dust and rubbish, and which had to be sought for with broom and candle, had remained gold during all the time of its concealment. By being lost it did not cease to be gold. It was sought for because it was precious in itself. Had it been worthless, the woman would not have taken the trouble, and her neighbors would not have joined her in the search for it. When the one silly sheep out of the hundred wandered into the wilderness, lost its way, was torn with brambles, was frightened by wolves, was thirsty and starving, it still remained a sheep. Its straying did not change it into a tiger, or even into a goat. The motive of the shepherd in leaving the ninety and nine to seek the one which was lost was not pity alone, but was at least in part, that he could not afford to lose it.

The prodigal youth in the far country, feasting among harlots, and starving among swine, did not lose his birthright. He remained throughout it all his father's son. The father's eyes never lost sight of him. It detected the first motion of the boy toward return. The father kept sight of him in all his wanderings, and rejoiced at his return, because the contentment of his own existence was marred and could not be easy until his child was brought home again. This is the teaching of Jesus concerning the way in which our Father in Heaven estimates His children on earth. When He looked abroad upon the multitude He was filled with compassion because they

were "as sheep without a shepherd." They were not only suffering, but they were being wasted. When He looks again over the same multitude He thinks of the field of grain ripe for the harvest, but for which there are no reapers. He cannot abide the thought of the waste of so much good wheat. His practice was like His theory. No one can think of Him as a demagogue, yet no one ever spoke of men in such high terms concerning themselves. The common people—that is, the average man—heard it gladly because his own consciousness assented to the truth of Jesus' thought.

This truth has been greatly obscured by a pestilent mock humility. The notion is current that the more one reviles and pours contempt upon human nature the more he exalts the pity and compassion of God. It is true that there are certain moods of the soul in which it is overwhelmed with a sense of its own unworthiness. But this sense of unworthiness is itself the proof that the subject of it is conscious of his relationship to the Almighty. It is only a being really possessed of infinite capacities which can be so overwhelmed with a sense of its shortcoming as find expression in the abject confessions of prayer and liturgy.

If it be objected that this estimate of the intrinsic value of all men in the sight of God tends to obscure the distinction between the "saved" and the "lost," between the Church and the

world, the reply is, that no one who really considers the matter can venture to think that some men are deemed valuable by God and others deemed worthless.

This conception of human worth lies at the root of all earnest efforts toward human reform. What most men need to induce them to struggle upward to their own high ideal, is a sense of hopefulness. It is greatly to be feared that much of the teaching and speaking about religion tends to apathy rather than to action. Any man who becomes seriously convinced that his own human nature-the only nature which he possesses-is accounted contemptible by God, will despair in advance of ever being God's friend. This is really the skepticism which paralyzes men's religious effort. It is not disbelief in God, it is disbelief in themselves. Having become possessed of the un-Christian notion that they are, as men, on a level with the worms, instead of "only a little lower than the angels," they fear to set forward along a path which seems to them to be so extended that their will fails them.

What prevents men from attempting the religion of Christ is an antecedent hopelessness. It is true that salvation is by "grace," but it is also true that the grace of God offers itself to creatures which He regards, not as reptiles or as demons, but as children of his own blood.

WHO is the devil? What is the devil? Is there any devil?

The mere asking these questions soberly and sermonwise is likely to startle certain persons. For, if skepticism concerning God is widespread, skepticism concerning the devil is practically universal. Can any serious-minded man maintain the existence of a conscious, personal spirit of evil?

It is true that the figure under which the devil is presented before the imagination is one which has come to be seen to be grotesque and childish. Nevertheless, the fact that an idea has been inadequately or falsely presented does not show that the idea itself is without foundation in fact. We believe in the devil. That is to say, we believe in the actual existence, in this universe, of an intelligence controlling and directing the kingdom of evil, which intelligence can only be regarded as personal because it operates so much · like other personalities operate. Why do we countenance such a piece of superstition? It is

true that the devil is the first piece of supernaturalism which the modern Sadducee throws overboard in his attempt to lighten ship. When we decline to dismiss the conception we are called upon to give some sensible reason for doing so.

Of course, the fact that any belief has been entertained through all times and by all peoples does not prove its truth. The world has been unanimously mistaken more than once. It thought once that the sun moved and the earth stood still; it was mistaken, but this and all similar errors are not due to stupidity or to superstition. They are due to the existence of things that look like facts, and are facts for all practical purposes, until they are differently explained. Now, the belief in the existence of superhuman spirits of evil is one of the universal instincts. No nation or tribe or people is without it. In our every-day thinking and speaking there is no personage more frequently alluded to, and whose name is more familiar even to hardheaded men of science than that of the devil.

It is at least a curious fact that the three great poems of the three great languages revolve about the personality of Satan. Dante, Milton, and Goethe have all sung of the devil. It is true they sang a good while ago, but it is clearly true that their songs were the songs of genius, and genius is not limited by time. But what difference does it make whether one has a place in his creed for the devil or not? I reply, that,