After the spiritual birth, the Christian is fed — if
fed judiciously — first upon milk, then upon meat ; is
this all ? If so, then he is like the man who lived to
eat and ate to live. But this is not all. Feeling our
hearts grow warm at the weekly prayer-meeting, and
our souls expand when we partake of the emblems of
Christ's body broken for us, is not scrvii.g God ; it is
only getting ready to serve Him, a partaking of spir-
itual food — a "means of grace" — but the end, the
"grace" itself, must blossom in our lives, when,
daily developing the Christ within us, Vi'e exercise it
for the benefit of the world. Yet there are those
who spend all their lives applying the means for an
end wliich they never reach and never consider — an
end which they die tranquilly without accomplish-
ing. But they went to church — death found them
within the fortress of the walls of Zion, and the
church and the world write them down among the
" blessed dead," and Christians speak of an " irrep-



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iS-j



arable loss." This is true; for since their religion
consisted mainly in "going to church," when they
no longer go and fill the accustomed seats, the church
indeed sustains an "irreparable loss" — this was all
they did, and now they are gone. But when a shin-
ing Christian dies, there is a vacancy, but no real
"loss;" and even the vacancy is like a mount of
transfiguration, where the Holy Spirit hovers, say-
ing: " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow
them."

Religion itself is not an end: it is only a means —
God's appointed stairway into heaven; but we shall
never reach the top, unless, step by step, we leave
some sin and weakness behind.
