poetic souls have ever pictured the beautiful things of the soul-country. If from his barren exile on Patmos, John could see the heavenly country with its river of crystal water of Life, in the midst of the glorious realm of the same country, Dante beheld the river of Light with its molten waters ever shooting forth sparks of living fire which shone like rubies among the flowers that bordered its banks. When he drew near to the presence of the Eternal, he saw all the white-robed throng, whose bliss it was there to dwell, arranged in companies forming the petals of the white rose of Paradise. Blessed discoveries shall be made by every pathfinder who journeys into the soul-country. Bathing in Dante's mystic river, Lethe, he shall forget the tribulations of the past, touching the waters of Eunöe, he shall have his eyes opened to the beholding of spiritual secrets whose glory he never saw before. "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." Sublime discoveries of the immortal destiny of the human spirit shall be made by these pathfinders until in very joy the faithful explorer shall exclaim as did the dying Arthur when he shaded his eyes and looked out into that unknown realm, whence three queens in their barge came for him, "I go on a long journey To the island-valley of Avilion Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, The pathfinder of the soul-country ever takes with him the spirit of faith, obedience, and conquest. He greets the unseen with a cheer. If sacrifice and hardship and sorrow stand beside his way, they do but challenge the heroic that abides within. The legend on his banner is never furled: "To seek, to strive, to find and not to yield." He cries: "I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first, I ask not: but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, II HIS UNSUSPECTED PURPOSES "I have girded thee, though thou hast not known me.”ISA. 45:5. C YRUS, the great king of Persia, stands after twenty-five hundred years as one of the most glorious characters in history. Born an unknown boy, in an unimportant section of the Mesopotamian country, he rose with his people to political eminence. When he became the undisputed ruler of the vast Persian empire, he changed oriental despotism into a splendid beneficence. He had much of the Roman gift for organization and justice. He crowned this with breadth of mind, sweetness, patience, genius, for managing men. It is no wonder that Herodotus delights to dwell upon him and that Xenophon makes him the hero of his Cyropedia. He was the King Arthur of his time, the Chevalier Bayard of his day, and this in spite of the fact that fortune always smiled upon him. Xenophon makes the dying king say: "I have always seemed to feel my strength increase with the advance of time, so that I have not found myself weaker in my old age than in my youth, nor do I know that I have attempted or desired anything in which I have not been successful." To Cyrus be longs the unique distinction of being the favourite of the three diverse peoples of his day. The Persians hailed him as the great king, the Greeks exalted him as being the ideal character. Stranger yet, the Hebrews saw in him the saviour of their national existence. There is something entrancing about the imagination of the old Greeks, who could think of Hermes as the messenger of the gods, and of the gods and goddesses themselves as the messengers and dealers of fate among men. But how infinitely more majestic the conception that could picture the very Spirit of the universe saying to all men and things: "Ye are my servants, working my will, whether ye will or no." That was the daring conception of the old Hebrew prophet in the time of Israel's exile. Seeing the all-powerful Cyrus establish a new kingdom, he saw in him the unwitting instrument of God in restoring his people who were so fitted by temperament and training for religious revelation, to their native land. These significant words does he address to him, speaking the message of Jehovah: "I have girded thee, though thou hast not known me." Cyrus might have thought that the great end of his life was the building of a mighty empire. The prophet suggests that all unconsciously he was fulfilling a far deeper purpose. The message is a reminder of the fact that there are unsuspected purposes of God running through all nature, history and biography. One summer I was tramping through picturesque Marin County, just across the bay from San Francisco. The heights of Tamalpais show the glories of the Golden Gate of California's imperial city, of many a wooded slope and projecting point of land, bathed by the blue waters of the Pacific. Many an inland canyon there discloses marvellous secrets of beauty. Through Redwood Canyon in Mill Valley, the sweet shade of huge Sequoia Sempervirens seems to bear the footprints of the past ages. By the side of the quiet stream here, all at once, was borne upon the air an odour of such sweetness as far surpassed the customary redolent aroma of the woods. "What is that sweet perfume?" said I. "It is the sure sign of the azalea. Keep your eyes open and you will see it before long," replied my friend. A turn in the pathway displayed a glorious spray of blossoms. The delicious atmosphere was the sure evidence of unexpected beauty not far away. So the pathway of the universe and of life is filled with evidence of the unsuspected presence and purpose of God. These tokens, like the silken strand running through every genuine greenback, testify unseen purposes of life from God's standpoint that we never dreamed of. As the Damascus blade bears its maker's name inwrought in its very metal, so God's directorship is witnessed in many an unsuspected turn of life and for tune. 1. Witness the unsuspected purpose of God in Nature. In the dawn of creation the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy |