the church.  The large audience room was filled to its utmost capacity.  It was truly an ordeal for the young man to pass through.  Tom was the most nervous person in the twelve hundred present.  “Will my Carl stand the test?” asked Tom of himself.  But of course he would.  Two young clergymen had charge of the opening exercises.  Alice presided at the organ, and a full choir rendered the music, doing justice to the hour and the service.

The young preacher was pale and somewhat nervous when he arose to announce his text.  At first he could scarce be heard ten yards away; but he quickly corrected the fault and went on with fuller confidence and courage.

He spoke from Psalm 119. 59:  “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.”

“Thinking is royal,” he said.  “Thought is king.  Everything of beauty or usefulness is the child of thought.  Here is the distinction between man and the brute.  Here is the cause of difference between the savant and the savage.  And here is the difference between men.  Some think; others do not.  And what fields for thought are spread out before the human mind!  For instance, nations and cities once great and influential are now blotted out.  Babylon, Rome, Palmyra, Jerusalem.  What destroyed them?  They refused to acknowledge God, and he left them to perish.  Ah!  They forsook God and he left them.

“Again.  Notice the nations that have come up out of barbaric obscurity to become the world power today—­England, Germany, the United States.  What has thus lifted them to their peerless position?  They acknowledge God to be their God and King of all kings and all nations.  Surely, then, this is a nation’s palladium, just as it is the individual standard of character.  Emmanuel—­God with us.

“And to think of ourselves is truly ennobling.  I do not mean as the egotist thinks.  But to think of our individual capacity and obligations.  The Greeks had a motto over their temple at Delphi, it was ’Know Thyself.’  To know ourselves is the beginning of wisdom.  Young men, learn to know yourselves and your responsibility; but none of these is the subject of David’s thought.

“‘I thought on my ways.’  Our ways toward God.  We have not treated anyone as we have treated God.  We have shut him out of our homes, lives, hearts, while he stood at the door knocking; while he cried, ’Behold I stand at the door and knock.’  Men live through years without thinking of God, until illness or affliction comes, then they call upon him for help.  Ah!  It is indeed humiliating to think of our ways toward our dearest Friend, who loves us and gave himself for us.  It is wise and should, also, be profitable to think of our ways toward our fellow-men.  We have not always treated them as directed by God’s Word.  How selfishness has inspired our conduct toward them in many instances!  Who of us today can look back and see ourselves ever doing to others as we would have them do unto us?  Who of us can say, ‘I have always loved my neighbor as myself’?