maybe, lost nothing at all. There are some among the pilgrims of faith
to-day who would never have been found there had not God cast upon their
shoulders the ragged cloak of poverty; and if you know anything about that
band of pilgrims you will know that the man who outstrips his companions is
often a man who is lame on both his feet.

O sceptic world, this is the final answer to your scepticism, an answer
none the less true because you cannot receive it: _The Lord keepeth the
souls of His saints._ Have you not seen men thinning out a great tree,
cutting off some of its noblest branches and marring its splendid symmetry?
And very likely you have felt it was a great shame to do so. But that work
of maiming and spoiling meant light and sunshine and air in a close and
darkened room. It meant health to the dwellers in the house over which the
tree had cast its shadow. It is much to have tall and stately trees in the
garden of life. But by-and-by that great oak of vigour begins to darken the
windows of faith, and God lops some of the branches. We call it suffering,
but it means more light. Or it may be that those firs of lordly ambition
have grown taller than the roof-tree, and God sends forth His storm-wind to
lay them low. We call it failure, but it means a better view of the stars.
Ah, yes, we are over-anxious about the trees in the garden. God cares most
of all that the light of His truth and the warmth of His love and the
breath of His Spirit shall reach and fill every room in the house of life.

_He shall keep thy soul._ That is a promise that can fold us in divine
comfort and peace, and that can do something towards interpreting for us
every coil of difficulty, every hour of pain. But if this is to be so, we
must ourselves be true to the view of life the promise gives us. We must
think of the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a world where souls are
cheap. They are bought and sold day by day. It is strange beyond all
understanding that the only thing many a man is not afraid of losing is the