these treasures by them to all generations; He endowed us with them in their names. This gift of peace could not, as I have shown you, have any special application to the Apostles, merely because the giver was 5 sitting visibly before them. It was when He became invisible that they knew what had been imparted to them; it was when they received it as an invisible blessing. Nor was it theirs because they were stronger or better than others; only when they knew that they 10 were as weak and evil as any did they enter into possession of it. He chose them to be heralds of His Grace and Peace to mankind; if they claimed these gifts in their own right, and not as stewards, the gifts were not realized. To us, then, as truly as to them,— 15 to us upon the same conditions with them,-does He say, "Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto you." Far off as this peace may seem to be from us, it is really nigh at hand to every one of us. We must think we pursue it hither and thither, and it seems 20 always in advance of us,—we do not come up with it.

But that which we are pursuing is only a shadow; the substance from which it is cast is within. The heart cannot find it abroad; at home the treasure is laid up, though it may be in a chamber we have never visited; 25 in one that we have shunned, because we fancy it to be

haunted with strange spectres. Haunted it is with these spectres, and greatly they will scare us, when first we venture in. The Disciples were startled when they found what heartlessness and cowardice were in them, 30 though they had thought themselves ready to die for Him. Such anguish has many a man experienced, when the secret passages of his spirit were suddenly

made known to him.

it often comes to him able to face the terrors.

He cannot escape the discovery; on a sick-bed, when he is least But they may be faced; there

is a reward for each one who does not fly from the truth. If he will be humbled by the sight of the dark 5 spectres which dwell in the chambers of his soul's imagery, he will find in them that which is not dark and spectral. He will find the Love, against which the evil in him has been contending, a perfect form of brightness and purity which the evil spirits are mocking, and 10 which can bid them depart. If he will confess this Presence too; if he will say, not only "I have sinned," but "Against Thee have I sinned; against Thee, Who hast cared for me, sought for me, striven with me," then a new light will burst upon him. In renouncing 15 all his own pretensions to be anything or to have anything, he acquires that which is truly his, an inalienable possession, a treasure in Heaven which thief cannot seize nor moth corrupt. If all our evil lies in resistance to a Righteous Being Who is ruling over us, 201 then all good must be a submission to Him. This is Peace, the peace depending on One Who is worthy of our dependence, the peace of not seeking that from outward things which they cannot give, the peace of not seeking that from our own nature which is not in 25 it. The Peace is there, in our hearts, but it is there while the heart is seeking its delight in another, while it is forgetting itself. When it finds its object, it is at peace it cannot be till then. Therefore Christ left this dowry to all human hearts, when He revealed 30 Himself to them as their proper and ever-present object; in them, and above them; united with them, yet

always distinct from them; blending with them as the sky in the far horizon seems to blend with the sea, as the setting sun seems to share his glory between them. This peace therefore is given to men; yet He ever 5 gives it afresh to them. They have it only while they are content to receive it; the moment they take it as their property, it is gone. Not as the world gives them, He gives. The world teaches us to claim each thing as our own. It says nothing is ours till we can secure Io it against other men. We hold this peace by the opposite tenure; we have it only while we care to distribute it, while we seek that every one should share it with us. It is theirs, it is ours, because it is His Who died for all and Who lives for all.

15

And as this peace was first realized as a deliverance from strife, without and within, so it must be held fast in the midst of the same strife. If ease and sunshine come, it is well; but we are not to look for them. If joyful sensations are given, if our spirits have an un20 wonted buoyancy and freedom, we are to be thankful; but to-morrow all this may be changed. If we are provoking no hostility, let us ask how that happens; for the Author of this Peace was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; He was called a friend of publicans 25 and sinners, and a blasphemer.

This Peace was given the night before His crucifixion. When He rose, the pledges of it were His wounded hands and side. They are always the pledges of it. In the communion of His body and blood, we 30 are to learn what it is for ourselves, what it is for mankind. As we partake of that, we confess that it is for the most wretched sons of earth, because it is fixed and eternal in the Heavens.

X.

The Real Problem of the Unemployed.

"THE NATION."

The following editorial from "The Nation," of July 5, 1894, is reprinted by the kind permission of the publisher.

This statement of one of the problems of practical politics is an example of exposition in a field in which it is largely used, the newspaper editorial. The selection contains also a typical summary of a report in which the important thing is not the style, but the facts.

It is pleasant to note that the general nervousness and vague fear of last winter in reference to the unemployed have now so largely given way to a season of reflection and analysis. It is no longer enough for a set of men to exhibit themselves as an Army of 5 the Unemployed to inspire sympathy or terror in the staid citizen and to make him feel that Congress or the State or city government should "do something." The time has come to cross-examine the unemployed, to ask them how they came into their present evil estate, 10 what work they ever did and how they came to lose their jobs, and what work they could or would do now if it were offered them. Such questioning is the surest way to rid ourselves of the notion that there is anything new or particularly threatening about the matter 15

as it presents itself to-day, for it is simply the old question over again of what society is to do with the incapable and unwilling who cannot, or will not, earn an honest living.

We recently had occasion to refer to several interest- 5 ing reports from American municipalities and charity organizations, which help to a cool understanding of who the chronic unemployed are and how they came to be so, and now we find strong corroboration of American experience in an article published in the June "Charities 10 Review" on "The English Municipalities and the Unemployed." The writer, Mr. Edward Porritt, gives a runing account of the reports which seventy-three municipalities made to the Local Government Board in regard to providing work for the unemployed within their 15 bounds. The experiment is no novelty in England. Ever since the labor agitators "threw a scare into the politicians of both parties in 1885, the demands and threats of the unemployed have been steadily intensifying, and the Local Government Board has issued a cir- 20 cular ever since 1886, urging vestries to give work to idle men. This work was to be of a kind which would not "involve the stigma of pauperism," which "all can perform," which "does not compete with that of other laborers," and "which is not likely to interfere with the 25 resumption of regular employment in their own trades by those who seek it."

The results reported by the seventy-three municipal authorities cannot be claimed by the most enthusiastic advocate of state labor as furnishing any water for his 3o mill. In a great majority of the cases the work was unsatisfactorily done and at an increased cost. The

ΙΟ