disciplined, habits are formed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored. Later, in active life, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe. Homes are quarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in the heart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones, to appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men.

Glib,

Then there are the thought-quarries back of what people see in every human life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds can have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere is of small value. easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on any subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering forever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worth hearing come out of thought-quarries where they have been wrought ofttimes in struggle and anguish. Father Ryan, in one of the most exquisite of his poems, writes of the "valley of silence" where he prepares the songs he afterwards sings:

"In the hush of the valley of silence

I dream all the songs that I sing;

And the music floats down the dim valley
'Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge,
A message of peace they may bring."

So it is of all great thoughts.

long in the silence and then

Thinkers brood

come forth and

their eloquence sways us. So it is with art. We look at a fine picture and our hearts are warmed by its wondrous beauty. But do we know the story of the picture? Years and years of thought and of tireless toil lie back of its enrapturing beauty. Or here is a book which charms you, which thrills and inspires you. Great thoughts lie on its pages. Do you know the book's story? The author lived, struggled, toiled, suffered, wept, that he might write the words which now help you. Back of every good life-thought which blesses men, lies a dark quarry where the thought was born and shaped into the beauty of form which makes it a blessing to the world.

Or here is a noble and beautiful character. Goodness appears natural to it. It seems easy for the man to be noble and to do noble things.

But again the quarry is back of the temple. Each one's heart is the quarry out of which comes all that the person builds into his life. "As he thinketh in his heart so is he." Everything that appears in our lives comes out of our hearts. All our acts are first thoughts. The artist's picture, the poet's poem, the singer's song, the architect's building, are thoughts before they are wrought out into forms of beauty. All dispositions, tempers, feelings, words, and acts start in the heart. If the workmen had quarried faulty stones in the caverns, the temple would have been spoiled. An evil heart, with stained thoughts, impure imaginings, blurred feelings, can never build up a fair and lovely character.

We need to guard our heart-quarry with all diligence, since out of it are the issues of life. The thoughts build the life and make the character. White thoughts rear up a beautiful fabric before God and man. Soiled thoughts pile up a stained life, without beauty or honor. We should look well, therefore, to our heart-quarry, where the work goes on in the darkness without

ceasing. If all be right there we need give little concern to the building of character. Diligent heart-keeping yields a life unspotted from the world.

A little child had been reading the beatitudes, and was asked which of the qualities named in them she most desired. "I would 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." 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.

The

CHAPTER XIV.

DOING THINGS FOR 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