November 5

Waste thee, escape thither. — GEN. xix. 22.

Enter ye in at the strait gate. — MATT. vii. 13.

THIS thought should be an incentive to earnest action in this probationary life, that it may issue in a joyful eternity. The man at the railway-gate sees pleasure beckoning him within as he journeys to his family, and pain mocking him without, if like the foolish virgins he hears the saddest of words, "too late." The gate is a definite, plain entrance, and is shown in mercy by him who said, "I am the door." It implies action, for he who would enter must move and not debate. He must not be overladen, for the young man loved by Christ could not get his large burden of worldly goods through the strait passage. The narrow defile introduces to the beautiful valley, and the celestial city shines before the Christian traveller. The strait gate of repentance leads to the wide gate of Paradise. As Saint Chrysostom teaches, though the gate is strait, the heavenly city is wide. It contains "a great multitude, which no man could number" (Rev. vii. 9). Let us with Saint Ignatius not desire "even to breathe apart from" Christ in self-denial and devotion and holy sacrament, that the "gate of death" may bring us to the gate of resurrection, to eternal life, and we "may enter in through the gates into the city" (Rev. xxii. 14).

S. A. Holchkin

I see not the way before,

But I go at thy command,

Entering gladly duty's door,

Led by thy directing hand.

THOMAS MACKELLAR.