[Northwestern Christian Advocate]

We made a kite for a little four-year-old the other day—we had not forgotten the art of old. From the pine board we fashioned the sticks, bound them with string, covered them with paper, adjusted the bridles, attached the tail and string, when our flier was ready for the ascent. We sought an open field, where we could run if need be, and the kite go up if it took the notion. The wind was fitful, and our patience bordered on despair, when finally she caught the steady upper current and stood as though suspended from above. Then we turned everything over to him who had followed us up and down, shouting his glee or crying his disappointment as the "white flier" rose or fell. "Here, my boy; you may hold it now."

He grasped the string and danced with intense delight; he almost screamed his emotion. And to more than one passer-by he called: "Look at me, will you, flying my kite! Look! look!" And as we stood and looked at him we thought of the hour or two of application to kite construction, and the additional half-hour spent in inducing it to stand in air. And then to hear him call out, "Watch me fly my kite," we could not refrain from thinking of children of older years—men, if you please—who lay claim to the things of God, and then call upon the world to take note of their accomplishments.

The farmer pours shelled corn into the lid of his cornplanter, drives leisurely back and forth across his field, and at evening he boasts of the accomplishment. "Think of the corn I raised," he calls. "I did it; it is mine." That's the boy again calling to his mate to watch him flying his kite. What did the farmer have to do with the seventy bushels per acre, anyway? He simply poured the corn into the hopper and drove his team back and forth, while God did all the rest. While he slept God watched over it, watered it with the dews of heaven, fanned it with His gentle breezes, and warmed it with His gentle sunlight. God was the tender of the field. God was the ripener of the corn, and when the golden ear bowed under the weight of maturity, the farmer went out with his wagon and hauled it to the granary.

But all this we fail to appreciate. Like children we eliminate the unseen, the divine factor, and magnify our own impotence into the controlling power in our individual lives. Could we but see the hand that fashions for us, that sows, that tends, that reaps, we would then in some appreciable measure understand the psalmist's declaration: "It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves."

[The Advance]

There are a number of passages in the New Testament where the word way ought to be spelled with a capital. It is a proper noun. It was the very first name which the Christians gave their new religion. The prophets had spoken of a great high way. The disciples, when they first realized themselves as constituting an organic body, spoke of their religion as "the way." They did not define their faith in terms of a creed or a ritual; they merely said they were of "the way." Jesus himself gave them this term and gave them also its definition. "I am the way," he said.

The life of the gospel of Jesus is an open road. It is a safe and plain highway. It is not a labyrinth of some scholastic creed; it is not the dubitable conjecture of an esoteric cult; it is not a tortuous path through experiences abnormal to the human soul. It is a road. Jesus spoke of it once as a "narrow" way, and contrasted it with one that is "broad" and easy to find. Beyond any doubt the contrast is a true one, for the way of duty is one of real, severe difficulty, and often to choose the easy method is to follow the wrong. The path of virtue is far from being the line of least resistance. Only as we struggle do we gain strength.

[The Watchman-Examiner]

Christ's accurate knowledge of human nature did not disdain to appeal to its hidden springs of action when he said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Our imputation of guileful motives to our opponenets naturally arouses in others a suspicion of our own familiarity with such incitements, and unfair measure is likely to be meted out in return for our own. This is a warning. But how much higher an appeal is that other command of our Saviour, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

It is this beautiful reciprocity of brotherly kindness and love that alone can help the followers of Christ to dwell together in unity. Thus only can they be strong in one another against the assaults of God's enemies. And so impressed are we with the importance of this matter to the growth of our churches in grace and in the favor of God and man, that we believe the one most essential requirement of Christian intercourse in our day may be expressed in two words,—generous judgment. Even men of the world have an intuitive perception of this necessity in their mutual dealings, and men, at all events outwardly, grant to one another integrity of motive. To the needs of human nature add Christ's word, and the spirit of judgment cannot fail to be that of magnanimity.

[Zion's Herald]

There is hardly an individual whose life is so prescribed that there is not the possibility of doing better tomorrow. The battle may have gone most wretchedly today; we may have been driven ingloriously from the field, and our colors may even now be torn and trailing in the dust,—but what of that? There is to be a tomorrow—we may do better tomorrow. A tomorrow is fraught with marvelous possibilities. Today's record has been written; tomorrow's portion is a clean page whereon each one of us may write nothing but courageous deeds and noble efforts. Tomorrow may be the best day we have ever lived!

[The Christian Register]

Great hopes are the roots of great endeavors; holy desires are the seeds of heroic deeds; and our of great endeavors and heroic deeds come the litanies of prayer and praise, the hymns and psalms of victory. The lamentable error of the accepted representatives of religion and the church is the same as that which Jesus noted in his time, that of the men who recite long prayers, thinking that out of them will holy lives; whereas in the true method the prayers and psalms are the outflowing of the spirit of praise and gratitude which follows the influx of the divine life.

[The Universalist Leader]

A revival of true religion means simply the relating of the principles of Christianity to the life of today; it means that through politics, as through every other instrumentality, religion works for good. There is no such thing as postponing the action of true religion; to be is to act, and in proportion as it is, so does it act. A genuine revival of the religion of human brotherhood would not only transform politics but make politics efficient for peace and for every good thing.