And so he takes up the strain again, returning continually to this deep note of wonder:

"Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee, I did but take,
Not for thy harms

But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home; Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

It was a habit of Coleridge to annotate the books he read with suggestions which occurred to him, and which illuminated the text by wonderful flashes of his genius. He would do this occasionally, even with books borrowed from his friends. There is in the British Museum a book containing his thoughts on the confession of sin, which it is worth taking a long journey to read and digest. It was on this custom of his friend that Charles Lamb wrote his exhortation. "Reader, lend thy books to S. T. C. for he will return them to thee with usury. He will enrich them with his annotations, thus tripling their value. I have had experience, and I counsel thee. Shut not thy heart, nor thy library against S. T. C." This

is how our Lord deals with that which we entrust to Him. He enriches everything. His annotations add immeasurably to the poorly written scroll of our life. In His care Science heals, Art ennobles, Education becomes the advocate of truth not of falsehood, Labour an enrichment to all, the Home a section of His spiritual Church, and every human interest a means of communion with Himself. We possess our possessions only when we hold them in the Will of God. Christ takes not to destroy but to fulfil that which is given to Him, and has promised to return it to us increased "a hundredfold now in this time," with the added assurance of "life everlasting." (Mark X, 29-30.)

The poem ends with the recurring lines: "Halts by me that footfall:

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His Hand outstretched caressingly?
Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest,

6

I am He whom thou seekest,

Thou drawest life from thee, who drawest Me."

Most of us will find in this great story of Francis Thompson a faithful transcript of life. We have sought some screen to hide us from the

Divine Seeker. It may not have been an evil thing, but it was not the highest, and the ambition of Love will not content itself with less. From time to time something occurs which stings us into restlessness-and turns our thought to Him. If we make our "bed in hell" He will not allow it to be a place of rest. But we are afraid --afraid of so pure a fellowship-afraid of that high renunciation to which He ever calls us.

There are surely few more pathetic words in the Old Testament than those which the prophet heard: "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel or a land of thick darkness? wherefore do my people say, We are broken loose, we will come no more unto Thee?" What has He done that we should be afraid of Him? Once a father spoke sadly in my hearing. He had studied to make the home interesting to his boy, but had failed. The son's pleasures were all outside in a world of which the parents knew almost nothing. And God has seen this tragic thing happen to His children; their interests are outside His will. As if He had been to them a land of sand and thorns they cry, "We are broken loose, we will come no more to Him." Desperate as the situation is, it would

be far more desperate if we were satisfied. Happily we are not happy. We have not escaped His influence. He follows with inexorable tread down each trodden path until the wilderness which seemed so fair in prospect, chokes us with its sand and heat and we turn-to find Him at our side.

An English preacher of the last century tells of a shepherd standing on the Cheviot Hills with his little son. "The love of God is vast," said the father. He pointed North and South and East and West to indicate its vastness. "It reaches everywhere," he concluded. "Then Father," exclaimed the child, we must be in the very middle of the love of God." They were both right. We may say "God so loved the world;" we may also say "The Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me." The miracle of His love is that each stands at its centre. That was the evangel which Francis Thompson took and proclaimed in his day.

"When men shall say to thee, Lo Christ is here! When men shall say to thee, Lo Christ is there, Believe them; yea, and this-then art thou seer When all thy crying clear

Is but: Lo here! Lo there! ah me, lo everywhere."