A Problem.

A YOUNG man, distinguished for his mathematical attainments, was fond of challenging his fellow-students to a trial of skill in solving difficult problems. One day a class-mate came into his study, and laying a folded paper before him, said: “There is a problem I wish you would help me to solve,” and immediately left the room. The paper was eagerly unfolded, and there, instead of a question in mathematics, were traced the lines, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
With a gesture of impatience, he tore the paper to atoms, and turned again to his books. But in vain he tried to shake off the impression of the solemn words he had read. The Holy Spirit pressed home his convictions of guilt and danger, so that he could find no peace, till he found it in believing in Jesus. He subsequently became a preacher of the Gospel he had once despised, and his first sermon was from the words, so eminently blessed to his own soul: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”