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old: " they have gone astray because there is not one of them who thinks — thinks of the one thing worth thinking about." The great heart of God as vainly yearns after them now as it did after the Israelites when He said: "Oh, that they would be wise and understand and provide for their last end/' In all that throng is there one single thought of God or heaven, of religion or the soul? You hear every topic discussed but these, and if perchance you hear them mentioned at all, it is only one poor old beggar who begs an alms for God's sake and invokes the blessing of Heaven on the giver; or, more frequently, a blasphemer who asks Christ to damn his brother's soul for jostling him. Talk to them of death and judgment, heaven or hell, and, if they do you no bodily injury, be assured they will laugh at you as a fanatic and a madman. Tell them of the saints who gave up all to follow Christ; of the martyrs who were consistent enough to purchase, with their temporal lives, life eternal— and they will tell you that that doctrine was good enough for the Middle Ages— those thoughts suited to Sunday only; but that the week-day cares of this practical age are very different and vastly more important. There is a stringency in the money market, for example, and immediately the whole country is intensely interested; but the selfsame people look on with unruffled calmness at the daily spread of infidelity and the hourly ravages of immorality, A few shiploads of gold are sent abroad, and soon return in answer to a universal cry of pro-