bright flowers or mosses will grow, and the quicksands may be very numerous. Many precious opportunities will be hidden or the shores, but if you grasp them you must labor, dig and delve each precious moment. Yet with care and constant labor safely you may glide along, and when the gulf you have reached in safety, He will then take you back home.

There the glories you will witness and partake of will be such as I, a kind, helpful, and loving Father can in my best wisdom provide.

The other branch, says He, is bright and luring, wide it is, and the banks tend to invite with invite with their sunshine; the mosses and flowers all are tempting and beautiful, but within their blades and petals lies a poison, dark and deadly, and if you are lured to gather, the results you must partake of. In this stream no quicksands are to be seen, yet they are there, but lie hidden by the peaceful-looking water, which, however, has a treacherous undercurrent. This you will find if you undertake a voyage. This stream, says He, leads on to a shore where shame and remorse are

rulers. If you are in their

dominion they will see that
get your share of shame
misery which they weigh out.

But, says Father, at our starting,
You can choose the stream you like
I will give you aid for asking

you

and

Take the one which you think right. Thus we find ourselves fairly launched. Which stream are we

are more than we think we can bear, let us, as a dutiful child, turn and ask a helping hand of that kind Parent, for He says He will always help us if we ask Him as we should. How should we ask Him? By that humble method-prayer, a term which in my mind implies more than I can express in words-and though our opportunities may not be flaunted before our eyes, are we, knowing they exist, to pass.them by? No, for says Father, when we started, they are there but you must dig deep and work untiringly.

We have all learned that those things which are of greatest value to us are the ones we have labored hardest to obtain, and why? Because we, in searching for them, have impressed them more firmly upon our minds. If we have been lured by the brightness to follow the glittering stream, let us, ere it be too late, cast anchor tonight, and on the morrow turn back; for if we let that dazzling brightness lure us longer we may find we are too late. Trusting that we are all following the rough and rugged stream that we will reach that glorious harbor where God waits to welcome us and together partake of His promised blessings, remain your sister,

Lucy Maycock.

GOD is ever near to help.