of the same human fussiness to endure; but, on the other hand, we shall become famous-we shall get into the papers. Don't you see the heading, "Remarkable Nest in Surrey"? And then it will go on, "A pair of wrens have chosen a strange abode in which to rear their little fluffy brood-" and so forth.

Mrs. Wren. That's rather delightful, all the same.

Mr. Wren. Finally, there is the nest which we build ourselves, running just the ordinary risks of boys and ornithologists, but feeling at any rate that we are independent. What do you say? Mrs. Wren. Well, dearest, I think I say the last.

Mr. Wren. Good. Spoken like a brave hen. Then let's look about for a site at once.

IV.

Mr. Swallow. I've looked at every

Punch.

house with decent eaves in the whole place until I'm ready to drop.

Mr. Swallow. Well, it's a puzzle. There's the Manor House: I began with that. There is good holding there, but the pond is a long way off, and carrying mud so far would be a fearful grind. None the less, it's a well-built house, and I feel sure we shouldn't be disturbed.

Mrs. Swallow. What about the people?

Mr. Swallow. How funny you are about the people always! Never mind. All I can find out is that there's the squire and his wife and a companion. Mrs. Swallow. No children? Mr. Swallow. Mrs. Swallow.

None.

the Manor House.

Then I don't care for Tell me of another. Mr. Swallow. This is the merest sentiment; but no matter. The Vicarage next.

Mrs. Swallow. Any children there? Mr. Swallow. No, but it's much nearer the pond.

It is hardly possible to read through carefully the series of magnificent letters which the Apostle Paul sent to the Churches at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Philippi, and other recently-formed congregations of the saints, without coming to the conclusion that the writer was one of the most energetic and indomitable persons of his time. Undisguisedly he glories in the faith that is in him-the faith which checked his sinister career so suddenly and sublimely when on the dusty road to Damascus there "shined round about him a light from heaven." The "threatenings and slaughter" with which he had previously been filled are transmuted by some mysterious spiritual alchemy into an ardent desire for the conversion of men, and whereas before he brought death and disgrace to their bodies, now he strains every nerve in order that their souls may live. He exhorts, warns, reproaches-it is astonishing what a modern note occurs in some of these passages. "Now in this that I declare unto you," he says to the quarrelsome Corinthians, "I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse; for first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. ... What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not." With a superb egotism he declaims time after time his confidence in himself and his belief: "I therefore so run," he writes, "not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air"; and in another place, "As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.” In curious contrast comes an occasional self-distrust, as though his impetuous nature had betrayed him into saying too much-"I am become a fool in glory

ing; ye have compelled me; for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing." The immeasurable joy of it all breaks through irrepressibly again and again. "Now thanks be to God," he cries, "which always causeth us to triumph. ... We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." And this is the man who stood by, witnessing and consenting to Stephen's martyrdom; who "made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison"! It is one of the most wonderful instances of the complete diversion of fiery vigor and ill purpose into a diametrically opposite channel of which we have any record.

This restless, reckless spirit, however, had its calmer interludes, and it was when under the influence of one of these brief tranquilities in the battle that some of his finest periods were penned. Faith and hope are the masts and sails of his vessel, charity—that is, love is its precious freight, and for what splendid havens "eternal in the heavens" this prince of dreamers steered we are told with a repetition that never wearies. "We look not," he says, "at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Here was his faith in its primal and intensest form-that belief in the journey's ultimate success and glorious end which to-day seems to many men quite impossible and untenable. Here was his hope, its divine and human aspects indivisible as the root and stem of the perfect flower; the ex

connecting the known and the unknown; the prophets of old were familiar with it-the "Vision of Isaiah" is full of suggestive passages; the Apostle Paul, as we have seen, lived to proclaim it, having become cognizant of it in no ordinary manner; and in later times many devout men-Saint Francis, notably-have illustrated in their lives its influence and perseverance. What scope do we allow it to-day?

The spectacle of a world wherein this faith, this divine elation of spirit, was permitted to descend into oblivion: where this hope, the super-vision of the soul, was dulled, and where charity, born of faith and hope, was crowded out, would be a pitiful one. Angels could hardly visit such a world. Peace must for ever shun its atmosphere of gloom. Love could scarcely enter within its borders; only passion, wearing the mask of love, could receive a welcome there. The wrangling of the market-place would be its offering of praise to the Most High; the sound of faithless, and therefore meaningless, prayers would rise only to insult the heavens; its ruinous temples and lovely, violated shrines could but mock the God whom once they honored. No sweet spirit of pity could ever work in happy ministrations to the weak, the wounded, or to those who had fallen weary by the way; only the shades of anger and contempt and despair would move uneasily among the throng, spurning to yet more sombre depths of sorrow the souls already forsaken and forlorn. The thousand blooms of spring would put forth their pure petals and their delicate colors in vain for eyes that viewed them indifferently; the luxuriant summer would spend its fragrance and its balm for naught; autumn harvests would be garnered without joy, and through the dearth and silence of winter would shine no forerunning gleam to tell of the new birth close at hand. No strange delight

would thrill its dawns, and from its sunsets the dream would be withheld; even the stars, ranging in the dusk for their nightly march across the sky, could flash no bright message to it. And at the end, when having forgotten love, and with faith and hope deflowered, its puny company travelled into eternity, one tremendous question would ring its knell of dismay-"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

It is quite in accordance with his plan that St. Paul should allot less space to the subject of hope than he does to those of faith and charity. Hope is a recurrent state of the soul for which man is irresponsible; it "springs eternal in the human breast," is born of the least things-a word, a glance, a touch, will call it into radiant being. It dies very hardly; indeed, it may be said to be imperishable while life lasts ―a statement so widely admitted that it has passed into proverbial form. For if a man is absolutely destitute of hope the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, the sun and stars are darkened; he is to all intent and purpose dead already, soul-dead, and often he will hurry his body out of existence as the last desperate measure he can take to render himself in harmony with a universe which seems to him hopeless. The life of man is one long fugue on the theme of hope, often overcome by discords apparently without resolution, often modulating into strange keys, surprising by mutinous, inexplicable phrases, sometimes faltering to a whisper of fugitive music, but always held and braced to coherence by the theme, although it may be that frequently only the skilled musician can trace that theme at all. says the apostle "we are saved by hope," for lacking it, we die.

Truly

Here appears, then, the line of demarcation between hope and the other two transcendent attributes. We may