The home was neat enough, the lawn and the flowers and the close-clipt hedge, but a quiet, low-roofed, oldfashioned place, nevertheless, with the pigeons on the eaves, the smoke of the factory on the flats in front, and old Madame Ronde deaf and muttering over the stove in the kitchen. Then

he tried to see this famous young artist in her graceful tailor-made suit -he tried to see her frying potatoes in Madame Ronde's place; he tried to see her dust his study, and scrub the steps; this woman whose name was on men's lips. He tried to see her sewing quietly on her door-step, like the women of Poonagee, while Mrs. O'Flynn poured the story of Pat's delinquencies into her ear, or little Mrs. Bead told her all about the trouble between Jim Smith and Jim Smith's wife.

66

No, it did not fit. It could never be. She was not the kind of woman Mrs. Edgar Welland must be."

He looked at her again. How well she held her own among all these people! How gracefully she took their compliments ! No, it would be a sin to take a star and plant it in a vegetable garden. If there were an island somewhere to fly away to, a beautiful isle with no more responsibilities to one's fellowmen, then

To be sure, he would not always be in Poonagee. But there were other Poonagees. He had given his life to the lowly, and with them he must be poor and lowly. He was a minister with an ideal of his own. It was not to scramble for the largest church in the largest city, and the largest salary. That settled it. would see but little of Miss Bruce that winter. They had known each other such a little while, no harm could be done her. Strange that he did not realize that some souls know more of each other in a few weeks than others do in years.

He

And so in that few minutes, while Ray Bruce chatted and smiled and men praised her work, her life was changed.

The two left the gallery together, both sadder, the girl without knowing why.

The winter months were passing. Edgar Welland was buried in his work. Nevertheless, in spite of his resolution in the art-gallery, he had seen a little more of Ray Bruce than he had meant to see. It could do no harm, he told himself. She was so strong, so intellectual, so unlike other .girls. She had so much of the artist,

so little of the woman, he said. So he went. And they both talked very fast without telling each other much. They talked of Browning, of Petrarch, of Dante, of Raphael-then, after he went, she would sigh and wish something-wish she knew not what. She wished almost she were not an artist at all, and had never been called clever, but she knew not why.

One day he came and took her to the gallery again.

66

See, here is a new painting I want to show you, Miss Bruce. The artist is making quite a stir. She's an elderly woman. Now, you have all the power she has. She has just one thing more. I covet for you the little home-touches that you lack. You will get it in time. It will come to you with experience."

Experience! Whose was the hand of the master that was to teach her? She looked up into his face, but it was cold, and her own grew colder still. He was right, she said. The camp-fire was more natural to her hand than the hearth-fire.

Then spring came; the birds were nesting in the trees along the avenue; the leaves and the flowers were bursting aglow. It was time for him to return to Poonagee. Would she ever see or hear from him again? Would he make any effort to continue their friendship?

He came one day to say farewell. He wished her success, fame, the topmost rung of the ladder, then went out into the far-off years-and left the woman alone with her art.

Would she have preferred the lone white cottage in Poonagee to her tapestried studio on First Avenue? He had never asked her that. He never would. It were madness to spoil her career like that. Left alone she would be famous. Besides, she could not fill the place in Poonagee. She was not made for toil and monotony. He left only one thing out of his consideration. He left out her heart.

As for the girl, she understood her place now. "Lacked the hometouches," did she? Well, she would paint, then, paint always. Leave to other women the clasp of tiny fingers, the curtaining of a little corner of earth for home. She would paint.

Time passed. Her face grew hard and white. She laughed often, but her laugh had lost its music. There was a dash of recklessness about her, and lines of silver coming already in her hair.

Her uncle died, and was found to

be heavily in debt. She was left alone in the world, and poor. Then she looked up into the very face of heaven, and said, “God is cruel."

She plunged into Bohemianism with a vengeance; she painted, painted, painted, but gradually her work decreased in value. Her hand faltered because her heart had hardened within her; and it was as if her skies had lost a little of their blue, her flowers of their freshness, the faces she drew of their tenderness. The world was quick to read the change and turn away.

Then she catered to lower ideals. For one must please in the marketplace-or-or in the art gallery, which was only another kind of marketplace, she told herself.

"My child," said an old gray-haired master, "remember your first ideals in your life as well as in your work." "Ideals! Ha ha ha! I have only one ideal, Signor-making a living. And I scarce know why I strive to make that. The game is hardly worth the candle."

War broke out in a far-off land. She went out as a war-artist. And after that her friends heard of her no more.

A wo

Years, fourteen, had passed. man, poorly dressed and worn with want and hardship, came up the steps of an art gallery in her native city. A few people eyed her curiously as she passed along. But none knew her. There in the halls where the world had praised her work, and flattered her vanity, none knew her today. She went out, but a memory went with her, a memory of-ofSomething choked her even yet. Ah, would that she might have been his servant only!

She went to the great library across the park. The March wind blew cold about her thin garments. She was just a little faint, for she had fared but lightly. She was poor. She had some sketches, but her work only brought a pittance now. She had never fulfilled the promise of her youth. Her life had been a failure.

She glanced down the dailies on the library shelves for news of people she had once known. Some one was advertising for a nursery governess. Then she turned to a magazine. A name ! A name she had not seen for fourteen years. It was Edgar Welland's ! An article of his !

She read quickly, breathlessly, the story of a mighty cathedral in the Far East, the Candova, now in ruins. Its

frescoes, its glittering towers, its bells of music, all in crumbling silence now, the birds nesting in its statuary, the night winds moaning down the aisles long clogged with debris. The writer went on to tell the story of a youth, a gifted young fellow; fortune, talent, influence, all were his; he was beginning a brilliant career, but sinsin had laid a hidden hand upon him. One day the doors were torn open, the world saw a ruined Candova, the man a felon's cell. The story was probably an extract from a sermon, for there followed an appeal for the Candova of Christian character wherever it was secretly going to ruin.

Ray Bruce locked her hands across her eyes as she read, to shut out the world that came and went, clacking its heels on the hard stone floor. The story was for her for her just now. Her Candova was fallen. The tears flowed silently down her face. Oh, that voice, that spoke out of fourteen years of silence ! It was as the wine of life to her in the hour of her faintness. She could hear the very voice that uttered the plea. Would that she could go back to the pure ideals of her early girlhood! Would that she might rebuild her Candova!

She sat there long-so long it was night, and the library lights were lighted. But when she rose her face was calm. She would give up her dream of fame. She would teach, and by days of hard, faithful labour she would strive quietly to rebuild the fallen Candova. In heaven he would know, if they never met on earth, what his words had done that night.

An hour later she was on her way to the house where the nursery governess was wanted. She waited alone in the white electric light of the drawing-room. A picture on the wall startled her-a scene from the Rockies, a hunter and a herd of deer in a ravine. It was the picture she had shown Edgar Welland years ago.

Mrs. Monroe descended the tapestried stairs. Her applicant pointed to the picture and told her story.

"I think you will do, dear, very nicely," said the fair-faced little woman. "I will pay you your first quarter's salary in advance, my dear," she continued, glancing at her clothing. "You will come home to us to-morrow, then. I trust it will prove home in truth."

So it came that Ray Bruce was seen taking three pretty children along the avenue for their morning walk. And it came also that those who passed her

daily noted her face taking on a new roundness, her eyes a new light; the hard lines were disappearing, the bitterness giving place to tenderness. Little waifs looked timidly up into her face in passing, and she who had nothing else to give them gave them her smile. Sometimes she even went for Mrs. Monroe with a basket of fruit or a bunch of flowers to some sick one. The little Monroes twined their tiny arms about her neck, and whispered little nothings in her ear, and she was beginning to find that there was something else in life besides art and fame. And she looked up into the skies afresh, but this time she did not say, 66 God is cruel;" she only said, Father, hold me lest I fall."

66

It was one night late in the summer, and two gentlemen of clerical cut were following the long rear verandah of the upper story of a tenement house. One was evidently in his own field of labour, the other a stranger. They were passing an open window; the blind raised to admit the air revealed an instant's picture. A woman lay on a sick-bed in a poorly furnished room; she was gazing admiringly at a lady in white muslin bending over the face of a child she was washing.

"Humph!" said Dr. Arthurs. "There's one of my flock playing the good Samaritan."

Do

"Who? the woman in white ? you know her ?" asked the stranger quickly.

"Yes. She's Mrs. Monroe's governess. You met Mrs. Monroe yesterday, you know. This Miss Bruce seems a very fine character, capable woman, too. She's a fine worker. I find her a great help. She used to be looked on, years ago, as a promising artist, they tell me. Came of good family-considerable means once, but did not turn out all that was predicted of her in the line of art."

The two men left their message at the other end of the building, and in passing the lighted window again they instinctively softened their steps. The voice of childish prayer came from within; the woman in white was

"I am very glad to see you again, Mr. Welland," she said, as he escorted her home. "I have always wanted to thank you for that story you wrote of the fallen Candova." "Why, may I ask ?" "Because-because my own Candova was fallen."

He murmured something half to himself about being permitted.

She, meantime, was wondering silently. Did he still live alone with the old French housekeeper? Or were there little feet now pattering about his chair.

a

"Do you remember," he asked, certain man who told a certain young artist that she lacked the hometouch ?"

Did she ever forget?

"Well, that man saw through the window of a tenement-house to-night the touch' he thought was lacking long ago."

Then he told her brokenly of his lonely life and work in a mining town of the Rockies.

So the Poonagee it was not given her to choose in her girlhood was waiting yet with the sunsets in the West.

In after years she painted another picture. But it was a moving picture this time. Two children romped and frolicked among the vines and rocks about their Western home. Sometimes they stopped in their play to run their fingers through the locks of a silveryhaired mamma.

And if her hand had faltered, if she had not fulfilled her dreams, she had learned at least that there were other things in life than art and fame. She was satisfied. Simcoe, Ont.

In the leafy month of June nearly all the Methodist Conferences of the Dominion, as well as the Synods and Assemblies of the other Churches, hold their annual sessions. In none of these is the esprit de corps stronger than in the Methodist Church.

The ministers greet with a special sense of brotherhood the comrades of other years, and recall the happy memories of the past.

Never, we think, has the tide of religious feeling flowed higher than in the Conferences just closed. The public services have been scenes of special benediction and grace. The spell of that great life which God two hundred years ago gave to the world seemed to rest upon the assemblies, a new feeling of consecration came upon the preachers and people. The Church is girding itself for the best possible celebration of the Wesley Bicentenary by a great religious revival. This gave the keynote to the Conferences. There was much earnest conversation "the state of the work," there was much soul-searching as to the causes of less rapid progress than with all our organization and effort we ought to have made, and a determination emulate the triumphs of early years of Methodism.

on

to

reorganization of society on a higher plane, with a wider vision and deepened religious life, with its far-spread missions, with its noble philanthropies, with its many churches and institutions of learning and beneficence, with the many millions who bow at its altars and fashion their lives after its holy teachings, we devoutly exclaim, "What hath God wrought! Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name be the glory." Not in pride of heart, but in lowliness of soul, we would think upon the way in which the Lord our God hath led us.

"Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.'

We need, and we possess, the same sources of strength that our fathers had. The personal experience of sins forgiven, of fellowship with the Divine, the gift and grace and guiding of the Holy Spirit, are our privilege as well as theirs, are no less a source of strength amid the changed conditions of our modern civilization and its complex social relations than in the simpler life of a hundred years ago. We have the same almighty Saviour from sin, the same succour in every time of need, the same solace in sorrow and affliction. Our God maketh us always to rejoice in Him.

THE OUTWARD FORM

and manifestation may vary, the inward strength abideth for ever. Not so many books of devotion, perhaps, are read as in the former time, but the Word of God itself is studied as it never was before-not in the worship of the letter, but in obedience to the Spirit, which giveth light and life. Methodism is still true to its early ideal as Christianity in earnest, as a power within, sanctifying the life and moulding the character. Amid the manifold activities of the times it enables men, while diligent in business, to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. The Church of to-day is more marked, we think, than at any former time with that spirit which looks not upon its own things, but on the things of another which is not satisfied with saving one's own soul alive, but which seeks to benefit the bodies and the souls of men; which looks not so much to reward in heaven, but seeks to

bring heaven down on earth, and to lift men above their sordid selves and ennoble and dignify their lives here and now. With a burning zeal and a passionate charity, it is endeavouring in the home land and in the far land to seek and to save that which was lost.

OUR MISSIONS

in the great empire of China have passed through a time of fiery trial, and have not been found wanting. Our missionaries have taken their lives in their hands and gone back to their fields of distant toil. In the empire of Japan, where a nation has been born in a day, they are moulding the young life of that realm. In our own land they are teaching and training the red men of the forest and plain, of whom we are the providential wardens. The white man's civilization has often brought to them less of blessing than of bane. We are under solemn obligation to lift up and succour and save these red races whose ancient inheritance we possess.

Never for any land or nation did the

GOLDEN DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY

swing wide open on every side as to our land to-day. God hath given us a goodly heritage, which the nations of the earth are seeking to share. From many lands, and of many tongues, are flocking the multitudes who shall be the future citizens of this great Dominion. Upon our own Church more largely than upon any other rests the responsibility of moulding these diverse peoples into a great Christian civilization. It will tax all the energies, all the wisdom, all the grace that we possess to rise to the height of our privilege and of our obligation in this regard. Under the inspiration of this divine call, let us lift up our eyes and behold the fields white unto the harvest, and thrust in the sickle and reap.

There are not wanting signs of great encouragement in this crisis in our history. The success of the Twentieth Century Fund has relieved many of our embarrassed churches, and left them free for fresh endeavour. It has in some measure strengthened our colleges and universities, and better equipped them for the training in higher Christian culture, never so much needed as to-day, of the men who shall be the tireless workers in this harvest field. The need of the hour is that we should pray therefore to the Lord of

the harvest to send forth labourers into his harvest, and that we should with large and liberal souls devise liberal things, and so be ourselves greatly enriched. Above all, we need the divine anointing. We need the tongue of fire of a new Pentecost. We need a richer, fuller baptism of the Holy Ghost. We need a great spiritual revival in all our borders. This will be the solution of all the problems before us, this will be the equipment for the duties that call us. We have adequate organization, we have perfect machinery, what we need is the Spirit within the wheels to give power and efficiency in this supreme opportunity.

Never has the beneficence of Methodism been so marked as in the very recent times. The laying of a million and a quarter dollars upon God's altar for the Twentieth Century Fund, and the gift of nearly half a million more to redeem imperilled St. James' Church in our commercial metropolis, and other remarkable givings, have shown that Methodism is not a rope of sand, but a closely knit organization. This demonstration of its solidarity is a pledge of its integrity, and an evidence of its unifying power.

SABBATH-SCHOOLS.

The training in Christian nurture and piety by the great company of devoted Sabbath-school teachers has not been unavailing. This is the brightest augury for the future of our beloved Zion. The Church of to-morrow is in the schools of to-day. These schools are an instrument of potent influence placed in our hands. Never were they better equipped, never did they receive such generous support, never were so many faithful teachers -often busy men of affairs and women of refinement and culture-devoted to the training of our youth, the hope of our country. But still further improvement in methods, still more careful study of the Word of God, still more practical results must be sought -not by the destruction of the system by which such grand results have been reached, but by its development to higher usefulness and efficiency. The extension of the schools in two directions affords great possibilities of good: the development of the Home Department, so as to embrace the aged, the infirm, the shut-ins who are the prisoners of God's providence; and the organization of the Cradle Roll, by which the babes of the household may be adopted into the Church of the liv