THERE is an old story of a certain minister, who, in arranging his toilet for his afternoon parochial calls, found a button gone from his shirt-collar, and all at once the good man's patience left him. He fretted and scolded and said undignified and unkind things, until the tired wife burst into tears and escaped to her room. The hours of the afternoon wore away, during which the parson called upon Brother Jones, who was all bowed down with rheumatism, and found him patient, and even cheerful; upon young Brother Hall, wasting away with consumption; upon good old grandmother Smith, in her poor, miserable hovel of a home, and found her singing one of the good old hymns, as happy as a bird; upon young Mrs. Brown, who had a few weeks before buried her only child, and found her trustful and serene in the views of God's love which had come to her through her affliction. The minister went home filled with what he had seen, and when evening came, and he was seated in his easy chair, and his good wife near him busy with her needle, he could not help saying, "What a wonderful thing grace is! How much it will do! There is nothing beyond its power! Wonderful! Wonderful! It can do all things." Then the little wife said,— "Yes, it is wonderful indeed; but there is one thing that the grace of God does not seem to have power to do." "Ah, what can that be?" said the husband. "Why, it does not seem to have power to control a minister's temper when his shirt-button is gone." That was a new version of the doctrine of grace to the parson, but it was such a version as many another religious man needs to remember. There is many a man who can stand up before a multitude and "confess Christ;" who can be most meek when insulted in some public place; who can rub his hands and bless God for the power of religion, but who is too weak to keep his temper at home. The value of art is in the fineness of the work—the perfection of music is in the little accuracies. So the beauty and power of our religion are seen when we manifest grace in little things. As it takes greater skill to engrave the Lord's prayer upon a five-cent-piece than upon a broad steel plate, so it takes more grace to live a good Christian at home than in public.