to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear his voice.

I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so I began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. Some of them were my own voice, some of them were my own questions, some of them were my own cares, some of them were my very prayers. Others were the suggestions of the tempter and the voices from the world of turmoil. Never before did there seem so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pushed and pulled, and greeted with noisy acclamations and unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, and to answer some of them; but God said, "Be still, and know that I am God." Then came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow, and its duties and its cares, but God said, "Be still." And as I listened and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found after a while that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still, small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power, and comfort. As I listened it became to me the voice of prayer, and the voice of wisdom, and the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard, but that "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God's prayer in my secret soul, was God's answer to all my questions, was God's life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer, and all blessing; for it was the living God himself as my life and my all.

Beloved! this is our spirit's deepest need. It is thus that we learn to know God; it is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment; it is thus that our hearts are nourished and fed; it is thus that we receive

the Living Bread; it is thus that our bodies are healed, and our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life's conflicts and duties like the flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of his grace never come to the restless soul.

We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains, with ten minutes for lunch; but we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength, and learn to mount up on wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.

The best thing about stillness is, that it gives God a chance to work. "He that is entered into his rest hath ceased from his own works, even as God did from his;" and when we cease from our works, God works in us; and when we cease from our thoughts, God's thoughts come into us; when we get still from our restless activity, "God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure," and we have but to work it out.

Beloved! let us take his stillness, let us dwell in "the secret place of the Most High," let us enter into God and his eternal rest, let us silence the other sounds, and then we can hear the "still, small voice."

Then there is another kind of stilness, the stillness that lets God work for us, and holds our peace; the stillness that ceases from its contriving, and its self-vindication, and its expedients of wisdom and forethought, and lets God provide, and answer the unkind word, and the cruel blow, in his own unfailing, faithful love. often we lose God's interposition by taking up our own cause, and striking for our own defense.

There is no spectacle in all the Bible so sublime as the silent Savior answering not a word to the men that were maligning him, and whom he could have laid pros

trate at his feet by one look of divine power, or one word of fiery rebuke. But he let them say and do their worst, and he stood in the power of stillness-God's Holy silent Lamb.

God give to us this silent power, this mighty selfsurrender, this conquered spirit which will make us "more han conquerors through him that loved us." Let our voice and our life speak like "the still, small voice" of Horeb, and as the "sound of a gentle stillness."

EASTER DAY-BREAK

ANNIE L. MUZZEY.

What is this glory breaking through the night?
Like Judean shepherds, wondering and still,
We watch and wait, while all the heavens thrill
With shooting flames of strange auroral light,
The Voice that said to the beloved: "Write!"
Speaks ever more its promise to fulfill,

The Gate swings wide and he who does Love's will
May enter and receive the gift of Sight.

Ah, Love that we have mocked and crucified,
Questioned, and analyzed, but could not slay;
Even while we reasoned, doubted and denied,
Behold his hand hath rolled the stone away.
Joy to the world! O, come ye and abide
In Love that maketh all things new to-day!

Every true, beautiful and helpful thought is a suggestion which, if held in the mind, tends to reproduce itself there clarifies the ideals and uplifts the life. While these inspiring and helpful suggestions fill the mind their opposites cannot put in their deadly work, because the two cannot live together. They are natural enemies. One excludes the other.-Selected.

"All that is outward changes and passes; thy soul and God stand sure."

FREEDOM

BY EDNA L. CARTER.

I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of Iron.-Isaiah 45:2.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder-Psalm 107:15, 16.

Freedom comes through dominion, and dominion comes through a knowledge of the Truth. "The Truth shall make you free."

In the beginning dominion was given to man, but he has failed so long to exercise it, that he has about forgotten that it is his by Divine right. The desire for it still remains within him, but as he has not realized that he is spiritual, he has tried to exercise dominion on the selfish, carnal plane, and has brought much trouble to himself thereby. The history of the human race has been that of one long struggle for dominion. Men have ever been seeking to conquer others or keep from being conquered, and so have come discords, fightings and wars. All men love the words liberty and freedom, and will brave any suffering to gain freedom and to hold it. This is because freedom is the result of dominion, and dominion is part of the Divine nature inherited from the Father.

When one is first awakened to a consciousness of some of the truth and the powers of his being, he usually loses any desire he may have had to rule others, but seeks to gain the true dominion. Liberty now has a new meaning. He sees that to be truly free himself he must grant freedom to others, and wars and fightings are no longer of interest.

But the old idea of strife and conflict sometimes yields slowly to the Truth that overcomes it. This is not because of any power a false idea has in itself, nor because of any lack of power in Truth. It is because

the individual clings to the false idea, and gives it power by accepting it, holding to it, and making it part of himself. He believes in strife as a means to victory, and when he finds there is dominion within to be taken possession of he tries the old method. He accepts without question the world's idea that there are two powers -good and evil at work within, him, and that they are so evenly matched, that it is a question which will win. So the battle ground comes to be within, and the battle itself a mental one. Under these conditions the man knows no place. Questions as to right and wrong rise up demanding to be solved. Difficulties of all kinds. confront him and hedge in his way. These are to him as gates of brass and bars of iron shutting him out of the kingdom he seeks to enter. Instead of finding liberty, bondage is his lot. The hindrances in his way, are only the limitations he places there himself through belief in what is not true. Only the Truth can set him free from bondage to false ideas, and give him dominion in his world.

The Truth that in Spirit all is good, and that only the things of the Spirit are real and true, frees him from the idea that evil is a power which must be fought to be overcome. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Faith ascribes all power to God, the strife ceases, the victory becomes manifest. There is no fighting in it. It is all accomplished by steady, unwavering belief of the Truth. The frequency with which some words suggesting warfare are used to illustrate the results of man's awakening to the realization of the One Power, helps to keep alive in his consciousness the idea of strife, and therefore the appearance of strife. But words used as illustrations can never be taken too literally, else instead of making an idea clear and forcible, they cause confusion, and may become misleading.

One false idea that holds many in bondage to suf