 Springtime a la carte by O. Henry, read for Love Stories Vol. 2 by Wayne Cook. It was a day in March. Sarah never began a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is an imaginative, flat, dry, and likely to consist of mere wind. But in this instance, it is allowable. For the following paragraph, which should have inaugurated the narrative, is too wildly extravagant and preposterous to be flaunted in the face of the reader without preparation. Sarah was crying over her bill affair. Think of a New York girl shedding tears on the menu card. To account for this, you will be allowed to guess that the lobsters were all out, or that she had sworn ice-cream off during Lent, or that she had ordered onions, or that she had just come from a hacket matinee. And then, all these theories being wrong, you will please let the story proceed. The gentleman who announced that the world was an oyster which he with his sword would open made a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice anyone trying to open the terrestrial bivalve with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw opened that way? Sarah had managed to pry apart the shells with her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit at the cold and clammy world within. She knew no more shorthand than if she had been a graduate in stenography just let slip upon the world by a business college. So not being able to stenog, she could not enter that bright galaxy of office talent. She was a freelance typewriter, and canvassed for odd jobs of copying. The most brilliant and crowning feat of Sarah's battle with the world was the deal she made with Schuylenberg's home restaurant. The restaurant was next door to the old red brick in which she hall roomed. One evening after dining at Schuylenberg's forty cent, five course, table d'horte, served as fast as you can throw the five baseballs at the colored gentleman's head, Sarah took away with her the bill of fare. It was written in an almost unreadable script, neither English nor German, and so arranged that if you were not careful, you began with a toothpick and rice pudding, and ended with soup and the day of the week. The next day Sarah showed Schuylenberg a neat card on which the menu was beautifully typewritten, with avians temptingly marshaled under their right and proper heads, from hors d'oeuvres to not responsible for overcoats and umbrellas. Schuylenberg became a naturalized citizen on the spot. Before Sarah left him, she had him willingly committed to an agreement. She was to furnish typewritten bills of fare for the twenty-one tables in the restaurant, a new bill for each day's dinner, and new ones for breakfast and lunch as often as changes occurred in the food or as neatness required. In return for this, Schuylenberg was to send three meals per diem to Sarah's hall room by a waiter, an obsequious one if possible, and furniture each afternoon with a pencil draft of what fate had in store for Schuylenberg's customers on the morrow. Mutual satisfaction resulted from the agreement. Schuylenberg's patrons now knew what the food they ate was called, even if its nature sometimes puzzled them, and Sarah had food during a cold dull winter which was the main thing with her. And then the Almanac lied, and said that spring had come. Spring comes when it comes. The frozen snows of January still lay like adamant in the crosstown streets. The hand organ still played in the good old summertime with their December vivacity and expression. Men began to make thirty-day notes to buy Easter dresses, janitors shut off the steam, and when these things happen one may know that the city is still in the clutches of winter. One afternoon Sarah shivered in her elegant hall bedroom. House-eated, scrupulously clean, conveniences seemed to be appreciated. She had no work to do except Schuylenberg's menu-cards. Sarah sat in her squeaky willow rocker and looked out the window. The calendar on the wall kept crying to her, "'Springtime is here, Sarah. Springtime is here, I tell you. Look at me, Sarah. My figures show it. You've got a neat figure yourself, Sarah. Uh, nice springtime figure. Why do you look out the window so sadly?' Sarah's room was at the back of the house. Looking out the window she could see the windowless red brick wall of the box factory on the next street. But the wall was clear as crystal. And Sarah was looking down a grassy lane, shaded with cherry trees and elms, and bordered with raspberry bushes and Cherokee roses. Spring's real harbingers are too subtle for the eye and ear. Some must have the flowering crocus, the wood-starring dogwood, the voice of a billbird, even so gross a reminder is the farewell handshake of the retiring buckwheat and oyster before they can welcome the lady in green to their dough bosoms. But to old earth's choicest kin there come straight, sweet messages from his newest bride, telling them they shall be no step-children unless they choose to be. In a previous summer Sarah had gone into the country and loved a farmer. In writing your story, never hark back thus. It is bad art and cripples interest. Let it march, march! Sarah staved two weeks at Sunnybrook Farm. There she learned to love old farmer Franklin's son, Walter. Farmers have been loved and wedded and turned out to grass in less time. But young Walter Franklin was a modern agriculturist. He had a telephone in his cowhouse, and he could figure up exactly what effect next year's Canada wheat crop would have on potatoes planted in the dark of the moon. It was in this shaded and raspberry lane that Walter had wooed and won her. And together they had sat and woven a crown of dandelions for her hair. They had immoderately praised the effect of the yellow blossoms against her brown tresses. And she had left the chaplet there, and walked back to the house, swinging her straw sailor in her hands. They were to merry in the spring, at the very first signs of spring, Walter said, and Sarah came back to the city to pound her typewriter. A knock at the door dispelled Sarah's visions of that happy day. A waiter had brought the rough pencil draft of the home restaurant's next-day fare in old Schellenberg's angular hand. Sarah sat down at her typewriter and slipped a card between the rollers. She was a nimble worker. Generally in an hour and a half the twenty-one menu cards were written and ready. Today there were more changes on the bill affair than usual. The soups were lighter. Work was eliminated from the entrees, figuring only with Russian turnips among the roasts. The gracious spirit of spring pervaded the entire menu. Lamb, that lately capered on the greening hillsides, was becoming exploited with the sauce that commemorated its gambrels. The song of the oyster, though not silenced, was diminuendo con amore. The frying pan seemed to be held inactive behind the beneficent bars of the broiler. The pilest swelled. The richer puddings had vanished. The sausage, with his drape rewrapped about him, barely lingered in a pleasant Thanatopsis with the buckwheats and the sweet but doomed maple. Sarah's fingers danced like midgets above a summer stream. Down through the courses she worked, giving each item its position, according to its length and with an accurate eye. Just above the desserts came the list of vegetables, carrots and peas, asparagus on toast, the perennial tomatoes and corn and succotash, lima beans, cabbage, and then. Sarah was crying over her bill affair. Tears from the depths of some divine despair rose in her heart and gathered to her eyes. One winter head on the little typewriter's stand, and the keyboard rattled a dry accompaniment to her moist sops. For she had received no letter from Walter in two weeks, and the next item on the bill affair was dandelions, dandelions with some kind of egg but bothered the egg. Dandelions, with whose golden blooms Walter had crowned her his queen of love and future bride, dandelions, the harbingers of spring, her sorrows, crown of sorrow, reminder of her happiest days. Madam, I dare you to smile until you suffer this test. Let the merchile kneel roses that Percy brought you on the night you gave him your heart be served as a salad with French dressing before your eyes at a schulenberg tabled de Holt. Had Juliet so seen her love tokens dishonored, the sooner would she have sought the lethal herbs of the good apothecary. But what a witch's spring! Into the great cold city of stone and iron a message had to be sent. There was none to convey it but the little hearty courier of the fields with his rough green coat and modest air. She is a true soldier of fortune, this dandelion, this lion's tooth, as the French chefs call him. Flowered he will assist at love-making, wreathe in Milady's nut-brown hair. Young and callowen, unblossomed, he goes into the boiling pot and delivers the word of his sovereign mistress. By and by Sarah forced back her tears. The cards must be written. But still in a faint golden glow from her dandelion-9 dream she fingered the typewriter keys absently for a little while with her mind and heart in the metal lane with her young farmer. But soon she came swiftly back to the rock-bound lanes of Manhattan and the typewriter began to rattle and jump like a strike-breaker's motor-car. At six o'clock the waiter brought her dinner and carried away the typewritten bill of fare. When Sarah ate she set aside with a sigh the dish of dandelions with its crowning o' various accompaniment. As this dark mass had been transformed from a bright and love-endorsed flower to be an ignominious vegetable, so had her summer hopes wilted and perished. Love may, as Shakespeare said, feed on itself. But Sarah could not bring herself to eat the dandelions that had graced as ornaments the first spiritual banquet of her heart's true affection. At seven thirty the couple in the next room began to quarrel. The man in the room above sought for a on his flute. The gas went a little lower. Three coal wagons started to unload. The only sound of which the phonograph is jealous. Cats on the back fences slowly retreated towards Muckton. By these signs Sarah knew it was time for her to read. She got out the cloister in the hearth, the best non-selling book of the month, settled her feet on her trunk, and began to wander with Gerard. The front doorbell rang. The landlady answered it. Sarah left Gerard and Denny's tree to buy a bear and listened. Oh, yes, you would, just as she did. And then a strong voice was heard in the hall below, and Sarah jumped for her door, leaving the book on the floor in the first round easily the bears. You have guessed it. She reached the top of the stairs just as her farmer came up, three at a jump, and reaped and garnered her with nothing left for the gleaners. Why haven't you written—oh, why? cried Sarah. New York's a pretty large town, said Walter Franklin. I came in a week ago to your old address, and found that you went away on a Thursday. That consoled some. It eliminated the possible Friday bad luck. But it didn't prevent my hunting for you with police and otherwise ever since. I wrote, said Sarah vehemently, never got it. Then how did you find me? The young farmer smiled a springtime smile. I dropped into that home restaurant next door this evening, said he. I don't care who knows it. I like a dish of some kind of greens at this time of the year. I ran my eye down that nice type-written bill of fare looking for something in that line. When I got below cabbage, I turned to my chair over and hollered for the proprietor. He told me where you lived. I remember, cites Sarah happily. That was dandelions below the cabbage. I know that cranky capital W way above the line your top rider makes anywhere in the world, said Franklin. Why, there's no W in dandelions? Said Sarah in surprise. The young man drew the bill of fare from his pocket and pointed to a line. Sarah recognized the first card she had typewritten that afternoon. There was still the raid splotch in the upper right-hand corner where a tear had fallen, but over the spot where one should have read the name of the meadow plant, the clinging memory of their gold and blossoms had allowed her fingers to strike strange keys. Between the red cabbage and the stuffed green peppers was the item. Dearest Walter with hard-boiled egg. End of Spring Alocart by O'Henry. The ten-fifteen train glided from Paddington May 7th, 1847. In the left compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers. Of these, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white, delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed to change color, and a good-sized, delicious mouth with teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth. Her own sex could and would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an unpretending grayish dress, buttoned to the throat with losanger-shaped buttons and a scotch shawl that agreeably evaded the responsibility of color. She was like a duck, so tight her plain feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand and a souson of her snowy wrist, just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbor was what I call a good style of man, the more to his credit since he belonged to a corporation that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young man. He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a mustache, but not a repulsive one, not one of those sub-nasal pigtails on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub. It was short, thick, and black as coal. His teeth had not as yet been turned by tobacco-smoke to the color of tobacco-juice. His clothes did not stick to nor hang on him. They sat on him. He had an engaging smile, and what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other people's who have none. In a word he was what one often hears often meets, a young gentleman. He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow officer. They were talking about what it is far better not to do, women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard, for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair vis-à-vis, and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper, and in that whisper the truth must be told. The one who got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three, that he, who was going down with us to Bath and immortality, would not kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. Done, done! Now I'm sorry a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself even in a whisper to such a speculation, but nobody is wise at all ours, not even when the clock is striking five and twenty, and you are to consider his profession, his good looks, and the temptation ten to three. After Slough the party was reduced to three. At Twyford one lady dropped her handkerchief. Then Dollygnan fell on it like a tiger, and returned it like a lamb. Two or three words were interchanged on that occasion. At Reading the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that day. He bought a times, and a punch. The latter was full of steel-pen thrusts and wood-cuts. Valor and beauty dained to laugh at some inflated humbug or other punctured by punch. Now laughing together thaws our human ice. Long before Swindon it was a talking-match. At Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dollygnan? He handed them out. He souped them. He tough-chickened them. He branded and cautioneeled one, a note, this is supposed to allude to two decoctions called Port and Sherry, and imagined by one earthly nation to partake of a vilest nature. And he branded and burnt sugared the other. On their return to the carriage one lady passed into the inner compartment to inspect a certain gentleman's seat on that side the line. Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the deserter. The average one would have stayed with us till all was blue, ourselves included. Not more surely does our slice of bread and butter when it escapes from our hand revolve it ever so often. A light faced downwards on the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop, a donis, a dragoon, so Venus remained in a tate-tate with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown female of his species. How handsome! How onpese! How expressive he becomes! Such was Dollygnan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice he got handsomer and handsomer. And you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream. Such was Miss Hathorn. She became Demiore and Demiore. Presently our captain looked out of the window and laughed. This elicited an inquiring look from Miss Hathorn. Hm! We are only a mile from the box-tunnel. Oh! Do you always laugh a mile from the box-tunnel? said the lady. Invariably. What for? Why, it's a gentleman's joke. Oh! I don't mind it being silly if it makes me laugh. Captain Dollygnan, thus encouraged, recounted to Miss Hathorn the following. A lady and her husband sat together going through the box-tunnel. There was one gentleman opposite, and it was pitch dark. Through the tunnel the lady said, George, how absurd of you to salute me going through the tunnel. I did no such thing. You didn't? No. Why? Why, because somehow I thought you did. Here Captain Dollygnan laughed, and endeavoured to lead his companion to laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel. Miss Hathorn. Oh! Dollygnan. Oh! What's the matter? Miss Hathorn. I'm frightened. Dollygnan. Moving to her side. Oh! Pray do not be alarmed. I am near you. Miss Hathorn. You are near me. Very near me indeed, Captain Dollygnan. And Dollygnan. Oh! You know my name! Miss Hathorn. Oh! Dollygnan. Oh! What's the matter? Miss Hathorn. I'm frightened. Dollygnan. Moving to her side. Oh! Pray do not be alarmed. Miss Hathorn. I heard your friend mention it. Oh! I wish we were out of this dark place. Dollygnan. I could be content to spend hours here reassuring you, sweet lady. Miss Hathorn. Oh! Nonsense! Dollygnan. Mwah! A grave reader. Do not put your lips to the cheek of the next pretty creature you meet, or you will understand what this means. Miss Hathorn. Oh! Oh! A friend. Oh! What's the matter? Miss Hathorn. Open the door! Open the door! The door was opened. There was a sound of hurried whispers. The door was shut, and the blind pulled down with hostile sharpness. Miss Hathorn's scream lost a part of its effect because the engine whistled 40,000 murders at the same moment, and fictitious grief makes itself heard when real cannot. In the tunnel and bath our young friend had time to ask himself whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman. With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door. His late friends attempted to escape on the other side. Impossible! They must pass him, she whom he had insulted, Latin for kissed, deposited somewhere at his foot a look of gentle blushing reproach, the other whom he had not insulted, darted red hot daggers at him from her eyes, and so they parted. It was perhaps fortunate for Dollygnand that he had the grace to be friends with major Hoskins of his regiment. A veteran laughed at by the youngsters, for the major was too apt to look coldly upon billiard-balls and cigars. He had seen cannon-balls and lint-stocks. He had also, to tell the truth, swallowed a good bit of the mess-room poker, but with it some sort of moral poker, which made it as impossible for major Hoskins to descend to an un-gentleman-like word or action as to brush his own trousers below the knee. Captain Dollygnand told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents, but major Hoskins heard him coldly, and as coldly answered that he had known a man lose his life for the same thing. That is nothing, continued the major, but unfortunately he deserved to lose it. At this the blood mounted to the younger man's temples, and his senior added, I mean to say, he was thirty-five. You, I presume, are twenty-one? Twenty-five? Oh, that's much the same thing. Will you be advised by me? Oh, if you will advise me. Speak to no one of this, and send White the three pounds that he may think you've lost the bet. Oh, that's hard when I won it. Do it for all that, sir. Let the disbelievers in human perfectability know that this dragoon capable of a blush did this virtuous action, albeit with violent reluctance, and it was his first damper. A week after these events he was at a ball. He was in that state of factious discontent which belongs to us amiable English. He was looking in vain for a lady equal in personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George Dolegnan as a man, when suddenly there glided past him a most delightful vision, a lady whose beauty and symmetry took him by the eyes. Another look. It can't be. Yes, it is. Miss Haythorn, not that he knew her name, but what an apotheosis. The duck had become a peahen, radiant, dazzling. She looked twice as beautiful and almost twice as large as before. He lost sight of her. He found her again. She was so lovely she made him ill, and he alone must not dance with her nor speak to her. If he had been content to begin her acquaintance in the usual way, it might have ended in kissing. But having begun with kissing, it must end in nothing. As she danced, sparks of beauty fell from her on all around but him. She did not see him. It was clear she would never see him. One gentleman was particularly assiduous. She smiled on his aciduity. He was ugly, but she smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success, his ill taste, his ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found himself injured. Who was this man, and what right had he to go on so? He had never kissed her, I suppose, said Dolignan. Dolignan could not prove it, but he felt that somehow the rights of property were invaded. He went home, and dreamed of Miss Haythorne, and hated all the ugly successful. And note, when our successful rival is ugly, the blow is doubly severe, and crushing, we fall by bludgeon, we who thought the keenest rapier might perchance thrust at us in vain. He spent a fortnight trying to find out who this beauty was. He never could encounter her again. At last he heard of her in this way. A lawyer's clerk paid him a little visit, and commenced a little action against him in the name of Miss Haythorne, for insulting her in a railway train. The young gentleman was shocked, endeavoured to soften the lawyer's clerk. That machine did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of the term. The lady's name, however, was at last revealed by this untoward incident. From her name to her address was but a short step, and the same day our crestfallen hero lay in wait at her door, and many a succeeding day, without effect. But one fine afternoon she issued forth quite naturally, as if she did it every day, and walked briskly on the nearest parade. Dolignan did the same. He met and passed her many times on the parade, and searched for pity in her eyes, but found neither look, nor recognition, nor any other sentiment. For all this she walked and walked till all the other promenaders were tired and gone. Then her culprit summoned resolution, and taking off his hat with her voice tremulous for the first time, besought permission to address her. She stopped, blushed, and neither acknowledged nor disowned his acquaintance. He blushed, and stammered out how ashamed he was, how he deserved to be punished, how he was punished, how little she knew how unhappy he was, and concluded by begging her not to let all the world know the disgrace of a man who was already mortified enough by the loss of her acquaintance. She asked an explanation. He told her of the action that had been commenced in her name, and she gently shrugged her shoulders and said, Oh, how stupid they are! Emboldened by this, he begged to know whether or not a life of distant, unpretending devotion would, after a lapse of years, erase the memory of his madness, his crime. She did not know. She must now bid him adieu, as she had some preparations to make for a ball in the crescent, where everybody was to be. They parted, and Dollygnan determined to be at the ball where everybody was to be. He was there, and after some time he obtained an introduction to Miss Hathorn, and he danced with her. Her manner was gracious. With the wonderful tact of her sex she seemed to have commenced the acquaintance that evening. That night, for the first time, Dollygnan was in love. I will spare the reader all the lovers' arts by which he succeeded in dining where she dined, in dancing where she danced, in overtaking her by accident when she rode. His devotion followed her even to church, where our dragoon was rewarded by learning there is a world where thine neither pulp nor smoke, the two capital abominations of this one. He made acquaintance with her uncle, who liked him, and he saw at last with joy that her eye loved to dwell upon him when she thought he did not observe her. It was three months after the box-tunnel that Captain Dollygnan called one day upon Captain Hawthorne R.N., whom he had met twice in his life, and slightly propitiated by resolutely listening to a cutting-out expedition, he called, and in the usual way asked permission to pay his addresses to his daughter. The worthy Captain straightaway began doing quarter-deck, when suddenly he was summoned from the apartment by a mysterious message. On his return he announced with a total change of voice that it was all right, and his visitor might run alongside as soon as he chose. My reader has defined the truth. This nautical commander, terrible to the foe, was in complete and happy subjugation to his daughter, our heroine. As he was taking leave, Dollygnan saw his divinity glide into the drawing-room. He followed her, observed a sweet consciousness which encouraged him. That consciousness deepened into confusion. She tried to laugh, she cried instead, and then she smiled again, and when he kissed her hand at the door it was George and Marion, instead of Captain this and Miss the other. A reasonable time after this, for my tale is merciful and skips formalities and torturing delays, these two were very happy. They were once more upon the railroad, going to enjoy the honeymoon all by themselves. Dollygnan was dressed just as before, duck-like and delicious, all bright except her clothes, but George sat beside her this time instead of opposite, and she drank him in gently from under her long eyelashes. Marion, said George, married people should tell each other all. Will you ever forgive me if I own to you? Oh, no. Yes. Yes. Well, then, you remember the box-tunnel? This was the first illusion he had ventured to it. I'm ashamed to say I had bet three pounds to ten pounds with white. I would kiss one of you two ladies. And George, pathetic externally, chuckled within. Oh, I know that, George, I overheard you, was the dimmure reply. You overheard me? Impossible. And did you not hear me whisper to my companion? I made a bet with her. You made a bet? How singular! What was it? Only a pair of gloves, George. Oh, yes, I know. But what about? Oh, that if you did, you should be my husband, dearest. Oh, what stay? Then you could not have been so very angry with me, love. Why, dearest, then who brought that action against me? Mrs. Dollington, look down. I was afraid you were forgetting me. George, you will never forgive me. Oh, sweet angel, why, here is the box-tunnel. Now, reader, fae, no, no such thing. You can't expect to be indulged in this way every time we come to a dark place. Besides, it's not the thing. Consider two sensible married people. No such phenomenon, I assure you, took place. No scream issued in hopeless rivalry of the engine. This time, End of the Box-Tunnel, by Charles Reed. The Extravagances of Love by Archie Bald, Alexander. Read for Love Stories, volume two by Chad Horner from Ballyclair in County Andrew, Northern Ireland. Situated in the northeast of the island of Ireland. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Extravagance of Love by Archbishop Alexander. Whenever this Gospel was preached, this that she had done shall be told as a memorial of her. What a gracious memorial, and how worthy of it was Mary's beautiful outburst of generosity. But what a pity that the speech of Judas should be recorded also as a memorial of him. And yet, on mature consideration, we would not have the Judas criticism forgotten, because it called forth what we might not otherwise have had, the vindication of Jesus himself. And because, as a matter of fact, we are constantly hearing the protest of Judas repeated in our own day, and are often ill-held to know how to meet it, this he said, not because he loved the poor, but because he was a thief and kept the bag. Yet he might have been an honest man and said the same thing, for very many honest and earnest men and women are repeating this criticism still. It is repeated, whenever it is taken for granted, that practical utility is the only standard by which to judge actions and offerings, that God and man can be served in no other way than by iron bars and perspiration. How often do we meet the type of mind that admits the service of a playman and denies that of poet or artist, for whom the waterfall, as somebody has said, exists merely as so much power for driving turbines, and whose sole test of usefulness is that of making two blades grow, and corn blades and that, where but one grew before. We are commonly bribed by this type of person, and yet we fail that somehow, if we could only say it, he is wrong, that the poets is as defined a vocation as the farmers, that God meant a silver band of falling water in a green glade to suggest other things besides dynamos, and that he who even paints some blades of grass and paints them pleasingly has his place somewhere in the great guild of servants of God and man. One has heard the same attitude taken up in other directions too. Why spend so much money on a church, you will be asked, when there are so many purpeople in the land, what need for stone pillars and a fine organ, when a plain building and a harmonium would do as well? Why try to secure what is called a beautiful church service, dignified, stately, musical, and the very boldest worship is acceptable in God's sight, if only it be sincere. We have heard all that and other remarks like that often, and we have seldom been able to give reasons against him, and mere instinctive sentiment seems a feeble thing to oppose to such cold and hard facts. Yet somehow we feel that it is all wrong if only we knew how to convict it. Did it ever occur to you that Jesus himself has answered that objection and others like it, when he vindicated Mary's action that night? There is no doubt that her ointment cost a deal of money, money that could have fed many hungry people. It was an extravagant offering, without any practical outcome, save that Jesus was refreshed. There is no doubt also about our Lord's sympathy with the poor and needy, and yet he upheld Mary's action and would not have it called wasteful. All that could be said in this favour was that it was beautiful, that it touched Jesus keenly and influenced all who saw it dumb, and that as I read the story was one reason at least why Jesus defended it. He allows the beautiful, he would have the beautiful honoured. Even in a world so full of sorrow and trouble as this. From my part I am very grateful that this word of Christ has been recorded, for it affords sufficient warrant for declaring the poet, the artist, the architect, and all those who are trying to make the world more beautiful, God's servants too, offering him a gift he does not stain to recognise, as truly as the physician, the philanthropist, and the preacher, whose object is to make it better. Beauty of form and structure has been lavished profusely by the creator on creatures too small to be seen. There are more things grew out of God's earth than corn for food or timber for building houses, there's the heather and the wild flowers, the daisies and the violets. Hard-headed, common sense asks, what's the use of them, what good do they do? The answer is that they are beautiful, and that seems in God's sight to be justification enough for having made them. So when we see love breaking her alabaster box, and pouring forth her offering without stint, as she is doing every day, a mother lavishing care upon an ungrateful son, a husband surrounding a peevish wife with a terrorist devotion, or a sister keeping her own love dream and arms length, that she may guard and guide some graceless brother, let us lay our hands upon our lips when we are tempted to criticise. These actions may be foolish, extravagant, exotic, and may outrage every canon of common sense. But there is a fragrance about them, without which the world would be much poorer. They are morally beautiful, and for that reason, our Lord himself would teach us, they are not to be rudely handled, nor judged by any hard standard. Yes, but he said more than that, he found a more complete extinuation of Mary's extravagance. It was because she loved much, her gift was an offering of love to himself. She hath done it for my burial, and that is the end of the whole matter, my brothers. Love is always extravagant, when measured by the tape line of burgery, it always overflows, it breaks its box and gives everything it has, yet, like the widow's curse of old, its casket is never empty, for even when it has given it all, the next needy case will find its sucker at that door. Take your charity subscription sheet, to the man who loudly asserts that too much money is being given to the Kirk this dull season, and what will you get? Take it also to the man who has signed a bigger cheque, than he can well afford, that the house of his God may be made beautiful, and it will be strange if he are sent empty away. Oh no, it is not Mary whose devotion has found outlet, in some sudden generosity. It is not she who neglects the poor. End of The Extravagance of Love, by Archibald Alexander. The Knowledge of Christ's Love It is the distinguishing mark of God's people that they know the love of Christ. Without exception all those who have passed from death unto life, whatever they may not know, have learned this, and without exception all those who are not saved, whatever they may know, besides knowing nothing of this, or to know the love of Christ, to taste its sweetness, to realise it personally, experimentally and vitally, as shed abroad in our hearts, but the Holy Ghost is the privilege of the child of God alone. This is the secure enclosure into which the stranger cannot enter. This is the garden of the Lord, so well protected by walls and hedges, that no wild boar of the wood can enter. Only the redeemed of the Lord shall walk here. They and only they may pluck the fruits and content themselves with the delight they're of. How important them becomes to question, do I know the love of Christ? Have I felt it? Do I understand it? Is it shed abroad in my heart? Do I know that Jesus loves me? Is my heart quickened and animated and warmed and attracted towards him, through the great truth that it recognises and rejoices in, that Christ has really loved me and chosen me, and set his heart upon me? But while it is true that every child of God knows the love of Christ, it is equally true that all the children of God do not know this love, to the same extent they are in Christ's family. Babes, young men, strong men and fathers, and as they grow and progress in all other matters, so they most certainly make advances here. Indeed, an increase of love, a more perfect apprehension of Christ's love, is one of the best and most infallible gauges whereby we may test ourselves, whether we have grown in grace or not. If we have grown in grace, it is absolutely certain that we shall have advanced in our knowledge and reciprocation of the love of Christ. Many have believed in Jesus and know a little of his love, but oh, it is little indeed they know, in comparison with some others who have been brought into the inner chamber and made to drink of the spiced wine of Christ's promagrana. Some have begun to climb the mountain, and the view which lies at their feet is lovely and passing fair, but the landscape is not such as to greet their eyes if they could withstand where advanced saints are standing, and could look to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, and see all the lengths and breadth and depths and heights of the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. End of The Knowledge of Christ Love by Charles Haddon's Version