does not speak; it acts. The young architect must lay aside all pride and frenzied ambition and become as a little child if he would afterwards be free to build his lofty vault and airy pinnacle. In the soul's domain also obedience leads to liberty. "One is your Master even Christ." We are to learn of Him "for He is meek and lowly of heart." Within His laws we may build heavenaspiring temples, death-defying towers; but without, all ends in impotence, futility, and destruction.

With these lamps of Soul Architecture to guide us we return to our Lord's appeal. Now that we have considered the task, He charges us further to face frankly the question whether we have, in ourselves, resources adequate to its completion. These laws are to be embodied in our lives. We must deny those recreant voices which plead for indulgence; we must be strong not merely to build, but also to protect the structure from outward assault and inward betrayal; we must have that fulness of life which in its manifestation becomes moral beauty; we must be true to the mighty past, and to that unborn future to which each of us is indissolubly joined. Are we

sufficient of ourselves to accomplish these things? Can we bring every thought into the obedience of Jesus Christ? On Calton Hill, Edinburgh, there are a few arches standing; a pathetic survival of the work of one who began to build, but was not able to complete the structure he had fashioned in his mind. It is the voice of Wisdom then which cries to us across the centuries that we count the cost, whether we have sufficient to finish life's great enterprise, for many there are who have fainted and become weary, contenting themselves with the work of a few earnest

years.

Our Lord challenges us in this way, not that we should stand discouraged before a task beyond our strength, but that we should turn to Him for our sufficient equipment. He sees, with the deepreaching vision of love and faith, the finished creation of each life; sees its glorious possibilities realised in foundations strong and true, in massive walls of righteousness, in domes of prayer and leaping spires of aspiration and praise; and sees all this where we see only masses of material lying unused about our wearied souls. There is a striking passage in the book of Isaiah

which has been in my mind through all this study. "Lo, upon both palms have I graven thee; thy walls are before me continually." The exiles in Babylon were invited to return to their own land. But what was there to which they could return? No wonder their hearts failed them as they pictured the scene of ruin. It was to them the prophet proclaimed his message. There was a custom in the East of tattooing upon the skin some dear name one wished to keep in mind, and it was this fashion God attributed to Himself. But He exceeds the human habit. It is the picture, not the name, of Zion which is written upon His hands; and not the picture only of what she was in her desolation, but as she would be in her restored and perfected state. As Dr. George Adam Smith puts it in a suggestive sentence, "Reality is not what we see; reality is what God sees. He sees walls where we see ruins.

And those strong hands upon which our names are engraved will help to shape each life. "Ye are God's building," declared the apostle. Builder of worlds as He is there is no work nearer His heart than this of fashioning character. He abides within us proclaiming those principles which are

essential to permanence, reinforcing human power, controlling and unifying the manifold activities of our lives, with the vast patience of Infinite love and hope. Not until the scaffolding of the body falls away shall we see how strong and beautiful Christ can make a life surrendered to Him.

Therefore to Whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable name?

Builder and Maker Thou, of houses not made with hands!"

The Divine Maker seeks material out of which He can create this house eternal in the heavens. "We are his workmanship," declared the apostle, using a word which suggests that Christian character stands related to God, as a poem to its author. A Cathedral has sometimes appeared to us as a poem in stone; but earth's sublimest poetry is a human life through which God utters the eternal music of righteousness and love. Our poetry is but dull prose compared with this.

At the close of his essay on "Principles " Mark Rutherford writes down his confession: "I only speak my own experience; I am not talking theology or philosophy. I know what I am say

which has been in my mind through all this study. "Lo, upon both palms have I graven thee; thy walls are before me continually." The exiles in Babylon were invited to return to their own land. But what was there to which they could return? No wonder their hearts failed them as they pictured the scene of ruin. It was to them the

prophet proclaimed his message. There was a custom in the East of tattooing upon the skin some dear name one wished to keep in mind, and it was this fashion God attributed to Himself. But He exceeds the human habit. It is the picture, not the name, of Zion which is written upon His hands; and not the picture only of what she was in her desolation, but as she would be in her restored and perfected state. As Dr. George Adam Smith puts it in a suggestive sentence, "Reality is not what we see; reality is what God sees." He sees walls where we see ruins.

And those strong hands upon which our names are engraved will help to shape each life. "Ye are God's building," declared the apostle. Builder of worlds as He is there is no work nearer His heart than this of fashioning character. He abides within us proclaiming those principles which are