The world is grievously afflicted. The Church has doctored the symptoms of its ailment empirically, in an intermittent way. According to the law of service, we are to deal scientifically with the disease itself by radical and constitutional treatment. The springs of human life must be cleansed, its processes made normal and vigorous, its activities reformed. We have reckoned on selfishness as the motive of human action; let us have the faith and courage to reckon on love. Self-seeking competition is war with all its miseries; generous service is peace with all its blessings. "The Law of Service" (James P. Kelley). CHAPTER XXXVII. A STRANGE DEDICATION. At last the new building was completed and the services of dedication had come. The hopes of years were realized. The exterior of the building was artistic and beautiful and would be a continuous teacher of beauty and an unbroken summons to the neighborhood for neatness and cleanliness. The lawn and trees around the building would give to the children and the tired workers a glimpse of God's beautiful country and a breath of his life-giving air. The interior was finished with natural wood and seemed to the community like a palace of light. Some had feared lest the people would be afraid of the splendid building, but Richard had learned, he thought, that beauty of architecture and finish were assistants and not obstacles, when the spirit of the workers is humble and democratic. A week was to be given over to the services of dedication to show the many sided work that was to be done. Sunday morning Richard spoke of the building-how it had come and the purposes for which it had been erected. A paragraph from his address shows the impression which he was trying to strengthen in the minds of the great congregation. "This building and this mission are the works of love. Love has wrought through suffering, through young manhood and womanhood, through the mature and the aged, through the uncultured and the cultivated, through the poor and humble and the rich and powerful, through the home and the school and the church, in mystery and sometimes by seeming calamity, to found this work and to build this home. It is to be dedicated to God, to man, to home, to society. It stands for the sacredness of every life and every duty and relationship of life. It looks forward to the time when the world in all its life, its personal, its industrial, its intellectual, its moral, its political, and its religious life, shall be Christ-like, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea." In the afternoon the children's hour was |