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years ago, stopt at one of the West India Islands on his way home. One of the natives offered him five small lumps of a dirty-looking substance which the native asserted was good for something. The native further informed the captain that he had got these pieces from a dead whale which was ashore on a certain beach and that there was plenty more in the carcass.

Did the captain hoist all sail and get to that dead whale as fast as the winds of Providence would permit? Not a bit of it. He had been made captain for the purpose of going after sperm oil, and he concluded that he'd better stick to his job. So he gave the native a pair of blue overalls and a jumper for the five dirty lumps and went on his way.

After he had made port he showed the five lumps to Mr. Stull, and when the latter gave him $700 for them he almost had a fit. Still that shock was nothing to what he got a little later, for he learned that another captain had heard of the dead whale, had got what ambergris still remained in the carcass and had sold it in New York for $30,000. It was estimated that this whale must have contained in all at least $50,000 worth of ambergris.

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Opportunity Seized—See.

OPPOSITION

Ornithologists assure us that the eagle, the condor of the Andes, the albatross of the Pacific, and even the swiftly-flying little dove, like many other birds that are strong on the wing, can fly more swiftly against a wind than in a gentle breeze. It may be that this is because they are thus stimulated to exert the muscular strength of their pinions. But, however this may be, it is a fact that the fires of a steamship burn much more fiercely under the boilers when the vessel is going against a head-wind.

Christian effort of the right kind is at its best when opposition is faced, for this very condition brings us into contact with the divine resources which are ever on our side.

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OPPOSITION TO MISSIONARY WORK

I heard a little while ago of a member of one of our churches in Pennsylvania whose son graduated from a theological seminary and sent word home to his father that he had decided to be a missionary, and asking him for his approval; and the father sat down in a towering rage and wrote back to him something like this: "This is absolutely the saddest message I have ever received from you. I could have wished that you had died in infancy, as your brother did, rather than that things should come to such a pass as this. You never will get my consent to do such a rash and foolish thing. I will cut you entirely off from any share in my inheritance, unless you give up this idea forever; and I do not care to see your face again until you have given it up." Imagine that kind of an answer from a professing Christian! In spite of it, the man is in Japan as a missionary to-day. Would it not be far more Christlike to take the attitude that my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Paton did over at Pittsburg three years ago, when their only child, a beautiful, clever, tender girl, came to them one day and said she wanted to be a missionary out in Africa? And they were so much in sympathy with Christ that they said, "We shall be very glad to have you go." Then, as they thought and prayed over it for a few days, they decided that they could not let anybody else support their daughter, and so they sent word to the mission board that they wanted to have the privilege for the rest of their lives of paying their daughter's salary while she worked over yonder in Africa. And when one and another of their friends came to them, protesting against this madness in sending their only child away off to bury her life in the heart of Africa, their simple answer to these critics was in words like these, "Our Lord has given His best to us, and our best is not too good for Him."—, "Student Volunteer Movement," 1906.

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OPTIMISM

The following verses are by M. A. Kidder:

There is many a rest in the road of life, If we only would stop to take it, And many a tone from the better land, If the querulous heart would wake it. To the sunny soul that is full of hope, And whose beautiful trust ne'er faileth, The grass is green and the flowers are bright, Tho the wintry storm prevaileth.