recognize it and we all give it, and so does God. But the higher reward was also theirs; the reward of doing brave deeds, the reward of heroic action, the reward of splendid service. This belongs to generals and majorgenerals, brigadier-generals and colonels; but it belongs also to the private and to the drummer-boy. He who follows the hero and does in his own sphere and place the heroic action has in the service the reward of service, and has in the grateful recognition of the nation the reward of praise. He may not be able to do much, but he can at least give a cup of cold water; and it makes no difference whether the deed be great or little, for greatness is in the spirit in which the deed is done and not in the thing which is accomplished.

The stoker who stays down

in the bottom of the ship keeping the fires alive, the gunner who stands upon the deck aiming the cannon, the admiral who walks upon the bridge directing the fleet, all are serving a common end, all receive a common reward, because all possess a common patriotism and a common heroism. To receive the messenger of Christ is to receive Christ; to receive the human life of God manifested in Christ is to receive God; to receive this through the ministry of a prophet is to receive the reward of the man of visions; to receive it through the ministry of the man of action is to receive the reward of the man of heroism; and he will receive that reward and take that life and fulfill that end, though his deed be so simple a thing as the giving of a cup of cold water.

I turn next to apply this principle to our life of to-day.

There are some men to whom the divine, invisible, infinite Spirit is a reality: men whom I will call mystics; men who almost seem to need no interpreter: men who in times of absorption forget the outer world and see only the invisible and the interior; men who have known God, though they never have known Christ and never have known the Bible; men who not only have been brooded by him, but have felt the Spirit, have been inspired by him and have known the inspiration. There are persons in every church and in every Christian community to whom the life of devotion is an easy life. It

is

easy for them to understand the revelation; God seems to them to be always disclosing himself to them. It is easy for them to pray. They can scarcely understand how any one cannot talk with God. These men, these

women, receive God directly and immediately and personally. If you can so receive him, thank God, take the revelation, utter the prayer, live the life which the great Father nourishes. But the great mass of men seem not to have such power. Whether they had it once and have lost it, whether they have it now and do not cultivate it, are metaphysical questions I do not enter into. To themselves they seem not to have it. They must have some interpreter between themselves and God. It is safe to say that this is probably true of the great majority of the men, and of a very considerable number of the women, in this congregation; they need an interpreter between God and themselves. Men have sought for such an interpreter, and when they have not found him, they have imagined him; hence idols, priests, soothsayers, and seers; hence all varied intermediaries between God and man. This need of the human race for some human interpreter of God to man, God himself has recognized, and he has put into the world the human life of God incarnate in one single human life.

Now, if you cannot find your way to God, if to you he seems afar off, if when you read the definition of Herbert Spencer, "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed," that means nothing to you, if when you read the definition of Matthew Arnold, “a Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness," that means nothing to you, if you want some one you can comprehend, there is given to you the Christ. God says, You shall have what you want; here is a human life put on the earth revealing God, and enabling you to comprehend him. I do not stop to discuss now what is the relation of this Christ to the Eternal Father; I do not know-others think they do; I do not care, humanly speaking; I am quite ready to leave that for the future; it is enough for me that here is one who interprets the Eternal Father. If you cannot see the Father, see him; if you cannot worship the Father, worship him; if you cannot pray to the Father, pray to him; if you cannot understand the Father, try to understand him. Paul came to Christ through belief in his divinity, and I think a great many men in the Christian Church think they cannot come to God through Christ unless they first believe in the divinity of Christ. But the twelve did not believe in the divinity of Christ before they came to him; they did not know anything about it; they knew him first as a rabbi, then as a

prophet, then as a Messiah, and they did not come to any apprehension of what we call the divinity of Christ, certainly not to any large and adequate conception of it, until after his resurrection. Twelve came to God through the human life of Christ; one came to God through the divine life of Christ.

We may come either way. If you have been taught that Christ is divine, if the vision of his divinity flashes upon you in a miraculous light, humbly accept it. If, however, there is no such revelation, if it seems impossible that there should be a divine manhood, if you cannot understand what was the divinity of Christ, if that is mystical and strange, take the man. Here he is. Splendid teaching, splendid work, splendid life, splendid sacrifice, growing more and more splendid as the years go on; a larger and larger number following him, reverencing him, worshiping him. He that receives the human Christ receives God whether he knows it or not. But perhaps you cannot do that. This Christ is so far away-he lived eighteen centuries ago; he lived in a different place; a great deal of his teaching seems to you impracticable. "Give to him that asketh you, and from him that borroweth turn not away"-I cannot do that; "If one smite you on the one cheek, turn the other cheek also" -I cannot do that. He went on an itinerant ministry I cannot do that. What then? You can receive his prophet. If he is so far away, if those eighteen centuries seem like a great gulf, if his teaching seems impracticable and hard to be understood, if you cannot apply it to the common affairs of life, if he seems to belong to another life and another world, learn of the men who have something of his spirit of sacrifice, something of his vision of God, something of his conception of duty, something of his ideal of life. If you cannot receive the Christ, receive the prophet. Take the Whittier, the Faber, the Phillips Brooks; take the preaching or the poetry or the personality; accept the man as an expression of the divine. Take him wherever you can find him. Take him in orthodox circles, or take him in heterodox circles. Take Spurgeon, take Matthew Arnold, take Robertson, take Renan, take anybody, whoever he is, who makes you see something higher, nobler, better in life than the life you are now livingany man, whoever he is, who has gotten direct from God or from the teachings of Jesus Christ a better conception, a higher conception, a more inspiring conception, than

that which you possess, of noble living. He is the prophet of God. Receive the prophet as a prophet. That is what Paul means when he says, Quench not the spirit, despise not prophesyings. If you have any spiritual nature in you that responds to the inaudible voice and the unseen visions, do not extinguish it, and do not despise other men who have felt, seen, known. Why should you despise such witnesses? You believe that the world goes round the sun. Can you give the astronomical evidence of the fact? You take it on the testimony of witnesses. You believe that there are some islands called the Philippines, with which we are presently going to have some vital connection. Have you ever been there or ever seen them? You take the outward fact on the outward testimony; why not take the inward fact on the inward testimony? If you never have known what it is to pray, there are men in whose words you trust and in whose inspired judgment you have confidence who do know what it is to pray.

But perhaps you cannot even hear the poet. You do not care for poetry. Browning and Tennyson and Faber and Watts, religious poetry and secular poetry, are all unmeaning to you. You are just a man of practical affairs; just a common, a prosaic man. You like sometimes to say that of yourself—I am just a practical man. Well, there is a word for you. There are men about you who are heroic; men who are honest and honorable, who are just and true, who are self-sacrificing and serviceable; men who are doing in their lives something of what Christ did in his. There is not one of us who does not know somewhere some man who seems to have in himself something worthy of reverence. When I was in Terre Haute years ago there was a man at the head of the Union Station at Indianapolis who was so kindly, so considerate, so careful, so thoughtful of others, that every man who knew him loved him and recognized him as a Christian man; and when railroad men who did not often go to church, even when they could, said to me, I do not believe in your churches, I do not believe in your ministers or in your Christianity, I said, Do you believe in Billy Jackson?—and they always did. There is not one of you who does not know a Billy Jackson; and if you cannot follow God because he is afar off, and you cannot follow the Christ because he is mystical, take the man who seems to be nobler, better, and diviner than yourself and follow

him. He that receives a righteous man-in the name of Christ?-no, in the name of a righteous man; it is not even necessary that you should see Christ in him; it is not even necessary that you should recognize the divine in the righteous man: see the nobler, better man than yourself, and follow him, and you will be following the one whom he is following.

Felix Adler has a theology which lacks almost everything that seems to me essential to a good system of theology, and he preaches a religion which seems to me to lack a great deal that is essential to the highest and best religion; but under Felix Adler's ministration there are scores of men and women in New York who are trying unselfishly to do good to their fellow-men. Some of them are following righteous ideals, and some of them are following prophets; and whether they know it or not, whether they are Jews or Christians, whether they are believers or agnostics, they are following Christ; for whoever is doing good work in the world is doing God's work, and all God's work is good work. Do I say it makes no difference? It makes a great deal of difference. To go on trying to do righteous work just because it is righteous work, to go on doing righteous work with entire doubt as to whether the righteous work will ever come to anything or not, to go on living a righteous life without any faith in Christ as a leader or in God as a sovereign ruler, who will utilize and save my good work, and will destroy and utterly burn up my bad work-to do that seems to me very hard. I do not know that I should have conscience enough to try to follow a righteous life if I did not believe in a righteous God and a future life. It is a great deal easier to live the righteous life with faith in a righteous God and in an immortal future. But you can receive a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, and go no further, and still Christ-not I-Christ says to you, you shall have the righteous man's reward. You know what that is: the crown of righteousness laid up for every one that loveth his appearing. Not for every one who has already seen him appear, but for every one who longs for his appearing, loves it, and will welcome it when it comes.

But you really cannot do anything! If you could only go out and do some service; if

you could only join a College Settlement; if you could only be a martyr; if you could only do some great thing! You are a mother,

and your children keep you busy; you are a merchant, and your store keeps you busy; your health is not very good, and your invalidism absorbs you. "He that giveth a cup of cold water "-there is the word for you. It is not the thing done, it is the spirit of the doer; for do you not see there is only one thing in the world that is worth anything that is character? Not what is done, but the men who do it; not the finger, but the heart that moves the finger; not the achievement, but the spirit that stirs to the achievement. Therefore, he who has the character that wants to help on the cause of righteousness, the cause of goodness, the cause of purity and truth in the world, though the only thing he can do is to give a cup of cold water he belongs in God's great band.

There were men who fought by the side of General Grant and received his commands, day by day, from him; and there were other men who fough just as loyally who never set their eyes on him from the beginning of the campaign to the end, but they followed him. He gave his command to his major-generals, and the major-generals to the brigadiergenerals, and the brigadier-generals to the colonels, and the colonels to the captains, and the captains to the sergeants, and at last the private got the order and obeyed it; and he was obeying General Grant, although he never saw General Grant. If you cannot get your order direct from the commander-inchief, take it from the sergeant-only obey it. We march through the world, this great procession, with many banners and with many kinds of music: the shouting Methodist, the orderly Episcopalian, the serene and stable Presbyterian, the quiet and reticent Quaker, the individual sharpshooter who calls himself a Congregationalist; here they are, all of them-marching in one great procession. At the head I think I see the Christ who bears the Cross; and around him are men like him, who hear directly the word of God, and see directly the Father who has commissioned them; but he who far down the ranks still trudges on, through dust and toil and sun and suffering, following righteousness, is following Christ. You young men and you young women, aye, and you older men and women, who say, I cannot be a Christian because I do not understand God and I do not understand Christ, I do not understand prophecy and I do not understand mysticism, and religion all seems to me to be in the clouds-I am talking to you this morning,

and I tell you that if you take the Church as your lawgiver you may have some excuse for thinking you cannot be a Christian, but if you take Christ you have none. If you

cannot see God, look at Christ; if you cannot see Christ, listen to the prophet; if you cannot hear the prophet, follow the righteous man.

T

HE school-room has been aptly called the nursery of the nation. It is well to start here in any consideration of a proper hygiene for children, as so many hours must necessarily be spent in the school house. The early years of life are, physiologically considered, the most important ones we live. At this time the human body may, with healthy surroundings, be impressed with a lasting vigor; or foul air, improper nour ishment, and over-training may sow the seeds of an early degeneration. With reference to the housing of school-children, a common mistake, especially in the public schools, is the massing together of large numbers under one roof. This may at times be unavoidable in large cities, but it is never desirable. It is difficult to avoid unsanitary conditions when one or two thousand children from all sorts and conditions of homes are housed together in one building. Several compara tively small school buildings will afford better hygienic protection to a given number of children than one large building conserving the same end. One of the greatest problems of school hygiene is to secure good ventilation. It is impossible to attain a proper physical and mental culture in the presence of impure air. A glance at some of the standards of atmospheric purity may be interesting in this connection. While many deleterious substances can combine to taint the air, it has been found that, for testing purposes, only one need be considered namely, carbonic acid gas. This substance represents one of the waste products of the body, and is thrown out by the breath. Where this gas is present beyond a certain amount, it is an indication that some kind of organic decomposition is taking place, and the results will be deleterious. A heavy. musty odor, so often detected in crowded and poorly ventilated rooms, is an evidence to the senses that there is an excess of carbonic acid gas present. If one stays long in such a room, there will follow headache, or a con

stricted feeling about the forehead, or a general sensation of malaise.

The odor above noted is not experienced by those already in the room, but is very appreciable to the newcomer from the outside. Defective ventilation is thus easily detected by the sense of smell, as well as by the effects upon those who are so unfortunate as to remain for any length of time in a poorly aired room. While the ill effects are soon dissipated with a proper renewal of fresh air, if one is too long or too constantly exposed the health may be seriously impaired. The latter is apt to be the case when children are confined day after day in badly ventilated school-rooms. It is interesting to note in this connection that a vigorous child will produce nearly twice as much carbonic acid as an adult, in proportion to the body weight. Dr. Morris states that it has been estimated by competent authority that at least forty per cent. of all fatal diseases are directly due to impure air. In the absence of more serious results, we may at least be sure that proper mental and physical activity is impossible in a poorly ventilated room. While an unpleasant odor is sufficient evidence that the air of a closed space is unfit for breathing, there is another and more accurate test for impurity. Scientists have found that a pure atmosphere has about four volumes of carbonic acid gas to ten thousand volumes of air. When carbonic acid gas collects above this proportion, the air tends to become vitiated. When the proportion of carbonic acid gas exceeds six to eight parts in ten thousand, the disagreeable and stuffy odor becomes noticeable, and the air is unfit for continuous breathing. An article of this character is not the place to explain elaborate technical or chemical tests. It is sufficient to say that sanitary experts, by applying these tests, can tell in what proportion carbonic acid gas is present in the air of any given room or locality. As the various organic and gaseous impurities fluctuate according to the amount of carbonic acid gas

present, the test of the latter is the gauge to measure the general purity or impurity of air. It is very obvious that of all places the air of a school-room should be pure. This may be attained by allowing a proper amount of cubic air-space to each child, and by a careful system of ventilation. With reference to room-space, each child should be allowed at least from twelve to twenty square feet of floor-space and from two hundred to two hundred and fifty cubic feet of air-space, according to age and development.

These minimum requirements are frequently not fulfilled in large schools. We find, according to the rules of the New York Board of Education, in the three lower classes of the primary schools the prescribed allowance of space to each pupil is only seventy cubic feet, in the three higher grades eighty cubic feet; while in the four lower grades of the grammar classes the allowance is ninety cubic feet, and in the four higher grades one hundred cubic feet. It is obvious that, even with a generous allowance of cubic space, there must be some way in which the foul air may be removed and a fresh supply furnished, if the air of a room filled with people is to be maintained in a condition fit for respiration. This constitutes the problem for good ventilation to solve. Even a large room with a few people in it needs some ventilation if the air is to be kept pure. With reference to schools, a distinction can be made between buildings intended to house a small number of pupils, and those that serve for larger numbers. For the former, a simple method of ventilation may be sufficient. The problem is to completely change the air of a room often enough to keep it pure, without at the same time inducing drafts. A certain number of inlets and outlets must be considered essential. Not a little fresh air gets into a closed room through doors, floors, window-sashes, and even through brick walls. This is not a sufficient supply, however, if many are in the room. Reliance must then be placed upon windows. In summer the problem is an easy one. During cold weather much care may have to be exercised, but the difference in temperature between the room and the external air will aid our efforts by increasing the rate of interchange of the inside and outside air. Hence, a great deal of open space may not be necessary. By dropping one or two windows a little from the top, and, if necessary, covering the exposed place by a shade, air will filter in and

out, without producing a draft. In very cold weather, by raising a window from the bot tom and fitting a board in the exposed place, the space between the two window-sashes will afford ventilation. Various devices have been applied to windows to favor ventilation, such as a sort of box with a fine wire filter, that deflects the air upward. Pipes are sometimes likewise used, and wheels that are moved by a slight current of air. If possible, windows on opposite sides of a room should be used.

An open fire is an excellent ventilator, as the current of air up the chimney will very effectually draw out the foul air of a room. Closed stoves are little, if any, aid to ventilation. During recess, the air can be completely purified by opening all the windows. A little care and thought will keep the air pure in a small school, but where large numbers of children are massed together, these devices are not sufficient. The foul air cannot be removed and fresh air supplied quick enough by natural openings where one or two hundred children are collected on one floor. It is found that each child in a classroom requires about thirty cubic feet of fresh air per minute, or eighteen hundred per hour. With many children in a room, the only way in which this amount can be supplied without creating drafts is by employing air-shafts. The air is kept in motion in these shafts by heated coils, or by fans moved by machinery. Modern sanitary engineers have made a careful study of this kind of air supply for large buildings. It is thus possible to compute how much fresh air can be supplied to every individual in a room, at the same time drawing out the exhausted air at a given rate. In the alteration and construction of large school buildings, the most important point, namely, good ventilation, should always be referred to a sanitary expert.

The proper lighting of the school room is a point of very great importance. Professor Cohn, of Breslau, and others have found that there is a progressive tendency to nearsightedness in school-children, induced to a certain extent by the nature of their work, and encouraged by defective illumination. After examining the eyes of 10,060 schoolchildren, Professor Cohn found that the nearsightedness increased from the lower to the upper classes. Thus, in the Latin schools (gymnasiums), the lower classes showed 12.5 per cent. and the highest class 55.8 per cent. of near-sightedness. Everything tending