ocean's spray, lies with faded colour and emptied hollowness. This is
melancholy, indeed, and many such wrecks of religious life are around
us. But with Enoch, the increase of life's cares brought an access of
fresh devotion. New gifts of Providence roused new feelings of
gratitude, and he grappled himself the closer in attachment to the
Giver of enlarged blessing. This is as it should be. Every gift of
God should be a call to renewed praise and prayer, to a more perfect
and joyous service.

This record of Enoch's piety teaches that the highest spirituality of
nature is not found in avoiding the duties and cares of life, or in
seeking a cloistered and solitary existence. The piety of monkery is
not the crown of living. It is neither an experience of healthy joy
nor of abundant fruitfulness. The healthful influences of Christianity
are immeasurably more beautiful when manifested in the joys of family
and home life, or in the discharge of honest trade and commerce, than
in the introspective gloom of the recluse, or the ceremonial round of
the ascetic. It is remarkable that the record states that Enoch's walk
with God lasted "_three hundred years after the birth of Methusaleh_."
There was no break in his spiritual course; it was continuous growth
and progress until the light of eventide deepened into the glory of
heaven.


II.

"He pleased God."


This is to win the highest prize of life. Not only because God is