We trade thoughts and feelings.  But it is very hard to trade fine impulses with those who are intrinsically vulgar.  Their treasury is empty of spiritual coin, and their storehouse contains no world-thoughts.  We can send a caravan across the desert, a ship across the sea, but we cannot send a Thought into a flaccid or a pompous brain.

We trade position and influence.  The evil of the spoils system is not that one gets something for something,—­it is that one gets something for something less, or for nothing.  Whatever we have to give may be rightly given; the wrong comes when we give it to the idle or unworthy.  When we trade political preferment for high merit, both the office-holders and the country are gainers by the exchange.

Marriage is the great mart of exchange.  Here the possessions of one sex are set up against those of the other.  Everywhere marriage is spoken of as a good or a bad “bargain.”  Each man shall say:  “Sweetheart, in Myself I offer you the treasures of manhood.  I give strength, courage, magnanimity, action, protection, and the indomitable will.”  Each wife should say:  “Dear, in me are all gentleness, courtesy, beauty, grace, patience, mercy, and hope.  I, too, am brave, but my courage is of the heart.  I, too, am strong-willed, but my will is deep-set in love.”  As years go on, there comes a time when Love says:  “Between us now there is neither mine nor thine.  The universe is ours together!”

Human love is not all.  There is yet a higher impulse.  The most business-like question that ever touches the heart of man is this:  For what shall I trade my soul?  We hold our souls high:  we perceive that eternity itself is not too much to ask.  And hence the highest barter is that of the earthly for the spiritual; of the temporal for the unseen and eternal.  We say, Give me God, give me heaven, give me divine and sacrificial Love, and I will give my heart.  And thus the last transaction is between God and the soul.  Godliness is great Gain, and to exchange earth for heaven is a satisfying and unregretted Trade.

IV.  THE WORLD-MARCH:  OF WORKERS

     [ARMAGEDON]

Jesus, Thou hast bought us
Not with gold or gem,
But with Thine own life-blood,
For Thy diadem. 
With Thy blessing filling
Each who comes to Thee,
Thou hast made us willing,
Thou hast made us free. 
By Thy grand redemption,
By Thy grace divine,
We are on the Lord’s side;
Saviour, we are Thine!

Not for weight of glory,
Not for crown or palm,
Enter we the army,
Raise the warrior psalm;
But for love that claimeth
Lives for whom He died,
He whom Jesus nameth
Must be on His side. 
By Thy love constraining,
By Thy grace divine,
We are on the Lord’s side;
Saviour, we are Thine!

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL

What is work?  Work is energy applied to the creation of either material or immaterial products.  The digging of the soil preparatory to raising a corn-crop is work; the making of brooms; the writing of fugues.  There is no one who does not work, at one time or another, and a man’s social value depends largely upon the amount of work that he can do.