achievement which amazes the world. Doubtless thousands and thousands who never attain anything beyond mediocrity have just as great natural capacity, but the splendid powers of their life are allowed to run to waste. They are lacking in energy and do only a little of what they might do.

In Christian life and character the same is true. Jesus came to give his disciples not life merely, but abundant life. We know what he did with his first disciples, what wonderful men he made of them and what they Idid with their lives. Is there any reason to think that these men were capable of greater things than the men whom the Master is calling in these days? They were not beings of a different order from the mass of men; the difference was in the way they used their gifts. Not a particle of power in them was allowed to waste. There is capacity enough in every little company of Christian people to transform the community in which they live into a garden of the Lord. It is to such consecration that we are called. We are letting

our powers and abilities run to waste instead of training them and using them to bless the world. We are not making the most of ourselves.

There is a great waste of power also in our failure to appreciate our opportunities. "If I only had the gifts that this man has I would do the large and beautiful things that he does. But I never have the chance of doing such things. Nothing ever comes to my hand but opportunities for little commonplace things." Now, the truth is that nothing is commonplace. The giving of a cup of cold water is one of the smallest kindnesses any one can show to another, yet Jesus said that God takes notice of this act amid all the events of the whole world, any busy day, and rewards it. It may not be cabled half round the world and announced with great headlines in the newspapers, but it is noticed in heaven.

We do not begin to understand what great waste we are allowing when we fail to put the true value on little opportunities of serving others. Somehow we get the feeling that

any cross-bearing worth while must be a costly sacrifice, something that puts nails through our hands, something that hurts till we bleed. If we had an opportunity to do something heroic we say we would do it. But when it is only a chance to be kind to a neighbor, to call at his house when he is in trouble, to sit up with him at night when he is sick, or to do something for a child, we never think for a moment that such little things are the Christlike deeds God wants us to do, and so we pass them by and there is a great blank in our lives where holy service ought to be.

When the great miracle of the loaves had been wrought, Jesus sent his disciples to gather up the broken pieces, "that nothing be lost." The Master is continually giving us the same command. Every hour's talk we have with a friend leaves fragments that we ought to gather up and keep to feed our heart's hunger or the hunger of others' hearts, as we go on. When we hear good words spoken, or read a good book, we should gather up the fragments of knowledge, the sugges

tions of helpful thoughts, the broken pieces, and fix them in our hearts for use in our lives. We allow large values of the good things we hear or read to turn to waste continually because we are poor listeners or do not try to keep what we hear. We let the broken pieces be lost and thereby are great losers. If only we would gather up and keep all the good things that come to us through conversations and through reading, we would soon have great treasures of knowledge and wisdom.