a storm, under a test severe and protracted, the stem snapped and the choice beauty of the garden was a thing of the past.

THE WORM IN THE HEART.

It is the worm in the heart with his relentless and resistless tooth, which weakens the character. Under severe and protracted temptation the will snaps and yields, and the beautiful life is a wreck and fit only for the dump of the Universe.

STUMPS AND ROOTS.

There are many roots, hidden roots, which bury themselves deep in the soil of the heart. They extend far below clear cerebration, twisting and twining themselves in "the fringe of consciousness." It takes the fire of the Holy Ghost to follow them deep into the ground and destroy them. It used to be a pastime of the boys in eastern Ohio to pile great heaps of brush upon huge stumps in newly-cleared land. All the long October day they would toil, raising a stack of dry limbs upon the stump which needed to be removed. In the evening when twilight came and the stars shone out, they would light the brush and watch the flames greedily devour the pile. In the morning when the lads returned to the scene of the fire, no sign of the stump was to be seen. Looking closely they saw great holes as large at the top of the ground as a man's body, and tapering to a small point as they went deep into the earth. The fire had found the huge roots, and had tracked them into their retreats and consumed them.

FIRE OF PENTECOST.

We pile the brush of time and talents and money and name and self upon the altar, and the fire of Pentecost, which God sends as He sent to Mount Carmel of old, will destroy not only the brush, but the roots of sin, one and all.

CHAPTER V.

CHRISTIAN UNITY.

A COMMON PLATFORM.

One of the results spoken of by Christ in His prayer, and brought about by sanctification, is Christian unity--"that they all may be one." There is but one remedy for sectism and bigotry, and it is found in the answer to Christ's petition. When Pentecost comes to us we are all lifted upon one grand common platform and shake hands and shout and weep and laugh and get so mixed up that a Presbyterian can not be distinguished from a Methodist, nor a Friend from an Episcopalian vestryman.

FALSE UNITY.

We have heard much about the organic union of churches. Many great and good men have looked forward with sanguine hopes to the day when we should do away with denominations. In a few cases two churches of different sects have united and worshipped in one congregation. But the causes of such unity are frequently far from gratifying. In D----the Methodists and Primitive Methodists clasp hands and join forces because they can thus make one preacher do the work which two formerly performed. In K----the Baptists and Presbyterians unite because the thirteen members of one church and the seven of the other feel lonely in their great refrigerators and are inclined to make friends and preserve life. The cold is most intense. In the far North the weather is sometimes so severe that wild beasts, ordinarily hostile both toward each other and man, crowd close together near the campfire of the explorer.

With many churches it is "unite or die!" The mallet of the auctioneer threatens the steeple-house, the young folks are off "golfing" or "hiking," and the gray-beards, lonely and terror- stricken as they see church extinction approaching, favor "a union of forces with some other church." In the church magazines of the next month appear sundry articles on "the broad and liberal spirit of the nineteenth century church." "A large catholicity is taking the place of the old fogyism of former days," scribbles the hack- writer.

THE "MILKSOP'S" THEORY.

In a few cases large congregations have united. When we behold it our hopes rise, but they are doomed to early blight by a careful study of the situation. The cause of denominationalism is the