THE congregation consisted of one woman, who sat in her own house at about six o'clock in the evening. As the congregation, in this instance, seated herself for her evening's work with the pile of stockings, the preacher's voice was suddenly raised. No anthem preceded him—or her, or it, as you please—no comforting word of Scripture was read. The preacher, invisible and inspired, simply announced his text in the silence of the room, and began. The preacher's name, for want of a more accurate one, we call Conscience. His text he drew from memory: "The young grow into the air; the old into the earth;" and the sermon ran as follows:— "You stand between the young and the old. The fancies and follies of youth are no longer alluring to you. Indeed, you have been at times conscious of a half-sad feeling of superiority in a company of young women; you have felt that there was a great gulf fixed between the thoughts of youth and your thoughts, so that the young could not pass to you, nor you to them. But, though it is clear that you are no longer growing into the air, is it not equally clear that you are growing into the earth? Are you any larger or better for being older? Are your troubles, now, about the corners not quite clean, the carpet awry, the servant who persists in being an individual with preferences of her own, rather than a machine that you can manipulate at your will—are these so very much more noble and dignified than the thoughts and troubles of your frivolous youth? Is it nobler to be taking thought concerning what one shall eat and drink, and wherewithal one shall be clothed, even though you make these anxieties cover twenty years of the future, than to be building rosy and impossible castles on airy heights, where, whatever of folly might be, sullen care was not? "Is age, of itself, adding anything to you that makes up for the perhaps mistaken trustfulness and thoughtless confidence of your youth, when you were sure that life was worth the living, though you could not tell the reason why? "Ah, it is surely no better to grow into the earth than into the air. "And this is the danger that besets a woman when she bids farewell to her youth, with all its beautiful visions, and settles down to the realizing of these visions out of the homely materials of her daily life and toil; when, instead of the perfect house of her fancy, she is given an old and time-stained dwelling, whose every line and angle, whose every tone and tint, are an offense to her esthetically educated eye, and is told that of this she must make her ideal home; when, instead of the hero and saint combined, of her girlish fancy, toward whose lofty height of character she should be ever climbing, she finds herself possessed of an ordinary flesh-and-blood husband, whose chief desire is to be well fed, who doesn't like poetry, and who tells her that her theories will do very well for Heaven, but won't work in this world; who keeps the most important part of his soul locked up from her, that part in which he makes his plans, in which he transacts his business, that part of his soul which is having most to do with the making of his eternal character; when, instead of the golden plenty with which she might add grace and beauty and an air of ease to her ancient dwelling, she finds herself set to make one dollar do the work of five; when, instead of the heroic deeds and sublime services she had planned, she finds herself stooping to carry a thousand paltry, mean-looking, unsymmetrical daily loads; when, instead of treading an upward path over grand though rugged mountains of difficulty, she finds herself in a narrow way full of little sharp stones that hurt her feet at every step; when, whatever her lot or station, she finds the actual in her hands differing from the ideal of her early aspiration—then it is that she is in danger of bending over and growing into the earth as she grows old, so that food and clothes, and paltry neighborhood strifes, and small social triumphs, and the gaining of place and power for her children, become the reason and the end of her life. "Is it not just this danger, perhaps dimly recognized, that has led women of late to form all sorts of self-improvement societies? Is it not the instinct of self-preservation blossoming out into societies of decorative art, scientific clubs, and reading circles? Women see that there is no life so apt to grow small and ugly as theirs unless it be inspired with great thoughts. It is made up of such little things. It deals continually and unceasingly with dirt, either at first or second hand. It is the ignoble question of meat and drink three times a day, so that often a man's chief memory of his mother is of the pie she used to make. It means perpetual indoor contact with ignorance and ill-breeding. And because of all this, it needs a mighty inspiration. "And to no woman on the earth can there come a greater inspiration than to you, a daughter of America, born in the cradle of liberty, reared in freedom's native air, and free now, as the women of no other land are free, to use every power that God has given you. To you, thus prepared and equipped, comes the call to a service grand enough to lift your life up from its earthward growth, great enough to overflow your house and fill with its glory the doubtful corners on all your doors, to drown in sunshine the picture of the carpet askew that you see when your eyes are shut, and to substitute for that list of things that you want but cannot have, the nobler list of things that you can do without. "And what is this noble service, this worthy inspiration? It is the cleansing and purifying and sweetening of your beloved country; it is the making a home for Christ which shall include the sunny slopes of California, the rich valleys of our mighty rivers, the fragrant groves of Florida, and the glorious mountains of the West. "Who shall say which is first in God's mind when he shuts himself up to work through you; what those for whom you work shall become by your labor, or what you shall become by the passing of his power and love through you? "This missionary work, to which you have so often to be urged, is not a stern duty which you must do in order to be saved, or to have a star in your crown by and by; it is not a cross which you are to take up; no; it is your salvation. It means hope and progress and development for you. It is the antidote to the pettiness of your life, to the belittling influence of small cares and sordid anxieties. Its rewards are not future; they are not something to be given you, but something to be wrought in you. Who that ever gave a cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple, has waited for her reward? There was never a true gift made in all the world but that instantly and eternally rewarded the giver. "Consider, further, the adaptation of this inspiration to your condition. It does not say to you, 'Come out of your quiet home, despise your petty burdens, and seek a wider service.' It says: 'Let me come into your home and enlarge its borders until it includes every room, in palace or cabin, where a baby opens its eyes to the blessed birthright of freedom.' It says: 'When you stand over your children, let me put into your heart the thought that in a certain high and sacred sense all the children of this great country are yours; yours to mould, to teach, to love, their future is for your honor or your shame.' "And there is no inspiration for a woman's life like this, for it appeals to woman's peculiar power, love. You remember reading, when you were young, that love was incidental in a man's life, but to a woman it was all of life, so that if she failed in her love-life, she was undone. And you remember the indignation that stirred within you at the seeming injustice of such an arrangement of Providence,—that a woman should be given but one chance of success. Hear, then, these words of a wiser than worldly philosopher: 'Love never faileth.' Knowledge, and prophecy, and understanding, and eloquence, and skill, and hope, and faith may fail—'love never faileth.'"—Christian Union.