September 23

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an ad- vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.— I JOHN ii, 1, 2.

Sin, not till it is left will duly sinful seem; A man must waken first ere he can tell his dream. ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

Stand like a knight in armor When sin allureth thee; One error makes life less fruitful And glorious than it should be. For the knowledge of sin is deadly, And leaves in the soul a stain; A bird with a broken pinion Never soars as high again.

The worst effect of sin is within, and is manifest not in poverty and pain and bodily defacement, but in the discrowned faculties, the unworthy love, the low ideal, the brutalized and enslaved spirit.

STEPHEN CHAPIN.

Life is a chain of golden links, one end of which reaches to Heaven. When we sin, a link is broken, and we are separated from Heaven until we obtain forgiveness from God, when the broken link is re- placed by one of iron, and the chain is once more made whole. The iron chain, though as strong as the golden one, is not as beautiful. Let us keep the iron links out of our chains, and make our lives as beauti- ful as possible; but always remember that iron links are better than broken ones. Christ's chain is the only one never broken, because He never sinned. The less we sin the more our chains will resemble Christ's, and the more beautiful they will be.

The Silver Cross.