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GRACE SUFFICIENT. It is a serious question, whether the grace of God is sufficient for all our needs. Diversity is the law of God's universe. Every leaf dif fers from ever}' other leaf. Every grain of sand is shaped unlike every other. In the realm of human experience there is untold variety. The slightest turn may change the channel of a whole life. Deep down in each heart is the feeling that ''There is a divinity that shapes our ends Rough hew them how we will." Man is incurably a believer in a divine pre destination. Then the question is: Is God's graee equal to this endless variety of human sin ami human experience? His word declares that it is, "My grace is sufficient for thee," said a heavenly voice to a suffering saint. If it is what the word declares, it is sufficient for all our sins. Paul was the greatest sinner. At least he says so, by divine inspiration. He declares that he was "the chief of sinners." But he could say in the same inspired way, "But by the grace of God I am what I am," namely, the chief of saints, the marvelous master mission ary of the world, the chosen of God to be caught up into the third heaven. The woman of sin is lost in the mire, but the forgiving grace of Jesus reached even such an one, peni tently weeping in the house of Simon. The unpardonable sin is only beyond the grace of God, because it is the fatal and final rejection of that grace. It is tho spitting upon, and spurning of the last overture of love. Like the prisoner of the Bastile this sinner wants only his hideous place of sin. God with an in finite grace can only say, "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let Him alone." Is grace sufficient for our growth in spiritual life? We are often taught wrongly that this is something with which God's mercy has nothing to do. Grace starts us off, but we must keep up the pace and proceed. We need not only to be born, but we need to grow. Can we grow without the warm, loving life-continu ing power of God ? Surely not. Our position before God in this life is that of children. And as children would go wrong without the careful nurture of parents, so would God's children without His grace sus taining, strengthening and guiding us. We are bidden to work out our salvation, but we fail to read on, for it is God who is working in us "according to His good pleas ure, both to will and to do." God's grace is needed. So we are bidden to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Grace is the sphere of growth, the necessary condition of development. This world is called a vale of tears. Sorrows stand round us on every hand. The sharp shafts of distress assail all of us sooner or later. Is there no balm in Gilead for the sorrows of God's people? Paul had the greatest honor accorded man, but at the same time the greatest sorrow. He was taken up into the third heaven and saw things he could not tell, but he bad "a stake" in his side, for he prayed that the Lord would remove it, but He did not do so. Paul learned as many a man must that Christ needs our weakness more than He needs our strength. Our strength may be His rival, our weakness is His servant. In it His grace is resplendent. So we find the sufficiency of God's great grace. Is it not sufficient for you? Why not accept its gracious power to save and sanctify and soften your life? A. A. L. Contributed ON THE PATH. Egbert W. Smith. Mutoto, April 17, 1922. It may surprise some of the good people at home to know that as I pen these lines in Mr. Crane's hospitable home at Mutoto I am wear ing mv light overcoat and listening rather long ingly to t lie crackle of a lire in the adjoining room. And this in the torrid zone! Far the most novel and fascinating part of nvy trip thus far has been my fourteen days' journey by hammock and on foot from Lusainbo to Bihanga and from Uibanga to Mutoto. My companions on the path, usually one at a time, but for a few days two, were Messrs. Bedinger, AIcKee, McElroy, V. A. Anderson, and A. II. Miller. My own brothers could not have l>een kinder. Each hammock had six carriers serving two at a time in rotation and going at a swift stiff kneed walk that kept the others at a steady trot. Other bearers carried onr baggage, cots, cooking utensils, and the like, swung on poles with a bearer at each end. One or two of the relay carriers as they trotted alongside played on a little native musical instrument while the whole company usually kept up a series of har monious sounds, half song and half grunt, in perfect time and rythm with the pad, pad, pad, of the feet of the hammock bearers. On the levels we rode in the hammocks, but on all the upgrades and steep descents we walked. Most of the way was among grassy uplands continually swelling into immense smoothly rounded hills whence we would look out across what seemed a storm-tossed ocean of green, now rolling up into great billow crests that shone gold in the sun, now sinking away into black green depths. Delightful beyond all other parts of the path were the deep forest-filled canyons in which the wide trail was so completely em bowered with the dense foliage of trees and climbing vines that we walked in a cool, green, fragrant subway crossed at its lowest point by a crystal clear little stream murmuring over red, yellow, or purple rocks or slipping silently over sand as white as milk. Many of these eanyons were tremendously deep requiring the most strenuous climbing with hands as well as feet. I was continually reminde'd of Gwen's Canyon in the "The Sky Pilot" and of scenes in the N. C. mountains. Sometimes for miles we would travel in a footpath ten inches wide amid thick grass rising high above our heads. The crocks we crossed borne on the naked back or shoulders of a native and the rivers in native canoes often 80 feet long. Through at least 100 villages we passed, al-' ways exciting the greatest interest, scores of the villagers, especially the young people, run ning alongside our hammocks with smiles and native songs. Of these villages, 17 were our mission outstations, where we spent the nights, usually in the cottage of the native evangelist, and at all of which, as well as at some other points, we held services. At the beating of the native wooden drum the church shed would be speedily filled. After one or two gospel hymns the missionary would introduce me by the name given me by the natives, Muakashi Munene, which means "The Great One Who Makes (people and things) Better." These natives, by the way, have remarkable insight into char acter. After a brief address from me, inter preted by the missionary, and a hymn and Scripture reading, the missionary would preach, while I, in a chair facing the audience, would study the people. After closely observing large congregations at out main stations, and about 30 other au diences in different parts of our mission terri tory, I record my surprise at the physical ex cellence of the people. With rare exceptions they have fine figures, due no doubt to their open air life, while the women's habit from childhood of carrying all loads on their heads has given them an erect and graceful carriage that any western woman might envy. The average native foot is about as well shaped, with as high an instep, as the average white foot. I was especially struck with the native head, which is well proportioned, with good forehead, and abundant brain room above and in front of the ears. The nose is broad and low and relatively less prominent, and the mouth and lips are larger and relatively more prominent, than the same features in the average white face. In most of the congregations'! was struck with the unusual width between the eyes, a good sign of mental breadth and capa city. In a single outstation audience I often noticed several people whose eyes seemed al most abnormally wide apart. If the above description does not tally with the popular notion of the African negro, the explanation is simple. Strictly speaking these people are not Negroes. There are four native races in Africa, all dark skinned ; the Bushmen, the Hottentots, the Negroes, and the Bantus. From the Negroes on the West Coast, the Guinea Coast, came most of the slave ancestors of our American colored people. The largest African race is the Bantu, numbering about fifty million, and speaking 300 languages and dialects which all show a striking uniformity of construction but which are as different from the languages of the Negro racial group as Eng lish is different from Chinese. The people of the Upper Congo are Bantus and it is among them that our mission is working. While emo tionalism is a distinctive trait of the American negro, it is not a distinctive trait of the Upper Congo people. Sobriety is as marked a feature of the religious life and worship of the native Christians here as it is of our white Christians at home. How I wish these white Christians could have sat with me in those outstation services! Only a small fraction of the people attending were Christians, though a larger fraction were usually catechumens, that is, enrolled members of the native evangelist's study class. Yet the whole congregation had usually been taught by the evangelist a largo number of the gospol hymns, both tunes and words, since few ha<l learned .to read and only the evangelist owned a hymn book. The people, though, have won derfully quick and retentive memories and de light in singing. Think what it must be in a heathen village, brooded over by dark and cruel superstition, to have this Christian outstation where scores of people regularly gather, long before they arc ready to give up their heathen vices, charms, witch-medicines, and fetiches, to sing from memory such hymns as "The Great Physician." "Trust and Obey," "Who is on the Lord'* Side?" "Jesus Loves Me," "There is a Foun tain," "Pasl Me Not," "I Hear Thy Welcome Voice," "Come, Thou Fount," "The Head That Once Was Crowned With Thorns," "Great Go?' How Infinite Art Thou," "Jesus Is Calling. "I Have a Saviour," "Hide Me," "Ring tl><* Bells of Heaven," "Shall We Gather at tl* River," "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,