LIFE AND PERFECTION

the end of blind alleys from which, a long way back, the main life-channel forked away.

Be not careful about perfections ; I dedare to you the day shall oome when everything shall be perîect to you.*

That places us at quite a différent point of view.

The word " perfect " cames several meanings. The idea of perfection when applied to a gem bas a différent content than when applied to a flower. The method of attaining perfection in the former case is artificial, in the latter it is natural ; the one comes by pressure and friction from without, the other.in loyal answer to an urge from within ; moral perfection, as conmionly understood, approximates more to the former than to the latter; and this should give us pause. (It deserves also to be said in passing that, so far as perfection may be attributed to a flower, it applies to the deadly nightshade as much as to the honeysuckle, its neighbour on the hedgerow.)

One of the profoundest words, and the subtlest — a hard saying indeed — ever spoken concerning perfection is that which the evangelist places on the lips of Jésus :

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is porfect* '

How can this be ? Is such perfection possible ?

1 r. D„ p. iao«