Choice Reading for Christian Homes

MINNIE GRAY’S cup of earthly happiness was filled to the brim, when first the Lord spoke to her soul. Possessed of much that the world values highly, it smiled its sunniest smiles upon her, and she knew not that its favor was deceitful, and its smiles bestowed rather upon what she possessed than upon what she herself was. It all looked bright and fair to her, and she knew of nothing beyond to eclipse its brightness.

Minnie had been left an orphan at too early an age to know how great had been her loss; and the aged relative under whose care she had grown up had but one object in life―the happiness of her charge; and this she thought to secure by giving her her own way in everything.

It was early on a summer evening that, accompanied by several young friends, Minnie went one evening to a quiet-looking building, half chapel, half meeting-room in shape. The whole party went at Minnie’s suggestion, out of curiosity, wondering what could attract so many people to spend a bright summer’s evening in what seemed to them so gloomy a way.

“We will just go in for a quarter of an hour, and find out what the magnet is,” said Minnie; “we can sit close to the door, and easily slip quietly out again;” and, as usual, what Minnie Gray proposed was seconded by her friends, and they entered.

Her plan, however, of sitting close to the door and slipping quietly out was defeated: the building was already well filled; and though the strangers were shown seats, yet they were necessarily separated, and Minnie found herself away from all her friends, and directly in front of the preacher’s desk.

For a moment she was disposed to he amused at the novel circumstances into which she had drawn her companions, as she pictured to herself their dismay at being compelled to spend an entire evening in this manner. But soon her whole attention was fixed. First, the manner―the deep-toned earnestness, then the words of the preacher arrested her; and as he reasoned of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” Minnie, like one of old, trembled. She had heard of prayers and alms; she had never heard of righteousness and judgment after this fashion. The eye of the preacher seemed fixed on her, and she sat spellbound. Everything else was for the moment forgotten, save the thought that this was truth, and how could she escape this terrible judgment, so near, so imminent. The fact forced itself on her soul that there was a hereafter, about which she had never yet thought, a God whose claims she bad never yet recognized.

She knew nothing beyond earth and its delights, and suddenly eternity was unfolded before her soul’s gaze.

The preacher warned the young, the gay, the careless, and such she felt she was. The terrors of the Lord made her afraid and long to flee from them. She almost asked aloud, “Preacher, is there no escape from this fearful judgment―this awful hell?” But even as the thought filled her mind, the preacher turned from God’s strange work of judgment to speak of the love of His heart―of the way of escape He Himself has devised and provided through the blood of His own Son―of Christ, the open door―the way in, for the vilest, to the Father’s house―the only way in for any who would enter there―the only way to escape from the wrath to come. The preacher grew more and more enamored of his subject. It seemed beyond measure sweet to him to speak of the attractiveness of Christ; to dwell on His altogether loveliness, to hold Him up that other eyes and other hearts might gaze on Him too, and be attracted to worship and to follow Him.

But Minnie saw no beauty in Him that she should desire Him. The eleventh of Matthew had been the speaker’s theme, and he closed with the touching invitation from the lips of the Saviour Himself, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” But Minnie felt no weariness, no need of rest; the world had been only a fair bright scene to her, yet the words rang in her ears, as words she had heard before, and would hear again, though they had no sweet sound for her.

She wanted to be sheltered from judgment, but she did not want Christ. To her, heaven seemed a dreary place, to which she only cared to go in order to escape the horrors of hell, when at some time she must die and leave the world; and that time she hoped was far distant. To be a Christian after the preacher’s fashion seemed to her such a gloomy thing. Was there no resource―no middle ground between this and the fearful eternity he had pictured, and which something told her was a true picture?

Satan whispered to her that there was “Time enough; that the preacher was an enthusiast; and that there was no need to be in such a hurry, or to be distressed and anxious.” She welcomed the suggestion, and, her conscience being lulled for the moment, she turned with quick eager glance to scan the faces around her, to see if she saw in them the reflex of her own terrors or the preacher’s anxiety. In one or two of all the number could she discover any traces of either. By their looks, by their very air, she fancied that most were, as she expressed it, “regular attendants there;” but though some were attentive, others showed signs of weariness; some were restless, some pulled out their watches and seemed impatient; little knowing they were watched by a soul who was measuring the truth of God by their actions.

“Oh,” she thought, “my case is not so desperate; it is clear others do not think all he is saying is true, or they would be as earnest as he; he is evidently an enthusiast, led away by the subject; there is time enough; I need not decide yet; I will think about it. If they all seemed as concerned, I should feel as though it were now or never.”

Still the words, “Come unto Me,” “Depart from Me,” rang in her ears, and made her bright face unusually clouded as she left the building, and her friends rallied her on her silence, till one, more observant than the rest, said, “Surely, Minnie, you a not thinking there was any truth in that man’s words.” Minnie colored, but made answer, “Suppose, after all, they are true, it is solemn for us.” There was a general exclamation, and the one who had spoken before said, with a laugh, “Fancy Minnie Gray numbered with the Methodists! what will H― say?” Satan had been on the watch to catch away the word out of her heart lest she should “believe and be saved,” and he knew well the right shaft to use to displace the arrow of conviction that had begun to rankle there. Minnie did not answer her friend’s last remark, she too began to wonder what would H― say, for in less than three months she was to be his wife.

For a moment, in her anxiety about the future, earth had been distanced, but now its hopes and joys began to crowd in again on her heart with the thought of the one in whom they were centered, and the words that had so impressed her grew less powerful. In the stillness of the night, and alone, she could not quite so easily get rid of them, but again the devil whispered, “There is time enough. You are so young; do not decide now; you would have to give up so much―it might have to be H―for Christ;” and she listened to what he suggested to her; resolutely she put aside the words she had heard, refused the call of Him who would have drawn her by cords of love to Himself, and chose earth as her portion; her heart was too full to make room for Christ.

But He would not give her up; she refused His call, He stretched forth His hand, and took from her the one who had come between her soul and Himself. Scarcely two months from the night when she deliberately stifled the voice of conscience, made her choice, and turned her back on Christ, and just when everything looked brightest and fairest, in a moment all was changed. A telegraphic message with its terrible brevity was her only preparation for the sorrow that changed her whole life, and she sat stunned and bewildered.

She had never dreamed of death coming to him. It was sorrow too deep for earthly comfort; and she knew not the One who alone could heal the deep wound.

An aged Christian who had known her mother in her youth was passing through her town and went to see her, trusting that in her hour of distress her heart might be opened to hear of Him who is the sorrow-bearer as well as the sin-bearer.

But she had wrapped herself in her grief, and refused all attempts at consolation. Not knowing what had passed between her soul and God two months before, her aged friend quoted once more to her the words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,” and spoke to her of the love of Him who had uttered those words; but she listened with a shudder; she could see no love in the stroke that had made her life desolate; she knew not the heart that was yearning over her in tenderest pity, saying more beseechingly than even His aged servant could, “Come, and I will give you rest.” She was weary enough now, but she let her very weariness and sorrow shut out Christ, and harden instead of soften. Her mother’s friend left her with words of prayer and deep pity; but though his visit seemed to have no effect on her, his words were blessed to the relative with whom she lived, and who soon after went peacefully home to the Lord, leaving her charge to Him, in confidence that at some time and in some way He would bring her to Himself.

A year or two passed on, the world did its utmost to draw her back again into its charmed circle; she was still courted and caressed by it, but she was weary and restless. Then the fatal disease, consumption, that had taken from her both father and mother, began to manifest itself in her too. Others saw its symptoms plainly enough, but she would not believe they were anything more than the effect of long nights of wakefulness, and a cold. She did not care to live, but she feared to die, and entered into everything to shut out thought. Speaking of this some time afterward, she said, “I would not come to Jesus, so in His love for me He drove me to seek the shelter of His arms.”

In the Autumn, her health had failed considerably, and at the same time she lost almost all that she possessed, and was left with a bare pittance. Now she found out the value of the world’s friendship. She could minister no longer to its pleasures, and she found the very ones who had most flattered and courted her were the ones who held most aloof from her now in the time of her need. A distant relative offered her a home for the time, and to her she went. Now she began to look back with agony of heart to the night when she had heard the preaching on the eleventh of Matthew. She longed again to hear words like those, and yet she feared to open her Bible and try to find them, for they seemed to condemn her. She could not pray, and there seemed no one to whom she could turn; she was far from the place where she had heard that servant of God, and she knew neither who he was nor anything concerning him. The weeks rolled by, and her strength failed perceptibly; the proud spirit, too, that had struggled against everything, seemed broken at last. She felt herself a burden in the house in which she was. Minnie Gray with health and brightness and youth and beauty and money as her possessions, and Minnie Gray the fretful invalid, were two very different people to those who looked on with the world’s eye; and when one day her relatives said something about the hospital, she was almost glad to be removed there, and rather to accept the care of utter strangers than remain an unwelcome guest.

She had been in hospital some weeks when I saw her first; and then was scarcely four-and-twenty, beautiful still, but with an expression of suffering and trouble and care on her face that made her at times look much older. I had been staying for a time in ―, and had often passed the hospital, and as often felt a great desire to go in; but unless to see a patient whom you knew, and then only at regular visiting-hours, no visitors were allowed in. It was a gloomy-looking building outside ― so gloomy that it all the more made me think, as I passed, of the sorrow and suffering that must be inside. Often I told the Lord of my wish to get in, and asked Him if He pleased to open the door. I had just given up asking, when one night very late I received a message from a lady whom I knew by name only, begging me to go to this very place for her and see a dying girl who was very anxious about her soul, as she was too ill to go herself. She sent me the name of the girl, and the number of the ward, and also told me that I might go at any hour, for the permission to visit her at any time, so full of sad meaning to loving hearts outside, had been granted in this case.

When I reached the ward to which I had been directed, early the next morning, I stood for a moment just inside the door, looking round for a nurse to tell me which was the bed of the girl I had come to see, when a voice said to me from the bed close to the door, “You have come to see me, I know.” I was astonished, and asked, “Is your name Ellen H―?” “No,” she said, “it is not; but do not say you have not come to see me, for I have been praying all night that God would send someone this morning, and when I saw you, I thought He had sent you to me.” “I trust that He has,” I said, “and I will come back to you shortly, but I have first to find Ellen H―, for I have promised to see her at once.” “Do not leave me,” she murmured, “it will be like everything else, snatched from my grasp; I hoped God had sent you, and oh, I am so weary.” “Do you not know the One who said, when He was on earth, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,’ and who says the same from heaven now?” I asked.

I was startled by the effect of my question. She trembled violently; then raised herself quickly up, and looking very eagerly at me, said, in a very excited tone, “Now I am certain it is to see me you have come; for I asked God all night long to send someone to me this morning who would speak to me of Jesus; and I thought if He did, I should know there is really a God, and that He does hear. And I have watched that door since early morning, almost since daylight, though of course I knew no one could come to the wards as early as that, to see if my prayer was answered, and when you came in just now I felt sure you were a Christian, and I found myself actually praying again that if you were the right one, you would quote those very words to me. I have not said a prayer, till last night, for five years. I did not think God would hear me, but He must have.” She was quite exhausted from the effect of speaking so rapidly and from the excitement, and I left her to recover from whatever the remembrance was that was agitating her so, and I turned to find Ellen H―.

Her bed was just at right angles to Minnie Gray’s, near enough for every word spoken to the one to be distinctly heard by the other.

Death from the same disease was fast approaching this poor girl, and her mind was wandering, but all her cry was that she was lost―too great a sinner to be saved―Jesus would not have her. It was distressing to hear her. It seemed as though she could see something which filled her with terror. “I know I am lost!” she kept crying, and then with a fearful shudder, “It is awful to go to hell!” For some minutes I stood irresolute; it seemed useless to attempt to speak to her, for she appeared quite unconscious of all that was taking place around her. Then this word came to me “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

I thought, “If it can divide between soul and spirit, enter between joints and marrow, what is to hinder its entering even here?” So I sat down by the bed, and as clearly and distinctly as I could, though in a low tone, repeated these three verses again and again. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Jesus said, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”

The woman in the next bed said, “It’s no use talking to her, she has not been conscious since last night; and they do not expect her to be again, though indeed she has done nothing but rave about these things ever since she came in.”

I knew well it must seem useless; but still, with the strong conviction that God’s words could find an entrance where man’s could not, I still repeated them a great many times―how many I do not know. She grew quite composed and quiet, and though she never was conscious again, the look of agony and despair went away from her face, and she kept on murmuring now, “To seek and to save―to seek and to save from all sin.” She died that night, so I never saw her again; but the woman in the next bed told me that just before she died she opened her eyes, and said quite clearly, “The blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanseth us from all sin,” and then never spoke again.

When I returned to Minnie Gray’s side, I was struck with the changed expression on her face, She did not wait for me to speak, but began eagerly, “Those words were all for me that you have been repeating. I was lost, and so He came to seek and to save me; I am full of sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. I have come to Him this morning, and. He will not cast me out. Tell me more about Him. I was so unwilling you should leave me and go to that girl’s bed, but perhaps you might not have read those very words to me. Do read me more.”

I asked if she had anything special she would like me to read. “Yes,” she said, “read me the chapter where that verse is, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ It is the chapter the preacher spoke from that night five years ago. I have never opened a Bible since, for fear I should see the verse again, and now I long to see it.” I thought she too must be wandering, as I knew nothing then of what she was referring to, and evidently she guessed my thought, for she said, “You think I do not know what I am saying, but it is not that.” And then she told me of that evening, five years before, of the solemn preaching, and how deeply it had impressed her, how she was “almost persuaded,” but deliberately turned away from Christ, and yet how she could never quite get rid of what she heard that night. I read to her the eleventh of Matthew, read many times the last verses at her desire. “It is rest to trust Him,” she said, “but will He never let me go?” We turned to John 10:28, 29, ― “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.” “I see,” she said, “it is He who keeps fast hold, not we.”

“What brought you here today,” she suddenly exclaimed. I told her I had been asked to come. “When?” “Late last night—about eleven o’clock.” She thought for a moment, and then said, “That was just the time when I began to ask the Lord to send someone to me today who knew Him.”

It was only little by little I learned her history. Weeks passed, and I had seen her very often, before she referred at all to the past, save to the night of the preaching, and what she evidently avoided I did not feel I could touch upon. I saw she was naturally proud and sensitive, and very refined, and I waited till she wished to trust me. As she grew worse in bodily health, her faith, and her peace too, deepened. It was never exactly joy, but deep, deep peace and rest, with ever such a sense of the grace that had met her. The expression of care and trouble left her face, and she looked even younger than her twenty-four years, almost childlike at times, save for an expression in her eyes which seemed to tell of calm beyond the storm.

Bit by bit, now a little and then a little, she told me her past history, a few of the details of which I have given, though she never referred to it save to magnify the grace of Him who had sought her until He found her―who had, as she said, never let her alone until He “drove” her to rest in Himself. “He might have said to me,” she once added, “that because He had called me and I had refused―had stretched out His hand and I had not regarded, that He would laugh at my calamity, and mock when my fear came. I only deserved that; but instead, He received me just as I was, in all my wretchedness, when I had nothing to bring Him but a wasted life, almost run out. He received me, when nobody else cared to. What a friend Jesus is! This ward has been like the gate of heaven to me. I would not change it now for my old home and my old health and my old prospects, to be again a Christ-rejecter. If I could only go back five years, and give Him my best I only would like that, because I love Him. I know He wants nothing at my hands, and I delight to owe everything to Him. I think no one in heaven will owe Him quite as much, not even the thief on the cross.

“‘Twas the same grace that spread the feast

That sweetly pressed me in,

Else I had still refused to taste,

And perished in my sin.”

Next to her Bible, there was no book she so delighted in as “Meditations on the Song of Solomon.” She used to say it always brought Jesus Himself nearer to her, and that it reminded her of “that evening’s preaching.” I had lent it her, and she asked me to let her keep it till the last. I left before the end came. She had so wonderfully rallied that even some hopes were entertained of her being able to go out again, but the improvement was very temporary. Two sweet letters I had from her, full of Christ, and some touching verses she had written, on our first meeting. Then came a penciled message directed by another hand: a week or two more, and Minnie Gray rested with Him who had loved her and washed her from her sins in His own blood, who would not give her up till He had her by His side forever.

“Do,” she often said, “tell all those you meet who are almost persuaded, but who fear quite to decide for Christ, because they think, as I did, it is a gloomy thing to be a Christian, and they would have to give up so much―tell them they lose everything and gain nothing by their indecision. Tell them, to belong to Jesus is the brightest thing even for this life; tell them how I drank at every cistern of this world and always thirsted again, but at last I drank of the water that Jesus gives, and have never thirsted more, and never shall for all eternity.”

"Must I Not Strive?" or, the Poor Man's Dinner

I HAD a long conversation the other day with a I butcher, on a railway train, on the reason why men smoke and drink. This led us to the subject of the bitter misery that sin produces, even in this life, and the various attempts that men make to smother conscience and drown sorrow.

The butcher had just lost his wife, was left with two little children, had passed through some trouble of conscience; but, what was worse, he often took too much drink. In short, we were both agreed that one great reason why men drink is the misery and burden of sin. He owned it was a wretched thing thus to go on from sin to sin, and that solemn word of God sounded heavy in his ears, “The drunkard shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” I found him much interested in the things of religion, and wishful to converse upon them. I found he purposed, at some future time, to make a firm resolution to cast off his sins and become religious. Alas! how many are now in hell who once had the same intention as this butcher He evidently thought a little striving of his own, at any time, would do all that is required.

“Well, now,” I said, “man is certainly in a wretched condition through sin; but how do you think he is to be saved from this guilt and misery?”

“Well, you know,” said the butcher, “it will not do for a man to go on in his sins until he dies, will it? He must strive hard to give up all his bad ways and live to God.”

“He will never save himself by his striving in that way,” I replied.

“What!” said he, “do you mean to say a man must not strive?”

“As long as he strives in that way he is a rejecter of Christ,” I answered.

I saw the poor man was evidently trusting in his future strivings. “Explain yourself,” said he. “Whatever do you mean?―a man striving is a man rejecting the gospel of Christ! What can you mean?”

“Let me illustrate what I mean,” I replied. “Suppose you have gone on in sin and drunkenness until you have brought your family to starvation; you have not a farthing with which to buy them food, and you are too ill to make the least effort; when a friend comes to your house, spreads your table with plenty, and begs you and yours to eat. If then you say, No, I must strive to get food myself, would not you be rejecting the kindness of your friend? and would not this rejection of his love continue as long as ever you continue your striving?”

“And is it not so with the lost sinner? Man is so bad that he really does go on sinning until he dies. Is he not as helpless as the starving man? God has come to his rescue―God has given His own Son to meet his deepest need, as a lost sinner, by the death of the cross. He died to deliver us, because we could not possibly save ourselves. God, the Friend above all friends, has come, in Christ, to our house of wretchedness and sin; and He, in pure love and pity, has spread the table of salvation―all things are ready. Oh, it is God who beseeches poor dying sinners to eat the bread of life spread before them. ‘Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’ The kindness of God to perishing sinners has now been shown by the death of Jesus. Now, pardon and deliverance are preached through Him. Surely, then, the longer I strive to save myself, the longer I reject the kindness of the God of all love.”

The man’s countenance fell; his last prop, he felt, was being taken from under him; his heart rose in rebellion against the free grace of God. If he could but have had the honor of a little striving, as merit to bring to God, he would have been well pleased; but to bow to God meeting him through the finished work of Christ, in pure, undeserved pity and love, this he would not do. He now tried to ridicule me.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you are not so good as you pretend to be.”

“You very much mistake me,” I replied, “if you suppose I pretend to be good. No; I put myself along with you: I say we are both sinners; only I feel I am a greater sinner than you, for I have given up all hope in my ability to do anything for my salvation, whilst I see you have not. I have therefore been brought, like the famished man, to receive Christ as my Saviour. I can assure you it is through His blood alone I am pardoned and washed―I have nothing else before God. It is His life from the dead that is my life. It is not in myself I boast, but in Christ Jesus the Lord.”

“I have had enough,” said he; “I will hear no more.”

A young man to my right, who had been deeply interested in the conversation, put forth his head and said: “Will you tell me that illustration again?” I repeated to him again the parable of a friend going to the famishing household, as an illustration of the work of Christ for perishing sinners. I showed him it was not that we had to do one thing for God―it was not even that we had to present the sacrifice of Christ to God and believe until God would save us, as though there were any virtue or merit in our presenting it. No; salvation was entirely from God; like the poor man’s dinner, which was entirely from the friend. That it was God who had provided that great propitiation for sin, the sacrifice of Christ―that it is God who meets the sinner, in his deepest wretchedness and helplessness―that the moment I receive in childlike faith the kindness of God, I am saved. That young man’s face now lit up with joy; it was the joy of a newborn child of God. God had, during the repeating of those words, met his weary anxious soul, and spoken peace, through the finished work of His own Son. To the one, the precious gospel had proved the savor of death unto death; to the other, of life unto life. I found the Lord had been preparing him, for three months, for this message of mercy and love. Ah, there is often a striving indeed, and a great struggling, even as the Lord said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate,” but its divine purpose is not to obtain thereby a salvation which is, if possible, more free than the air we breathe; it is to destroy in the heart all hopes in self, and lead it to accept Christ as its entire salvation― “Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:30,31).

C. S.

The Solitary Way

Psalm. 107:1-9

THERE is a mystery in human hearts,

And though we be encircled by a host

Of those who love us well, and are beloved,

To every one of us, from time to time,

There comes a sense of utter loneliness.

Our dearest friend is “stranger” to our pain,

And cannot realize our bitterness.

“There is not one who really understands,

Not one to enter into all I feel!”―

Such is the cry of each of us in turn.

We wander in “a solitary way,”

No matter what or where our lot may be

Each heart, mysterious even to itself,

Must live its inner life in solitude.

II.

And would you know the reason why this is?

It is because the Lord desires our love, —

In every heart He wishes to be first.

He therefore keeps the secret-key Himself,

To open all its chambers, and to bless,

With perfect sympathy and holy peace,

Each solitary soul which comes to Him.

So when we feel this loneliness, it is

The voice of Jesus saying, “Come to Me!”

And every time we are “not understood,”

It is another call to us to come;

For Christ alone can satisfy the soul,

And those who walk with Him from day to day

Can never have “a solitary way.”

III.

Then if beneath some great trial you faint,

And say, “I cannot bear this load alone,”

You say the truth. Christ made it purposely

So heavy that you must leave it to Him.

The bitter grief which “no one understands”

Conveys a secret message from the Lord,

Entreating you to come to Him with it.

The Man of sorrows understands it well

In all points tempted, HE can feel with you—

You cannot come too often, or too near.

The Son of God is infinite in grace,

His presence satisfies the longing soul,

And those who walk with Him from day to day

Can never have “a solitary way.”

A C.

Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment

IF A BELIEVER, why not sure of salvation?

IF SAVED, why not happy?

“WHICH CLASS ARE YOU TRAVELING?”

WHAT an oft-repeated question! Let me put it to you, my reader; for traveling you most certainly are—traveling from Time into Eternity, and who knows how very, very near you may be this moment to the GREAT TERMINUS?

Let me ask you, then, in all kindness, “Which class are you traveling?” There are but three. Let me describe them, that you may put yourself to the test as in the presence of “Him with whom you have to do.”

1st Class. ―Those who are saved, and who know it.

2nd Class. ―Those who are not sure of salvation, but anxious to be so.

3rd Class. ―Those who are not only unsaved, but totally indifferent about it.

Again I repeat my question― “Which class are you traveling?” Oh, the madness of indifference, when eternal issues are at stake! A short time since, a man came rushing into the railway station at Leicester, and while scarcely able to gasp for breath he took his seat in one of the carriages just on the point of starting.

“You’ve run it fine,” said a fellow-passenger. “Yes,” replied he, breathing heavily after every two or three words, “but I’ve saved four hours, and that’s well worth running for.”

“Saved four hours!” I couldn’t help repeating to myself― “four hours well worth that earnest struggle! What of eternity? What of eternity?” Yet are there not thousands of shrewd, far-seeing men today, who look sharply enough after their own interests in this life, but who seem stone-blind to the eternity before them? Spite of the infinite love of God to helpless rebels told out at Calvary, spite of His pronounced hatred of sin, spite of the known brevity of man’s history here, spite of the terrors of judgment after death, and of the solemn probability of waking up at last with the unbearable remorse of being on hell’s side of a “fixed” guff, man hurries on to the bitter, bitter end, as careless as if there were no God, no death, no judgment, no heaven, no hell. If the reader of these pages be such an one, may God this very moment have mercy upon you, and while you read these lines open your eyes to your most perilous position, standing as you may be on the slippery brink of an endless woe.

O friend, believe it or not, your case is truly desperate. Put off the thought of eternity no longer. Remember that procrastination is like him who deceives you by it―not only a “thief” but a “murderer.” There is much truth in the Spanish proverb, which says, “The road of ‘By-and-by’ leads to the town of ‘Never.’” I beseech you, unknown reader, to travel that road no longer. “NOW is the day of salvation.”

But, says one, I am not indifferent as to the welfare of my soul. My deep trouble lies wrapped up in another word―

UNCERTAINTY;

that is, I am among the second-class passengers you speak of.

Well, reader, both indifference and uncertainty are the offspring of one parent―unbelief. The first results from unbelief as to the sin and ruin of man; the other, unbelief as to God’s sovereign remedy for man. It is especially for souls desiring before God to be fully and unmistakably SURE of their salvation that these pages are written. I can in a great measure understand your deep soul-trouble, and am assured that the more you are in earnest about this all-important matter, the greater will be your thirst, until you know for certain that you are really and eternally saved. “For what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” The only son of a devoted father is at sea. News comes that his ship has been wrecked on some foreign shore. Who can tell the anguish of suspense in that father’s heart until, upon the most reliable authority, he is assured that his boy is safe and sound. Or, again, you are far from home. The night is dark and wintry, and your way is totally unknown. Standing at a point where two roads diverge, you ask a by-passer the way to the town you desire to reach, and he tells you he thinks that such and such a way is the right one, and hopes you will be all right if you take it. Would “thinks” and “hopes” and “maybes” satisfy you? Surely not. You must have certainty about it, or every step you take will increase your anxiety. What wonder, then, that men have sometimes been able neither to eat nor sleep when the eternal safety of the soul has been trembling in the balance.

To lose your wealth is much,

To lose your health is more,

To lose your soul is such a loss

As no man can restore.

Now, dear reader, there are three things I desire, by the Holy Spirit’s help, to make clear to you; and, to put them in Scripture language, they are these:

1. “The way of salvation” (Acts 16:17).

2. “The knowledge of salvation” (Luke 1:77).

3. “The joy of salvation” (Psa. 51:12).

We shall, I think, see that, though intimately connected, they each stand upon a separate basis; so that it is quite possible for a soul to know the way of salvation without having the certain knowledge that he himself is saved; or again, to know that he is saved without possessing at all times the joy that ought to accompany that knowledge.

First, then, let me speak briefly of

THE WAY OF SALVATION.

Please to open your Bible and read carefully the thirteenth verse of the thirteenth chapter of Exodus; there you find these words from the lips of Jehovah: “Every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb, and if thou wilt NOT redeem it, THEN THOU SHALT BREAK HIS NECK: and all the first-born of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.”

Now, come back with me, in thought, to a supposed scene of three thousand years ago. Two men (a priest of God and a poor Israelite) stand in earnest conversation. Let us stand by, with their permission, and listen. The gestures of each bespeak deep earnestness about some matter of importance, and it isn’t difficult to see that the subject of conversation is a young ass that stands trembling beside them.

I have come to know, says the poor Israelite, if there cannot be a merciful exception made in my favor this once. This little thing is the firstling of my ass, and though I know what the law of God says about it, I am hoping that mercy will be shown, and the ass’s life spared. I am but a poor man in Israel, and can ill afford to lose the little colt.

But, answers the priest, firmly, the law of the Lord is plain and unmistakable, ― “EVERY firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb, and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck.” Where is the lamb?

Ah, sir, no lamb do I possess.

Then go purchase one and return, or the ass’s neck must be broken. The lamb or the ass must die.

Alas! then all my hopes are crushed, he cries, for I am far too poor to buy a lamb.

While this conversation proceeds, a third person joins them, and after hearing the poor man’s tale of sorrow, he turns to him and says kindly, Be of good cheer, I can meet your need; and thus he proceeds: We have in our house on the hilltop yonder, one little lamb, brought up at our very hearthstone, and is “without spot or blemish.” This lamb will I fetch. And away he hastens up the hill. Presently you see him gently leading the fair little creature down the slope, and very soon both lamb and ass are standing side by side.

Then the lamb is bound to the altar, it is slain, its blood is shed, and the fire consumes it.

The righteous priest now turns to the poor man, and says, Come, you can freely take home your little colt—no broken neck for it now! The lamb has died in the ass’s stead, and consequently the ass goes righteously free. Thanks to your friend.

Now, poor troubled soul, can’t you see in this God’s own picture of a sinner’s salvation? His claims as to sin demanded a “broken neck,” i.e., righteous judgment upon your guilty head, the only alternative being the death of a divinely approved substitute.

Now, you could not find the provision to meet your case; but, in the person of His beloved Son, God Himself provided the Lamb. “Behold the Lamb of God,” said John to his disciples, as his eyes fell upon that blessed spotless One. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Onward to Calvary He went, “as a lamb led to the slaughter,” and there and then “He once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). “He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). So that God does not abate one jot of His righteous, holy claims against sin when He justifies (i.e., clears from all charge of guilt) the convicted sinner who believes in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). Blessed be God for such a Saviour, such a salvation!

DOST THOU BELIEVE ON THE SON OF GOD?

Well, you reply, I have, as a poor condemned sinner, found in HIM one that I can safely trust. I DO believe on Him.

Then, I tell you, the full value of His sacrifice and death, as God estimates it, He makes as good to you as though you had accomplished it all yourself Oh, what a wondrous way of salvation is this! Is it not great and grand and Godlike—worthy of God Himself? The gratification of His own heart of love, the glory of His precious Son, and the salvation of a sinner, all bound up together. What a bundle of grace and glory! Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has so ordered it that His own beloved Son should do all the work and get all the praise, and that you and I, poor guilty things, believing on Him, should not only get all the blessing, but enjoy the blissful company of the Blesser forever and ever. “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psa. 34:3).

But perhaps your eager inquiry may be, How is it that since I do really distrust self and self-work, and wholly rely upon Christ and Christ’s work, I have not the full certainty of my salvation? You say, If my feelings warrant me saying that I am saved one day, they are pretty sure to blight every hope the next, and I am left like a ship storm-tossed, without any anchorage whatever.

Ah, there lies your mistake. Did you ever hear of a captain trying to find anchorage by fastening his anchor inside the ship? Never. Always outside.

It may be that you are quite clear that it is Christ’s death alone that gives SAFETY, but you think that it is what you feel that gives CERTAINTY. Now, again take your Bible, for I now wish to say a little about how a man gets

THE KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION.

Before you turn to the verse which I shall ask you very carefully to look at, which speaks of how a believer is to KNOW that he has eternal life, let me quote it in the distorted way that man’s imagination often puts it: These happy feelings have I given unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life. Now, open your Bible, and while you compare this with God’s blessed and unchanging Word, may He give you from your very heart to say with David, “I hate vain thoughts; but Thy law do I love” (Ps. 119:113). The verse just misquoted is the thirteenth verse of the fifth chapter of the first epistle of John, and reads thus in our version: “These things have I WRITTEN unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that ye HAVE eternal life.”

How did the firstborn sons of the thousands of Israel know for certain that they were safe, the night of the Passover, from Egypt’s judgment?

Let us take a visit to two of their houses and hear what they have to say.

We find in the first. house we enter that they are all shivering with fear and suspense.

What is the secret of all this paleness and trembling? we require; and the firstborn son informs us that the angel of death is coining round the land, and that he is not quite certain how matters will stand with him at that solemn moment.

When the destroying angel has passed our house, says he, and the night of judgment is over, I shall then know that I am safe, but I can’t see how I can be quite sure of it until then. They say they are sure of salvation next door, but we think it very presumptuous. All I can do is to spend the long dreary night hoping for the best.

Well, we inquire, but has the God of Israel not provided a way of safety for His people?

True, he replies, and we have availed ourselves of that way of escape. The blood of the spotless and unblemished first-year lamb has been duly sprinkled with the bunch of hyssop on the lintel and two sideposts, but still we are not fully assured of shelter.

Let us now leave these doubting troubled ones and enter next door.

What a striking contrast meets our eye at once! Joy beams on every countenance. There they stand, with girded loins and staff in hand, enjoying the roasted lamb.

What can be the meaning of all this joy on such a solemn night as this? Ah, say they all, we are only waiting for Jehovah’s marching orders, and then we shall bid a last farewell to the taskmaster’s cruel lash and all the drudgery of Egypt.

But hold. Do you forget that this is the night of Egypt’s judgment?

Right well we know it; but our firstborn son is safe. The blood has been sprinkled according to the wish of our God.

But so it has been the next door, we reply, but they are all unhappy because all uncertain of safety.

Ah, responds the firstborn, firmly, but we have MORE THAN THE SPRINKLED BLOOD, we have THE UNERRING WORD OF GOD ABOUT IT. God has said, “When I SEE the BLOOD I will pass over you.” God rests satisfied with the blood outside, and we rest satisfied with His word inside.

The sprinkled blood makes us SAFE.

The spoken word makes us SURE.

Could anything make us more safe than the sprinkled blood, or more sure than His spoken word? Nothing, nothing.

Now, reader, let me ask YOU a question. Which of these two houses think you was the safer?

Do you say No. 2, where all were so happy? Nay, then, you are wrong. Both are safe alike.

Their safety depends upon what God thinks about the blood outside, and not upon the state of their feelings inside.

If you would be sure of your own blessing, then, dear reader, listen not to the unstable testimony of inward emotion, but to the infallible witness of the word of God.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me HATH everlasting life” (John 6:47).

Let me give you a simple illustration from everyday life. A certain farmer in the country, not having sufficient grass for his cattle, applies for a nice piece of pastureland which he hears is to be let near his own house. For sometime he gets no answer from the landlord. One day a neighbor comes in and says, I feel quite sure you will get that field. Don’t you recollect how that last Christmas he sent you a special present of game, and that he gave you a kind nod of recognition the other day when he drove past in the carriage? And with such like words the farmer’s mind is filled with sanguine hopes.

Next day another neighbor meets him, and in course of conversation he says, I’m afraid you will stand no chance whatever of getting that grass field. Mr.— has applied for it, and you cannot but be aware what a favorite he is with the Squire—occasionally visits with him, etc. And the poor farmer’s bright hopes are dashed to the ground and burst like soap bubbles. One day he is hoping, the next day full of perplexing doubts.

Presently the postman calls, and the farmer’s heart beats fast as he breaks the seal of the letter, for he sees by the handwriting that it is from the Squire himself. See his countenance change from anxious suspense to undisguised joy as he reads and re-reads that letter.

It’s a settled thing now, exclaims he to his wife; no more doubts and fears about it. The Squire says the field is mine as long as I require it, on the most-easy terms. I care for no man’s opinion now. His word settles it!

How many a poor soul is in a like condition to the poor troubled farmer—tossed and perplexed by the opinions of men, or the thoughts and feelings of his own treacherous heart! and it is only upon receiving the word of God as the word of God that certainty takes the place of doubts and peradventures. When God speaks there must be certainty, whether He pronounces the damnation of the unbeliever, or the salvation of the believer.

“Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven” (Psa. 119:89); and to the simple-hearted believer His WORD SETTLES ALL.

“Hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” (Num. 23:19).

“I need no other argument,

I want no other plea,

It is enough that Jesus died―

And that He died for me.”

The believer can add―

“And that God says so.”

But how may I be sure that I have the right kind of faith?

Well, there can be but one answer to that question, viz., Have you confidence in the right person? i.e., in the blessed Son of God?

It is not a question of the amount of your faith, but of the trustworthiness of the person you repose your confidence in. One man takes hold of Christ, as it were, with a drowning man’s grip; another but touches the hem of His garment: but the sinner who does the former is not a bit safer than the one who does the latter. They have both made the same discovery, viz., that while all of self is totally untrustworthy, they may safely confide in Christ, calmly rely on His Word, and confidently rest in the eternal efficacy of His finished work. That is what is meant by believing on HIM. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on ME HATH everlasting life” (John 6:47).

Make sure of it, then, my reader, that your confidence is not reposed in your works of amendment, your religious observances, your pious feeling when under religious influences, your moral training from childhood, and the like. You may have the strongest faith in any or all of these and perish everlastingly. Don’t deceive yourself by any “fair show in the flesh.” The feeblest faith in Christ eternally saves, while the strongest faith in aught beside is but the offspring of a deceived heart―but the leafy twigs of your enemy’s arranging over the pitfall of eternal perdition.

God, in the gospel, simply introduces to you the Lord Jesus Christ, and says, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” You may, He says, with all confidence trust His heart, though you cannot with impunity trust your own.

Blessed, thrice blessed Lord Jesus, who would not trust Thee and praise Thy name!

“I do really believe on Him,” said a sad-looking soul to me one day, “but yet, when asked if I am saved, I don’t like to say, ‘Yes,’ for fear I should be telling a lie,” This young woman was a butcher’s daughter, in a small town in the midlands. It happened to be market-day, and her father had not then returned from market. So I said, “Now, suppose when your father comes home you ask him how many sheep he bought today, and he answers, Ten. After a while a man comes to the shop, and says, How many sheep did your father buy today? and you reply, I don’t like to say, for fear I should be telling a lie.” “But,” said the mother (who was standing by at the time), with righteous indignation, “that would be making her father the liar.”

Now, dear reader, don’t you see that this well-meaning young woman was virtually making Christ a liar, saying, “I do believe on the Son of God, but I don’t like to say I am saved lest I should be telling a lie,” when Christ Himself has said, “He that believeth on Me path everlasting life” ( John 6:47)?

But, says another, How may I be sure that I really do believe. I have tried often to believe, and looked within to see if I had got it; but the more I look at my faith, the less I seem to have.

Ah, my friend, you are looking in the wrong direction to find that out, and your trying to believe but plainly shows that you are on the wrong track.

Let me give you another illustration to explain what I want to convey to you.

You are sitting at your quiet fireside one evening, when a man comes in and tells you that the stationmaster has been killed that night at the railway.

Now it so happens that this man has long borne the character in the place for being a very dishonest man, and the most daring, notorious liar in the neighborhood.

Do you believe, or even try to believe that man? Of course not, you exclaim.

Pray, why?

Oh! I know him too well for that.

But tell me how you know that you don’t believe him? Is it by looking within at your faith or feelings?

No, you reply, I think of the man that brings me the message.

Presently, a neighbor drops in and says, The station-master has been run over by a freight train tonight, and killed on the spot. After he has left, I hear you cautiously say, Well I partly believe it now, for to my recollection this man only once in his life deceived me, though I have known him from boyhood.

But again, I ask, is it by looking at your faith this time that you know you partly believe it?

No, you repeat; I am thinking of the character of my informant.

Well, this man has scarcely left your room before a third person enters and brings you the same sad news as the first. But this time you say, Now, John, since you tell me, I believe it.

Again I press my question (which is, remember, but the re-echo of your own), How do you KNOW that you so confidently believe your friend John?

Because of who and what JOHN is, you reply. He never has deceived me, and I don’t think he ever will.

Well, then, just in the same way I know that I believe the gospel, viz., because of the One who brings me the news. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God that He hath witnessed of His Son.... He that BELIEVETH NOT GOD HATH MADE HIM A LIAR, because he believeth not the witness that God gave of His Son” (1 John 5:9, 10). “Abraham believed GOD, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Rom. 4:3).

An anxious soul once said to a servant of Christ, “Oh, sir, I can’t believe!” to which the preacher wisely and quietly replied, “Indeed, who is it that you can’t believe?” This broke the spell. He had been looking at faith as an indescribable something that he must feel within himself in order to be sure that he was all right for heaven; whereas faith ever looks outside to a living Person and His finished work, and quietly listens to the testimony of a faithful God about both.

It is the outside look that brings the inside peace. When a man turns his face toward the sun, his own shadow is behind him. You cannot look at self and a glorified Christ in heaven at the same moment.

Thus we have seen that the blessed PERSON of God’s Son wins my confidence; His FINISHED WORK makes me eternally safe; GOD’S WORD about those who believe on Him makes me unalterably sure. I find in Christ and His work the way of salvation, and in the word of God the knowledge of salvation.

But if saved, my reader may say, How is it that I have such a fluctuating experience—so often losing all my joy and comfort, and getting as wretched and downcast as I was before my conversion? Well, this brings us to our third point viz., THE JOY OF SALVATION.

You will find in the teaching of Scripture, that while you are saved by Christ’s work and assured by God’s word, you are maintained in comfort and joy by the Holy Ghost, who indwells every saved person.

Now, you must bear in mind that every saved one has still within him “the flesh,” i.e., the evil nature he was born with as a natural man, and which perhaps shows itself while still a helpless infant on his mother’s lap. The Holy Ghost in the believer resists the flesh, and is grieved by every activity of it, in motive, word, or deed. When he is walking “worthy of the Lord,” the Holy Ghost will be producing in his soul His blessed fruits— “love, joy, peace,” etc. (See Gal. 5:22). When he is walking in a carnal, worldly way, the Spirit is grieved, and these fruits are wanting in greater or less measure.

Let me put it thus for you who do believe on God’s Son:

Christ’s work and your salvation stand and fall together.

Your walk and your enjoyment stand and fall together.

If Christ’s work could break down (and blessed be God it never, never will), your salvation would break down with it. When your walk breaks―and be watchful, for it may―your enjoyment will break down with it.

Thus it is said of the early disciples (Acts 9:31), that they “walked in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.”

And again in Acts 13:52― “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.”

My spiritual joy will be in proportion to the spiritual character of my walk after I am saved.

Now, do you see your mistake? You have been mixing up enjoyment with your safety—two widely different things. When through self-indulgence, loss of temper, worldliness, etc., you grieved the Holy Spirit and lost your joy, you thought your safety was undermined. But, again, I repeat it―

Your safety hangs upon Christ’s work FOR you.

Your assurance, upon God’s word TO you.

Your enjoyment, upon not grieving the Holy Ghost IN you.

When as a child of God you do anything to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, your communion with the Father and the Son is, for the time, practically suspended; and it is only when you judge yourself and confess your sins that the joy of communion is restored.

Your child has been guilty of some misdemeanor. He shows upon his countenance the evident mark that something is wrong with him. Half an hour before this he was enjoying a walk with you round the garden, admiring what you admired, enjoying what you enjoyed; in other words, he was in communion with you, his feelings and sympathies were in common with yours.

But now all this is changed, and as a naughty, disobedient child, he stands in the corner, the very picture of misery.

Upon penitent confession of his wrongdoing you have assured him of forgiveness, but his pride and self-will keep him sobbing there.

Where is now the joy of half an hour ago? All gone. Why? Because communion between you and him has been interrupted.

What has become of the relationship that existed between you and your son half an hour ago? Has that gone too? Is that severed or interrupted? Surely not. His relationship depends upon his birth: his communion, upon his behavior.

But presently he comes out of the corner with broken will and broken heart, confessing the whole thing from first to last, so that you see he hates the disobedience and naughtiness as much as you do, and you take him in your arms and cover him with kisses. His joy is restored because communion is restored.

When David sinned so grievously in the matter of Uriah’s wife, he did not say, Restore unto me Thy salvation, but “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation” (Psa. 51:12).

But to carry our illustration a little farther. Supposing while your child is in the corner, there should be a cry of “House on fire!” throughout your dwelling, what would become of him then? Left in the corner to be consumed with the burning, falling house? Impossible! Very probably he would be the very first person you would carry out. Ah, yes, you know right well that the love of relationship is one thing, and the joy of communion quite another.

Now, when the believer sins, communion is for the time interrupted, and joy is lost until with a broken heart he comes to the Father in self-judgment, confessing his sins.

Then, also, he knows he is forgiven, for His word plainly declares that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Oh, then, dear child of God, ever bear in mind these two things, that there is nothing so strong as the link of relationship; nothing so tender as the link of communion.

All the combined power and counsel of earth and hell cannot sever the former, while an impure motive or an idle word will break the latter.

If you are troubled with a cloudy half-hour, get low before God, consider your ways; and when the cause that has robbed you of your joy has been detected, bring it at once to the light, confess your sin to God your Father, and judge yourself most unsparingly for the unwatchful, careless state of soul that allowed the thief to enter unchallenged.

But never, never, NEVER confound your safety with your joy.

Don’t imagine, however, that the judgment of God falls a whit more leniently on the believer’s sin than on the unbeliever’s. He has not two ways of dealing judicially with sin, and He could no more pass by the believer’s sin without judging it than He could pass by the sins of a rejecter of His precious Son. But there is this great difference between the two, viz., that the believer’s sins were all known to God, and all laid upon His own provided Lamb when He hung upon the cross at Calvary, and that there and then, once and forever, the great “criminal question” of his guilt was raised and settled,—judgment falling upon the blessed Substitute in the believer’s stead, “who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

The Christ-rejecter must bear his own sins in his own person in the lake of fire forever. Now, when a saved one falls, the “criminal question” of sin cannot be raised against him, the Judge Himself having settled that once for all on the cross; but the communion question is raised with him by the Holy Ghost as often as he grieves the Spirit.

Allow me, in conclusion, to give you another illustration. It is a beautiful moonlight. The moon is at full, and shining in more than ordinary silvery brightness. A man is gazing intently down a deep, still well, where he sees the moon reflected, and thus remarks to a friendly bystander: How beautifully fair and round she is tonight! how quietly and majestically she rides along! He has just finished speaking when suddenly his friend drops a small pebble into the well, and he now exclaims, Why, the moon is all broken to shivers, and the fragments are shaking together in the greatest disorder What gross absurdity! is the astonished rejoinder of his companion. Look up, man! the moon hasn’t changed one jot or tittle; it is the condition of the well that reflects her that has changed.

Now, believer, apply the simple figure. Your heart is the well. When there is no allowance of evil, the blessed Spirit of God takes of the glories and preciousness of Christ, and reveals them to you for your comfort and joy; but the moment a wrong motive is cherished in the heart, or and idle word escapes the lips unjudged, the Holy Ghost begins to disturb the well, your happy experiences are smashed to pieces, and you are all restless and disturbed within, until, in brokenness of spirit before God, you confess your sin (the disturbing thing), and thus get restored once more to the calm, sweet joy of communion.

But when your heart is thus all unrest need I ask, Has Christ’s work changed? No, no. Then your salvation has not altered.

Has God’s word changed? Surely not. Then the certainty of your salvation has received no shock.

Then, what has changed? Why, the action of the Holy Ghost in you has changed, and instead of taking of the glories of Christ and filling your heart with the sense of His worthiness, He is grieved at having to turn aside from this delightful office to fill you with the sense of your sin and unworthiness.

He takes from you your present comfort and joy until you judge and resist the evil thing that He judges and resists. When this is done, communion with God has again been restored.

The Lord make us to be increasingly jealous over ourselves lest we “grieve the Holy Spirit of God whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).

Dear reader, however weak your faith may be, rest assured of this, that the blessed One who has won your confidence will never change.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and FOREVER” (Heb. 13:8).

The work He has accomplished will never change.

“Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be FOREVER, nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it” (Eccl. 3:14).

The word He has spoken will never change.

“The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth FOREVER” (1 Peter 1:24, 25).

Thus the object of my trust, the foundation of my safety, the ground of my certainty, are alike ETERNALLY UNALTERABLE.

“My love is ofttimes low,

My joy still ebbs and flows,

But peace with Him remains the same―

No change Jehovah knows.

“I change, He changes not;

My Christ can never die;

His love, not mine, the resting-place;

His truth, not mine, the tie.”

Once more let me ask, WHICH CLASS ARE YOU TRAVELING? Turn your heart to God, I pray you, and answer that question to Him.

“Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4).

“He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true” (John 3:33).

May the joyful assurance of possessing this “great salvation” be yours, dear reader, now, and “till He come.”

GEO. C.

"What Did Jesus Come to Do?"

SOME twelve years ago, full of what my soul had lately found in the Saviour, I was on a journey going from town to town in the western part of the state of New York, preaching the gospel of the grace of God wherever I had an opportunity. Finally, I found myself at Elmira, where, for some weeks, I held meetings every evening. As I was working at the same time with my hands, I got so wearied in body that I determined to return home and rest. My mind was made up, and I would not allow anything to stop me.

At the last moment, however, someone mentioned to me a town called Penn-Yan, expressing a desire that I should go there. It was a strange name to me at that time. I had never heard it. This, together with an irrepressible feeling that took hold of me, made me purchase a railroad ticket home by that way, to see the town as the train passed through, but not to stop, for I had fully settled it that I was going straight home. As the train drew near, however, I became more and more uncomfortable; it seemed as if I must stop. Why, I did not know, but stop I did, and made an end to my discomfort.

It was not long before I found the cause of all this exercise. As I was walking up the street, I met two men talking. Their conversation stopped me. One was saying to the other, “I have had no sleep for several nights. That old man in the other part of the house is dying, and he keeps crying out, ‘O God, have mercy on me! O God, I am a sinner, not fit to die!’”

The other replied, “It’s too late for that old man. He has led too bad a life. I don’t believe in death-bed repentance. Do you?”

“No, I don’t,” answered the first. “The best thing I know is for a man to do all the good he can in this world; and it’s too late for him now, for they say he can’t live till night.”

Now and then the two men looked at me, as no doubt it seemed queer to them that I, a total stranger, should thus stop and listen to their talk. But I cared little, for I was now sure that my Master had business for me in Penn-Yan, and I was on the track of it. So, addressing the men, I said, “Could you tell me what Jesus came into this world to do?”

They both looked puzzled, but after a little, one said, “Well, I suppose, He came to make the world better.”

“You are greatly mistaken,” I replied. “The Bible says, He came ‘to seek and to save that which was lost’ (Luke 19:10). He came to die, and thus make ‘propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 4:10), so that such sinners as we are, confessing our sins, might be saved.” Then I said, “I want to ask you another question, How long do you think it will take a seeking Saviour and a lost sinner to meet?”

But they answered they didn’t know anything about such questions, and so were about to get away.

Then I said to them, “Will you please tell me where this old man you have been talking about is lying?”

They pointed out the way, and as they did so, told me that he had been the worst man of the town for years, and that it would be all lost time to go to see such a man.

“Ah,” I said, “come along with me, and see how long it will take for that poor old man and Jesus to make acquaintance. Come and see a meeting that shall make joy in heaven and in that old man’s soul.”

But they went their way and I went mine. Never shall I forget that day. All was so strange and unlooked for. Incidents in the life of Jesus came to mind thick and fast, telling of his readiness to save. The blind, the lepers, the guilty―all Found ready response to their needs as they called upon Him. What a Saviour to have for one’s self and to make known to others! and, full of these thoughts, I hastened with joy to see the dying old man. Though great sinner he had been, there was pardon for him, I knew.

Upon reaching the house, I found it occupied by four poor families. The old man I was looking for was on the second floor. I walked up the stairs, at the head of which was the door that opened into his apartment. It was partly open, and by the side of the bed I saw a poor girl, about seventeen years of age, kneeling. It was a solemn scene. She was praying for her poor old father.

When she arose and saw me standing at the door with the Bible, which I held in my hands, she came straight to me, and expressed her gratitude at my coming in. She said she was not a Christian herself, but that her dying father was so anxious, that she had knelt down just to ask God to hear her poor father’s cry for mercy. So saying, she led me to the bedside.

I took the old man’s hand in mine, and said, “Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.”

“That’s me,” he replied. “I am a lost sinner. Can there be any hope for me?”

I answered, “Yes. I have come to tell you the good news. Listen. ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’” (John 3:16).

A look of hopefulness broke over his face, such was the immediate effect of the word of God in his repenting soul.

Again I read, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

“Good news,” he said; “but I have been such an awful sinner.”

Once more I read, “But He whom God raised again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:37-39).

This went in. The old man was free. Tears of joy moistened his eyes as he said, “Who could have thought of such love? To think that a sinner like me should be ‘justified from all things’! What mercy! what love! What a Saviour Jesus is! Thank God for sending you to let me know!”

Thus did this poor dying man give expression to his newly found treasure.

The sight of the old man’s joy acted upon me too, and with a heart full of praise I knelt clown and thanked God for His mercy to another sinner who had been so near the brink of perdition, but, like the thief on the cross, was saved at the last moment.

After a little more happy intercourse together, I left the now rich and blessed old man, but not without the promise to return again in the afternoon.

I thought my work for the day was practically done, but it was not so.

At about two P. M., two young men found me, and told me that the old man had died soon after I had gone―that the condition of his body and the great heat required him to be buried at once, and would I come at four o’clock and preach at his funeral. This I had never done, and I shrunk from it; but what else could I do than say yes? and so I did. Meanwhile, God alone knows what I passed through. The people knew what the old man’s life had been, but they knew not what he had found at the end, though already it was noised about that a great change had taken place, and that the stranger who had come to town in the morning was connected with it.

I besought the Lord to help me, and give me such words as the occasion called for, and at four o’clock I returned to the house.

All was changed there. One of the families downstairs had given the use of their room, and in the center of it stood the coffin in which the body of the old man lay. All around it was full of people, not a few attracted by the rumor of strange circumstances attending that death. I gave out the following hymn:

“Rise, my soul I behold, ‘tis Jesus―

Jesus fills thy wond’ring eyes;

See Him now in glory seated,

Where thy sins no more can rise.

“There, in righteousness transcendent,

Lo! He doth in heaven appear,

Shows the blood of His atonement

As thy title to be there.

“All thy sins were laid upon Him―

Jesus bore them on the tree;

God, who knew them, laid them on Him,

And, believing, thou art free.

“God now brings thee to His dwelling,

Spreads for thee His feast divine,

Bids thee welcome, ever telling

What a portion there is thine.

“In that circle of God’s favor―

Circle of the Father’s love―

All is rest―and rest forever―

All is perfectness above.

“Blessed, glorious word ‘forever’!

Yea, ‘forever’ is the word;

Nothing can the ransomed sever,

Naught divide them from the Lord.”

Many joined in singing it, and it fitted the case so well, that there was scarcely a dry eye in the place.

I then related to them how I had happened to be in their town, how I had heard about the old man― his bad life, his cries for mercy, and his near end―what I had read to him, how it had acted upon him, and how I felt sure of meeting him again in heaven.

Then I tried to show them from the Scriptures that none of us was any better in the sight of God than that old man, for God Himself has said, “There is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22, 23); ―that there must be, therefore, but one common way by which such sinners could be saved, and that was by the cross of Christ―that on that cross He had “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18)―that salvation was not, therefore, by any good we could do, but by what Christ had suffered for us―that if we truly feel the burden of our sins, and in simple faith trust in Jesus, this is salvation, even as it is written, “For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9).

I took occasion, from the fact that there seemed a great reluctance to visit the old man in his need, to press upon them the blessed and solemn truth that Jesus Christ had not come into the world to call the people who thought themselves righteous, but those who knew themselves vile and lost indeed―that He had not come to receive from man, but to give to man. Even as it is written, “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)―that salvation did not come by loving God, but by receiving what His love had provided for us; for “herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). And now, because of that “propitiation,” God can justify from their sins all that come to Him with them. He can give eternal life to them who are spiritually dead; He can reconcile rebels, and “purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

Then I told them that if this old man was truly saved, as I believed, he was now “absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” as Scripture teaches; that at the coming again of the Lord Jesus―which might happen at any moment―his body, lying dead there, would be made alive again by the return of his spirit into it, and, in a glorified state, be “caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air;”―that those of us who were also children of God, and were alive, would have our sinful bodies changed in an instant, and, at the same time with the rising dead, be caught up too (1 Thess. 4:16,17)―that then the day of grace would be all over for them who had not believed, and they would be forever shut out, in the “outer darkness.”

We buried the old man, and I felt my work in that town was clone for the present. The results are with Him who will manifest all things “in that day.”

Dear reader, may you also get a blessing from this true narrative. If this end is reached, my purpose is fulfilled.

C. H. T.

The Dairyman's Daughter: An Authentic Narrative - Abridged

By Rev. LEGH RICHMOND

IT is a delightful employment to trace and discover the operations of divine grace, as they are manifested in the dispositions and lives of God’s real children. It is peculiarly gratifying to observe how frequently, among the poorer classes of mankind, the sunshine of mercy beams upon the heart, and bears witness to the image of Christ which the Spirit of God has impressed thereupon. Among such, the sincerity and simplicity of the Christian character appear unencumbered by those fetters to spirituality of mind and conversation, which too often prove a great hindrance to those who live in the higher ranks. Many are the difficulties which riches, polished society, worldly importance, and high connections, throw in the way of religious profession. Happy indeed it is―and some such happy instances I know―where grace has so strikingly supported its conflict with natural pride, self-importance, the allurements of luxury, ease, and worldly opinions, that the noble and mighty appear adorned with genuine poverty of spirit, self-denial, humble-mindedness, and deep spirituality of heart.

But in general, if we want to see religion in its purest character, we must look for it among the poor of this world who are rich in faith. How often is the poor man’s cottage the palace of God! Many of us can truly declare, that we have there learned our most valuable lessons of faith and hope, and there witnessed the most striking demonstrations of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God.

The character which the present narrative is designed to introduce to the notice of my readers, is given from real life and circumstances. I first became acquainted with the Dairyman’s daughter by the reception of a letter, a part of which I transcribe from the original, now before me.

“REV. SIR―I take the liberty to write to you. Pray excuse me, for I have never spoken to you. But I once heard you preach at ― church. I believe you are a faithful preacher, to warn sinners to flee from the wrath that will be revealed against all those that live in sin, and die impenitent.

“I was much rejoiced to hear of those marks of love and affection which you showed to that poor soldier of the S. D. militia. Surely the love of Christ sent you to that poor man; may that love ever dwell richly in you by faith. May it constrain you to seek the wandering souls of men, with the fervent desire to spend and be spent for His glory.

“Sir, be fervent in prayer with God for the conviction and conversion of sinners. He has promised to answer the prayer of faith, that is put up in his Son’s name. ‘Ask what you will, and it shall be granted you.’...

“Sir, I began to write this on Sunday, being detained from attending on public worship. My dear and only sister, living as a servant with Mrs. ―, was so ill that I came here to attend in her place, and on her. But now she is no more.

“She expressed a desire to receive the Lord’s supper, and commemorate His precious death and sufferings. I told her, as well as I was able, what it was to receive Christ into her heart; but as her weakness of body increased, she did not mention it again. She seemed quite resigned before she died. I do hope she has gone from a world of death and sin, to be with God forever.

“My sister expressed a wish that you might bury her. The minister of our parish, whither she will be carried, cannot come. She died on Tuesday morning, and will be buried on Friday or Saturday, whichever is most convenient to you, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Please to send an answer by the bearer, to let me know whether you can comply with this request.

“From your unworthy servant.

“ELIZABETH W―E.”

I was much struck with the simple and earnest strain of devotion which the letter breathed. It was but indifferently written and spelled; but this the rather tended to endear the hitherto unknown writer, as it seemed characteristic of the union of humbleness of station with eminence of piety. I felt quite thankful that I was favored with a correspondent of this description; the more so, as such characters were, at that time, very rare in the neigborhood. As soon as it was read I inquired who was the bearer of it.

“He is waiting at the outside of the gate, sir,” was the reply.

I went out to speak to him; and saw a venerable old man, whose long hoary hair and deeply wrinkled countenance commanded more than common respect. He was resting his arm and head upon the gate; the tears were streaming down his cheeks. On my approach, he made a low bow, and said, “Sir, I have brought you a letter from my daughter; but I fear you will think us very bold in asking you to take so much trouble.”

“By no means,” I replied; “I shall be truly glad to oblige you and any of your family in this matter.”

I desired him to come in the house, and then said, “What is your occupation?”

“Sir, I have lived most of my days in a little cottage at ―, six miles from here. I have rented a few acres of ground, and kept a few cows, which, in addition to my day labor, has been my means of supporting and bringing up my family.”

“What family have you?”

“A wife, now getting very aged and helpless, two sons, and one daughter; for my other poor dear child is just departed out of this wicked world.”

“I hope, for a better.”

“I hope so too: poor thing, she did not use to take to such good ways as her sister; but I do believe that her sister’s manner of talking with her before she died, was the means of saving her soul. What a mercy it is to have such a child as mine is! I never thought about my own soul seriously till she, poor girl, begged and prayed me to flee from the wrath to come.”

“How old are you?”

“Turned seventy, and my wife is older; we are getting old and almost past our labor; but our daughter has left a good place, where she lived in service, on purpose to come home and take care of us and our little dairy. And a dear, dutiful, affectionate girl she is.”

“Was she always so?”

“No, sir; when she was very young, she was all for the world, and pleasure and dress and company. Indeed we were all very ignorant, and thought, if we took care for this life, and wronged nobody, we should be sure to go to heaven at last.

My daughters were both willful, and like ourselves, were strangers to the ways of God and the word of His grace. But the eldest of them went out to service; and some years ago she heard a sermon preached at―church, and from that time she became quite an altered creature. She began to read the Bible and became quite sober and steady. The first time she came home afterward to see us, she brought us a guinea which she had saved from her wages, and said, as we were getting old, she was sure we should want help; adding, that she did not wish to spend it in fine clothes, as she used to do, only to feed pride and vanity. She would rather show gratitude to her dear father and mother; and this, she said, because Christ had shown such mercy to her.

“We wondered to hear her talk, and took great delight in her company, for her temper and behavior were so humble and kind, she seemed so desirous to do us good both in soul and body, and was so different from what we had ever seen her before, that, careless and ignorant as we had been, we began to think there must be something real in religion, or it never could alter a person so much in a little time.

“Her younger sister, poor soul, used to laugh and ridicule her at that time, and said her head was turned with her new ways. ‘No, sister,’ she would say, ‘not my head, but my heart is turned from the love of sin to the love of God. I wish you may one day see, as I do, the danger and vanity of your present condition.’

“Her poor sister would reply, ‘I do not want to hear any of your preaching: I am no worse than other people, and that is enough for me.’ ‘Well, sister,’ Elizabeth would say, ‘if you will not hear me, you cannot hinder me from praying for you, which I do with all my heart.’

“And now, sir, I believe those prayers are answered. For when her sister was taken ill, Elizabeth went to wait in her place and take care of her. She said a great deal to her about her soul; and the poor girl began to be so deeply affected, and sensible of her past sins, and so thankful for her sister’s kind behavior, that it gave her great hopes indeed for her sake. When my wife and I went to see her as she lay sick, she told us how grieved and ashamed she was of her past life; but said she had a hope, through grace, that her dear sister’s Saviour would be her Saviour too; for she saw her own sinfulness, felt her own helplessness, and only wished to cast herself upon Christ as her hope and salvation.

“And now, sir, she is gone, and I hope and think her sister’s prayers for her conversion to God have been answered. The Lord grant the same, for her poor father and mother’s sake likewise.”

This conversation was a very pleasing commentary upon the letter which I had received, and made me anxious both to comply with the request, and to become acquainted with the writer. I promised the good old dairyman I would attend the funeral on Friday, at the appointed hour; and after some more conversation respecting his own state of mind under the present trial he went away.

He was a reverend old man; his furrowed cheeks, white locks, weeping eyes, bent shoulders, and feeble gait, were characteristic of the aged pilgrim; and as he slowly departed, supported by a stick which seemed to have been the companion of many a long year, a train of reflections occurred which I retrace with emotion and pleasure. At the appointed hour I arrived at the church; and after a little while was summoned to meet, at the churchyard gate, a very decent funeral procession. The aged parents, the elder brother and the sister, with other relatives, formed an affecting group. I was struck with the humble, pious, and pleasing countenance of the young woman from whom I received the letter; it bore the marks of great seriousness without affectation, and of much serenity mingled with a glow of devotion.

A circumstance occurred during the burial service, which I think it right to mention.

A man of the village, who had hitherto been of a very careless and even profligate character, came into the church through mere curiosity, and with no better purpose than that of a vacant gazing at the ceremony. He came likewise to the grave; and during the burial service his mind received a deep, serious conviction of his sin and danger, through some of the expressions contained therein. It was an impression that never wore off, but gradually ripened into the most satisfactory evidence of an entire change, of which I had many and long continued proofs. He always referred to the burial service, and to some particular sentences of it, as the clearly ascertained instrument of bringing him, through grace, to the knowledge of the truth.

The day was therefore one to be remembered. Remembered let it be by those who love to hear “the short and simple annals of the poor.”

Was there not a manifest and happy connection between the circumstances that providentially brought the serious and the careless to the same grave on that day together? How much do they lose, who neglect to trace the leadings of God in providence as links in the chain of his eternal purpose of redemption and grace!

“While infidels may scoff, let us adore.”

After the service was concluded, I had a short conversation with the good old couple and their daughter. Her aspect and address were highly interesting. I promised to visit their cottage; and from that time became well acquainted with them. Let us bless the God of the poor, and pray continually that the poor may become rich in faith, and the rich be made “poor in spirit.”

A sweet solemnity often possesses the mind, while retracing past intercourse with departed friends. How much is this increased, when they were such as lived and died in the Lord! The remembrance of former scenes and conversations with those who, we believe, are now enjoying the uninterrupted happiness of a better world, fills the heart with pleasing sadness, and animates the soul with the hopeful anticipation of a day when the glory of the Lord shall be revealed in the assembling of all His children together, nevermore to be separated. Whether they were rich or poor, while on earth, it is a matter of trifling consequence; the valuable part of their character is, that they are kings and priests unto God. In the number of departed believers, with whom I once loved to converse on the grace and glory of the Kingdom of God, was the dairyman’s daughter. I propose now to give some further account of her, and hope it may be useful to every reader.

A few days after the funeral of the younger sister, I rode over to visit the family in their own cottage. The principal part of the road lay through retired, narrow lanes, beautifully overarched with groves of nut and other trees, which screened the traveler from the rays of the sun, and afforded many interesting objects for admiration, in the beautiful flowers, shrubs, and young trees which grew upon the high banks on each side of the road. Many grotesque rocks, with little streams of water occasionally breaking out of them, varied the recluse scenery, and produced a new, romantic, and pleasing effect.

Here and there the more-distant and rich prospect beyond appeared through gaps and hollow places on the road-side. Lofty hills, with navy signal-posts, obelisks, and light-houses on their summits, appeared at these intervals; rich cornfields were also visible through some of the open places; and now and then, when the road ascended any hill, the sea with ships at various distances opened delightfully upon me. But for the most part, shady seclusion, and beauties of a more minute and confined nature, gave a character to the journey, and invited contemplation.

What do not they lose, who are strangers to serious meditation on the wonders and beauties of created nature! How gloriously the God of creation shines in His works! Not a tree, or leaf, or flower; not a bird, or insect, but proclaims in glowing language, “God made me.”

As I approached the village where the good old dairyman dwelt, I observed him in a little field, driving a few cows before him towards a yard and hovel which adjoined his cottage. I advanced very near him without his observing me, for his sight was dim. On my calling out to him, he started at the sound of my voice, but with much gladness of countenance welcomed me, saying, “Bless your heart, sir, I am very glad you are come; we have looked for you every day this week.”

The cottage-door opened, and the daughter came out, followed by her aged and infirm mother. The sight of me naturally brought to recollection the grave at which we had before met. Tears of affection mingled with the smile of satisfaction with which I was received by these worthy cottagers. I dismounted, and was conducted through a very neat little garden, part of which was shaded by two large, overspreading elm-trees, to the house. Decency and cleanliness were manifest within and without.

This, thought I, is a fit residence for piety, peace, and contentment. May I learn a fresh lesson in each, through the blessing of God on this visit.

“Sir,” said the daughter, “we are not worthy that you should come under our roof. We take it very kind that you should come so far to see us.”

“My Master,” I replied, “came a great deal further to visit us poor sinners. He left the bosom of His Father, laid aside His glory, and came down to this lower world on a visit of mercy and love; and ought not we, if we profess to follow Him, to bear each other’s infirmities, and go about doing good as He did?”

The old man now came in and joined his wife and daughter in giving me a cordial welcome. Our conversation soon turned to the late loss they had sustained; and the pious and sensible disposition of the daughter was peculiarly manifested as well in what she said to her parents, as in what she said to me. I was struck with the good sense and agreeable manner which accompanied her expressions of devotedness to God, and love to Christ for the great mercies which he had bestowed upon her. She seemed anxious to improve the opportunity of my visit to the best purpose, for her own and her parents’ sake; yet there was nothing of unbecoming forwardness, no self-confidence or conceitedness in her behavior. She united the firmness and earnestness of the Christian, with the modesty of the female and the dutifulness of the daughter. It was impossible to be in her company, and not observe how truly her temper and conversation adorned the evangelical principles which she professed.

I soon discovered how eager and how successful also she had been in her endeavors to bring her father and mother to the knowledge and experience of the truth. This is a lovely circumstance in the character of a young Christian. If it hath pleased God, in the free dispensations of His mercy, to call the child by His grace, while the parents remain still in ignorance and sin, how great is the duty of that child to do what is possible for the conversion of those to whom it owes its birth! Happy is it when the ties of grace sanctify those of nature.

This aged couple evidently looked upon and spoke of their daughter as their teacher and admonisher in divine things, while they received from her every token of filial submission and obedience, testified by continual endeavors to serve and assist them to the utmost, in the little concerns of the household.

The religion of this young woman was of a highly spiritual character, and of no ordinary attainment. Her views of the divine plan in saving the sinner, were clear and scriptural. She spoke much of the joys and sorrows which, in the course of her religious progress, she had experienced; but she was fully sensible that there is far more in real religion than mere occasional transition from one frame of mind and spirit to another. She believed that the experimental acquaintance of the heart with God principally consisted in so living upon Christ by faith as to constrain to walk like Him in love. She knew that the love of God is of an unchangeable nature and that in a believing dependence upon it is found “the peace of God which passeth all understanding;” “for so He giveth His beloved rest.”

She had read but few books besides her Bible; but these few were excellent in their kind, and she spoke of their contents as one who knew their value. In addition to the Bible, “Doddridge’s Rise and progress,” “Romaine’s Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith,” “Bunyan’s Pilgrim,” “Alleine’s Alarm,” “Baxter’s Saints’ Everlasting Rest,” a hymnbook, and a few tracts, composed her library.

I observed in her countenance a pale and delicate look, which I afterward found to be a presage of consumption; and the idea then occurred to me that she would not live many years. In fact, it pleased God to take her hence about a year and a half after I first saw her.

Time passed on swiftly with this little interesting family; and after having partaken of some plain and wholesome refreshment, and enjoyed a few hours’ conversation with them, I found it was necessary for me to return homewards.

“I thank you, sir,” said the daughter, “for your Christian kindness to me and my friends. I believe the blessing of the Lord has attended your visit, and I hope I have experienced it to be so. My dear father and mother will, I am sure, remember it, and I rejoice in an opportunity, which we have never before enjoyed, of seeing a serious minister under this roof. My Saviour has been abundantly good to me in plucking me ‘as a brand from the burning,’ and showing me the way of life and peace; and I hope it is my heart’s desire to live to his glory. But I long to see these dear friends enjoy the comfort and power of religion also.”

“I think it evident,” I replied, “that the promise is fulfilled in their case: ‘It shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.’”

“I believe it,” she said, “and praise God for the blessed hope.”

“Thank Him too that you have been the happy instrument of bringing them to the light,”

“I do, sir; yet when I think of my own unworthiness and insufficiency, I rejoice with trembling.”

“Sir,” said the good old man, “I am sure the Lord will reward you for this kindness. Pray for us that, old as we are, and sinners as we have been, yet He would have mercy upon us at the eleventh hour. Poor Betsey strives hard for our sakes; she works hard all day to save us trouble, and I fear has not strength to support all she does; and then she talks to us, and reads to us, and prays for us. Indeed, sir, she’s a rare child to us.”

“Peace be to you, and all that belong to you.”

“Amen, and thank you, dear sir,” was echoed from each tongue.

Thus we parted for that time. My returning meditations were sweet, and, I hope, profitable. Many other visits were afterward made by me to this peaceful cottage, and I always found increasing reason to thank God for the intercourse I enjoyed.

I soon perceived that the health of the daughter was rapidly on the decline. The pale wasting consumption, which is the Lord’s instrument for removing so many thousands every year from the land of the living, made hasty strides on her constitution. The hollow eye, the distressing cough, and the often too flattering red on the cheek, foretold the approach of death.

I have often thought what a field for usefulness and affectionate attention on the part of ministers and Christian friends, is opened by the frequent attacks and lingering progress of consumptive illness. How many such precious opportunities are daily lost, where Providence seems in so marked a way to afford time and space for serious and godly instruction! Of how many may it be said, “The way of peace have they not known;” for not one friend came nigh, to warn them to “flee from the wrath to come.”

But the dairyman’s daughter was happily made acquainted with the things which belonged to her everlasting peace before the present disease had taken root in her constitution. In my visit to her, I might be said rather to receive information than to impart it. Her mind was abundantly stored with divine truths, and, her conversation was truly edifying. The recollection of it still produces a thankful sensation in my heart.

I one day received a short note to the following effect:

“DEAR Sir―I should be very glad, if your convenience will allow, that you would come and see a poor unworthy one: my hour-glass is nearly run out, but I can see Christ to be precious to my soul.

“Your conversation has often been blessed to me, and I now feel the need of it more than ever. My father and mother send their duty to you.

“From your obedient and unworthy servant,

“ELIZABETH W―E.”

I obeyed the summons that same afternoon. On my arrival at the dairyman’s cottage, his wife opened the door. The tears streamed down her cheek, as she silently shook her head. Her heart was full. She tried to speak, but could not. I took her by the hand, and said: “My good friend, all is right, and as the Lord of wisdom and mercy directs.”

“Oh, my Betsey, my dear girl, is so bad, sir; what shall I do without her? I thought I should have gone first to the grave, but―”

“But the Lord sees good that, before you die yourself, you should behold your child safe home to glory. Is there no mercy in this?”

“O, sir, I am very old and weak; and she is a dear child, the staff and prop of a poor old creature, as I am.”

As I advanced, I saw Elizabeth sitting by the fireside, supported in an armchair by pillows, with every mark of rapid decline and approaching death. She appeared to me within three or four weeks at the furthest from her end. A sweet smile of friendly complacency enlightened her pale countenance, as she said, “This is very kind indeed, sir, to come so soon after I sent to you. You find me daily wasting away, and I cannot have long to continue here. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my weak heart, and I trust will be my portion forever.”

The conversation which follows was occasionally interrupted by her cough and want of breath. Her tone of voice was clear, though feeble; her manner solemn and collected; and her eye, though more dim than formerly, by no means wanting in liveliness as she spoke. I had frequently admired the superior language in which she expressed her ideas, as well as the scriptural consistency with which she communicated her thoughts. She had a good natural understanding, and grace, as is generally the case, had much improved it. On the present occasion I could not help thinking she was peculiarly favored. The whole strength of grace and nature seemed to be in full exercise.

After taking my seat between the daughter and the mother―the latter fixing her fond eyes upon her child with great anxiety while we were conversing―I said to Elizabeth, “I hope you enjoy a sense of the divine presence, and can rest all upon Him who has ‘been with thee, and has kept thee in all places whither thou hast gone,’ and will bring thee into ‘the land of pure delight, where saints immortal reign.’”

“Sir, I think I can. My mind has lately been sometimes clouded, but I believe it has been partly owing to the great weakness and suffering of my bodily frame, and partly to the envy of my spiritual enemy, who wants to persuade me that Christ has no love for me, and that I have been a self-deceiver.”

“And do you give way to his suggestions? Can you doubt, amidst such numerous tokens of past and present mercy?”

“No, sir, I mostly am enabled to preserve a clear evidence of His love. I do not wish to add to my other sins that of denying His manifest goodness to my soul. I would acknowledge it to His praise and glory.”

“What is your present view of the state in which you were before He called you by His grace?”

“Sir, I was a proud, thoughtless girl, fond of dress and finery; I loved the world and the things that are in the world; I lived in service among worldly people, and never had the happiness of being in a family where worship was regarded, and the souls of the servants cared for, either by master or mistress. I went once on a Sunday to church, more to see and be seen, than to pray, or hear the word of God. I thought I was quite good enough, and disliked and often laughed at religious people. I was in great darkness; I knew nothing of the way of salvation; I never prayed, nor was sensible of the awful danger of a prayerless state. I wished to maintain the character of a good servant and was much lifted up whenever I met with applause. I was tolerably moral and decent in my conduct, from motives of carnal and worldly policy; but I was a stranger to God and Christ; I neglected my soul; and had I died in such a state, hell must, and would justly, have been my portion.”

“How long is it since you heard the sermon which, through God’s blessing effected your conversion?”

“About five years ago.”

“How was it brought about?”

“It was reported that a Mr.―, who was detained by contrary winds from embarking on board ship, as chaplain, to a distant part of the world, was to preach at church. Many advised me not to go, for fear he should turn my head; as they said he held strange notions. But curiosity, and an opportunity of appearing in a new gown, which I was very proud of, induced me to ask leave to go. Indeed, sir, I had no better motives than vanity and curiosity. Yet thus it pleased the Lord to order it for His own glory.

“I accordingly went to church, and saw a great crowd of people collected together. I often think of the contrary states of my mind during the former and latter part of the service. For a while, regardless of the worship of God, I looked around me, and was anxious to attract notice myself.

My dress, like that of too many gay, vain, and silly girls, was much above my station, and very different from that which becomes a humble sinner, who has a modest sense of propriety and decency. The state of my mind was visible enough from the foolish finery of my apparel.

“At length the clergyman gave out his text: ‘Be ye clothed with humility.’ He drew a comparison between the clothing of the body and that of the soul. At a very early part of his discourse, I began to feel ashamed of my passion for fine dressing and apparel; but when he came to describe the garment of salvation with which a Christian is clothed, I felt a powerful discovery of the nakedness of my own soul. I saw that I had neither the humility mentioned in the text, nor any one part of the true Christian character. I looked at my gay dress, and blushed for shame on account of my pride. I looked at the minister, and he seemed to be as a messenger sent from heaven to open my eyes. I looked at the congregation, and wondered whether anyone else felt as I did. I looked at my heart, and it appeared full of iniquity. I trembled as he spoke, and yet I felt a great drawing of heart to the words he uttered.

“He opened the riches of divine grace in God’s method of saving the sinner. I was astonished at what I had been doing all the days of my life. He described the meek, lowly, and humble example of Christ; I felt proud, lofty, vain; and self-consequential. He represented Christ as ‘Wisdom’; I felt my ignorance. He held Him forth as ‘Righteousness’; I was convinced of my own guilt. He proved Him to be ‘Sanctification’; I saw my corruption. He proclaimed Him as ‘Redemption’; I felt my slavery to sin, and my captivity to Satan He concluded with an animated address to sinners, in which he exhorted them to flee from the wrath to come, to cast off the love of outward ornaments, to put on Christ, and be clothed with true humility.

“From that hour I never lost sight of the value of my soul, and the danger of a sinful state. I inwardly blessed God for the sermon, although my mind was in a state of great confusion.

“The preacher had brought forward the ruling passion of my heart, which was pride in outward dress; and by the grace of God it was made instrumental to the awakening of my soul. Happy would it be, sir, if many a poor girl like myself were turned from the love of outward adorning and putting on of fine apparel, to seek that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

“The greater part of the congregation, unused to such faithful and scriptural sermons, disliked and complained of the severity of the preacher; while a few. as I afterward found, like myself, were deeply affected, and earnestly wished to hear him again. But he preached there no more.

“From that time I was led, through a course of private prayer, reading, and meditation, to see my lost estate as a sinner, and the great mercy of God through Jesus Christ, in raising sinful dust and ashes to a share in the glorious happiness of heaven. And, O, sir, what a Saviour have I found! He is more than I could ask or desire. In His fullness I have found all that my poverty could need; in His bosom I have found a resting place from all sin and sorrow; in His Word I have found strength against doubt and unbelief.”

“Were you not soon convinced,” said I, “that your salvation must be an act of entire grace on the part of God, wholly independent of your own works or deservings?”

“Dear sir, what were my works before I heard that sermon, but evil, carnal, selfish, and ungodly? The thoughts of my heart, from my youth upward, were only evil, and that continually. And my de-servings, what were they, but the deservings of a fallen, depraved, careless soul, that regards neither law nor gospel? Yes, sir, I immediately saw that, if ever I was saved, it must be by the free mercy of God, and that the whole praise and honor of the work would be His from first to last.”

“What change did you perceive in yourself with respect to the world?”

“It appeared all vanity and vexation of spirit. I found it necessary to my peace of mind to ‘come out from among them, and be separate.’ I gave myself to prayer; and many a precious hour of secret delight I enjoyed in communion with God. Often I mourned over my sins, and sometimes had a great conflict through unbelief, fear, temptation to return back again to my old ways, and a variety of difficulties which lay in my way. But He who loved me with an everlasting love, drew me by His loving kindness, showed me the way of peace, gradually strengthened me in my desires to lead a new life, and taught me that, while without Him I could do nothing, I yet might do all things through His strength.”

“Did you not find many difficulties in your situation, owing to your change of principle and practice?”

“Yes, sir, every day of my life. I was laughed at by some, scolded at by others, scorned by enemies, and pitied by friends. I was called hypocrite, saint, false deceiver, and many more names, which were meant to render me hateful in the sight of the world. But I esteemed the reproach of the cross an honor. I forgave, and prayed for, my persecutors, and remembered how very lately I had acted the same part towards others myself. I thought also that Christ endured the contradiction of sinners; and as the disciple is not above his Master, I was glad to be in any way conformed to His sufferings.”

“Did you not then feel for your relatives at home?”

“Yes, that I did indeed, sir; they were never out of my thoughts. I prayed continually for them and had a longing desire to do them good. In particular, I felt for my father and mother, as they were getting into years, and were very ignorant and dark in matters of religion.”

“Aye,” interrupted her mother, sobbing, “ignorant and dark, sinful and miserable we were till this dear Betsey―this dear Betsey―this dear child, sir, brought Christ Jesus home to her poor father and mother’s house.”

“No, dearest mother, say rather Christ Jesus brought your poor daughter home to tell you what He had done for her soul, and now, I trust for yours.”

At this moment the dairyman came in with two pails of milk hanging from the yoke on his shoulders. He had stood behind the half-opened door for a few minutes, and heard the last sentences spoken by his wife and daughter.

“Blessing and mercy upon her,” said he, “it is very true; she would leave a good place of service on purpose to live with us, that she might help us both in soul and body. Sir, don’t she look very ill? I think, sir, we sha’n’t have her here long.”

“Leave that to the Lord,” said Elizabeth. “All our times are in His hands, and happy it is that they are. I am willing to go; are not you willing, my father, to part with me into His hands who gave me to you at first?”

“Ask me any question in the world but that,” said the weeping father.

“I know,” said she, “you wish me to be happy.” “I do, I do,” answered he: “let the Lord do with you and us as best pleases Him.”

I then asked her on what her present consolations chiefly depended, in the prospect of approaching death.

“Entirely, sir, on my view of Christ. When I look at myself, many sins, infirmities, and imperfections cloud the image of Christ which I want to see in my own heart. But when I look at the Saviour Himself, He is altogether lovely: there is not one spot in His countenance, nor one cloud over all His perfections.

“These views which, through mercy, I have of my Saviour have made me wish and strive in my poor way to serve Him, to give myself up to Him, and to labor to do my duty in that state of life into which it has pleased Him to call me.

“A thousand times I should have fallen and fainted, if He had not upheld me. I feel that I am nothing without Him. He is all in all.

“I do not fear death, because He has taken away its sting. And oh, what happiness beyond!

“When I ask my own heart a question, I am afraid to trust it, for it is treacherous, and has often deceived me. But when I ask Christ, He answers me with promises which strengthen and refresh me, and leave me no room to doubt His power and will to save. I am in His hands, and would remain there; and I do believe that He will never leave nor forsake me, but will perfect the thing that concerns me. He loved me and gave Himself for me, and I believe that His gifts and calling are without repentance. In this hope I live, in this I wish to die.”

I looked around me as she was speaking, and thought, “Surely this is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven.” Everything appeared neat, cleanly, and interesting. The afternoon had been rather overcast with dark clouds; but just now the setting sun shone brightly and rather suddenly into the room. It was reflected from three or four rows of bright pewter plates and white earthenware arranged on shelves against the wall; it also gave brilliancy to a few prints of sacred subjects that hung there also, and served for monitors of the birth, baptism, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. A large map of Jerusalem, and a hieroglyphic of “the old and new man,” completed the decorations on that side of the room. Clean as was the whitewashed wall, it was not cleaner than the rest of the place and its furniture. Seldom had the sun enlightened a house where, order and general neatness―those sure attendants of pious and decent poverty―were more conspicuous.

This gleam of setting sunshine was emblematical of the bright and serene close of this young Christian’s departing season. One ray happened to be reflected from a little looking-glass upon the face of the young woman. Amidst her pallid and decaying features there appeared a calm resignation, triumphant confidence, unaffected humility, and tender concern, which fully declared the feelings of her heart.

Some further affectionate conversation, and a short prayer, closed this interview.

As I rode home by departing daylight, a solemn tranquility reigned throughout the scene. The gentle lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep just penned in their folds, the humming of the insects of the night, the distant murmurs of the sea, the last notes of the birds of day, and the first warblings of the nightingale, broke upon the ear, and served rather to increase than lessen the peaceful serenity of the evening, and its corresponding effects on my own mind. It invited and cherished just such meditations as my visit had already inspired. Natural scenery, when viewed in a Christian mirror, frequently affords very beautiful illustrations of divine truth. We are highly favored, when we can enjoy them, and at the same time draw near to God in them.

Soon after this, I received a hasty summons, to inform me that my young friend was dying. It was brought by a soldier, whose countenance bespoke seriousness, good sense, and piety.

“I am sent, sir, by the father and mother of Elizabeth W—, at her own particular request, to say how much they all wish to see you. She is going home, sir, very fast indeed.”

“Have you known her long?” I replied.

“About a month, sir; I love to visit the sick, and hearing of her case from a serious person who lives close by our camp, I went to see her. I bless God that ever I did go. Her conversation has been very profitable to me.”

“I rejoice,” said I, “to see in you, as I trust, a brother soldier. Though we differ in our outward regimentals, I hope we serve under the same spiritual Captain. I will go with you.”

My horse was soon ready. My military companion walked by my side and gratified me with very sensible and pious conversation. He related some remarkable testimonies of the excellent disposition of the dairyman’s daughter, as they appeared from some recent intercourse which he had bad with her.

“She is a bright diamond, sir,” said the soldier, “and will soon shine brighter than any diamond upon earth.”

Conversation beguiled the distance, and shortened the apparent time of our journey, till we were nearly arrived at the dairyman’s cottage.

As we approached it, we became silent. Thoughts of death, eternity, and salvation, inspired by the sight of a house where a dying believer lay, filled my own mind, and, I doubt not, that of my companion also.

No living object yet appeared, except the dairyman’s dog, keeping a kind of mute watch at the door; for he did not, as formerly, bark at my approach. He seemed to partake so far of the feelings appropriate to the circumstances of the family, as not to wish to give a hasty or painful alarm. He came forward to the little wicket-gate, then looked back at the house door, as if conscious there was sorrow within. It was as if he wanted to say, “Tread softly over the threshold, as you enter the house of mourning; for my master’s heart is full of grief.”

A solemn serenity appeared to surround the whole place. It was only interrupted by the breeze passing through the large elm-trees which stood near the house, which my imagination indulged itself in thinking were plaintive sighs of sorrow. I gently opened the door; no one appeared, all was still silent. The soldier followed; we came to the foot of the stairs.

“They are come,” said a voice which I knew to be the father’s; “they are come.”

He appeared at the top; I gave him my hand, and said nothing. On entering the room above, I saw the aged mother and her son supporting the much-loved daughter and sister; the son’s wife sat weeping in a window seat, with a child in her lap; two or three persons attended in the room to discharge any office which friendship or necessity might require.

I sat down by the bedside. The mother could not weep, but now and then sighed deeply, as she alternately looked at Elizabeth and at me. The big tear rolled down the brother’s cheek, and testified an affectionate regard. The good old man stood at the foot of the bed, leaning upon the post, and unable to take his eyes off the child from whom he was so soon to part.

Elizabeth’s eyes were closed, and as yet she perceived me not. But over her face, though pale, sunk, and hollow, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, had cast a triumphant calm.

The soldier, after a short pause, silently reached out his Bible towards me pointing with his finger at 1 Cor. 15:55-57. I then broke silence by reading the passage, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

At the sound of these words her eyes opened, and something like a ray of divine light beamed on her countenance, as she said, “Victory, victory! through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

She then relapsed, taking no notice of anyone present.

“God be praised for the triumph of faith,” I said. “Amen,” replied the soldier.

The dairyman’s uplifted eye showed that the Amen was in his heart, though his tongue failed to utter it.

“Father, mother,” said the reviving daughter, “He is good to me: trust Him, praise Him evermore.”

“Sir,” added she in a faint voice, “I want to thank you for your kindness to me―I want to ask a favor―you buried my sister―will you do the same for me?”

“All shall be as you wish, if God permit,” I replied.

“Thank you, sir, thank you. I have another favor to ask: When I am gone, remember my father and mother. They are old, but I hope the good work is begun in their souls, and my prayers are heard.”

The aged parents now sighed and sobbed aloud, uttering broken sentences, and gained some relief by such an expression of their feelings.

At length I said to Elizabeth, “Do you experience any doubts or temptations on the subject of your eternal safety?”

“No, sir; the Lord deals very gently with me, and gives me peace.”

“What are your views of the dark valley of death, now that you are passing through it?”

“It is not dark.”

“Why so?”

“My Lord is there, and He is my light and my salvation.”

Something of a convulsion came on. When it was past, she said again, “Lord, I am thine―blessed Jesus―precious Saviour―His blood cleanseth from all sin―He giveth us the victory―I, even I, am saved―O grace, mercy, and wonder―Lord, receive my spirit.

“Dear sir―dear father, mother, friends, I am going―but all is well, well, well―”

She relapsed again. We knelt down to prayer: the Lord was in the midst of us, and blessed us.

She did not again revive while I remained, nor speak any more words which could be understood.

She slumbered for about ten hours, and at last sweetly fell asleep in the arms of the Lord, who had dealt so gently with her.

I left the house an hour after she had ceased to speak. I pressed her hand as I was taking leave, and said, “Christ is the resurrection and the life.”

She gently returned the pressure, but could neither open her eyes nor utter a reply. I never had witnessed a scene so impressive as this before. It completely filled my imagination as I returned home.

“Farewell,” thought I, “dear friend, till the morning of an eternal day shall renew our personal intercourse. Thou wast a brand plucked from the burning, that thou mightest become a star shining in the firmament of glory. I have seen thy light, and thy good works, and I will therefore glorify our Father who is in heaven. I have seen, in thy example, what it is to be a sinner freely saved by grace. I have learned from thee, as in a living mirror, who it is that begins, continues, and ends the work of faith and love. Jesus is all in all; He will and shall be glorified. He won the crown, and alone deserves to wear it. May no one attempt to rob Him of His glory; He saves, and saves to the uttermost. Farewell, dear sister in the Lord. Thy flesh and thy heart may fail; but God is the strength of thy heart, and shall be thy portion forever.”

I was soon called to attend the funeral of my friend, who breathed her last shortly after my visit. Many pleasing yet melancholy thoughts were connected with the fulfillment of this task. I retraced the numerous and important conversations which I had held with her. But these could now no longer be held on earth. I reflected on the interesting and improving nature of Christian friendships, whether formed in palaces or in cottages, and felt thankful that I had so long enjoyed that privilege with the subject of this memorial. I indulged a sigh, for a moment, on thinking that I could no longer hear the great truths of Christianity uttered by one who had drunk so deep of the waters of life. But the rising murmur was checked by the animating thought, “She is gone to eternal rest―could I wish to bring her back to this vale of tears?”

As I traveled onward to the house where lay her remains in solemn preparation for the grave, the first sound of a tolling bell struck my ear. It proceeded from a village church in the valley directly beneath the ridge of a high hill, over which I had taken my way―it was Elizabeth’s funeral knell. It was a solemn sound, but it seemed to proclaim at once the blessedness of the dead who die in the Lord, and the necessity of the living pondering these things, and laying them to heart.

On entering the cottage, I found that several Christian friends, from different parts of the neighborhood, had assembled together to show their last tribute of esteem and regard to the memory of the dairyman’s daughter.

I was requested to go into the chamber where the relatives and a few other friends were gone to take a last look at the remains of Elizabeth.

If there be a moment when Christ and salvation, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, appear more than ever to be momentous subjects of meditation, it is that which brings us to the side of a coffin containing the body of a departed believer.

Elizabeth’s features were altered, but much of her likeness remained. Her father and mother sat at the head, her brother at the foot of the coffin, manifesting their deep and unfeigned sorrow. The weakness and infirmity of old age added a character to the parents’ grief, which called for much tenderness and compassion.

A remarkably decent looking woman, who had the management of the few simple, though solemn ceremonies which the case required, advanced toward me, saying, “Sir, this is rather a sight of joy than of sorrow. Our dear friend Elizabeth finds it to be so, I have no doubt. She is beyond all sorrow. Do you not think she is, sir?”

“After what I have known and seen and heard,” I replied, “I feel the fullest assurance that, while her body remains here, her soul is with her Saviour in paradise. She loved Him here, and there she enjoys the pleasures which are at His right hand for evermore.”

“Mercy, mercy upon a poor old creature almost broken down with age and grief; what shall I do? Betsey’s gone―my daughter’s dead. O, my child, I shall never see thee more. God be merciful to me a sinner!” sobbed out the poor mother.

“That last prayer, my dear good woman,” said I, “will bring you together again. It is a cry that has brought thousands to glory. It brought your daughter thither, and will bring you there likewise. He will in no wise cast out any that come to Him.”

“My dear,” said the dairyman, breaking the long silence he had maintained, “let us trust God with our child, and let us trust Him with our own selves. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord. We are old and can have but a little further to travel in our journey, and then” ―he could say no more.

The soldier before mentioned reached a Bible into my hand, and said, “Perhaps, sir, you would not object to reading a chapter before we go to the church.”

I did so; it was the fourteenth of the book of Job. A sweet tranquility prevailed while I read it. Each minute that was spent in this funeral-chamber seemed to be valuable. I made a few observations on the chapter, and connected them with the case of our departed sister.

“I am but a poor soldier,” said our military friend, “and have nothing of this world’s goods, beyond my daily subsistence; but I would not exchange my hope of salvation in the next world, for all that this, world. could bestow without it. What is wealth without grace? Blessed be God, as I march about from one quarter to another, I still find the Lord wherever I go; and thanks be to His holy Name, He is here today in the midst of this company of the living and the dead. I feel that it is good to be here.”

Some other persons present began to take a part in the conversation, in the course of which the life and experience of the dairyman’s daughter were brought forward in a very interesting manner; each friend had something to relate in testimony of her gracious disposition. One distant relative, a young woman under twenty, who had hitherto been a very light and trifling character, appeared to be remarkably impressed by the conversation of that day; and I have since had ground to believe that divine grace then began to influence her in the choice of that better part, which shall not be taken from her.

What a contrast does such a scene as this exhibit, when compared with the dull, formal, unedifying, and often indecent manner in which funeral parties assemble in the house of death!

The time for departure to the church was now at hand. I went to take my last look at the deceased. There was much written on her countenance: she had evidently departed with a smile. It still remained, and spoke the tranquility of her departing soul. According to the custom of the place, she was decorated with leaves and flowers in the coffin; these indeed were fading flowers, but they reminded me of that paradise whose flowers are immortal, and where her never-dying soul is at rest.

I remembered the last words which I had heard her speak, and was instantly struck with the happy thought, that “death was indeed swallowed lip in victory.”

As I slowly retired, I said inwardly, “Peace, my honored sister, to thy memory, and to my soul, till we meet in a better world.”

In a little time the procession formed; it was rendered the more interesting by the consideration of so many that followed the coffin being persons of truly serious and spiritual character.

My meditation was unexpectedly and agreeably interrupted by the friends who followed the family beginning to sing a funeral psalm. Nothing could be more sweet or solemn. The effect of the open air in softening and blending the sounds of music was here peculiarly felt. The road through which we passed was beautiful and inspiring; it lay at the foot of a hill, which occasionally re-echoed the voices of the singers, and seemed to give faint replies to the notes of the mourners. The funeral knell was distinctly heard from the tower, increasing the effect which this simple and becoming service produced.

I cannot describe the state of my own mind as peculiarly connected with the solemn singing. I never witnessed a similar instance before or since. I was reminded of elder times and ancient piety; I wished it were more frequent, as well adapted to excite and cherish devotion and religious affections.

We at length arrived at the church. The service was heard with deep and affectionate attention. When we came to the grave, the hymn which Elizabeth had selected was sung. All was devout, simple, decent, animating. We committed our dear friend’s body to the grave, in full hope of a joyful resurrection from the dead.

Thus was the veil of separation drawn for a season. She is departed, and no more seen. But she will be seen at the right hand of her Redeemer at the last day, and will again appear to His glory, a miracle of grace and a monument of mercy.

My reader, rich or poor, shall you and I appear there likewise? Are we “clothed with humility,” and arrayed in the wedding-garment of a Redeemer’s righteousness? Are we turned from idols to serve the living God? Are we sensible of our own emptiness, flying to a Saviour’s fullness to obtain grace and strength? Do we live in Him, and on Him, and by Him, and with Him? Is He our all in all? Are we “lost and found;” “dead, and alive again?”

My poor reader, the dairyman’s daughter was a poor girl, and the child of a poor man. Herein thou resemblest her: but dost thou resemble her as she resembled Christ? Art thou made rich by faith? Hast thou a crown laid up for thee? Is thy heart set upon heavenly riches? If not, read this story once more, and then pray earnestly for ‘like precious faith.’ If, through grace, thou dost love and serve the Redeemer that saved the dairyman’s daughter, grace, peace, and mercy be with thee. The lines are fallen unto thee in pleasant places; thou past a goodly heritage. Press forward in duty, and wait upon the Lord, possessing thy soul in holy patience. Thou halt just been with me to the grave of a departed believer. Now “go thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days” (Dan. 12:13).

NOTE. ―The mother died about six months after her daughter, and I have good reason to believe that God was merciful to her, and took her to Himself. May every converted child thus labor and pray for the salvation of their unconverted parents. The father continued for some time after her, and adorned his old age with walk and conversation becoming the gospel. I cannot doubt that the daughter and both her parents are now met together in “the land of pure delights, where saints immortal reign.”

A Preacher of the Old School

MANY preachers are giving up the old ideas about the fall and total depravity of man. People are not often plainly told now that they are guilty sinners before a holy God. The sermons of our forefathers― who used to press this so constantly upon their hearers―are looked upon in many quarters as relics of the dark ages. There is, however, one preacher left of the old school, and he speaks today as loudly and as clearly as ever. He is not a popular preacher, though the world is his parish, and he travels over every part of the globe, and speaks in every language under the sun. He visits the poor; he calls upon the rich; you may meet him in the workhouse, or find him moving in the very highest circles of society. He preaches to people of every denomination, of every religion and of no religion, and, whatever text he may have, the substance of his sermon is always the same.

He is an eloquent preacher; he often stirs feelings which no other preacher could reach, and brings tears into eyes that are little used to weep. He addresses himself to the intellect, the conscience, and the heart of his hearers. His arguments none have been able to refute; there is no conscience on earth that has not at some time quailed in his presence; nor is there any heart that has remained wholly unmoved by the force of his weighty appeals. Most people hate him, but in one way or another he makes everybody hear him.

He is neither refined nor polite. Indeed, he often interrupts the public arrangements, and breaks in rudely upon the private enjoyments of life. He lurks about the doors of the theater and the ballroom; his shadow falls sometimes on the card table; he is often in the neighborhood of the public-house; he frequents the shop, the farm, the office, the mill; he has a master-key which gives him access to the most secluded chamber; he appears in the midst of legislators, and of fashionable and religious assemblies; neither the villa, the mansion, or the palace daunt him by their greatness; and no court or alley is mean enough to escape his notice. His name is Death.

You have heard many sermons from the old preacher. You cannot take up a newspaper without finding that he has a corner in it. Every tombstone serves him for a pulpit. You often see his congregations passing to and from the graveyard. Every scrap of mourning is a memento of one of his visits. Nay, he has often addressed himself to you personally. The sudden departure of that neighbor―the solemn parting with that dear parent―the loss of that valued friend―the awful gap that was left in your heart when that fondly loved wife, that idolized child, was taken―have all been loud and solemn appeals from the old preacher. Some day very soon he may have you for his text, and in your bereaved family circle, and by your graveside he may be preaching to others. Let your heart turn to God this moment to thank Him that you are still in the land of the living—that you have not, ere now, died in your sins!

You may get rid of the Bible. You may disprove―to your own satisfaction―its histories; you may ridicule its teaching; you may despise its warnings; you may reject the Saviour of whom it speaks. You can get away from the preachers of the gospel. You are not compelled to go to either church, chapel, or mission; and you can cross over to the other side of the street if there be an open-air meeting. It is in your power to burn this, and every other such book that comes in your possession.

But if you get rid of God’s Word and of God’s servants, what will you do with the old preacher of whom I have spoken?

Dying men, women and children, consider the prospect that is before you! Your little day will soon be passed. Your pleasures will have an end. Your occupations will be worthless to you in the solemn hour when your body is reduced to a few handfuls of dust.

Consider this matter, I pray you. Must there not be a cause for this? Is it by mere accident that a creature with such powers and capacities should come to so ignominious an end? There is but one answer to these questions, and as long as the old preacher goes on his rounds he will continue to proclaim it. Listen “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.”

THE FALL OF MAN

is no mere theological dogma, but a fearful reality, to which the world’s history, and the stern, sad facts of our own experience, bear terrible witness. Sin is not simply an ugly word in the Bible or on preachers’ lips; it is a dark, foul reality, which blights and curses the world by its presence. Nor is there any exception to the scope of its ravages. “Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” My reader is implicated in this matter. There is a great difference between the careless spectator in a court of justice, and the criminal in the dock whose life is at stake. The latter is your position. You have sinned; upon you the sentence of death has passed; and very soon it will be said of you, as it was said of nine old men in the fifth chapter of Genesis― “he died.”

Sad, sad indeed, if that word comes true of you, which was thrice repeated of some very respectable people a long time ago:― “YE SHALL DIE IN YOUR SIN.” One second after your death, it will be a matter of no consequence to you whether you died in a palace or in a cellar. But your whole eternity will hang upon the state in which you die. If sin works such havoc, and sins have such fearful consequences in this world, what must they entail in the next? Men reap as they sow in this world, but God does not definitively execute judgment upon sins in this life. “After death, the judgment.” In this world you can, in a sense, avoid God. Many live “without God in the world.” But death dissolves all connection with the things of time by which God can be excluded, and beyond you must have to do with God.

An innocent man might plead for justice, but the sinner’s only hope is mercy. The guilty one can only escape by the door of mercy. If the offender does not receive the due reward of his deeds, it must be on the ground of mercy. The transgressor can only be pardoned at the mercy-seat. Hence the penitent’s cry is, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” He is conscious that nothing but mercy will do for him. Your only chance is mercy. Oh, how sad, how complete, how irretrievable would be your ruin, if you should die “without mercy”! Over you then would have to be written the solemn epitaph of Heb. 10:28:

“DIED WITHOUT MERCY.”

But there is another epitaph—short but blessed ―in Heb. 12:13. Look at it!

“THESE ALL DIED IN FAITH.”

Yea! though the clear men thus spoken of lived in a dispensation of comparative darkness, though the promised Saviour had not yet come, nor His blessed atoning work yet been accomplished―yet, in the starlight of types, symbols, and promises, they trod the path of faith, which is now lighted up for us by the glory which shines in the face of the seated Saviour on the throne of God; and, as they lived, so they died, “IN FAITH.”

God has not been indifferent to the ruin of His creature, whose sin has brought death upon him. There is no denying the fact that “the wages of sin is death;” but it is equally true that “the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). The holy Son of God has

DIED IN LOVE

upon the cross. Yea, “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The old preacher never spoke so loudly, or in such solemn tones, as when Jesus went to Calvary. Divine love would; save the sinner, but divine holiness could not make light of sin. The full penalty of guilt―the wages of sin in all its dark and dread reality―passed upon the sinless Substitute. He took our place in death and judgment, that we might have His life, and His place of acceptance and favor before God.

“Oh! for this love, let rocks and hills

Their lasting silence break;

And, all harmonious, human tongues

Their Saviour’s praises speak!”

You may die unsaved; you will not die unloved. The Son of God is for you: Christ died for you: eternal life may be yours. The love of God, the work of Christ, urge you to turn to the Son of God whose soul-assuring words are: “He that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

C. A. C.

The First Prayer

THERE was a poor woman who lived, with her husband and eight or ten children, in a mews in the west end of London. Country people who have never seen London must remember that the stables belonging to London houses are all built together, somewhere behind or near the houses to which they belong, and all these stables joined together are called mews. So that a mews is like a little town of stables and coach-houses, with rooms above, where the coachmen and other stable-men live, with their wives and children.

Very often the families living in the mews are little visited or looked after by their rich neighbors; and in former times, the children ran about and played in front of the stables from morning to night, never going to school, and learning only to be rude and wicked.

The poor woman of whom I am telling you wished to bring up her children well. That is she wished them to be tidy and well-behaved and clean, and she did her best to make them so. But it never crossed her mind that they had souls to be saved, or even that she herself had a soul. If she knew that there is a God, she thought no more about Him than you or I should think of some heathen idol whose name we might have heard.

No wonder that poor Mrs. Clare was a very unhappy woman. She was seldom well, and she had hard work to look after the children, and to find means to feed and clothe them. Her husband was only a helper in a gentleman’s stables, and his wages were small.

And at last, one day, there came a sad piece of news to Mrs. Clare. The gentleman told her husband that he was going away immediately to America, for a long time; and that he should want him no more, for he should sell his carriage and horses and furniture, and let his house and stables in the course of a few months. But he said that Clare might stay on in his rooms in the mews till he could hear of another place, or perhaps any gentleman who took the house and the stables might be willing to keep him on. But some of the furniture in Clare’s rooms, which belonged to the master, would be taken away at once, to be sold with the furniture of the house.

Clare did not mind much losing these few bits of furniture, for the rest, which was his own, could be made to do, for the time at least; but Mrs. Clark thought at once of a part of the master’s property which she would be very unwilling to lose. All the blankets belonged to him. And now winter was coming, and her husband would be out of a place, and they could never afford to buy new blankets. Mrs. Clare’s only hope was that, as the blankets were old and thin, the master would not think it worthwhile to take them away; but the very thought that he might was terrible to her.

Mrs. Clare was not accustomed to having visitors, and as she sat there, feeling very sad and forlorn, she was startled by the sight of a strange woman who stood at the door, and asked if she might come in. This woman was employed in selling Bibles. But it was of no use to offer one to Mrs. Clare. In the first place, she had no money; in the second place, she could not read; and, alas in the third place, she had never had any desire to know anything of the word of God: so she refused the Bible very civilly.

“You look unhappy,” said the Bible-woman.

“I may well be unhappy,” said Mrs. Clare, “for I don’t know how we are all to live now my husband has lost his place, and I’m always ill, and I have such a number of small children,” and poor Mrs. Clare began to cry.

“Do you ever pray about it all?” asked the Bible-woman.

“Pray!” said Mrs. Clare, opening her eyes very wide. “No, I never prayed in my life. It’s the parsons that pray.”

“But everyone may pray,” said the Bible-woman. “Do you really mean to say you never knelt down on your knees to pray to God?”

“Well, I do remember I knelt down once,” said Mrs. Clare, after thinking a moment. “I knelt down in the church the day I was married; but it was the parson that prayed.”

“Have you never been to church since?”

“No, neither before nor since.”

“Nor to chapel, nor to a meeting?”

“No; I don’t go to anything of the sort. I haven’t time for that, like the gentry.”

The Bible-woman seems not to have known where to begin in explaining matters to a woman who was plainly so ignorant as Mrs. Clare. So after thinking in vain how to enlighten her, she only said, “Praying is just speaking to God, and telling Him what we want; so if you have never done it before, I advise you to do it now.” And as there were many more houses to visit, the Bible-women went on her way, and left Mrs. Clare with a new thought in her mind.

“‘Praying is speaking to God, and telling Him what we want.’ Why, I think I could do that. It would be like speaking to a friend. It would be a comfort to tell Him. I will tell Him about the blankets.”

And then and there Mrs. Clare knelt down and told the Lord quite simply about the whole matter, and she said, “O Lord, do not let the master take away the blankets, for we do want them so much.”

The next morning, quite early, the men came who were sent to take the master’s furniture to the sale. Mrs. Clare said not a word about the blankets, but she watched them anxiously. She felt sure that the Lord had heard her prayer, and yet her heart misgave her when she saw them go to the beds and take off the bedclothes. One by one they rolled up the six old blankets, and carried them away with the other things.

Mrs. Clare now felt that there was a trouble even greater than the loss of all her blankets. It had seemed to her such a beautiful thought that the Lord cared for her, and that she might speak to Him and tell Him of all her wants. And she had really believed that He heard her, and would be her Friend. Yet now it seemed clear as the day that it was of no use to pray to Him, and she felt all alone in the great wide world in a way she had never felt before. She seemed not only to have lost the blankets, but to have lost the Lord too.

At that moment Mrs. Clare was roused from her sad thoughts by a loud, quick knock at the door. She opened it, and to her utter astonishment she saw the very last person in the world she could have expected to see.

It was her sailor-brother. He had gone to China not long before, and though Mrs. Clare was not learned in geography, she had made a good guess in thinking that China was quite the other side of the world, and she knew Jem was to be there a long time.

“Oh, Jem, I’m so glad to see you!” she said.

“So am I glad to see you, Sukey,” said Jem; “but it’s how d’ye do? and good-by, for I only came ashore at the East-India docks this morning, and I’m off by the next train from Waterloo Station to Portsmouth. But I said, ‘I shall just have time to go round on the way to see Sukey,’ and I’ve brought a whole cab full of blankets in case you want them, and they are down at the door below. So now, Sukey, if you care to have them, we’ll go down to the cab and clear out the cargo.” “Why, Jem, how could you know that was just the very thing I want?” said Sukey. And she ran downstairs after him, and helped him to carry the huge parcel up to her little room, where Jem undid it, and pulled out one blanket after another—large, beautiful, thick blankets, such as Sukey had never before beheld.

“Perhaps there will be six of them,” she thought. Yes, there were six, and six more besides.

“Why, Jem, how did you come by them? and what made you bring them?”

“It’s just this,” said Jem “You know, there’s a war in China, and I and five of my mates were wounded, and wouldn’t be any good for weeks to come; so they just put us on board an East-Indiaman, and sent us home; and they gave us each a pair of navy-blankets, because we should have to be in our hammocks for most of the way home. And they told us when we went on shore we might have the blankets for our own. And when we landed this morning, first thing we heard was that we were to go on to Portsmouth if we were fit for service. And then my mates said, ‘What shall we do with the blankets? for they won’t be any good to us on board another ship.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a sister in London, with a lot of small children, and maybe she’d like to have mine; so I’ll just take them to her and go on to Waterloo.’ Then they said, ‘You’d better take the whole lot, for we haven’t got sisters in London, nor any one who’d care to have them.’ So here they are, and now I must be off.” With these words Jem drove off in his cab, and left Mrs. Clare happier than he had any idea of.

It was a fine thing to have twelve beautiful blankets in the place of six old thin ones; but it was a greater thing to know that there is a living God, who not only hears prayers, but who does for us far more than we ask or think.

You may be quite sure Mrs. Clare now knelt down again to thank the Lord; and when she had thanked Him, she said to Him, “O Lord, Thou knowest we have another trouble:―Thou knowest we want nineteen and sixpence. O Lord, please to let us have it in time to pay the baker on Saturday.”

Whilst Mrs. Clare had been so unhappy about the blankets, she had almost forgotten that the baker had said he could no longer go on letting them have bread without being paid for all the bread they had had for weeks past.

“So,” he had said, “on Saturday next I shall leave off letting you have any more bread, and I shall send you a summons if you don’t pay me nineteen and sixpence by twelve o’clock that day, for that’s what the bill will come to by Saturday.”

Mrs. Clare felt sure the Lord would send her this money; but her husband came home very sad and hopeless, saying he had been everywhere to try to get a place, and could hear of nothing. So it was the next day, and the next.

Then came Saturday morning. “I’ll try again,” her husband said; “and though it’s only five o’clock, I’ll start and see what can be done.”

It seemed strange to go out at five o’clock in the morning, when everyone was in bed, to try to get a place; but the Lord had put this thought into Clare’s mind, little as he knew himself that it was God who was guiding him.

In an hour’s time he came back. He put a sovereign into Sukey’s hand, and said, “Go and pay the baker.”

Now Sukey had not said a word to him about the baker, nor about her prayers; but she was sure that the money would come in time.

“How did you get it?” she asked.

“Just as I went out of the mews,” said her husband, “I saw a gentleman’s carriage upset in the Knightsbridge Road, and I went to help; and when it was all done, the gentleman gave me a sovereign. I suppose they were coming home from a party somewhere, so it’s well I went out so early.”

Sukey went to pay the baker, having thanked the Lord for His goodness. And now she felt that the time was come when it was wrong to keep silence about all that He had done for her. So she told her husband all about it; and when the Bible-woman came again in a few days after, she told her too, and she asked if there was no place near where a poor woman like herself could go and hear more about God. “For now,” she said, “I want to learn all about Him. But I can’t go to any grand place, where people go with fine clothes, for I’ve got nothing but my old gown, and I shall have to take the baby with me.”

Then the Bible-woman told her that a room had been opened in a mews close by, where there was preaching every Sunday afternoon―nothing to pay, and all might go in just as they were, and find a comfortable seat, and hear about the Lord Jesus in plain words that they could understand.

So Mrs. Clare went there the very next Sunday, and there she heard the wonderful story that was to make her happy all her life long, and forever afterward. She heard that God not only cares that men and women and children down here should have food and clothes and beds, but that He so loves His dear people, even long before they love Him, that He sent His own Son from heaven, to take upon Himself the punishment of all their sins, of all their ingratitude and forgetfulness of Him, and their hiding, as it were, their faces from Him, despising Him and esteeming Him not.

Now Mrs. Clare felt, for the first time, that she was a guilty sinner. She had lived all her life, till the day the Bible-woman came, without one thought of this good and loving God. And it was indeed blessed news to her that, instead of a punishment for all this sin, there was nothing for her in the heart of God but love and tenderness. And that she might have no punishment, He had sent His Son to bear it Himself, and to pay all that great debt, and had given her besides the endless riches of His love to be hers forever.

“I have something better than blankets to thank Him for now,” she said to the Bible-woman.

It is always a sure mark that God has poured into our hearts the riches of His love, when we wish to share His joy and happiness with those around. For this wonderful happiness is like a flame of fire, which does not grow less, but greater, as it spreads from one to another.

Mrs. Clare became very anxious that her husband should go with her to the preaching. But no; he always had some excuse, and it was plain that he was displeased at hearing all this new sort of talk. It made him feel very uncomfortable, for his eyes were beginning to be opened to see that he was a guilty sinner also.

Mrs. Clare, however, went on beseeching him to go to the preaching; and at last he said, “Very well; I’ll go next Sunday, if only you can get my coat out of the pawn-shop, for I can’t go without a coat.”

He felt quite sure, when he said this, that it was a very safe promise; for he knew well Sukey had never so much as a penny to spare when the end of the week came. She had got some work at a gentleman’s house near, and every Saturday morning the housekeeper paid her ten shillings. But then there was all the bread and everything else to be paid for out of that ten shillings, and there was never a farthing over when that was done.

Mrs. Clare knew this too, but she knew also to whom to go for the money she needed to get the coat out of the pawn-shop. She went to tell the Lord all about it, and then she said to the Bible-woman, “You’ll see my husband at the preaching next Sunday.”

Sunday came, and there was Clare in his best coat, and looking, too, as if he was glad to be there.

“How did you get the coat, Mrs. Clare?” asked the Bible-woman afterward.

“When the housekeeper paid me, on Saturday morning,” said Mrs. Clare, “she said, ‘You must give me change, for I have nothing but a sovereign,’ and I said I had no change, and never had so much at a time, nor was likely to have. Then she said, ‘You must take the sovereign, then, and remember next Saturday that I’ve paid you.’ So then I went to the pawn-shop and got the coat, and the Lord will see that I’m none the worse off when Saturday next comes.”

After this, Mrs. Clare was better off, for her husband got some work. He did not tell her that he had also got a Bible from the Bible-woman. He was rather afraid and ashamed lest this should be known, but he went on going to the preaching, and all his spare time he went into the loft, where he had hidden the Bible amongst the hay, and he read it for hours together.

At last he could keep his secret no longer, and he told his wife that “a change had come over him,” and that he saw she was right, and that the Lord, who had opened his eyes, had saved him from his sins.

I can tell you no more about Mrs. Clare and her husband. Many years have passed since I last heard of or saw them. It may be that she has had many, many more answers to her prayers; and now that she knows the Lord Jesus as she did not know Him at the first, she no doubt understands that all is well when He does not give her exactly the thing she asks for. He showed her when she was ignorant of Him that He is the living and true God, by giving her just the very thing she asked. But when we know God, and His great love, He is able to treat us as a kind father often treats his children. He will sometimes have to say, “I know you can trust My love, if I refuse to give you the thing you want, and you may be sure I do so that you may have something better, though you may have to wait for it.” So, if we have believed in the love of God, we can be quite happy and peaceful, leaving all in His hands. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

F. B.

Incidents in the Missionary Life of Egerton Young

The Conversion of the Indian Kah-Ke-Waquon-a-by As Told by Himself

THIS young Indian was born on the heights of Burlington Bay, Canada West, and was brought up by his Indian mother in the customs and superstitions of her people. For fourteen years he lived and wandered about the woods with the wild Indians in Canada and the United States.

He suffered many hardships incident to wild pagan Indian life. His name was Kah-ke-waquon-a-by, which means “Sacred waving feathers.” Like all other Indian lads, he was taught to use the bow and arrows, and afterward became expert with the gun, and was a capital canoeman and fisherman.

In 1816 he had the advantages of an English school, and was taught to read and write. After this he settled among the Mohawk Indians. In 1820 he began to attend church, and to think favorably about the Christian religion. But when he saw the whites get drunk, quarrel, fight, cheat the poor Indians, he thought the Indian’s religion was the best. Though a wild Indian youth, he never fell into the vice of drunkenness. He afterward became acquainted with Seth Crawford, an earnest Christian worker, and one who had taken a deep interest in the spiritual welfare of the Indians. His piety, and sympathy for them, made a deep impression on his mind.

Soon after, a camp-meeting was held in the township of Ancaster by the early Methodists of those days. Many were drawn by curiosity to visit this gathering. Among the rest this young Indian and his sister Mary came, to see how the Methodists worshiped the Great Spirit in the wilderness. His own description of the scene is as follows:

“On arriving at the encampment I was immediately struck with the solemnity of the people, several of whom were engaged in singing and prayer. Some strange feeling came over my mind, and I was led to believe that the Supreme Being was in the midst of His people, who were now engaged in worshiping Him.

“We pitched our tent upon the ground allotted to us; it was made of coarse linen cloth. The encampment contained about two acres, enclosed by a brush fence. The tents were pitched within this circle; all the under-brush was taken away, whilst the larger trees were left standing, forming a most beautiful shade. There were three gates leading into the encampment. During each night the whole place was illuminated with fire-stands, which had a very imposing appearance among the trees and leaves. The people came from different parts of the country, some ten, some twenty, and some even fifty miles, in their wagons, with their sons and daughters, for the purpose of presenting them to the Lord for conversion. I should judge there were about a thousand persons on the ground.

“At the sound of the horn we went and took our seats in front of the stand, from which a sermon was delivered. After this there was a prayer-meeting, in which all who felt disposed took part in exhorting and praying for penitents. The next day, Saturday, 2nd of June, several sermons were preached, and prayer-meetings were held during the intervals.

“By this time I began to feel very sick in my heart, but did not make my feelings known. On Sabbath, there was a great concourse of people who came from the adjoining settlements, and many discourses were delivered, some of which deeply impressed my mind, as I could understand most of what was said. I thought the ‘black-coats’ knew all that was in my heart, and that I was the person addressed. The burden of my soul began still to increase, and my heart said, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ for I saw myself to be in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. The more I understood the plan of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, the more I was convinced of the truth of the Christian religion and of my need of salvation. In spite of my old Indian heart, tears flowed down my cheeks at the remembrance of my sins. I saw many of the white people powerfully awakened, and heard them crying aloud for mercy, while others stood and gazed, and some even laughed and mocked. The meeting continued all Monday, and several discourses were delivered from the stand. My convictions at this time were deep and powerful. During the preaching I wept much. This, however, I endeavored to conceal by holding down my head behind the shoulders of the people. I felt anxious that no one might see me weeping like an old woman, as all my countrymen consider this beneath the dignity of an Indian brave. In the afternoon of this day my sorrow and anguish of soul greatly increased, and I felt as if I should sink down to hell for my sins, which I saw to be very great, and exceedingly offensive to the Great Spirit. I was fully convinced that if I did not find mercy from the Lord Jesus, of whom I heard much, I certainly should be lost forever. I thought, if I could only get the good people to pray for me at their prayer-meetings, I should soon find relief to my mind, but had not sufficient courage to make my desires known. Oh, what a mercy that Christ did not forsake me when my heart was so slow to acknowledge Him as my Lord and Saviour! Towards evening I retired into the solitary wilderness to try to pray to the Great Spirit. I knelt down by the side of a fallen tree. The rattling of the leaves over my head with the wind made me uneasy. I retired further back into the woods, and then wrestled with God in prayer, who helped me to resolve that I would go back to the camp and get the people of God to pray for me. I went, but when I arrived at the meeting, my fearful heart again began to hesitate. I stood by the side of a tree, considering what I must do, whether I should give up seeking the Lord altogether, or not.

“It was now about dusk. Whilst I was thus hesitating as to what to do, a good old man, named Reynolds, came to me and said, ‘Do you wish to obtain religion and serve the Lord?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘Do you desire the people of God to pray for you?’ I told him I did, and that was what I had desired. He then led me into the prayer-meeting. I fell upon my knees, and began as well as I could to call upon the name of the Lord. The old man prayed for me, and exhorted me to believe on our Lord Jesus Christ, who, he said, had died for Indians as well as for white people. Several of the preachers prayed for me. When I first began to pray, my heart was soft and tender, and I shed many tears; but, strange to say, some time after my heart got as hard as a stone. I tried to look up, but the heavens seemed like brass. I then began to say to myself, ‘There is no mercy for a poor Indian.’ I felt myself an outcast, a sinner bound for hell. About midnight I got so fatigued and discouraged, that I retired from our prayer-meeting and went to our tent, where I immediately fell asleep. I know not how long I had slept when I was awakened by the Rev. E. Stoney and G. Ferguson, who had missed me at the prayer-meeting, and had come with a light to search for me. Mr. Stoney said to me, ‘Arise, Peter, and go with us to the prayer-meeting, and get your soul converted. Your sister Mary has already obtained the Spirit of adoption, and you must also seek the same blessing.’

“When I heard that my sister was converted and had found peace (not knowing before that she was even so much as seeking the Lord), I sprang up and went with the two good men, determining that if there was still mercy left for me, I would seek until I found it. On arriving at the prayer-meeting, I found my sister apparently as happy as she could be. She came to me and began to weep over me and to exhort me to give my heart to God, telling me how she had found the Lord. These words came with power to my poor sinking heart, and I fell upon my knees and cried to God for mercy. My sister prayed for me, as well as other good people, and especially Mr. Stoney, whose zeal for my salvation I shall never forget. At the dawn of day I was enabled to cast myself wholly upon the Lord, and to claim the atoning blood of Jesus, as my all-sufficient Saviour, who had borne all my sins in His own body on the cross. That very instant my burden was removed, joy unspeakable filled my heart, and I could say, ‘Abba, Father.’

“The love of God being now shed abroad in my heart, I loved Him intensely, and praised Him in the midst of the people. Everything now appeared in a new light, and all the works of God seemed to unite with me in uttering the praises of the Lord. The people, the trees of the woods, the gentle winds, the warbling notes of the birds, and the approaching sun, all declared the power and goodness of the Great Spirit. And what was I that I should not raise my voice in giving glory to God, who had done such great things for me!

“My heart was now drawn out in love and compassion for all people, especially for my parents, brothers, sisters, and countrymen, for whose conversion I prayed, that they might also find this great salvation. I now believed with all my heart in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and gladly renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil. I cannot describe my feelings at this time. I was a wonder to myself. Oh, the goodness of God in giving His only-begotten Son to die for me, and thus to make me His child by the Spirit of adoption! May I never forget the great things He has done for me on the glorious morning of the 5th of June 1823!”

Idols and Dog-Ovens.

ON one of my canoe trips, when looking after pagan bands in the remote Nelson River District, I had some singular experiences, and learned some important lessons about the craving of the pagan heart after God.

We had been journeying on for ten or twelve days when one night we camped on the shore of a lake-like river. While my men were busily employed in gathering wood and cooking the supper, I wandered off and ascended to the top of a well wooded hill which I saw in the distance. Very great indeed was my surprise, when I reached the top, to find myself in the presence of the most startling evidences of a degraded paganism.

The hill had once been densely covered with trees, but about every third one had been cut down, and the stumps, which had been left from four to ten feet high, had been carved into rude representations of the human form. Scattered around were the dog-ovens, which were nothing but holes dug in the ground and lined with stones, in which at certain seasons, as part of their religious ceremonies, some of their favorite dogs―white ones were preferred―were roasted, and then devoured by the excited crowd. Here and there were the tents of the old conjurers and medicine men, who, combining some knowledge of medicine with a great deal of superstitious abominations, held despotic sway over the people. The power of these old conjurers over the deluded Indians was very great. They were generally lazy old fellows, but succeeded nevertheless in getting the best that was going, as they held other Indians in such terror of their power, that gifts in the shape of fish and game were constantly flowing in upon them. They have the secret art among themselves of concocting some poisons so deadly that a little put in the food of a person who has excited their displeasure will cause death almost as soon as a dose of strychnine. They have other poisons which, while not immediately causing death to the unfortunate victims, yet so affect and disfigure them that, until death releases them, their sufferings are intense and their appearance frightful.

Here on this hilltop were all these sad evidences of the degraded condition of the people. I wandered around and examined the idols, most of which had in front of them, and in some instances on their flat heads, offerings of tobacco, food, red cotton, and other things. My heart was sad at these evidences of such degrading idolatry, and I was deeply impressed with my need of wisdom and aid from on high, so that when I met the people who here worshipped these idols I might so preach Christ and Him crucified that they would be constrained to accept Him as their all-sufficient Saviour.

While there I lingered, and mused, and prayed, the shadows of the night fell on me, and I was shrouded in gloom. Then the full moon rose up in the East, and as her silvery beams shone through the trees and lit up these grotesque idols, the scene presented a strange weird appearance. My faithful Indians becoming alarmed at my long absence―for the country was infested by wild animals―were on the search for me, when I returned to the campfire. We ate our evening meal, sang a hymn, and bowed in prayer. Then we wrapped ourselves up in our blankets, and lay down on the granite rocks to rest. Although our bed was hard and there was no roof above us, we slept sweetly, for the day had been of hard work and strange adventure.

After paddling about forty miles the next day we reached the Indians of that section of the country, and remained several weeks among them. With the exception of the old conjurers, they all received me very cordially. These old conjurers had the same feelings toward me as those who made silver shrines for Diana of Ephesus had toward the preachers of Christianity in their city. They trembled for their occupation. They well knew that if I succeeded in inducing the people to become Christians their occupation would be gone, and they would have to settle down to work for their own living, like other people, or starve. I visited them as I did the rest of the encampment, but they had enmity in their hearts toward me. Of all their efforts to injure or destroy me of course I knew not. That their threats were many I well understood; but He Who had said, “Lo, I am with you alway,” mercifully watched over me and shielded me from their evil deeds. My two Indian attendants also watched as well as prayed, with a vigilance that seemed untiring. Very pleasant, indeed, are my memories of my faithful Indian comrades on those long journeys. Their loyalty and devotion could not be excelled. Everything that they could do for my safety and happiness was cheerfully done.

We held three religious services every day, and between these services taught the people to read in the Syllabic characters. One day, in conversing with an old fine-looking Indian, I said to him, “What is your religion? If you have any clear idea of religion, tell me in what you believe.”

His answer was: “We believe in a good Spirit and in a bad spirit.”

“Why, then,” I said, “do you not worship the good Spirit? I came through your sacred grounds, and I saw where you had cut down some trees. Part you had used as fuel with which to cook your bear or deer meat; out of the rest you had made an idol, which you worship. How is one part more sacred than the other? Why do you make and worship idols?”

I can never forget his answer, or the impressive and almost passionate way in which the old man replied: “Missionary, the Indian’s mind is dark, and he cannot grasp the unseen. He hears the great Spirit’s voice in the thunder and storms. He sees the evidences of His existence all around, but neither he nor his fathers have ever seen the great Spirit; or any one who has; and so he does not know what He looks like. But man is the highest creature he knows of, and so he makes his idols like a man, and calls it his ‘Manito.’ We only worship them because we do not know what the great Spirit looks like, but these we can understand.”

Suddenly there flashed into my mind the request of Philip to the Lord Jesus: “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;” and the wonderful answer: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”

I opened my Indian Bible at that wonderful chapter of disinterested love, the fourteenth of John, and preached unto them Jesus, in His two natures, Divine and human. While emphasizing the redemptive work of the Son of God, I referred to His various offices and purposes of love and compassion, His willingness to meet us and to save us from perplexity and doubt, as well as from sin. I spoke about Him still retaining His human form as He pleads for us at the throne of God. I dwelt upon these delightful truths, and showed how Christ’s love had so brought Him to us, that with the eye of faith we could see Him, and in Him all of God for which our hearts craved. “Whom having not seen, we love; in Whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

For many days I needed no other themes. They listened attentively, and the Holy Spirit applied these truths to their hearts and consciences so effectively that they gladly received them. A few more visits effectually settled them in the truth. They have cut down their idols, filled up the dog-ovens, torn away the conjurers’ tents, cleared the forest, and banished every vestige of the old life. And there, at what is called “the Meeting of the Three Rivers,” on that very spot where idols were worshipped amidst horrid orgies, and where the yells, rattles, and drums of the old conjurers and medicine men were heard continuously for days and nights, there is now a little church, where these same Indians, transformed by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, are “clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.”

The True Sense of Past Sin.

ONE of the first Indians to attract our attention at Norway House was a venerable-looking man of more than usual height. His appearance was quite patriarchal. His welcome had been most cordial, and his words seemed to us like a loving benediction. He called us his children and welcomed us to our home and work in the name of the Lord Jesus.

As he was very aged, and had to come a long distance from his home to the Sunday morning service, we invited him, on the first Sunday after our arrival at the Mission, to dine with us. He was very grateful, and said this would enable him to remain for the afternoon native service, which he dearly prized. He was not only a blessed Christian, but a natural gentleman. We were so drawn toward him that we invited him to dine with us, and then rest awhile, each Sunday between the services.

Like all the old Indians, his age was unknown, but it must have been over a century, as men above fifty said he was called an old man when they were boys. The fact that his name had been on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s book for eighty years, as a skillful hunter, makes it quite safe to class him as a centenarian.

His testimony to the blessedness of the Gospel was very clear and delightful. He “knew Whom he had believed,” and ever rejoiced in the blessed assurance that he would have grace given to keep him to the end. He was one of the first converts of the early Missionaries, and had remained true and steadfast. He had been a successful Class Leader for many years, and faithfully and well did he attend to his duties. If any of his members were not at the meeting, he knew the reason why before the next evening, if they were within five or six miles of his home.

As he lived a couple of years after we reached the Mission, we got to be very well acquainted, and it was ever a blessing to talk to him of spiritual things. I had a very convincing evidence one day of the thoroughness with which he had renounced his old pagan life and its sinful practices. We had been talking on various subjects, and the matter of different kinds of belief came up. As he had a very retentive memory, and I had been told that he was the best authority on old Indian religions and superstitions, I took out of my pocket a notebook and pencil, and said, “Mismis” (English, “Grandfather”), “I want you to tell me some things about your old conjurings and religions. I may want to write a book some time and put some of these things in it.”

The dear old man’s face became clouded, and he shook his head and remained silent.

I urged my request, saying I felt certain he, from his great age, must have much to talk about. For his answer, he sat down in his chair, and, putting his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and seemed lost in a kind of reverie.

I waited for a few minutes, for all was hushed and still. His family had heard my question, and they had become intensely interested. The silence became almost painful, and so I said in a cheery strain, “Come, grandfather, I am waiting to write down what you have to say.”

Suddenly he sprang up in a way that startled us all, and, stretching out his hand like an orator, he began: ― “Missionary! the old wicked life is like a nightmare, like a bad dream, like a terrible sickness that made us cry out with pain. I am trying to banish it, to forget it, to wipe it out of my memory. Please do not ask me to talk about it, or to bring it up. I could not sleep; I should be miserable.”

Of course I put up my book and pencil, and did not further trouble the dear old man, who seemed so loth to talk about his old belief.

The next Sunday after this interview we had a Fellowship Meeting in the church. One of the first to speak was this venerable grandfather. He said, “The Missionary wanted me to talk to him about my old religion. I could not do it. It was my enemy. It only made me miserable. The more I followed it, the more unhappy I was. So I have cast it out of my life, and from my heart. Would that I could wash it out of my memory!” Then he added, “But perhaps the memory of it helps to make me love my Saviour better, as I can remember from what He has saved me. I was so far from Him, and so dark and sinful. He reached down His strong arm and lifted me out of the dark place, and put me into the light. O, I am so thankful Jesus saved me, and I love to talk about it.”

And he did talk about it, and our hearts rejoiced with him.

Of him it could be truthfully said, “What he once loved he now hates, and does it so thoroughly that he does not even wish to talk about it.”

While writing these pleasant memories, perhaps I cannot do better than here record the remarkable closing scenes of the life of this venerable old man, the patriarch of the village. His family was a large one. He had several sons. Worthy, excellent men they were. About some of them we shall have interesting things to say. The youngest, Edward, it was my joy to lead into the sweet assurance that his sins were all forgiven. In July 1889, he was ordained, in Winnipeg, to the office and work of the Christian ministry.

Martin, another of his sons, was one of my most loved and trusted guides, and my companion, for thousands of miles, in birch canoe by summer, and dog-trains by winter. We have looked death in the face together many times, but I never knew him to flinch or play a coward’s part. Supplies might fail, and storms and head-winds delay us, until starvation stared us in the face, and even the Missionary himself began to question the wisdom of taking these wild journeys where the chances were largely against our return, when from Martin, or one of the others, would come the apt quotation from the Sacred Word, or from their musical voices the cheering hymn which said―

“Give to the winds thy fears;

Hope and be undismayed:

God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears,

God shall lift up thy head.

“Through waves and clouds and storms

He gently clears the way:

Wait thou His time, so shall this night

Soon end in joyous day.”

Very precious and very real were many of the blessed promises, and their fulfillment, to us in those times of peril and danger, when death seemed to be so near, and we so helpless and dependent upon the Almighty arm.

Another son of this old saint was Samuel, the courageous guide and modest, unassuming Christian. He was the one who guided his well-loaded brigade up the mighty Saskatchewan river to the rescue of the whites there, and having safely and grandly done his work, “holding on to God,” went up the shining way so triumphantly that there lingered behind on his once pallid face some radiance of the glory like that into which he had entered; and some seeing it were smitten with a longing to have it as their portion, and so, then and there, they gave themselves to God. Of him we shall hear more farther on.

One day when the venerable father met his class, he told his members that his work was nearly done, and soon indeed he expected to pass over to the better land. Although as well as he had been for months, yet he had a premonition that the end of his life was near. Very lovingly and faithfully did he talk to them, and exhorted them to be faithful to the end.

The next day he sent for me, and requested me to appoint one of his sons as leader of his class, if I thought him worthy of the place.

I said, “We do not want to lose you. Your class members all love you. Why resign your position?”

A strange look in his face told me that he had set his heart on joining another company, and that it seemed as though he were only postponing his departure until his little affairs on earth were set in order.

“I am going very soon now, and I want to have everything settled before I go; and shall be so glad to see my son William leader of my class, if you think it best.”

As the son was a most excellent man the appointment was made, much to the aged father’s delight.

The next day he had assembled all the old members who had renounced paganism and become Christians at the same time he did over thirty years before. There were enough of them to fill his house, and all came who possibly could. They sang and prayed together, and then he stood up before them and addressed them in loving and affectionate words.

As I sat there and looked upon the scene, while, for about an hour, he was reviewing the past, and talking of God’s goodness in bringing them out of paganism, and conferring so many blessings upon, them, I thought of Joshua’s memorable gathering of the elder people at Shechem to hear his dying charge. At his request I administered to then all, and those of his many relations who were worthy, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It was a most impressive time. He whose dying we celebrated seemed in Spirit very blessedly near.

Then perhaps another hour was spent, at his desire, in singing his favorite hymns and in prayer. He entered with great spirit into the devotions, and many said afterward, “Heaven seemed very near.” I shook hands with him and said, “Goodbye,” and returned to my home. With the exception of a little weariness on account of the exciting services through which he had passed, I saw no change in him. His voice was just as cheery, his eye as bright, his grip as firm as usual, and I saw no reason why he should not live a good while yet.

About an hour after, while talking the matter over with Mrs. Young, and giving her some of the specially interesting incidents of the memorable services with our dear old friend, there was a sudden call for me by an Indian, who, rushing in without ceremony, exclaimed, “Come quickly; grandfather is dead!” I hurriedly returned with him, and found that the aged patriarch had indeed passed away.

They told me that after I had left them he continued for a time to speak loving words of counsel and advice to them. Then, as had been his habit, he lay down on his bed, and drew his blanket around him, as though prepared for rest. As they knew he must be weary, they kept very still, so as not to disturb him. Not hearing him breathe, one of them touched him, and found that he had fallen into that sleep which here knows no waking. He was not, for God had taken him.

It was a remarkable death. The great difficulty among us seemed to be, to realize the presence of death at all. He suffered no disease, and never complained of pain. His mind was unclouded till the last. In his humble position he had done his work, and done it well; and so now, with all the confidence of a loving child resting in the arms of a mother, he laid his head down on the bosom of his Lord.

With rejoicings, rather than weepings, we laid in the little graveyard all that was mortal of William Papanekis. We missed him very much, for his presence was like the sunshine, and his prayers were benedictions upon us all.

“Where Are Our Children?”

ON the banks of a wild river, about sixty miles from Beaver Lake, I visited a band of pagan Indians, who seemed determined to resist every appeal or entreaty I could make to induce them to listen to my words. They were so dead and indifferent that I was for a time quite disheartened. The journey to reach them had taken about eight days from home through the dreary wilderness, where we had not met a single human being. My two faithful canoe-men and I had suffered much from the character of the route, and the absence of game, which had caused us more than once to wrap ourselves up in our blankets and lie down supperless upon the granite rocks and try to sleep. The rain had fallen upon us so persistently that for days the water had been dripping from us, and we had longed for the sunshine that we might get dry again.

We had met with some strange adventures, and I had had another opportunity for observing the intelligence and shrewdness of my men, and their quickness in arriving at right conclusions from very little data. Many think of the Indians as savages and uncivilized, yet in some respects they are highly educated, and are gifted with a quickness of perception not excelled by any other people in the world. We had the following illustration of it on this trip.

As most of the Indians had gone away in the brigades to York Factory, to carry down the furs and to freight up the goods for the next winter’s trade, I could not find any canoe-men who were acquainted with the route to the pagan band which I wished to visit. The best I could do was to secure the services of a man as a guide who had only been as far as Beaver Lake. He was willing to go and run the risk of finding the Indian band, if possible, although so far beyond the most northern point he had ever gone before. As I could do no better, I hired him and another Indian, and away we went.

After several days of hard work―for the portages around the falls and rapids were many, and several times we had to wade through muskegs or morasses up to our knees for miles together, carrying all our load on our heads or backs―we at length reached Beaver Lake. Here we camped for the night and talked over our future movements. We had come two hundred and forty miles through these northern wilds, and yet had about sixty miles to go ere we expected to see human beings and were all absolutely ignorant of the direction in which to go.

We spent the night on the shore of the lake, and slept comfortably on the smooth rocks. Early the next morning we began to look out for signs to guide us on our way. There were several high hills in the vicinity, and it was decided that we should each ascend one of these, and see if from these elevated positions the curling smoke from some distant Indian campfire, or other signs of human beings, could be observed.

Seizing my rifle, I started off to ascend the high hill which had been assigned me, while my Indians went off in other directions. This hill was perhaps half a mile from our campfire, and I was soon at its foot, ready to push my way up through the tangled underbrush that grew so densely on its sides. To my surprise I came almost suddenly upon a creek of rare crystal beauty, on the banks of which were many impressions of hoofs, large and small, as though a herd of cattle had there been drinking. Thoughtlessly, for I seemed to have forgotten where we were, I came to the conclusion that as the herd of cattle had there quenched their thirst, they and their owner must be near. So I hurried back to the camp, and signaled to the men to return, and told them what I had seen. There was an amused look on their faces, but they were very polite and courteous men, and so they accompanied me to the creek, where, with a good deal of pride, I pointed out to them the footprints of cattle, and stated that I thought that they and their owners could not be far off. They listened to me patiently, and then made me feel extremely foolish by uttering the word “Moose.” I had mistaken the footprints of a herd of moose for a drove of cattle, much to their quiet amusement.

We looked around for a time, and, getting no clue, we embarked in our canoe, and started to explore the different streams that flowed into or out of this picturesque lake. After several hours of unsuccessful work we entered into the mouth of quite a fine river, and began paddling up it, keeping close to one of its sandy shores. Suddenly one of my Indians sprang up in the canoe, and began carefully examining some small tracks on the shore. A few hasty words were uttered by the men, and then we landed.

They closely inspected these little footprints, and then exclaimed, “We have got it now, Missionary; we can take you soon to the Indians!”

“What have you discovered?” I said. “I see nothing to tell me where the Indians are.”

“We see it very plain,” was the reply. “You sent word that you were coming to meet them this moon. They have been scattered hunting, but are gathering at the place appointed, and a canoe of them went up this river yesterday, and the dog ran along the shore, and these are his tracks.”

I examined these impressions in the sand, and said, “The country is full of wild animals; these may be the tracks of a wolf or wolverine or some other beast.”

They only laughed at me, and said, “We can see a great difference between these tracks and those made by the wild animals.”

Our canoe was soon afloat again, and, using our paddles vigorously, we sped rapidly along the river. With no other clue than those little footprints in the sand my men confidently pushed along. After paddling for about twenty miles we came to the campfire, still smoldering, where the Indians had slept the night before. Here we cooked our dinner, and then hurried on, still guided by the little tracks along the shore. Towards evening we reached the encampment, just as my canoe-men had intimated we should.

The welcome we received was not very cordial. The Indians were soured and saddened by having lost many of their number, principally children, by scarlet fever, which for the first time had visited their country, and which had been undoubtedly brought into their land by some free-traders the year before. With the exception of an old conjurer or two, none openly opposed me, but the sullen apathy of the people made it very discouraging work to try to preach or teach. However, we did the best we could, and were resolved that having come so far, and suffered so many hardships to reach them, we would faithfully deliver the message, and leave the results to Him Who had permitted us to be the first who had ever visited that land to tell the story of redeeming love.

One cold, rainy day a large number of us were crowded into the largest wigwam for a talk about the truths in the great Book. My two faithful Christian companions aided me all they could by giving personal testimony to the blessedness of this great salvation. But all seemed in vain. There the people sat and smoked in sullen indifference. When questioned as to their wishes and determinations, all I could get from them was, “As our fathers lived and died, so will we.”

Tired out and sad of heart, I sat clown in quiet communion with God, and breathed up a prayer for guidance and help in this hour of sore perplexity. In my extremity the needed assistance came so consciously that I almost exulted in the assurance of coming victory. Springing up, I shouted out, “I know where all your children are, who are not among the living! I know, yes, I do know most certainly where all the children are, whom Death has taken in his cold grasp from among us, the children of the good and of the bad, of the whites and of the Indians, I know where all the children are.”

Great indeed was the excitement among them. Some of them had had their faces well shrouded in their blankets as they sat like upright mummies in the crowded wigwam. But when I uttered these words, they quickly uncovered their faces, and manifested the most intense interest. Seeing that I had at length got their attention, I went on with my words: “Yes, I know where all the children are. They have gone from your campfires and wigwams. The hammocks are empty, and the little bows and arrows lie idle. Many of your hearts are sad, as you mourn for those little ones whose voices you hear not, and who come not at your call. I am so glad that the Great Spirit gives me authority to tell you that you may meet your children again, and be happy with them forever. But you must listen to His words, which I bring to you from His great Book, and give Him your hearts, and love and serve Him. There is only one way to that beautiful land, where Jesus, the Son of the Great Spirit, has gone, and into which He takes all the children who have died; and now that you have heard His message and seen His Book, you too must come this way, if you would be happy and there enter in.”

While I was thus speaking, a big, stalwart man from the other side of the tent sprang up, and rushed towards me. Beating on his breast he said, “Missionary, my heart is empty, and I mourn much, for none of my children are left among the living; very lonely is my wigwam. I long to see my children again, and to clasp them in my arms. Tell me, Missionary, what must I do to please the Great Spirit, that I may get to that beautiful land, that I may meet my children again?” Then he sank at my feet upon the ground, his eyes suffused with tears, and was quickly joined by others, who like him, were broken down with grief, and were anxious now for religious instruction.

To the blessed Book we went, and after reading what Jesus had said about little children, and giving them some glimpses of His great love for them, we told them “the old, old story,” as simply and lovingly as we could. There was no more scoffing or indifference. Every word was heard and pondered over, and from that hour a blessed work began.

A Race for Life in a Blizzard Storm.

BLIZZARD storms sometimes assailed us, as on the long winter trails, with our gallant dogs and faithful companions, we wandered over those regions of magnificent distances.

To persons who have not actually made the acquaintance of the blizzard storms of the North-Western Territories, or Wild North Land, it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory description. One peculiarity about them, causing them to differ from other storms, is that the wind seems to be ever coming in little whirls or eddies, which keep the air full of snow, and make it almost impossible to tell the direction from which the wind really comes. With it apparently striking you in the face, you turn your back to it, and are amazed at finding that it still faces you. Once, when on Lake Winnipeg, we saw one coming down upon us. Its appearance was that of a dense fog blowing in from the sea. Very few indeed are they who can steer their course correctly in a blizzard storm. Most people, when so unfortunate as to be caught in one, soon get bewildered, and almost blinded by the fine, dry, hard particles of snow which so pitilessly beat upon them, filling eyes, nose, and even ears and mouth, if at all exposed.

Once, when crossing Lake Winnipeg, to visit some wild Indians, whom we found on our arrival in the midst of the hideous ceremonies of a dog feast, I got caught in a terrible storm. My men had gone on ahead with all the dogs, to have dinner ready in the camp on the distant shore, leaving me miles behind, tramping along on snowshoes. Down from the north, with terrific fury, came the gale. I tramped on as rapidly as possible, until I got bewildered. Then I took off one of my snowshoes, and fastening it in a hole cut in the ice, I got ready to tramp in a small circle around it to keep from freezing to death, when fortunately I heard the welcome whooping of my Indians, who, seeing my danger, had quickly turned round, and risking their own lives for mine, for they could have reached the woods and shelter, aided by the dogs, had fortunately reached me. There we stopped for hours, until the blizzard had spent its fury, and then on we went.

I had a remarkable experience in a blizzard, which I will more fully describe, as our escape was under Providence so much indebted to my wonderful dog Jack.

I had started on one of my long winter trips to visit the few little bands of Indians who were struggling for an existence on the Eastern coast of Lake Winnipeg, and who were always glad to welcome the Missionary, and to hear from him of the love of the Great Spirit, and of His Son, Jesus Christ. Their country is very wild and rough, very different from the beautiful prairie regions of the North-West. To keep down expenses, which in those Northern Missions are very heavy, I had started out on this long trip with only a young Indian lad as my companion. But as he was good and true, I thought we could succeed, since I had been several years in the country, and had faced many a wintry storm, and slept many nights in the snow.

We had with us two splendid trains of dogs. My leader was a lively, cunning Esquimaux dog, as white as snow. His name was Koona, which is the Indian word for “snow;” and he was well named. The other three dogs of my train were my favorites from Ontario. Two of them were gifts from Senator Sanford, of Hamilton; the other was kindly sent to me by Dr. Mark, of Ottawa. The other train, driven by Alec, was composed of some sagacious St. Bernards obtained for me by the kindness of Mr. Ferrier, of Montreal. The largest and most enduring of the eight was Jack from Hamilton, whose place was second in my train, and who is to be the hero of this adventure.

We had left our campfire in the woods early in the morning, and, turning our faces towards the north, had hoped that ere the shadows of night had fallen around us, at least sixty miles of the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg would have been traveled over. For a time we were able to push on very rapidly, keeping the distant points of headlands well in view for our guidance. Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with bays, and in traveling we do not follow the coastline, but strike directly across these bays from point to point. Some of them run back for many miles into the land, and several of them are from ten to thirty miles wide. The dogs get so accustomed to these long trips and to their work, that they require no guide to run on ahead, but will, with wonderful intelligence, push on from point to point with great exactness.

On and on we had traveled for hours; the cold was very great, but we could easily jump off from our dogsleds and run until we felt the glow and warmth of such vigorous exercise. After a while, we noticed that the strong wind which had arisen was filling the air with fine dry snow and making traveling very difficult and unpleasant. Soon it increased to a gale, and we found ourselves in a real North-West blizzard on stormy Lake Winnipeg, many miles from shore.

Perhaps our wisest plan would have been, at the commencement of the storm, to have turned sharply to the east, and got into the shelter of the forest as quickly as possible. But the bay we were crossing was a very deep one, and the headland before us seemed as near as the other end of the bay; and so we thought it best to run the risk and push on. That we might not get separated from each other, I fastened what we call the tail rope of my sled to the collar of the head dog of Alec’s train.

After Alec and I had traveled on for several hours, no sign of any land appearing, we began to think that the fickle blizzard was playing us one of its tricks, and that we had wandered far into the lake. We stopped our dogs out there in the blinding, bewildering storm.

“Alec!” I shouted, “I am afraid we are lost.”

“Yes, Missionary,” he replied, “we are surely lost.”

We talked about our position, and both had to confess that we did not really know where we were or which way we ought to go.

The result of our deliberation was that we could do no better than trust in the good Providence above us, and in our dogs before us.

As it was now after midday, and the vigorous exercise of the last few hours had made us very hungry, we opened our provision bag, and, taking out some frozen food, made a fairly good attempt to satisfy the keen demands of appetite. We missed very much the good cup of hot black tea we should have had if we had been fortunate enough to reach the shore, and find some wood with which to make a fire.

After our hasty meal we held a short consultation, in which the fact became more and more evident to us, that our position was a very perilous one, as we were becoming blinded by the driving particles of fine snow that stung our eyeballs and added much to our bewilderment. We found that we did not know east from west, or north from south, and would have to leave the dogs to decide on their own course, and let them go in any direction they pleased.

I had a good deal of confidence in my dogs, as I had proved their sagacity. To Jack, the noblest of them all, I looked to lead us out of our difficulty; and he did not disappoint our expectations. I suppose I acted and talked to my dog in a way that some folks would have considered very foolish. When traveling regularly, the dogs are only fed once a day, and that when the day’s work is done. However, it was different that day, as in the blinding gale Alec and I tried to eat our dinner. As Jack and the others crowded around us, they were not neglected, and with them we shared the food we had, as there was a great uncertainty whether another meal would ever be required by any one of us.

As usual in such emergencies Jack had come up close to me, and so, while he and Alec and I, and the rest of us, men and dogs, were eating our dinners, I had a talk with him.

“Jack, my noble fellow,” I said, “do you know that we are lost, and that it is very doubtful whether we shall ever see the Mission House again? The prospect is that the snow will soon be our winding sheet, and that loving eyes will look in vain for our return. The chances are against your ever having the opportunity of stretching yourself out on the wolf rug before the study fire. Rouse yourself up, old dog, for in your intelligence we are going to trust to lead us to a place of safety.”

The few arrangements necessary for the race were soon made. Alec wrapped himself up as comfortably as possible in his rabbit-skin robe, and I helped him to ensconce himself securely on his dogsled. I tied a rope from the end of my sled to the collar of his leader dog, so that our trains might not get separated. Then I straightened out the trains, and, wrapping myself up as well as I could on my sled, I shouted “Marchez!” to the dogs.

I had as leader dog the intelligent white Esquimaux, “Koona.” As I shouted the word for “Go,” Koona turned his head and looked at me, as though bewildered, and seemed to be waiting for “Chaw” or “Yee,” the words for “right” and “left.” As I did not know myself, I shouted to Jack, who was second in the train, “Go on, Jack, whichever way you like, and do the best you can, for I do not know anything about it.” As Koona still hesitated, jack, with all the confidence imaginable, dashed off in a certain direction, and Koona with slackened traces ran beside him, very willing in such an emergency to give him all the honor of leadership.

For hours the dogs kept bravely to their work. The storm raged and howled around us, but not for one moment did Jack hesitate or seem to be at fault. Koona had nothing to do but run beside him; but the other two splendid dogs in the traces behind Jack seemed to catch his spirit, and nobly aided him by their untiring efforts and courage. The cold was so intense that I had grave fears that we should freeze to death. We were obliged so to wrap ourselves up that it was impossible with so much on us to run with any comfort, or to keep up with the dogs whilst going at such a rapid rate. Frequently would I shout back to my comrade, “Alec! don’t go to sleep. Alec, if you do, you may never wake up on earth.” Back would come his response, “All right, sir; then I’ll try to keep awake.”

Thus on we traveled through that wintry storm. How cold, how relentless, how bitter were the continuous blasts of the north wind! After a while the shadows of night fell upon us, and we were enshrouded in the darkness. Not a pleasant position was that in which we were situated; but there was no help for it, nor any use in giving way to despondency or despair. A sweet peace filled my soul, and in a blessed restfulness of spirit my heart was kept stayed upon God. While there is life there is hope; and so, with an occasional shout of warning to Alec to keep awake, and a cheering call to the dogs, who required no special urging, so gallantly were they doing their work, we patiently hung on to our sleds and awaited the result. We were now in the gloom of night, dashing along I knew not where, and not even able at times to see the dogs before us.

About three hours after dark the dogs quickened their pace into a gallop and showed by their excitement that they had detected evidences of nearness to the shore and safety, of which as yet I knew nothing. Soon after they dragged us over a large pile of broken ice and snow, the accumulations of ice cut out of the holes in the lake, where the Indian families had for months obtained their supply of water for cooking and other purposes. Turning sharply on the trail toward the shore, our dogs dashed along for a couple of hundred yards more; then they dragged us up a steep bank into the forest, and after a few minutes more of rapid traveling, we found ourselves in the midst of a little collection of wigwams, and among a band of friendly Indians, who gave us a cordial welcome, and rejoiced with us at our escape from the storm, which was the severest of the year.

We had three days of religious services with them, and then went on our way from encampment to encampment. Very glad were the poor people to see us, and with avidity did they receive the word preached.

The Personality of Satan and the Agency of Demons

THAT the science and philosophy of this “enlightened age,” should deny the personality of Satan, will excite no surprise in the minds of those who draw their wisdom from the word of God, which, under the Spirit’s teaching, enables them to prove all things, and makes them “wiser than the ancients.”

Modern infidelity has decided that the existence of an evil being is but a myth of the dark ages, is nothing more, indeed, than the evil principle in man which becomes dominant when the higher intellectual or moral qualities of the mind are in abeyance; but if we ask, Whence comes this evil principle? we receive no answer. The infidel admits its existence, but cannot trace it to its source; professing himself to be wise, he becomes a fool, and his mind is darkened.

But “the entrance of Thy Word giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple;” and God has taken care that in that Word the action and character of the old serpent should be laid bare from the beginning.

We are not told, nor is it necessary that we should know, when it was that Satan fell (Comp. Ezek. 28:11-19).― “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and the Lord tells Job (chap. 38:7) that when He laid the foundations of the earth, all the sons of God shouted for joy; but when man first appeared on the scene, Satan was there with his temptations, and he fell. In this temptation Satan is called “the serpent,” a designation by which he is ever after distinguished. Paul fears for the Corinthian saints, lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve, their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). Again, in Rev. 12:9, he appears as “that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world,” and, chap. 20:2, an angel “lays hold on the dragon, that old serpent,” and binds him; and lastly, chap. 20:10, he is cast into the lake of fire, to be tormented forever. What sense would there be in casting an evil principle into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night forever?

In the scriptures of the Old Testament, the old serpent appears prominently on three distinct occasions besides that recorded in Gen. 3. In Job 1 and 2, he accuses the patriarch in Jehovah’s presence. Again, he stood up against Israel (1 Chron. 21:1), and provoked David to number them. Then he is seen as the adversary of the high-priest (Zech. 3:1, 2); and when the Lord Jesus was born, “the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” (Rev. 12:4). Herod, instigated by the devil, “was exceeding wroth,” and, in his rage, slew the young children of Bethlehem; but the infant Jesus was away in Egypt. When the Lord enters upon His ministry, the devil confronts and tempts Him in the wilderness; and his failure there, were there no other proof, exposes the senseless folly of the infidel theory which affirms the devil to be nothing more than an evil principle, or bad conscience, which torments its possessor. In Christ there was no evil principle― “in Him was no sin;” He came triumphantly out of the temptation, and, for the first time, Satan was defeated. Very different was the case of Judas, “Satan entered into him,” and energized him to carry out the thought that had found too ready entrance into his heart (John 13:2-27).

In the instances we have here noticed, Satan acts personally, but this is not his usual mode: he employs hidden agencies―demons subordinate to his authority; human instruments too―men who unconsciously and unsuspectingly yield themselves to the influence of the mysterious motive-power, and are thus lead captive by him. Almost every book of the Old Testament furnishes abundant evidence of the existence and prevalence of the exercise of satanic deception. Again and again we read of magicians, enchanters, astrologers, wizards, diviners, soothsayers, necromancers or consulters with the dead, and those who had familiar spirits; and of all such it is written, “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.” (Lev. 20:27).

As early as the time of Joseph, magicians, or sorcerers, or diviners, were known in Egypt (Gen. 41:8 and 44:5, 15). And afterward, when Moses and Aaron stood before Pharaoh, Jannes and Jam tires feared not to withstand them (2 Tim. 3:8). Aaron’s rod became a serpent, “and the magicians of Egypt did the same with their enchantments―they cast down every man his rod and they became serpents, BUT Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” Here was a fair trial of power between God and Satan, and after a manner that left no opening for sleight of hand on the magicians’ part; and who would dare to affirm that Aaron was acting the part of a clever conjuror? It was as though Satan had challenged God to a trial of skill and was put to shame.

But other miracles followed.―The waters were turned to blood, and the magicians did the same with their enchantments. Moses brought up frogs, so did the magicians; but when the dust became lice, Satan was foiled; “the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring up lice, but THEY COULD NOT,” and were forced to admit that this was “the finger of God.” It is interesting to remark here that there are two things in which satanic power utterly falls short of divine.

First, the magicians could not produce life. They attempted to turn the dust into lice, but could not. Divine creative power alone can give life: Satan can neither create nor annihilate; he can only imitate.

Second, the magicians could not undo their own plagues. Pharaoh was obliged to seek the intervention of Moses in order to the removal of the frogs and flies, etc. Solemn truth, that neither man nor Satan can undo his own mischief! But “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

Although Satan cannot give life, and he knows it, he has yet in reserve a masterpiece of deception, with which he will deceive the world in the time of the end; this will be a counterfeit impartation of life to the image of the beast.― “And he hath power to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Rev. 13:15).

The witch of Endor was what she professed to be. She well understood and practiced her dark art. No doubt she used incantations, but there was no trickery or juggling. She dealt with a familiar spirit, or demon, who, at her call, personated those she might wish to call up. She was simply a necromancer, or professional consulter of the dead. When Samuel was called up, divine interposition set aside the personation of the prophet by a demon, and God Himself through Samuel, had something to say to Saul.

But clearer and more abundant evidence is afforded in the New Testament. Everywhere the Lord met with those who were possessed of devils; they knew Him, and at His word they were cast out. Some, when they saw Him, cried out, “Art Thou come to torment us before the time?” Others besought Him that He would not command them to go out into the deep (the abyss, or bottomless pit―the place where evil is shut up and chained, 2 Peter 2:4), but that they might enter into the swine; and the whole herd perished―about two thousand. In this latter case, a legion had possessed the man; in others, one only; out of Mary Magdalene seven were cast. These demons spoke, using the human voice and tongue as mediums, but the speaker was the demon.

On the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost; the disciples spake with tongues and prophesied; and thenceforth Satan, without abandoning his older devices, took up a new line of action by counterfeiting the operations of the Holy Spirit: Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8:9,19), and the damsel at Philippi (Acts 16:16), may be instanced. The latter possessed a spirit of divination, and brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. She had literally a spirit of python, or serpent; and it is significant that the Hebrew word for “serpent” (nahghash) is the same as for “enchantment” ―an unmistakable indication of its satanic origin. The celebrated oracle of Delphi was originally called “Typho,” from “Typhon,” the Egyptian name for the evil genius. Its pythoness or priestess was called “Pythea,” who with whatever amount of deception which might have been practiced for gain, was undoubtedly possessed with a spirit of Python or satanic inspiration. Falling into a state of wild phrensy, she gave oracular replies, generally ambiguous, to the inquiries which, from all quarters, were made by kings, generals, statesmen, and others, who believed her to be the medium of communication between the gods and men.

The danger to which even the assemblies of Christians were and still are exposed may be inferred from the fact of a special gift conferred upon some by the Holy Ghost, namely, “the discerning of spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10), or the ability to discern between the communications of the Holy Ghost and the teachings or doctrines of seducing spirits or demons, concerning which “the Spirit speaks expressly,” “that in the latter times some would give heed to such” (1 Tim. 4:1).

Thus far, then, we have seen that the Old-Testament scripture, in one unbroken chain of evidence, testifies to the prevalence of witchcraft in its many varied forms from the time of Moses to the birth of the Lord Jesus; and the Gospel, Acts, and Epistles supply still more striking evidence of its widespread existence from that period to the time of His appearing in glory―that is to say, throughout the whole of the present dispensation. The short period that will elapse between the rapture of the Church and His return to take the kingdom will be marked by more fearful manifestations of satanic power than the world has ever yet witnessed; but before considering this last terrible epoch, it may be well to notice a common difficulty and objection.

It is the fashion of the day to deny the existence of witchcraft, and belief in it is branded as the height of ignorance and superstition. This is exactly what Satan wants. He does not “spread the snare in the sight of any bird.”

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were marked by a religious belief in witchcraft, which ran to such extremes in Europe and America that it might truly be called a witchcraft mania. Under certain statutes passed in the reign of Henry VII., witchcraft was declared to be a capital offense; and under Elizabeth and James 1, the law became still more severe. Besides numerous executions of individuals, we find wholesale murders in abundance. In 1612, twelve persons were condemned and executed at once at Lancaster; and in 1613, many more in the same county. Hence the notoriety of the “Lancashire witches.” In 1634, nineteen in Lancashire, and soon after sixteen at Yarmouth, and fifteen at Chelmsford. In 1645-6, sixty persons perished in Suffolk, and nearly as many more at Huntingdon.

Barrington, who wrote on the statute of Henry VI., estimates the total number of executions in England on this charge at thirty thousand! In Scotland, the law was carried out with still greater rigor; the year 1722 witnessed the last execution there of more than four thousand. In Germany, more than a hundred thousand individuals are said to have perished. In 1515, in the space of three months, five hundred witches were burned in Geneva; and in one year, in the diocese of Como, one thousand were executed. In America, the extirpation of witches was carried out with still more determined zeal. No one’s life was safe for a single day. If anyone had a grudge against another―if anyone had seen a white cat run up the chimney―had felt the pricking of pins―if the cattle cast their calves, or the fowls refused to lay―if the cartwheels stuck fast in the mire at a certain evil spot, or whatever else might befall, it was only necessary to charge some unfriendly neighbor with witchcraft, and the accused had small chance of acquittal. There was but one way of security, and that was to turn accuser. But at length society took alarm, and the game of witchcraft in its grosser form was ended. Judges refused to convict, and charges were no longer made. It had, however, been a marvelous success in the hands of the archenemy of mankind. Thousands of innocent persons had perished, and people began to be angry with themselves for having been so strangely deceived. The tide of public opinion turned in an opposite direction, and the philosophy of the day decided that satanic power was a delusion, and witchcraft a relic of the dark ages. Sir Walter Scott wrote on “Demonology and Witchcraft.” His arguments were feeble and illogical; and it would seem that he was conscious of this as the difficulty of the subject opened out before him. “Leaving,” he says, “the further discussion of this dark and difficult question to those whose studies have qualified them to give judgment on so obscure a subject, it so far appears that the witch of Endor was a mere fortuneteller.” How powerless is man to unravel that which the Spirit of God alone can make plain.

Under cover of this sudden and complete revulsion of the public mind, Satan was prepared to make his attacks from new and unsuspected quarters. He had succeeded in discrediting the very existence of evil spirits; he had lulled the world into a false security, and the cry was, “Peace, peace.” His plans for the next campaign were drawn up with the skill of an experienced strategist, and a subtlety with which the wisdom of a fallen world was unable to cope.

The old sorcery was again brought forward in a new and scientific garb, suited to the requirements of an advanced state of civilization.

In 1772, a physician of Vienna, Frederic Anthony Mesmer, was gaining notoriety by his adoption of magnetism as a curative agent. He was assisted in his experiments by a coadjutor of the unenviable name of Father Hell, a Romish priest, from whom he was said to have received his first instructions. Under their joint investigations a new power was developed which was designated, ANIMAL MAGNETISM. It was essential, in order to a satisfactory development of this power, that those who were operated upon should unreservedly resign themselves to the will of the operator. The body was then affected with a kind of sleep, while the mental powers were developed with unwonted and supernatural activity. Objects far distant could be seen and correctly described; they could examine the internal viscera of patients, and for this purpose assisted physicians in their diagnosis; they could speak languages with which they were previously unacquainted; the body could be placed in a state of rigidity and kept in that condition till released by a wave of the operator’s hand. And here it may be remarked that in some of the recorded miracles of so-called saints in the church of Rome there is something that looks exceedingly like mesmerism. It is thought, by many who have investigated such matters, that mesmerism had long been known and practiced by the Romish priesthood, and the supposition is borne out by weighty evidence.

Mesmer was acquiring an immense fortune by his practice; but Hell, either from disappointment in not receiving a fair share of the profits, or chagrin that the secret should have slipped out of the hands of the priests, quarreled violently with Mesmer, and they parted. Mesmer died in 1815, after having practiced in Paris, London and other capitals of Europe.

Animal Magnetism, as it was still called, was taken up by many of the faculty, and occupied the attention of the leading philosophers of the day, but they were all perplexed. Some accounted for it one way, some another, but all differed. Faraday investigated, but could make nothing of it; and both he and many others, in order to save their consistency, affirmed it to be a delusion. Still the fact was there, and numerous witnesses of unquestionable veracity testified to the existence and manifestation of some occult power by which supernatural effects were produced. But if philosophers were outwitted, those who drew their wisdom from above could trace the mystery to its source; the agency was that of a demon.

Other manifestations soon followed―tables and other heavy bodies were moved with unseen hands; the law of gravitation was reversed; inanimate objects obeyed the will of the operator, and the new discovery furnished amusement for evening parties.

It was next found that this mysterious power was also endowed with intelligence. Sounds were heard, words were spelled out by letters, and communications were opened with the spirit-world. Questions were put and answered, and demons were ready at hand to personate departed friends; inquiries were made as to the happiness of spirits in the separate state, and the answers were highly satisfactory. It was ascertained, too, that there was no place of eternal punishment, but that the spirits of the departed entered at once into different degrees of bliss according to their merits. Thus at the close of this nineteenth century we have witnessed a return to pagan darkness and dealing with “familiar spirits.” “Babylon the Great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”

Conjurors, charlatans, and impostors found a lucrative way of deceiving the public by clever imitations of the mysterious power. In some cases the imposture was detected, and both that and the reality were ridiculed. Sometimes the mode of manifestation was explained; but either way, the unwary were thrown off their guard, and under cover of this clever ruse real spiritualism could be carried on by those who were entangled in its meshes. The counterfeits had thrown dust in the eyes of skeptics and infidels, who denounced the whole as a humbug.

Thus, as in the case of the witchcraft mania, counterfeits had answered the purpose of deception as well as realities; and it must be remembered that every counterfeit proves the existence of a reality; the bad sovereign is the proof that there is a good one somewhere.

Man, lifted up in pride of heart, considers himself competent to detect and reject all that will not bear the light of science, forgetting that it is written of these last days that “darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people.” The existence of witchcraft at the present moment, as well as throughout the whole of the present dispensation, is peremptorily decided by the inspired and unerring word of God; and those who deny its existence are not aware, we would hope, that they at the same time deny the authority of Scripture. “If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.” If they will not believe the truth, strong delusion will come upon them that they shall believe a lie; and when the Beast comes upon the scene, they are ready to receive his mark. The false prophet (Rev. 13) will be one possessed of wonderful attainments―a combination of all that fallen man values most. “He doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men;” (Clever deception by electricity, the skeptics will say) he will also give life (or breath) to the image of the Beast, and cause to be killed those who refuse to worship him―those who take heed to the divine record, which lays bare the wiles of that old serpent the devil.

Were there no other scripture than Gal. 5:20 that alone would be sufficient to prove the existence of witchcraft as truly as that of hatred, drunkenness, adultery, etc., named in the same catalog as works of the flesh. It is said (Rev. 9:21), “They repented not of their sorceries; and of Babylon” (Rev. 18:23), “By they sorceries were all nations deceived.” Sorcerers are said to have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8), and “without the city are sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers,” etc. The action of demons is repeatedly noted in Scripture. We have, “Seducing spirits and doctrines [or teachings] of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1), and, “They are the spirits of devils, working miracles.” (Rev. 16:14). Mark the expression, “spirits of devils.” “Babylon has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit” (Rev. 18:2).

The world is ripe for the manifestation of the man of sin, (2 Thess. 2:9) “whose coming is after the working of Satan, in all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” Satan resists the truth more successfully by imitation than by open opposition. Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses by imitation, turning their rods into serpents as he had done. The imitation was clever, but satanic: Pharaoh was deceived, and his heart hardened. The very devils who deceive man, themselves believe and tremble: man denies the truth and does not tremble! He assumes that the less is competent to judge the greater.

Dr. Carpenter affirms that spiritualism has no claim to investigation by scientific men, ―that it is at variance with all-natural laws, and cannot be tested by any acknowledged process, ―that, in short, it is humbug. Dr. C. is evidently unconscious of the position in which this candid admission lands him. He brings the light of science to bear upon certain strange phenomena, and discovers that they are “at variance with all natural laws.”

Does he admit or deny the possibility of a supernatural? He finds himself confronted and perplexed by a mysterious something which sets at naught the wisdom of the philosopher, and, to save consistency, boldly declares that whatever lies beyond the natural laws, with which he is familiar, or which is beyond the reach of present scientific research, is humbug―a name which the temerity of human knowledge gives to whatever is beyond its power of comprehension. Ignorance assumes the office of judge, and decides with the self-confidence natural to it. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” The philosophers of Paul’s day decided that there was no resurrection; the rationalists of the present day explain away the miracles of our Lord by scientific reasoning. Denying supernatural power, they are led captive by Satan at his will. “Signs and lying wonders” are to mark the closing days of this dispensation, now near at hand.

May He who alone is able to grant unto His saints a spirit of deep reverence for and subjection to His own blessed Word, that they may be “kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.”

“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly,”

"Just as I Am"

THERE is a very general but none the less great blunder made with regard to what is required of a poor sinner before he can meet God. The idea is that he has to go through a certain preparation, a process, an undefined something, which will make him worthy to be received. God is holy and good, and therefore, it is thought, a man needs to become, in some measure at least, holy and good too before he can be received of God.

This is such a plausible idea that it gets possession of the mind, and the result is discouragement and despair in the honest, earnest soul, self-righteousness and hypocrisy in the superficial, or infidelity in the rebellious.

The truth is, God requires no preparation of this sort, no holiness, no goodness, on the sinner’s part. All He requires of him is to come honestly confessing his sins, his guilt, his uncleanness, and unworthiness in every way. That is all. God Himself does the rest. He does the forgiving, the removing of guilt, the cleansing. He does that through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus died for what? Why, for our sins, of course. Very well, then, because of that death for our sins God immediately and to all eternity grants the remission of sins to every man that comes to Him confessing his need of it. Jesus suffered for sin as the guilty one, God therefore removes all guilt from the poor sinner who comes to Him with his guilt, and pleads only the blood of Jesus. This is God’s way of cleansing man―so simple, so utterly without merit in man, and so solely to the praise of God who gave Jesus to do this mighty work, and to the praise of Jesus who gave Himself up to do it, that it is beyond man’s capacity to stoop low enough to see it. It requires the power of the Spirit to bring him to this―the place of “a little child.”

Come, fellow-sinner, let me take thee by the hand and lead thee there. It is a place of blessing beyond expression. I tell thee that to be able to come to Jesus as a sinner, nothing but a sinner, bringing nothing save sin, guilt, and misery, secures a meeting with Him than which there is no other like it. Come and taste it. It frees the conscience, it makes the heart overflow with His praise, it humbles the man in truth, and gives Jesus a place in his heart such as He has up there in the throne of God.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him” (Psa. 34:8).

P. J. L.

The Old Nature and the New Birth; or, the New Convert and His Difficulties

THOSE who have much to do with the difficulties and exercises of the newly converted are constantly hearing some such expression as this: “I thought I was saved once, but I now begin to fear that after all I’ve only been deceiving myself. Not only do I feel no better in myself, but, if anything, even worse than before I professed to be converted.”

Now, in such cases, one generally finds that it is not so much their sins that trouble them, as the heart-sickening disappointment they feel, as more and more the truth is forced upon them that their new birth has not only effected no improvement in their evil nature, but that that nature seems much worse than before their conversion. Then comes many a fruitless effort to improve it; but, alas! only to end in deeper wretchedness than ever. In such a state of soul, Satan finds but too fitting an opportunity of hurling his terrible darts. He suggests that they are only miserable hypocrites, professing to be what they know they are not! ―that they had far better give up the whole thing, come out in their true colors, and own that they have never been converted at all!

Oh what intense soul-agony do such assaults cause, when, as yet, true liberty is unknown! Only those who have really passed through it can have any conception of its untold bitterness. It is with a desire to encourage and help such that this paper is written.

God’s Fact and Our Feelings.

When in His word God states a plain fact, it is our wisdom to how to it and believe it, even though our understanding may not at the time be able to grasp it, nor our experience exactly coincide with it. “God is His own interpreter,” and, to the soul that patiently waits upon Him, He will, in His own time, most surely “make it plain.” But should He never in this world be pleased to do so, it is for us to believe it all the same, because of its unerring Author.

Before entering upon the main subject before us, let me give you an example of what I mean, which I trust may be divinely blest to any reader who is in any measure of uncertainty as to the present possession of eternal life.

If you take your Bible, and turn to the third chapter of John’s gospel, you will find, in the last two verses, that God has there recorded four present, solid facts. Let us place them in order thus:

(1) “The Father loveth the Son.”

(2) “And hath given all things into His hand.”

(3) “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”

(4) “He that believeth not the Son... the wrath of God abideth on him.”

Now, I repeat, these are four facts―i.e., they are no mere human opinions, based upon any experience in us: they are unalterable facts. How any fact, when believed, may affect you, is another thing; that is a matter of your feeling, or experience. For instance, the news of the victorious entrance of the German forces into Paris some years since produced, no doubt, a vast variety of experiences as it reached the ears of different persons in different lands; but the fact remained unalterably the same. The experience was produced by the tact believed: the fact was not dependent upon the experience.

Take another illustration. A certain young man is to enter upon large possessions and high privileges when he comes of age. One morning his father addresses him thus: “Let me congratulate you, my son You are of age today.”

“Pardon me, father,” he replies, “but I think you are mistaken.”

“How so?” inquires the astonished father.

“Why, for three reasons. In the first place, I don’t feel that I am twenty-one. Secondly, I was only this very morning looking at myself in the glass, and I’m sure I didn’t look like twenty-one. Lastly, I know it to be the firm opinion of many of my very intimate companions that I can’t possibly be more than about eighteen, or nineteen at most. How can I, therefore, be of age? My friends don’t think I am; and as for myself, I neither feel like it nor look like it! Now what, think you, would a wise father do in such a case? He would simply turn to the family register; and if the plain record there didn’t assure his foolish son, nothing could.

“But,” you exclaim, “who would be so absurd as to talk like that?” I reply, Beware lest you are found manifesting like folly, or worse; for no one can deny that there are multitudes of professed believers in Christ today who pursue precisely the same line of argument, and that in regard to the plainest facts of God’s word. Now, if the father’s written testimony in the family register is enough to assure the son of his real age, and that altogether apart from his feelings, surely the written word of God “that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” ought to be sufficient to give us full assurance of our eternal blessing. Notice, in this verse (Matt. 4:4), how Christ connects “It is written” with the “mouth of God.” This is how faith ever reckons.

And now, for the sake of any troubled reader, let us look at the four facts before referred to in John (1)

(1) “The Father loveth the Son.”

Now, do you believe that fact?

“Oh, yes!” you say, “I do.”

But do you feel, then, that the Father loves the Son?

“It isn’t what I feel,” you reply. “I feel sure He does, for the simple reason that God’s word says He does. It is not a question of what I think or feel. It is a fact; and as such, I believe it.”

(2) “And hath given all things into His hand.” “Well,” you say, “and I firmly believe that fact also.”

But is it because you feel it, or because you SEE everything put into His hand?

“Neither,” you reply; “but I am fully assured of it. God has declared it.”

Now, then, pass on the last fact.

(4) “He that believeth not the Son... the wrath of God abideth on him.”

Again I inquire, Do you believe that fact also, namely, that the wrath of God abides upon the unbeliever? And again perhaps you answer in the affirmative. But supposing the unbeliever doesn’t feel it! “Ah,” you respond, “but the wrath abides upon him all the same for that. His feeling it would not make it true, neither would his not feeling it make it untrue. There stands the fact recorded, and ‘the word of our God shall stand forever’” (Isa. 10:18). “But,” you say, “I am not an unbeliever―I really do believe on the Son of God.” Well, then, just notice the fact which before I purposely omitted, viz.―

(3) “He that believeth on the Son HATH everlasting life.”

Now, in a preceding verse in this chapter, we read, “He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true” (v. 33). And remember that God has not only given a distinct testimony concerning His beloved Son, but has again and again stated the plainest facts concerning those who really believe on Him.

“If I could only have faith enough,” says an anxious soul. Now plausible as this may look at first sight, it is not the gospel. God doesn’t say, “If you can only have faith enough to believe, you have eternal life.” That would be to make a saviour of your faith, and to shut Christ out. But, believing on His Son, He states a simple fact about you, namely, that you HAVE everlasting life, and leaves you simply to set your seal that “God is true.” If the unbeliever has the wrath of God abiding on him whether he feels it or not, so has the true believer everlasting life whether he thinks he has the feeling that rightly belongs to it or not.

Two Impossibilities.

But some perplexed believer may say, “This is not my difficulty at all. I cannot for a moment doubt the truth of the believer’s present possession of eternal life; but when I compare my daily experience with other plain truths in God’s word, I begin to fear that I am not born again at all. For example, in the first epistle of John there are three absolute facts stated about the one who is ‘born of God,’ and I can’t answer to even one of them, do what I will.

“1st. He does not and cannot sin (1 John 3:9).

“2nd. He overcometh the world (1 John 5:4).

“3rd. The wicked one toucheth him not (1 John 5:18).

“Now, in the face of such a scripture, I am bound to confess―

“1st. That I can and (alas!) do sin.

“2nd. That instead of my overcoming the world, it constantly overcomes me.

“3rd. That the enemy has defeated me times without number; thus he does touch me.

“Is there any wonder” you say, “in the perplexity or even the alarm that I often feel in contemplating such a scripture, in the face of such an experience as mine?”

Well, I confess there is not; but let me say, for your comfort, that those who are “dead in their sins” never experience such conflict. It is only the converted who really desire to answer to the thoughts and wishes of God. The unconverted “desire not the knowledge of His ways.” They have “no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18).

But let us return.

We have been noticing one impossibility, viz., “Whosoever is born of God cannot sin”; let us also look at another (Rom. 8:7, 8), “The carnal mind [literally, “mind of the flesh”] is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Mark well these important contrasts: ―

“In the flesh” ―as “born of the flesh” and “cannot please God.”

“Born of God” ―and “cannot sin.”

It may be well here to say that God speaks of the “flesh” in two ways in Scripture―

1. It is used for the physical body, e. g., “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). And Paul, writing to the Colossians, says (chap. 2:1), “As many as have not seen my face in the flesh.”

2. It is the evil or fallen nature in every child of Adam, poisoned by indwelling sin, which is the real source of every sinful action performed by him, e. g., “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit,” etc. (Gal. 5:17).

Two Distinct Natures in One Person.

Thus we have seen that at our natural birth we get an evil nature, so evil, that God says it is impossible to make it subject to His holy law. It “cannot please God.” “Behold,” says the psalmist, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa. 51:5).

But at our spiritual or second birth we receive, through the sovereign operation of the Spirit by means of the word of God (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23), another nature entirely―a “divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)― a new life. The blessed Lord put it to Nicodemus in a few words thus: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

So that the believer actually possesses two natures, viz., “that which is born of the flesh,” and which, because of its very nature, “cannot please God,” and “that which is born of the Spirit,” which from essential nature cannot sin, “because it is born of God.” In the seventh chapter of Romans, you will find these two natures distinctly mentioned side by side. See, for example, the last verse.

“So then with the mind [i.e., the renewed mind, or, as we have been expressing it, the new nature] I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh [i.e. the old nature,] the law of sin.” Then again verses 22, 23, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,” etc.

A simple illustration here may be helpful.

A farmer’s wife, having placed a hen upon a sitting of duck’s eggs, found, at the end of a week, that the greater part of them had been destroyed by some enemy of the hen-roost, upon which she made up the sitting with hen’s eggs. When the hatching-day came round, the hen, of course, found herself responsible for two distinct broods of little ones. This, however, caused her little or no trouble, till one day, she discovered, to her sore distress, that the little ducklings had taken themselves off to a pond close by, and so delighted were they with their first excursion on the water, that her loudest clucks and most urgent calls alike proved fruitless to bring them back to dry land. The chickens, on the contrary, showed not the slightest inclination to venture into such an element, and would have been miserable enough had they been forced into it. So that here were two distinct natures, with entirely different tastes and habits. That which came from the duck’s egg had the nature of the duck, that from the hen’s egg the nature of the hen; yet both were hatched in the same nest. Now, all the farmers’ wives in the world, with all the men of science at their back, could never change the nature of a duck into that of a chicken. The duck would still keep the nature of a duck, and the chicken the nature of a chicken.

A thousand times more distinct are the two natures in a Christian, because of the different sources from whence they come. One is from man ―lost, guilty, fallen man; the other from God, in all the holiness of His sinless nature. One is human, and polluted; the other divine, and therefore undefilable. So that every evil thought or deed of the believer springs from the old nature, while every good desire, or godly deed, finds its source in the new. For example, you may remember the day when you had a desire to retire to your quiet room alone for prayer. That desire came from the new nature. But while upon your knees, perhaps some wicked, wandering thought came into your mind. That was the outcome of the old. But now comes another important inquiry, viz.―

Is the Old Nature Improved by the New?

There is but one answer: Nothing can improve the flesh. It was tried in every possible way from the fall of Adam in Eden to the cross of Christ at Calvary. And what was the result? Why, just this: God’s holy law was willfully broken, when He came righteously demanding obedience from man. His Son was cruelly murdered, when He visited this world in grace to man. Indeed, instead of the presence of a divine life improving the old nature, it only manifests its utter badness. Just as making a poor beggar the present of a new coat by no means improves the appearance of his old threadbare dirty waistcoat, but the very opposite.

Then, it may be asked, if my old nature can neither be forgiven nor improved, two difficulties at once present themselves.

(1) How can I be delivered from it?

(2) How do I get power over it?

In considering these difficulties it will be well to notice the important difference made in Scripture between―

“Sin” in the Flesh and “Sins.”

Very frequently the evil principle born in us naturally is simply called SIN, while the evil actions, words, and thoughts which are the consequence of possessing this corrupt nature are called SINS. You will see the distinction in 1 John 1: 8, 9,

― “If we say that we have no SIN, we deceive ourselves,” etc. And again, “If we confess our SINS, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin.” This distinction is of the greater importance when we find in Scripture that while, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, God does forgive our sinful deeds―i. e., our SINS; yet He never forgives “SIN in the flesh,” but “condemns,” or judges it. Let me seek to explain how this is.

Suppose you have a child who has naturally a violent temper. In a fit of passion one day, he throws a book at his brother, and breaks a large pane of glass in the window. Well, upon penitent confession of the naughty deed, you would be free to forgive him; but what about the bad temper that made him do it? Do you forgive that? Impossible! You detest it, and if you could, would get thoroughly rid of it―you utterly condemn it!

Now, the bad temper [though in itself only one feature of an evil nature,] would answer to indwelling SIN; while its evil activities in hurting the brother and smashing the window would answer to the sm. And so, I repeat, though God does most freely forgive the believer’s sins, He never forgives sin. Condemnation is the only thing He can righteously apply to it―death is the only way out of it. See Rom. 8:3— “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [i.e., a sacrifice for sin] CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH.”

In the earlier chapters of the epistle to the Romans, the apostle is occupied in showing our deliverance from SINS; but in the sixth chapter, he shows how we are delivered from SIN. For example, in the last verse of the fourth chapter, he speaks of Christ as having been “delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” And the blessed consequence of His having been thus delivered is, that those who believe on Him are righteously forgiven―are “justified” ―have “peace with God.” But, as it has just been said, in chap. 6 he is treating of deliverance from sin, another matter entirely. “He that IS DEAD,” he says, “is freed [or justified] from sin” (v. 7 marg.).

Now I think you will, in figure, get a glimpse of the difference between these two things by comparing the cleansing of the leper in Lev. 14:1-7 with that of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:10-14.

In the first scripture, I ask you to notice that the poor leper, totally unfit to do anything for his own cleansing, has simply to stand by and see all done for him. The bird “alive and clean” is dipped into the blood of the slain bird, and then let loose into the open field; ―that is, the poor leper beholds a “living,” “clean” one going down into death for him an “unclean” one. The bloodstained substitute then soars on high, and the lips of the priest pronounce the leper clean.

Thus hath “Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And therefore not a spot can be found upon us, nor a charge brought against us, who believe on Him. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7); and “BY HIM all that believe are justified from all thing” (Acts 13:38, 39).

But in the case of Naaman, we don’t see another going down into death for him. He must himself go there (looking at Jordan as a figure of death). The happy result need not occupy us now. Suffice it to say that, speaking figuratively, all that he had been as a leper was gone in death.

And thus Scripture teaches that not only did Christ go down into death for the believer, but that, like Naaman, the believer himself has been into death. In the death of Christ he has died with Christ (Rom. 6:8).

There is, however, one great difference between our deliverance and Naaman’s. He was delivered from the presence of the plague; we shall never be thus delivered (i.e., from the actual presence of “indwelling sin,”) until we leave this world, either at death or when the Lord comes.

Thus all that we are by nature, as well as all that we have done, has already been dealt with on the cross; and He who bore our condemnation there said, “IT IS FINISHED.” Who, then, shall condemn us? Nay, there is nothing left to condemn. Does Satan bring our sins before us? We neither deny nor excuse them, but simply answer, “Christ died for them.” Is it the sinfulness of our nature that he would harass us with? We can but add, “In Christ’s death I too have died” (Col. 3:3).

But now comes a practical difficulty with many. I once heard a believer pray most earnestly that he might feel that he was dead with Christ. But does God ever speak about our feeling dead? Never. He tells us to “reckon ourselves to be dead” ― “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11). We are to believe that we died with Christ, simply because God says so, and not because we feel dead, or ever will. God tells us that in His sight it is so, and expects us as simply to believe it as we do that Christ died for our sins. God reckons our Substitute’s death as our death, and the reckonings of faith always agree with His.

Thus our old standing as children of fallen Adam came to an end before God at the cross, or, as Scripture puts it, “Our old man has been crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6), and we are now connected in life with the last Adam―the risen Christ, or, as it is expressed in Rom. 7:4― “Married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.”

As believers, we have been brought into a new position altogether. He who took our condemnation, being made sin for us upon the cross, is now risen out of death, and God sees us “IN HIM.” We are made “the righteousness of God in Christ,” and are therefore forever beyond the reach of condemnation.

“Death and judgment are behind us,

Grace and glory on before;

All the billows rolled o’er Jesus,

There they spent their utmost pow’r.

“‘First-fruits’ of the resurrection,

He is risen from the tomb;

Now we stand in new creation,

‘Free,’ because beyond our doom.”

“But how is it,” inquires someone, “that the very presence of such an evil thing as the flesh in a believer is not a hindrance to his communion with God?” Let me seek to explain this by using another illustration.

A father and son sit at home one day in happy communion with each other―that is, they share together the same thoughts and feelings about every matter that comes before them. Presently, however, another child comes in from taking a ramble in the woods, and lays upon the table some wild berries. The father at once condemns them as poisonous, and totally unfit for food, and desires that they should be immediately thrown away. Now, if the son share his father’s thought about them, and condemn them too, you can see at once that the mere presence of the bad fruit has not occasioned the slightest breach of communion between them. But if, on the other hand, the son, deceived by the enticing appearance of the berries, refuse to accept his father’s judgment, and seek to retain them, he is now out of communion; and, if he venture to taste them, will be sure to suffer in consequence. When, however, in humble confession of his self-will, he is brought to see his folly, and to take sides with his father in condemning the fruit, communion is again restored.

When the believer who has learned from God these blessed truths discovers (as he surely will,) that sin still “dwelleth in him,” and that the old nature is as bad as ever, he can, instead of fruitlessly attempting to make it better, take sides with God against it. He never regards it as anything but the deadliest enemy, ever to be distrusted, and never to be indulged. He knows that God has utterly condemned it at the cross, and therefore he condemns it too. He reckons himself as dead to it, but “alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Oh, what a comfort it is that God is not expecting any good thing from the flesh; but that He has given it up forever as a totally worthless thing! Neither has it any rightful claim upon us. We are no longer debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh (Rom. 8:12). And though still responsible to exercise the greatest watchfulness in not allowing it to act, yet God gives us, through the death and resurrection of Christ, to regard it as no longer having any place in our new standing before Him. The cross of Christ forever snapped the link that we once had with the first Adam, fallen; and the Holy Ghost has brought into our souls the life of the last Adam, risen. We are not “in the flesh” at all, according to God’s reckoning, but in the Spirit; and the only life that we now have before Him is the life of Christ. So that the apostle could say, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). But let us now consider the next question, viz.―

What Is the Secret of Our Power?

If you will call to mind what we were saying about the hen and her brood of ducklings, I think you will see, in her distress, a picture of the state of numbers of precious souls today. Now, what is really the cause of her sore trouble? Why, just this; that she cannot make the ducklings to be what she knows by natural instinct a brood of chickens ought to be; and the older they get, the more self-willed they seem to be, and determined to get into the water whenever they can get the least opportunity. Sometimes, it is true, they are all at rest together under her wings, and then perhaps she thinks she is at last gaining the victory, and making them better; but, alas! again and again she is doomed to disappointment, for they only get worse and worse. The farmer’s wife, however, hearing her cry of distress one day, sends her little girl to keep the ducklings out of the pond; for she plainly sees that the hen’s trouble about this part of the brood is seriously interfering with her care for the little chickens.

Oh, what a comfort this new helper is to the hen! For though she found no way to improve the manners of the tiresome truants, she has now, at all events, got a power to control them.

Now, every one that is born of the Spirit of God possesses instincts peculiar to the new nature that has been imparted to him―instincts which delight in the law of God, and submit to be guided by the word of God. But he finds also that he has got to do with instincts and desires of an entirely opposite character, namely, those peculiar to the old nature. Thus there are “the things of the flesh” and “the things of the Spirit.” The tastes and desires of both stand in the most direct contrast.

But what troubles the new convert is, that he cannot make the flesh to be what the word of God teaches him a newborn soul ought to be; and the law, though he delights in it after the inward man, gives him no POWER. In other words, he is trying to accomplish what God has declared to be an utter impossibility, namely, making the flesh subject to His holy law (see Rom. 8:7, 8). He finds that the flesh will mind the things of the flesh, and is very enmity itself to the law of God, and even to God Himself. And since this is so, the greater his earnestness to accomplish this impossibility, the more intense his misery. Indeed to apply law to the flesh, in seeking to make it subject, is only to manifest still more its desperate wilfulness. If you pour water upon unslacked lime, instead of cooling it, you will only bring out the fire that lies hidden within. Thus it is with the flesh. The law applied to it only brings out its “enmity,” though the enmity was there before. “By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Though the new-born soul has a nature that “would do good,” yet he finds, alas! that “evil is present with him,” and it is not until he gives up his struggle as utterly hopeless, and looks outside himself, crying, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” that deliverance really comes; and then he thanks God through Jesus Christ.

Thus he has learned, what everyone must learn before deliverance can be realized in an experimental way, first, that the “flesh” is an utterly worthless thing―that there is neither good in it nor remedy for it (Rom. 7:18; 8:7); second, that even in the new nature, with all its right desires, there is no real power either for good or against evil.

But the Spirit of God does more than merely quicken a dead sinner into life. He afterward becomes the power of that life. When the new-born soul believes the “gospel of his salvation,” the Holy Ghost, as a distinct Person, comes into him as an abiding dweller there (Eph. 1:13). He is “sealed” unto the “day of redemption” (i.e., the redemption of the body, Eph. 4:30). (See also Rom. 8:9,14,16, and the Lord’s own words, John 14:17). According to 1 Cor. 6:19, his body becomes “the temple of the Holy Ghost” which is in him. He is no longer his own, but “bought with a price.”

A few months since, I saw the following announcement fixed outside a large house (it looked like some hotel): “This house will be reopened, [at such a date,] under entirely new management.” I presume that it had changed hands, and that there was therefore new proprietorship too. Now this announcement brought the scripture just quoted at once to my mind (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). The house was the same; its windows, doors, chimneys, outhouses—all the same; but there was a new proprietor, and in consequence, “entirely new management.”

So it is with the believer. He is the same individual, with the same faculties as before his conversion; is in the same business perhaps, with precisely similar social circumstances surrounding him; but he is now the personal property of Another. He is “Christ’s,” and as such, is now put under entirely “new management,”―i.e., the Holy Ghost enters his body, takes up His residence there, henceforward to “manage the house” upon heavenly principles. How solemn! Yet how intensely blessed! Now, herein is, the believer’s power of every activity that is according to God. Here is his power to control the flesh, “to mortify the deeds of the body” (see Rom. 8:13). Just as the little girl resisted the natural will of the ducklings, so that by her means the hen is able to keep them under due control, so we are told in Gal. 5:17 that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other: in order that ye should not do the things that ye would.” What we need to be careful about is, not “to grieve” the One who has thus come to “manage” us, even “the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).

But, it may be asked, if the evil nature still remains in every converted person, and that evil nature is ever ready to assert itself, how can it be possible that―

“Whosoever Is Born of God Cannot Sin”?

Well, carefully mark, in the first place, that it is not some peculiar, advanced attainment of just a few who may be said to have “faith for it,” as it is sometimes called. It takes in the whole of the new-born race― “WHOSOEVER is born of God.”

“But,” remarks another, “this statement seems to be a thorough contradiction to all that I either experience in myself or see in others”

Well, it may seem so, but let us look at it a little more closely and prayerfully, bearing in mind that the first step toward understanding the word of God is to believe it. “By faith we understand” (Heb. 11:3). And here I would give you an illustration much used by a Spirit-taught servant of God, now at rest in the presence of his Lord, namely, the well-known practice of grafting an apple-tree upon a crab-tree stock. As you are aware, no doubt, the head of the crab-tree is first cut off; then a small portion of an apple-tree is carefully inserted, or “grafted in,” as it is called; then it is securely guarded by a covering of clay round the joint, and left to grow and develop in the coming spring and summer.

Now let us, in thought, go to the orchard where the tree in question is planted, and inquire more about it of the gardener.

“What kind of a tree do you call this?” we ask,

“An apple-tree,” he replies.

“But why don’t you say that it is partly a crab-tree and partly an apple-tree?”

“Because we gardeners never think of talking like that. It was once a crab-tree in the wood, now it is an apple-tree in the orchard. It is really the same individual tree; but when we cut off its head, its history as a crab-tree came to an end; and when the new graft showed signs of life, its new history as an apple-tree from that day on commenced.”

“But doesn’t this apple-tree still bear crabs?”

“No! and what is more, it cannot. It is just as impossible for the apple-tree to bear crabs as it was impossible for the crab-tree to bring forth apples.”

“But do you mean to say, then, that there is nothing whatever of the ‘crab’ nature about this tree?”

“No. But I do say that there is nothing of the ‘crab’ that has not been condemned as such; and if it should show signs of life by sending up shoots from the old stock, I at once take the knife and never think of sparing even the smallest sprout.”

Let us now apply this figure. The wild crab-tree represents a man in his natural state, before he is born of God. At his second birth, a new life, like the apple-tree graft, is produced in him by the Spirit and the Word.

Now the apostle John, in his epistles, generally speaks of things in a very abstract way. Just as the gardener, who insisted that the tree was only an “apple-tree,” so John, in the passage referred to, looks at the believer only in connection with the new nature—the divine life he possesses as born of God. And therefore just as it is impossible for an apple-tree (looked at simply as such) to bear crabs, and that because it is an apple-tree, so it is equally impossible for the one who is born of God (looked at simply as such) to commit sin. “His seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” How could a divine nature sin?

Now this divine nature was really the nature that Christ manifested in His blessed pathway through this world. Thus He didn’t sin. How could He? He overcame the world. The wicked one couldn’t touch Him. (“The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me” John 14:30). And, as we have already seen, these are the very things that are said to be true of those who are born of God. So that the apostle can say, “Which thing is true in Him [i.e., in Christ,] and in you” (1 John 2:8). How wondrous it is! Well may we exclaim with holy adoration, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.”

But while John speaks of the divine nature in this absolute, abstract way, he does not, on the other hand, ignore the existence of the sinful nature in the believer. So in ver. 8, chap. 1. of the epistle, he says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Then in chap. 2:1, we are exhorted not to sin, and the provision pointed out if we do fall into sin, namely, “an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” who restores us again to communion with the Father, by bringing us, as His erring children, to see our folly and confess our sins. We have, moreover, the comforting assurance in ver. 9 that “if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But why “faithful and just”? Because “Jesus Christ the righteous” made full satisfaction for our sins, once and forever, by His precious blood upon the cross.

Now, in Paul’s writings we have brought before us the Spirit’s teaching as to the believer’s entire deliverance from his old standing in Adam, and his place of complete justification and perfect acceptance in Christ. He shows us that though there are actually two distinct natures in the believer, yet. that God reckons our old “crab-tree” standing to have come to an end at the cross, as before Him, judicially; that our old man has been crucified with Christ; that we have been “cut off” as men in the flesh (Col. 2:11), and that we are no longer reckoned as “in the flesh.” Thus he can speak of the time when we were in the flesh (Rom. 7:5), and in Rom. 8:9 can plainly state, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,” Just as the tree, if it could speak, would be able to say, “I haven’t lost my individuality as a tree; but though I was once a crab-tree in the woods, I am now an apple tree in the garden.”

God no longer sees us in connection with the condemned life of the first Adam, but in the risen life of Christ, the last Adam. “For ye are dead,” He says, “and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

Which Nature Shall I Feed?

We have seen that there are not only two natures, but that, with their different origins, they have widely different tastes: thus there are “the things of the flesh” and “the things of the Spirit.” Let us not forget that both these natures will be daily calling our attention to their distinctive cravings. See those two young birds in that hedge-sparrow’s nest; both are clamorous for food. The young cuckoo that was hatched there cries, “Feed me!” and the little hedge-sparrow in the same nest cries, “Feed me!” So with the two natures; only, that while both those nestlings thrive on the same kind of food, the two natures in a Christian cannot, for what feeds the old only starves the new; while that which is food for the new is thoroughly distasteful to the old.

We are told, therefore, in Rom. 13:14, to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof; and in 1 Peter 2:11, to “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” On the other hand, we are exhorted, “as new-born babes, to desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). Let us, then, be like vigilant sentries on the watch, challenging all that we read, think, do, or say with this text: Will this be food for the renewed nature? or will it minister to the flesh? Let us allow nothing to pass muster that would do the latter; for, as Peter says, it will only “war against the soul.” How many a difficulty would this simple question settle for us! And let us never forget that, apart altogether from the question of the salvation of the soul, there are practical consequences in this world, both to our “sowing to the flesh” and “sowing to the Spirit.” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:8). So that if we “sow to the flesh,” we may surely expect to “reap corruption.” But let us never confound the government of the Father’s hand with the love of His heart.

May increased tenderness of conscience and distrust of self be ours. Christ Himself be our daily food ―His precious word our constant delight.

GEO. C.

The Mother's Trust

“They shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their

fathers, A LAMB FOR A HOUSE. It is the Lord’s passover. The BLOOD

shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are,

and when I see the BLOOD, I will pass over you.”

(Ex. 12:3, 11, 13.)

BENEATH the blood-stained lintel I with my children stand;

A messenger of evil is passing through the land.

There is no other refuge from the destroyer’s face;

Beneath the blood-stained lintel shall be our hiding-place.

The Lamb of God has suffered, our sins and griefs He bore;

By faith the blood is sprinkled above our dwelling’s door.

The foe who seeks to enter doth fear that sacred sign;

Tonight the blood-stained lintel shall shelter me and mine.

My Saviour, for my dear ones I claim Thy promise true;

The Lamb is “for the household”—the children’s Saviour too.

On earth the little children once felt Thy touch divine;

Beneath the blood-stained lintel Thy blessing give to mine.

O Thou who gave them, guard them―those wayward little feet,

The wilderness before them, the ills of life to meet.

My mother-love is helpless, I trust them to Thy care!

Beneath the blood-stained lintel, oh, keep them ever there!

The faith I rest upon Thee Thou wilt not disappoint;

With wisdom, Lord, to train them my shrinking heart anoint.

Without my children, Father, I cannot see Thy face;

I plead the blood-stained lintel, Thy covenant of grace.

O wonderful Redeemer, who suffered for our sake,

When o’er the guilty nations the judgment-storm shall break,

With joy from that safe shelter may we then meet Thine eye,

Beneath the blood-stained lintel, my children, Lord, and I.

Marguerite

IN a French seaport town, on a hot summer day, profiting by the shade on one side of the street, I sallied out for my daily round of visits, in the port quarter of the city, chiefly inhabited by sailors, longshoremen, and porters; rough people generally, but intelligent and industrious. A few of them attended our meetings quite often and I was not a stranger among them.

I had just turned into a narrow lane which led to the port when I heard a voice calling me. I turned and saw a man leaning against the door of a cabin built of pieces of broken ships. He was ill clad, and his hard features and brutal aspect denoted a man of evil life.

“Hello! Aren’t you going to stop?” he shouted to me in an imperious tone. Then, pointing with his finger to the place of our meetings nearby, he added in a half mocking way, “You’re the captain of that frigate over there, aren’t you?”

“Do you desire to speak to me, my friend?” I asked quietly, without even noticing his manner of address.

“Not exactly,” he replied in an indifferent manner. “It is the old woman in here who wants to see you. She’s about to ship and would like to know if her passport is all right.”

“Do you mean your wife?” I asked, as I looked at him half in pity and half in indignation.

“As you like. She was annoying me to go after you, but you see, it was too hot for a Christian to put his head outdoors, and I saw you passing.”

“A Christian! and are you then a Christian?” I asked him, with a look which seemed to intimidate him somewhat.

“Oh well, I am not ambitious to pass for such” he replied. “What are Christians? tiresome sermon makers; the less of them the better.”

I answered nothing but walked into the sole room which made up his dwelling. The sufferer was in a bed built in the wall, ship fashion. She turned to me a smiling face, and extending her hand she said, “God be praised for this favor.” She had to make an effort to speak and it was evident her end was near.

Seeing such a rough husband I had expected to meet a woman in keeping, but I was greatly surprised at what I found. Scarcely thirty years of age, there was in that woman who was evidently dying, an expression of gentleness, of intelligence, and even of refinement which contrasted strangely with her surroundings. I wondered how such a creature as she could be the wife of that brutish man.

“Sir,” she said, “it was a strong wish of mine to see you before dying. I desire you to pray for my husband;” and her eyes went after the porter who, leaning against the door frame, listened to what was being said within while he seemed to be only watching the movements of the vessels in the harbor.

“Marguerite,” he called out as he turned his head, “if you called the minister to make prayers for me, you are giving yourself unnecessary trouble.” Then looking at me in an insolent manner he added, “Mister, if any prayers are to be made for me they may as well be addressed to the devil.”

The poor woman closed her eyes, and seemed to be silently in prayer. There was graved upon her face an expression of patience and resignation which told to what extent her unworthy husband had been an exercise of heart and piety in her life.

“I don’t want any of your religion,” he added with an oath.

“Are you a man?” I asked.

“Well―well―I suppose I am not a dog!” he replied with an awkward laugh.

“Then you need the Christian religion with all it brings to men,” I said. “There are in the universe but two kinds of creatures which can do without it: The angels who have not sinned and have no need of a Saviour, or the brutes which have no soul to save. But man having sinned needs the salvation which Christianity proclaims. Since you say you need none of it you must be either an angel or a brute.”

He looked at me with a fierce look and said, “Minister, these are hard words for a man to hear.”

“Then you own you are a man,” I replied calmly. “God commands every man to repent of his evil life. The language which seemed hard to you is that of the word of God. It says that man without God ‘is like the beasts that perish’” (Psa. 49:12).

At that moment I saw his fists clenching as if about to give way to his passion; and his wife exclaimed, “Jacques, do not strike.”

He replied, “No, no, Marguerite, fear nothing. I would certainly not fight for a passage of the Bible, but it is not pleasant to hear oneself called a beast.”

“Pardon me,” I said, “I have not called you that. You have drawn that conclusion yourself. I only said that a man needs salvation, whilst angels and brutes do not.”

He turned his back and walked up and down the room as if absorbed in thought. His wife’s eyes followed him a while, then turning to me she said, “I thank you, Sir, for your faithfulness. Once he was kind and gentle, but he is no more what he was when we were married. Drink and bad company have made the change. O Sir, when I am gone think of him, pray for him, come and see him and talk to him sometimes. He has a soul to save. His sins are not too great for the sacrifice of Christ, that he may obtain pardon.”

I promised to do as she desired, and she thanked me. Then the flush which my coming in had produced passed off and I saw the shadow of death creeping over her pale face. Kneeling by her side I prayed fervently, and as I rose she opened her eyes and said with a smile, “I know that my Redeemer liveth. Jacques, husband, come near to me, I am about to go, let me say good-by.” During prayer he had stopped walking, and now drew near the bed, but he stood there, arms folded, affecting unconcern.

“Jacques, Come nearer. Look at me. Give me your hand.”

He surrendered and gave her his hand, but with bad grace. Yet he seemed touched. That dying face upturned into his affected him. He gazed at her with a fixed look.

“Jacques,” she said softly, “I am going. I leave for that which has sustained me through the valley of tears. I am going to be with that Jesus who loved me and died to open to me the gate of Heaven. There, no sin, no tears, no pains, no death for me anymore; eternal bliss will be mine; it is eternal life with God. At this solemn moment what sustains and fills me with peace is the glorious hope of the gospel; the reading of which has so often irritated you against me. But, forgive me, I did not mean to reproach you. Jacques, kiss me.”

To my surprise he leaned toward her, got on one knee and kissed her brow. She smiled, and putting her hand on his head she said, “Father, glorify. Thyself in making of my husband a real Christian. Nothing is impossible with Thee.”

Spite of his effort to hide his emotion it was evident that that hard man was softening. A conflict within was manifest. Meanwhile his gentle wife turned to me with, “Goodbye, sir—; we will meet up there; I thank you for all your pains with me, and specially for this visit.” Then, with that persuasive gravity and tenderness of address which marked her to the end, she said once more, “Dear Jacques, goodbye. I will not return to you, but you can come where I will be. Goodbye, not forever I trust.”

At these words Jacques’ chest rose convulsively, and as a pent-up spring suddenly bursts out of the rock under a stroke of the steel, so his tears from beneath that hard-heartedness which had been pierced. Hiding his face in the pillow on which his dying wife’s head lay, he gave way to his anguish, and sobbed as a child.

How can I describe the expression which came over that dying woman’s face? The smile which lighted it up could only be from heaven. Drawing him close to her she kissed him fondly and said, “Jacques, your tears give me joy. They show that you love me. Oh may God show you mercy that you may come where I go. Can you promise me you will seek the way?”

“Marguerite, with the help of God, I do,” he replied deliberately, though with a voice broken by emotion.

For a few moments after this she gave not a sign of life, and we thought all was over; but again she rallied, and turning to her husband kissed him tenderly several times. Then came strange words from his lips. Softly they came as he addressed her: “I am a wretch; I am a brute. I am not fit to be so near a creature which is so hear to God. Marguerite, forgive me; forgive all my wrongs toward you. I did not know there was reality in your piety; now I see it was what enabled you to bear with me. May God forgive me too! I abhor myself.”

All at once another wave of that celestial smile I had seen before, passed over the dying woman’s face and, opening wide her eyes, she exclaimed, “Do you hear that music? Listen to the heavenly choir!” and as if joining in with them she began repeating one of our hymns. Her voice failing I took up the stanza. Again she broke in, “Oh! Yes, Lamb of God, Jesus, my Saviour, I follow Thee; there ever with Thee.”

But the end had come, and in a moment we saw there was nothing left with us but her mortal remains. She had gone to be with her Saviour and Lord.

For a long while her husband remained on his knees. Then he looked at her with a look of tenderness and respect, and, having risen to his feet, he bent over and kissed her icy brow.

“My friend,” I said, “you have seen how a Christian dies.”

“Yes sir,” he replied, making an effort to keep calm, “and I have also seen how a Christian lives. That woman was an angel of God sent to me. I see it now. What enabled her to bear my brutalities I called weakness. I understand it all now. Sir, I am a brute. My treatment of her has been a shame; yet those lips of hers have spoken only words of love, of kindness, and of truth. I hated her because of her goodness. The holiness of her life was an incessant accusation to my conscience, and a living witness against me and my evil life.”

Having said this much, he hastened outside by the back door and walked up and down the open space there. As for me, having called in a neighbor and left her in care of the body, I busied myself with matters about the burial.

The next day, at the service, the husband was present, serious, and attentive. At the grave his sorrow and remorse overcame him again; hiding his face in his hands and leaning upon a tombstone, he gave way to his grief in a way which drew the sympathy of all hearts. Jacques D. was well-known among the port population as the most wicked man among them, and as they did not know what I had seen at the wife’s deathbed they were all surprised at his tears and at his respectful and sober behavior.

From that moment a real work of grace seemed begun in his soul. His eyes were opened to the awfulness of sin, and he understood the just condemnation of the sinner. He felt the misery of bondage to sin, and the awful danger of being out of Christ, without the assurance of being forgiven of God. He had seen in his wife that there is real peace for the soul through the atoning work finished by the Saviour.

He believed in the Lord Jesus, and the same grace which then ministered salvation to him was effective also in his daily life, for, “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts” he lived “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12).

Would that every unconverted person who may read these lines, though not before men as low as Jacques D., be led to see their no less need of salvation; like him come to the One who has “made peace by the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20), and there find forgiveness, and rest, and reconciliation.

Glory be to God for the unspeakable gift He has made us in His Son!

Glory be to the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us!

Glory be to that supreme Love which receives the worst of sinners and shows him mercy!

“Jesus, my Saviour! Thou art mine,

The Father’s gift of love divine;

All Thou hast done, and all Thou art,

Are now the portion of my heart.”

Looking off Unto Jesus

This is the more exact meaning of Heb. 12:2. Looking intently unto Jesus,

away from all other objects.

EYES that are weary, and hearts that are sore,

Look off unto Jesus, and sorrow no more:

The Light of His countenance shineth so bright,

That on earth, as in heaven, there need be no night.

“Looking of unto Jesus,” my eyes cannot see

The troubles and dangers that throng around me:

They cannot be blinded with sorrowful tears,

They cannot be shadowed with unbelief-fears.

“Looking of unto Jesus,” my spirit is blest―

In the world I have turmoil―in Him I have rest:

The sea of my life all about me may roar―

When I look unto Jesus I hear it no more.

“Looking of unto Jesus,” I go not astray;

My eyes are on Him, and He shows me the way;

The path may seem dark, as He leads me along,

But following Jesus. I cannot go wrong.

“Looking of unto Jesus,” my heart cannot fear,

Its trembling is still, when I see Jesus near;

I know that His power my safeguard will be,

For, “Why are ye troubled?” He saith unto me.

“Looking of unto Jesus,” oh may I be found,

When the waters of Jordan encompass me round:

Let them bear me away in His presence to be: ―

‘Tis but seeing Him nearer, whom always I see.

Then, then, shall I know the full beauty and grace

Of Jesus my Lord, when I stand face to face:

I shall know how His love went before me each day,

And wonder that ever my eyes turned away.

Examples of God's Answers to Faith

NOT many miles to the south of Selkirk, the Barmour coal pits, in the county of Northumberland, are to be found. Thomas Hownham used to carry coals from them to Doddington and Wooler. At other times he would make brooms of the heath, and sell them round the country. He was poor and despised, but said one who knew him, “In my forty years acquaintance with the professing world, I have seldom met with his equal as a man devoted to God, or one who was favored with more evident answers to prayer.” Being disappointed of receiving money for coals the day before, he returned home one evening, and, to his pain and distress, found that there was neither bread nor meat, nor anything to supply their place in the house. His wife wept for the poor children who were crying for hunger, and continued crying till they both fell asleep. Having got them to bed, and their mother with them, it being a fine moonlight night, he went from his house to a retired spot at a little distance to pray, to spread his family wants before the Lord. He found great comfort in meditating on Hab. 3:17,18― “Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” In this place he continued about an hour and a half, and found great liberty and enlargement in prayer, such heart-loathing and soul-humbling views of himself, and of interest in the grace of God and the love of his adorable Saviour, and had such delightful views of Jesus by faith, that all thoughts about temporal things were taken away. Under this sweet and serene frame of mind, he returned to his poor cottage; when, by the light of moon, he perceived through the window something upon a stool or form (for chairs they had none) before the bed; and after viewing it with astonishment, and feeling it, he found it to be a joint of roasted meat, and a loaf of bread about the size of our half-peck loaves. He then went to the door, to look if he could see any person; and after raising his voice, as well as his eyes, and neither perceiving nor hearing any one, he returned, and awoke his wife and children; then asking a blessing, they all shared in the providential repast. About twelve years afterward, it was ascertained that the Lord had made use of a miserly farmer thus to supply Thomas Hownham and his family in their time of urgent need. The farmer lived at Lowick-Highstead. In consequence of his penurious character, he was called by his neighbors “Pinch-me-near.” One Thursday evening he ordered his housekeeper to have a whole joint of meat roasted, having given her directions a day or two before to bake two large loaves of white bread. He then went to Wooler Market, and took as usual a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket; in the evening he came home in very bad humor, and soon went to bed. In about two hours he called up his man-servant, and ordered him to take one of the loaves and the joint of meat, and carry them down the moor to the cottage of Thomas Hownham, and leave them there. The man did so; finding the door on the latch, and perceiving the family fast asleep, he put down the meat and bread and returned to his master’s house.

The next morning, the old farmer called his housekeeper and the man in, and seemed in great agitation of mind. He told them that he intended to have invited a Mr. John Mool, with two or three more of the neighboring farmers (who were always teasing him about his niggardly disposition) to sup with him on their return from market. As he proposed to take them by surprise near home―as two or three of them would have to pass by his door―he did not give them the invitation at market; but, just as they came to the spot where he meant to break the matter out, a sudden shower of rain fell, and they all rode off before he had opportunity. On going to bed, he did not rest well, but dreamed he saw Hownham’s wife and children starving from hunger. He awoke, and tried to put off the impression; but fell asleep again, and again the second and third time had the same dream. He lamented afterward that he had been so overcome with the nonsense, as to send them the bread and the joint of meat; but, since he had done it, he could not now help it. He then charged his servants never to mention the matter, or he would turn them away directly; and it was not until he had been a long time dead that his female-servant related the fact to a gentleman, who had previously heard from Thomas Hownham how unaccountably God had supplied him on that memorable night.

How strikingly does the above fact illustrate the following lines by John Newton!

“Elijah’s example declares,

Whatever distress may betide,

The saints may commit all their cares

To Him who will surely provide.

When rain, long withheld from the earth,

Occasion’d a famine of bread,

The prophet, secured from the dearth,

By ravens was constantly fed.

“More likely to rob than to feed,

Were ravens who lived upon prey:

But when the Lord’s servants have need,

His goodness will find out a way.

This instance to some may seem strange,

Who know not how faith can prevail:

But sooner all nature shall change,

Than one of God’s promises fail.

“Nor is it a singular case,

The wonder is often renew’d;

And many can say to His praise,

By worldlings He sends them their food:

The worldlings, though ravens indeed,

Though greedy and selfish their mind,

If God has a servant to feed,

Against their own will must be kind.”

THE DESTRUCTION of the French armament, under the duke D’Anville, in the year 1746, ought to be remembered with gratitude and admiration. This fleet consisted of forty ships of war: it was destined for the destruction of New England, and was of sufficient force, in the ordinary process of things, to render that destruction certain, and sailed from Chebucto, in Nova Scotia, for this purpose. In the meantime the godly in the land were apprised of their danger, and, feeling that their only safety was in God, had appointed a season of fasting and prayer to be observed in all their churches. While Mr. Prince, in the old South Church, on this fast-day was praying most fervently to God to avert the dreaded calamity, a sudden gust of wind arose, (the day had till now been perfectly calm,) so violent as to cause a loud clattering of the windows. The pastor paused in his prayer, and looking round upon the congregation with a countenance of hope, again commenced with great ardor to supplicate the Almighty God to cause that wind to frustrate the object of their enemies, and save the country from conquest and popery. A tempest ensued, in which the greater part of the French fleet was wrecked on the coast of Nova Scotia. The duke D’Anville the principal general, and the second in command, both committed suicide. Many died with disease, and thousands were consigned to a watery grave. The small number that remained alive returned to France, without health and without spirits. The enterprise was abandoned, and never again resumed.

WHEN the year 1814 began, troops of Swedes, Cossacks, Germans, and Russians were within half an hour’s march of the town of Sleswick; and new and fearful reports of the behavior of the soldiers were brought from the country every day. There had been a truce which was to come to an end at midnight of the fifth of January, which was now drawing near. On the outskirts of the town, on the side where the enemy lay, there was a house standing alone, and in it there was an old pious woman, who was earnestly praying, in the words of an ancient hymn, that God would “raise up a wall around them,” so that the enemy might fear to attack them. In the same house dwelt her daughter, a widow, and her grandson, a youth of twenty years. He heard the prayer of his grandmother, and could not restrain himself from saying, that he did not understand how she could ask for anything so impossible as that a wall should be built around them which could keep the enemy away from their house. The old woman, who was now deaf, caused what her grandson said to be explained to her, but only answered that she had prayed in general for protection for themselves and their townspeople. “However,” she added, “do you think that if it were the will of God to build a wall around us, it would be impossible to Him?”

The dreaded night of the fifth of January now came; about midnight the troops began to enter on all sides. The house we are speaking of lay close by the road, and was larger than the dwellings near it, which were only very small cottages. Its inhabitants looked out with anxious fear as parties of the soldiers entered one after another, and even went to the neighboring houses to ask for what they wanted; but all rode past their dwelling. Throughout the whole day there had been a heavy fall of snow―the first that winter―and towards evening the storm became violent to a degree seldom known. At length came four parties of Cossacks, who had been hindered by the snow from entering the town by another road. This part of the outskirts was at some distance from the town itself, and therefore they would not go further; so that all the houses around that in which the old woman lived were filled with soldiers, who quartered themselves in them: in several houses there were fifty or sixty of these half-savage men. It was a terrible night for those who dwelt in this part of the town, filled to overflowing with the troops of the enemy. But not a single soldier came into the grandmother’s house; and amidst the loud noises and wild sounds all around, not even a knock at the door was heard, to the great wonder of the family within. The next morning, as it grew light, they saw the cause. The storm had drifted a mass of snow to such a height between the roadside and the house, that to approach it was impossible. “Do you not now see, my son,” said the old grandmother, “that it was possible for God to raise a wall around us?” Does not this fact remind us of the words, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psa. 34:7). Does it not seem as if the snow had been gathered by angels’ hands to form a defense for that house, where one dwelt who thus feared God and trusted in Him?

Lessons From Nature

“IS not this a most inspiring truth: He so clothes the lilies of the field that they outvie in beauty Solomon’s imperial robes. Not a sparrow shall fall without our Father. He builds the crystal structure of the snowflake as carefully as He rounds out the proportions of the mightiest Sun. He colors the insects, whose painted wing is expanded within the solitudes of a Brazilian forest, as carefully as He tints the glory of the Moon that shines in the face of all mankind. Is not man, the crown of creation’s work, equally a subject of the Creator’s care? Surely, surely. Yes, ‘How much more,’ is the conclusion of the blessed Lord, ‘shall He care for you, O, ye of little faith?’”

WHILE walking up the street one evening during an election canvass, I saw rockets flaring aloft leaving behind them trails of glittering sparks. There was a rush along a graceful curve, a momentary twinkling, a brief explosion, a beautiful display of colors, and then all was quenched in darkness. Over against these flaring rockets―its light momentarily hidden by them―shone the evening star, shone on steadily, shining out brightly when the rockets’ brief glamor had faded into the night. It had been shining since the morning stars sang together the hymnal of creation’s dawn, and it shall shine on until the heavens be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat. Here, I thought, is the type of the human and the Divine. The glory of man is as the rocket whose beauty and luster arrest for a moment the admiration of beholders, and fade away forever. But the glory and beauty of Christ, heaven’s “Bright and Morning Star” shall shine on eternally.

O soul turn thou from following the fading luster of earthly honors, and fix thy faith and love upon Him whose glory is quenchless, whose infinite splendor shall illumine heaven and all its innumerable host, “world without end!”

From McCook’s “The Gospel in Nature.”

Hymn of Praise

THE most mysterious joy one ever experiences arises from a sense of God, known in Jesus Christ and full of infinite love; the soul perceives Jehovah’s all-pervading presence by an unutterable sense of overshadowing, which brings with it a delight such as nothing can rival; as much above all the joys of mere nature as the heaven is above the earth. The will of God is then the soul’s highest will―its all in all. More bliss it could not conceive. Yet it is not bliss that it thinks of, but the Lord Himself.

C. H. SPURGEON.

LAMB of God, our souls adore Thee,

While upon Thy face we gaze!

There the Father’s love and glory

Shine in all their brightest rays.

Thy almighty pow’r and wisdom

All creation’s works proclaim,

Heaven and earth alike confess Thee,

As the ever-great I AM.

Son of God, Thy Father’s boson

Ever was Thy dwelling-place;

His delight, in Him rejoicing,

One with Him in pow’r and grace.

Oh what wondrous love and mercy!

Thou didst lay Thy glory by,

And for us didst come from heaven

As the Lamb of God to die.

Lamb of God, when we behold Thee

Lowly in the manger laid;

Wand’ring as a homeless stranger

In the world Thy hands had made;

When we see Thee in the garden

In Thine agony of blood,

At Thy grace we are confounded,

Holy, spotless, Lamb of God!

When we see Thee as the Victim

Nailed to the accursed tree,

For our guilt and folly stricken,

All our judgment borne by Thee,

Lord, we own, with hearts adoring,

Thou hast washed us in Thy blood:

Glory, glory everlasting

Be to Thee, Thou Lamb of God!

"A Gift"

“THE gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Suppose God charged one thousand dollars, or one hundred, or one, for eternal life, would it be a gift? Nay, suppose He charged only one cent, would it be a gift? Suppose He charged so many prayers or so many good works, or so much love, to the man who needs eternal life, would it remain what He calls it “the gift of God”?

And is He not true to His word? Will He deceive as men do? Will He, can He, mock man’s need? Ah not He. The One who loved man enough to give an only Son for man is not the One to mock man.

Reader, whatever else God may have put conditions upon, He has put no conditions, no price to bring, to obtain eternal life. It is His prerogative to give it, and He freely gives it to every man who comes to Him for it.

Do you know what eternal life is? It is the very life of God Himself. Christ is the Eternal Life; and by His settling, through His atoning death on the cross, the whole question of our sins, He can give, and does most gladly give, eternal life to every one that believes on Him. Yes, to such He gives eternal life―the very life and nature of God; so that all who have eternal life are really the children of God―as truly His children as any child born of a certain man is the child of that man, possessing that man’s very life and nature.

Think of it; the man, or the woman, or the child, who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a child of God. Read 1 John 3:1, 2 and again, 5:1, and see for yourself. That man has in him now a life which cannot see death, which is like God from whom it springs, and which thrives and grows only in the things which God loves and enjoys.

It is not at all an improvement of the old thing. No, that was born of the flesh, and is still flesh; but this new life is born of the Spirit, and it is spirit. It is not a restoring man to his innocent state, as in Eden. No; it is making him “a new creature” in Christ Jesus.

It is not gradually cultivating him till he gets up to a high standard of goodness. No; it is an immediate, absolute passing from one thing to another, “from death unto life,” from the wild tree to the grafted tree: one stroke of the knife cuts off the old, and implants a new tree into the old. Glory be to God for such grace, which can thus stoop to us in our ruin, and degradation, and helplessness, and hopelessness, and operate such mighty things Reader, once more we exultantly repeat, “The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If you perish, it will be because you were too good in your own eyes to need eternal life; or too blind to perceive the grace of God; or too proud to confess your need. And what will you do in the day when such grace has ceased, and you must face the eternal realities of sin and judgment?

P. J. L.

Luther Before the Diet of Worms

AT length, on the morning of the 16th of April, Luther discovered the walls of the ancient city. A great crowd was waiting for him at the gates. It was near mid-day when they passed those walls, from which so many persons had predicted he would never come forth alive. Everyone was at table; but as soon as the watchman on the tower of the cathedral sounded his trumpet, all ran into the streets to see the monk.

Luther was now in Worms. Two thousand persons accompanied him through the streets of the city. The citizens eagerly pressed forward to see him: every moment the crowd was increasing. It was much greater than at the public entry of the emperor.

Charles V. immediately summoned his council. The emperor’s privy-councilors hastily repaired to the palace, for the alarm had reached them also.

“Luther is come,” said Charles; “what must we do?”

Modo, bishop of Palermo, and chancellor of Flanders, replied: “We have long consulted on this matter. Let your imperial majesty get rid of this man at once. Did not Sigismund cause John Huss to be burnt? We are not bound either to give or to observe the safe conduct of a heretic.”

“No!” said Charles, “we must keep our promise.”

They submitted, therefore, to the reformer’s appearance before the diet.

On the next morning, Wednesday the 17th of April, the hereditary marshal of the empire, Ulrich of Pappenheim, cited him to appear at four in the afternoon before his imperial majesty and the states of the empire. Luther received this message with profound respect.

Thus everything was arranged; he was about to stand for Jesus Christ before the most august assembly in the world.

Four o’clock arrived. The marshal of the empire appeared; Luther prepared to set out with him. He was agitated at the thought of the solemn congress before which he was about to appear. The herald walked first; after him the marshal of the empire; and the reformer came last. The crowd that filled the streets was still greater than on the preceding day. It was impossible to advance; in vain were orders given to make way; the crowd still kept increasing. At length the herald, seeing the difficulty of reaching the town hall, ordered some private houses to be opened, and led Luther through the gardens and private passages to the place where the diet was sitting.

Having reached the town-hall at last, Luther and those who accompanied him were again prevented by the crowd from crossing the threshold. They cried, “Make way! make way!” but no one moved. Upon this the imperial soldiers by main force cleared a road, through which Luther passed. As the people rushed forward to enter with him, the soldiers kept them back with their halberds. Luther entered the interior of the hall; but even there, every corner was crowded. In the antechambers and embrasures of the windows there were more than five thousand spectators, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and others. Luther advanced with difficulty. At last, as he drew near the door which was about to admit him into the presence of his judges, he met a valiant knight, the celebrated George of Freundsberg, who, four years later, at the head of his German lansquenets, bent the knee with his soldiers on the field of Pavia, and then charging the left of the French army, drove it into the Ticino, and in a great measure decided the captivity of the king of France. The old general, seeing Luther pass, tapped him on the shoulder, and shaking his head, blanched in many battles, said kindly: “Poor monk! poor monk thou art now going to make a nobler stand than I or any other captains have ever made in the bloodiest of our battles! But if thy cause is just, and thou art sure of it, go forward in God’s name, and fear nothing! God will not forsake thee!” A noble tribute of respect paid by the courage of the sword to the courage of the mind! He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city, were the words of a king.

At length the doors of the hall were opened. Luther went in, and with him entered many persons who formed no portion of the Diet. Never had man appeared before so imposing an assembly. The Emperor Charles V., whose sovereignty extended over a great part of the old and new world; his brother the Archduke Ferdinand; six electors of the empire, most of whose descendants now wear the kingly crown; twenty-four dukes, the majority of whom were independent sovereigns over countries more or less extensive, and among whom were some whose names afterward become formidable to the Reformation, the Duke of Alva and his two sons; eight margraves; thirty archbishops, bishops, and abbots; seven ambassadors, including those from the kings of France and England; the deputies of ten free cities; a great number of princes, counts, and sovereign barons; the papal nuncios―in all, two hundred and four persons: such was the imposing court before which appeared Martin Luther.

This appearance was of itself a signal victory over the papacy. The pope had condemned the man, and he was now standing before a tribunal which, by this very act, set itself above the pope. The pope had laid him under an interdict, and cut him off from all human society; and yet he was summoned in respectful language, and received before the most august assembly in the world. The pope had condemned him to perpetual silence, and he was now about to speak before thousands of attentive hearers drawn together from the farthest parts of Christendom. An immense revolution had thus been effected by Luther’s instrumentality. Rome was already descending from her throne, and it was the voice of a monk that caused this humiliation.

Some of the princes, when they saw the emotion of this son of the lowly miner of Mansfeldt in the presence of this assembly of kings, approached him kindly, and one of them said to him: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” And another added: “When ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, the spirit of your Father shall speak in you.” Thus was the reformer comforted with his Master’s words by the princes of this world.

Meanwhile the guards made way for Luther. He advanced, and stood before the throne of Charles V. The sight of so august an assembly appeared for an instant to dazzle and intimidate him. All eyes were fixed on him. The confusion gradually subsided, and a deep silence followed. “Say nothing,” said the marshal of the empire to him, “before you are questioned.” Luther was left alone.

After a moment of solemn silence, the chancellor of the Archbishop of Treves, John ab Eck, the friend of Aleander, (and who must not be confounded with the theologian of the same name) rose and said with a loud and clear voice, first in Latin and then in German: “Martin Luther! his sacred and invincible imperial majesty has cited you before his throne, in accordance with the advice and counsel of the states of the holy Roman empire, to require you to answer two questions: First, Do you acknowledge these books to have been written by you?”―At the same time the imperial speaker pointed with his finger to about twenty volumes placed on a table in the middle of the hall, directly in front of Luther. “I do not know how they could have procured them,” said Luther, relating this circumstance. It was Aleander who had taken this trouble. “Secondly,” continued the chancellor, “Are you prepared to retract these books, and their contents, or do you persist in the opinions you have advanced in them?”

Luther, having no mistrust, was about to answer the first of these questions in the affirmative, when his counsel, Jerome Schurff, hastily interrupting him, exclaimed aloud: “Let the titles of the books be read!”

The chancellor approached the table and read the titles. There were among their number many devotional works, quite foreign to the controversy.

Their enumeration being finished, Luther said first in Latin, and then in German:

“Most gracious emperor! Gracious princes and lords!

“His imperial majesty has asked me two questions.

“As to the first, I acknowledge as mine the books that have just been named: I cannot deny them.

“As to the second, seeing that it is a question which concerns faith and the salvation of souls, and in which the word of God, the greatest and most precious treasure either in heaven or earth, is interested, I should act imprudently were I to reply without reflection. I might affirm less than the circumstance demands, or more than truth requires, and so sin against this saying of Christ: ―Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven. For this reason I entreat your imperial majesty, with all humility, to allow me time, that I may answer without offending against the word of God.”

This reply, far from giving grounds to suppose Luther felt any hesitation, was worthy of the reformer and of the assembly. It was right that he should appear calm and circumspect in so important a matter and lay aside everything in this solemn moment that might cause a suspicion of passion or rashness. Besides, by taking reasonable time, he would give a stronger proof of the unalterable firmness of his resolution. In history we read of many men who by a hasty expression have brought great misfortunes upon themselves and upon the world. Luther restrained his own naturally impetuous disposition; he controlled his tongue, ever too ready to speak; he checked himself at a time when all the feelings by which he was animated were eager for utterance. This restraint, this calmness, so surprising in such a man, multiplied his strength a hundredfold, and put him in a position to reply, at a later period, with such wisdom, power, and dignity, as to deceive the expectations of his adversaries, and confound their malice and their pride.

And yet, because he had spoken in a respectful manner, and in a low tone of voice, many thought that he hesitated, and even that he was dismayed. A ray of hope beamed on the minds of the partisans of Rome. Charles, impatient to know the man whose words had stirred the empire, had not taken his eyes off him. He turned to one of his courtiers, and said disdainfully, “Certainly this man will never make a heretic of me.” Then rising from his seat, the youthful emperor withdrew with his ministers into a council-room; the electors with the princes retired into another; and the deputies of the free cities into a third. When the Diet assembled again, it was agreed to comply with Luther’s request. This was a great miscalculation in men actuated by passion.

“Martin Luther,” said the Chancellor of Treves, “his imperial majesty, of his natural goodness, is very willing to grant you another day, but under condition that you make your reply viva voce, and not in writing.”

The imperial herald now stepped forward and conducted Luther back to his hotel. Menaces and shouts of joy were heard by turns on his passage. The most sinister rumors circulated among Luther’s friends. “The Diet is dissatisfied,” said they; “the papal envoys have triumphed; the reformer will be sacrificed.” Men’s passions were inflamed. Many gentlemen hastened to Luther’s lodgings: “Doctor,” said they, with emotion, “what is this? It is said they are determined to burn you!” ... “If they do so,” continued these knights, “it will cost them their lives!”― “And that certainly would have happened,” said Luther, as, twenty years after, he quoted these words at Eisleben.

On the other hand, Luther’s enemies exulted. “He has asked for time,” said they; “he will retract. At a distance, his speech was arrogant; now his courage fails him.... He is conquered.”

Perhaps Luther was the only man that felt tranquil at Worms. Shortly after his return from the Diet, he wrote to Cuspianus, the imperial councilor: “I write to you from the midst of the tumult (alluding probably to the noise made by the crowd in front of the hotel). I have just made my appearance before the emperor and his brother... I confessed myself the author of my books, and declared that I would reply tomorrow touching my retractation. With Christ’s help, I shall never retract one tittle of my works.”

Glapio, the Chancellor ab Eck, and Aleander, by Charles’ order met early on the morning of the 18th to concert the measures to be taken with regard to Luther.

For a moment Luther had felt dismay, when he was about to appear the preceding day before so august an assembly. His heart had been troubled in the presence of so many great princes, before whom nations humbly bent the knee. The reflection that he was about to refuse to submit to these men, whom God had invested with sovereign power, disturbed his soul; and he felt the necessity of looking for strength from on high. On the morning of the 18th of April, he was not without his moments of trial, in which the face of God seemed hidden from him. His faith grew weak; his enemies multiplied before him; his imagination was overwhelmed at the sight.... His soul was as a ship tossed by a violent tempest, which reels and sinks to the bottom of the abyss, and then mounts up again to heaven. In this hour of bitter sorrow, in which he drinks the cup of Christ, and which was to him a little garden of Gethsemane, he falls to the earth, and utters these broken cries, which we cannot understand, unless we can figure to ourselves the depth of the anguish whence they ascend to God:―

“O Almighty and everlasting God! How terrible is this world! Behold, it openeth its mouth to swallow me up, and I have so little trust in Thee!... How weak is the flesh, and Satan how strong! If it is only in the strength of this world that I must put my trust, all is over... My last hour is come, my condemnation has been pronounced!... O God! O God!... O God! do Thou help me against all the wisdom of the world! Do this; Thou shouldest do this... Thou alone... for this is not my work, but Thine. I have nothing to do here, nothing to contend for with these great ones of the world! I should desire to see my days flow on peaceful and happy. But the cause is Thine... and it is a righteous and eternal cause. O Lord! help me! Faithful and unchangeable God. In no man do I place my trust. It would be vain! All that is of man is uncertain; all that cometh of man fails.... O God! my God, hearest Thou me not?... My God, art Thou dead?... No! Thou canst not die! Thou hidest Thyself only! Thou hast chosen me for this work. I know it well!... Act, then, O God!... stand at my side, for the sake of Thy well-beloved Jesus Christ, who is my defense, my shield, and my strong tower.”

After a moment of silent struggle, he thus continues:

“Lord! where stayest Thou?.. O my God! where art Thou?... Come! come! I am ready!... I am ready to lay down my life for Thy truth... patient as a lamb. For it is the cause of justice―it is Thine!... I will never separate myself from Thee, neither now nor through eternity!... And though the world should be filled with devils, ―though my body, which is still the work of Thy hands, should be slain, be stretched upon the pavement, be cut in pieces... reduced to ashes.... my soul is Thine!... Yes! Thy Word is my assurance of it. My soul belongs to Thee! It shall abide forever with Thee... Amen!... O God! help me!... Amen!”

This prayer explains Luther and the Reformation. History here raises the veil of the sanctuary, and discloses to our view the secret place whence strength and courage were imparted to this humble and despised man, who was the instrument of God to emancipate the soul and the thoughts of men, and to begin the new times. Luther and the Reformation are here brought before us. We discover their most secret springs. We see whence their power was derived. This outpouring of a soul that offers itself up in the cause of truth is to be found in a collection of documents relative to Luther’s appearance at Worms, under Number XVI., in the midst of safe-conducts and other papers of a similar nature. One of his friends had no doubt overheard it, and has transmitted it to posterity. In our opinion, it is one of the most precious documents in all history.

After he had thus prayed, Luther found that peace of mind without which man can effect nothing great. He then read the word of God, looked over his writings, and sought to draw up his reply in a suitable form. The thought that he was about to bear testimony to Jesus Christ and His Word, in the presence of the emperor and of the empire, filled his heart with joy.

At four o’clock the herald appeared and conducted him to the place where the Diet was sitting. The curiosity of the people had increased, for the answer was to be decisive. As the Diet was occupied, Luther was compelled to wait in the court in the midst of an immense crowd, which swayed to and fro like the sea in a storm, and pressed the reformer with its waves. Two long hours elapsed, while the doctor stood in this multitude so eager to catch a glimpse of him. “I was not accustomed,” said he, “to those manners and to all this noise.” It would have been a sad preparation, indeed, for an ordinary man. But God was with Luther. His countenance was serene; his features tranquil; the everlasting One had raised him on a rock. The night began to fall. Torches were lighted in the hall of the assembly. Their glimmering rays shone through the ancient windows into the court. Everything assumed a solemn aspect. At last the doctor was introduced. Many persons entered with him, for everyone desired to hear his answer. Men’s minds were on the stretch; all impatiently awaited the decisive moment that was approaching. This time Luther was calm, free, and confident, without the least perceptible mark of embarrassment. His prayer had borne fruit. The princes having taken their seats, though not without some difficulty, for many of their places had been occupied, and the monk of Wittemberg finding himself again standing before Charles V., the chancellor of the Elector of Treves began by saying: “Martin Luther! yesterday you begged for a delay that has now expired. Assuredly it ought not to have been conceded, as every man, and especially you, who are so great and learned a doctor in the Holy Scriptures, should always be ready to answer any questions touching his faith.... Now, therefore, reply to the question put by his majesty, who has behaved to you with so much mildness. Will you defend your books as a whole, or are you ready to disavow some of them?”

After having said these words in Latin, the chancellor repeated them in German.

“Upon this, Dr. Martin Luther,” say the Acts of Worms, “replied in the most submissive and humble manner. He did not bawl, or speak with violence; but with decency, mildness, suitability, and moderation, and yet with much joy and Christian firmness.”

“Most serene emperor illustrious princes! gracious lords” said Luther, turning his eyes on Charles and on the assembly, “I appear before you this day, in conformity with the order given me yesterday, and by God’s mercies I conjure your majesty and your august highnesses to listen graciously to the defense of a cause which I am assured is just and true. If, through ignorance, I should transgress the usages and proprieties of courts, I entreat you to pardon me; for I was not brought up in the palaces of kings, but in the seclusion of a convent.

“Yesterday, two questions were put to me on behalf of his imperial majesty: the first, if I was the author of the books whose titles were enumerated; the second, if I would retract or defend the doctrine I had taught in them. To the first question I then made answer, and I persevere in that reply.

“As for the second, I have written works on many different subjects. There are some in which I have treated of faith and good works, in a manner at once so pure, so simple, and so scriptural, that even my adversaries, far from finding anything to censure in them, allow that these works are useful, and worthy of being read by all pious men. The papal bull, however violent it may be, acknowledges this. If, therefore, I were to retract these, what should I do?... Wretched man Among all men, I alone should abandon truths that friends and enemies approve, and I should oppose what the whole world glories in confessing.

“Secondly, I have written books against the papacy, in which I have attacked those who, by their false doctrine, their evil lives, or their scandalous example, afflict the Christian world, and destroy both body and soul. The complaints of all who fear God are confirmatory of this. Is it not evident that the human doctrines and laws of the popes entangle, torment, and vex the consciences of believers, while the crying and perpetual extortions of Rome swallow up the wealth and the riches of Christendom and especially of this illustrious nation?

“Were I to retract what I have said on this subject, what should I do but lend additional strength to this tyranny, and open the floodgates to a torrent of impiety? Overflowing with still greater fury than before, we should see these insolent men increase in number, behave more tyrannically, and domineer more and more. And not only the yoke that now weighs upon the Christian people would be rendered heavier by my retractation, but it would become, so to speak, more legitimate, for by this very retractation it would have received the confirmation of your most serene majesty and of all the states of the holy empire. Gracious God! I should thus become a vile cloak to cover and conceal every kind of malice and tyranny!

“Lastly, I have written books against individuals who desired to defend the Romish tyranny and to destroy the faith. I frankly confess that I may have attacked them with more acrimony than is becoming my ecclesiastical profession. I do not consider myself a saint; but I cannot disavow these writings, for by so doing I should sanction the impiety of my adversaries, and they would seize the opportunity of oppressing the people of God with still greater cruelty.

“Yet I am but a mere man, and not God; I shall therefore defend myself as Christ did. If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil (John 18:23), said He. How much more should I, who am but dust and ashes, and who may so easily go astray, desire every man to state his objections to my doctrine!

“For this reason, by the mercy of God, I conjure you, most serene emperor, and you, most illustrious princes, and all men of every degree, to prove from the writings of the prophets and apostles that I have erred. As soon as I am convinced of. this, I will retract every error, and be the first to lay hold of my books and throw them into the fire.

“What I have just said plainly shows, I hope, that I have carefully weighed and considered the dangers to which I expose myself; but, far from being dismayed, I rejoice to see that the gospel is now, as in former times, a cause of trouble and dissension. This is the character—this is the destiny of the word of God. I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword, said Jesus Christ (Matt. 10:34). God is wonderful and terrible in His counsels; beware lest, by presuming to quench dissensions, you should persecute the holy word of God, and draw down upon yourselves a frightful deluge of insurmountable dangers, of present disasters, and eternal desolation.... You should fear lest the reign of this young and noble prince, on whom (under God) we build such lofty expectations, not only should begin, but continue and close, under the most gloomy auspices. I might quote many examples from the oracles of God,” continued Luther, speaking with a noble courage in the presence of the greatest monarch of the world: “I might speak of the Pharaohs, the kings of Babylon, and those of Israel, whose labors never more effectually contributed to their own destruction than when they sought by counsels, to all appearance most wise, to strengthen their dominion.

God removeth mountains, and they know it not; which overturneth them in His anger (Job 9:5).

“If I say these things, it is not because I think that such great princes need my poor advice, but because I desire to render unto Germany what she has a right to expect from her children. Thus, commending myself to your august majesty and to your most serene highnesses, I humbly entreat you not to suffer the hatred of my enemies to pour out upon me an indignation that I have not merited.”

Luther had pronounced these words in German. With modesty, but with great warmth and firmness; he was ordered to repeat them in Latin. The emperor did not like the German tongue. The imposing assembly that surrounded the reformer, the noise, and his own emotion had fatigued him. “I was in a great perspiration,” said he, “heated by the tumult, standing in the midst of the princes.” Frederick of Thun, privy councilor to the Elector of Saxony who was stationed by his master’s orders at the side of the reformer, to watch over him that no violence might be employed against him, seeing the condition of the poor monk, said: “If you cannot repeat what you have said, that will do, doctor.” But Luther, after a brief pause to take breath, began again, and repeated his speech in Latin with the same energy as at first.

“This gave great pleasure to the Elector Frederick,” says the reformer.

When he had ceased speaking, the Chancellor of Treves, the orator of the Diet, said indignantly: “You have not answered the question put to you. You were not summoned hither to call in question the decisions of councils. You are required to give a clear and precise answer. Will you, or will you not, retract?” Upon this Luther replied without hesitation: “Since your most serene majesty and your high mightiness’s require from me a clear, simple, and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning―unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted―and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of God, I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience.” And then, looking round on this assembly before which he stood, and which held his life in its hands, he said: “HERE I STAND, I CAN DO NO OTHER; MAY GOD HELP ME! AMEN!”

Luther, constrained to obey his faith, led by his conscience to death, impelled by the noblest necessity, the slave of his belief, and under this slavery still supremely free, like the ship tossed by a violent tempest, and which, to save that which is more precious than itself, runs and is clashed upon the rocks, thus uttered these sublime words which still thrill our hearts at an interval of three centuries: thus spoke a monk before the emperor and the mighty ones of the nation; and this feeble and despised man, alone, but relying on the grace of the Most High, appeared greater and mightier than them all. His words contain a power against which all these mighty rulers can do nothing. This is the weakness of God, which is stronger than man. The empire and the church on the one hand, this obscure man on the other, had met. God had brought together these kings and these prelates publicly to confound their wisdom. The battle is lost, and the consequences of this defeat of the great ones of the earth will be felt among every nation and in every age to the end of time. The assembly was thunderstruck. Many of the princes found it difficult to conceal their admiration. The emperor, recovering from his first impression, exclaimed: “This monk speaks with an intrepid heart and unshaken courage.” The Spaniards and Italians alone felt confounded, and soon began to ridicule a greatness of soul which they could not comprehend.

“If you do not retract,” said the chancellor, as soon as the Diet had recovered from the impression produced by Luther’s speech, “the emperor and the states of the empire will consult what course to adopt against an incorrigible heretic.” At these words Luther’s friends began to tremble; but the monk repeated: “May God be my helper; for I can retract nothing.”

After this Luther withdrew, and the princes deliberated. Each one felt that this was a critical moment for Christendom. The Yes or the No of this monk would decide, perhaps for ages, the repose of the church and of the world. His adversaries had endeavored to alarm him, and they had only, exalted him before the nation; they had thought to give greater publicity to his defeat, and they had but increased the glory of his victory. The partisans of Rome could not make up their mind to submit to this humiliation. Luther was again called in, and the orator of the Diet said to him: “Martin, you have not spoken with the modesty becoming your position. The distinction you have made between your books was futile; for if you retracted those that contained your errors, the emperor would not allow the others to be burnt. It is extravagant in you to demand to be refuted by Scripture, when you are reviving heresies condemned by the general council of Constance. The emperor, therefore, calls upon you to declare simply, yes or no, whether you presume to maintain what you have advanced, or whether you will retract a portion?”

“I have no other reply to make than that which I have already made,” answered Luther, calmly. His meaning was understood. Firm as a rock, all the waves of human power dashed ineffectually against him.

The strength of his words, his bold bearing, his piercing eyes, the unshaken firmness legible on the rough outlines of his truly German features, had produced the deepest impression on this illustrious assembly. There was no longer any hope. The Spaniards, the Belgians, and even the Romans were dumb. The monk had vanquished these great ones of the earth. He had said No to the church and to the empire. Charles V. arose, and all the assembly with him: “The Diet will meet again tomorrow to hear the emperor’s opinion,” said the chancellor with a loud voice:

Submission and Rest

THE camel, at the close of day,

Kneels down upon the sandy plain

To have his burden lifted off,

And rest to gain.

The camel kneels at break of day

To have his guide replace his load,

Then rises up anew to take

The desert road.

So thou shouldst kneel at morning’s dawn

That God may give thee daily care,

Assured that He no load too great

Will make thee bear.

My soul, thou too shouldst to thy knees

When daylight draweth to a close,

And let thy Master lift the load

And grant repose.

Else how couldst thou tomorrow meet,

With all tomorrow’s work to do,

If thou thy burden all the night

Dost carry through?

“Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
(Matt. 11:29, 30.)

Are You a "Member"? and of What?

Introductory Remarks

AS long as the solemn question of the soul’s eternal salvation is left in dark uncertainty there will be little, if any, freedom of spirit to think of that which interests Christ or concerns His glory, apart from the bare matter of the sinner’s peace and safety. On the other hand, when one who professes to have the knowledge of this great salvation gives evidence, in walk and ways, of cold indifference to those interests, it manifests either a very shallow work in the soul or no real work at all. For be sure of this, that the work of the Spirit in a soul is as great a reality as the work of Christ for that soul, and that in whomsoever He (the Spirit) dwells, His activity will always tend to the glory of Christ. “He shall glorify Me,” said the blessed Lord; “for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:14).

In case this should fall into the hands of a troubled soul, it may be well to add here, for his comfort, that peace does not depend upon our being satisfied with the work of the Spirit in us, but upon God’s satisfaction in the work of Christ for us, and as this rests eternally the same, the ground of our peace is unchanging too. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). But it is for those who have recently been brought to the knowledge of salvation that this paper is intended, though it is the earnest prayer of the writer that it pages may graciously be used of God to the exercise and blessing of every reader who loves our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

How I should like, before we proceed further, to fill your heart (if it is not already full,) with the warm and heavenly rays which shine forth from that little sentence in John 13:1― “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” “His own” What a precious thought! His, not only by Creator-right and redemption-titles, but His by gift from the Father― “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me” (John 17:6). And so precious is this thought to His own heart, that seven times over in that remarkable outbreathing of His soul to the Father (John 17) He makes mention of it. Is this not enough to fill your heart, dear reader? ’Tis true you are left for a little while in this cold, dark world, but you are “loved” by Him, and loved through everything, right on “to the end.” Never dream, I pray you, of asking Him to increase His love toward you. He never could love you more, and He never will love you less. Blessed be His name, His love is like Himself―infinite and eternal.

“Love that no tongue can teach,

Love that no thought can reach;

No love like His.

God is its blessed source,

Death ne’er can stop its course,

Nothing can stay its force;

Matchless it is.”

Now, I need not say that you are not the only one in this poor world loved by Christ and saved by His precious blood. There are other joint-heirs, “many sons,” that have God’s eternal glory as their bright destiny; and I am desirous of saying a few simple words to you about your path in connection with these, your fellow-Christians― “His own” ―left with you in the world. But I would first say,

Be Right With God in Secret,

and would earnestly press upon you the deep importance of personal piety, and whole-hearted devotedness to Christ, apart from the question of any other saint on earth. May the Holy Spirit of God make this plain to you. Depend upon it, to be right with God in your closet is of equal importance to being right with Him in public, among your fellow-Christians. Take a simple illustration. Will not a good servant see to the proper condition of the glasses, etc., before he puts them in their places on the master’s table? and will not a soldier look well that his accoutrements are in a bright and worthy state before he steps into rank among his comrades? Mark, I am not going to say a word against right order, but rather to urge its importance; yet I do see the necessity of pressing upon you a prior thing. What would any master care for the most exact order of laying a table if the knives and forks, etc., were in a dirty and unsatisfactory state, and the servant himself in disgraceful untidiness? or what captain be satisfied with the punctuality and regularity of his men if their rifles were foul and their bayonets rusty? Of course, a servant who cared for the approval of his master would neglect none of these things.

Now pause here for a moment, and let me ask myself and you a practical question―Is there anything in your heart which you are well aware would not have a place there for an instant if your blessed Lord and Master had it all His own way with you? Let us honestly face that question, and be very jealous lest there be a single selfish reserve in our hearts from Him. A Christian who cherishes such a reserve is virtually saying, Lord, I can trust Thee with my safety, but cannot trust Thee with my happiness. Oh, let us consider Him more, dear reader! “He sold all that He had,” and gave His precious life-blood too, for the joy of making us “His own;” and having done and suffered all this for us, He now gives everything to us, and makes a feast for His own heart in doing it. What a Giver! What a Lover!

Blessed, thrice blessed Saviour! Help me to praise Him, and let us exalt His name together.

Well, the more you become at home with Him, to use a familiar expression, the more you will joyfully anticipate being with Him at home, and the greater heavenly glow and fervor will your testimony have until you get there. No amount of effort will bring about this state; but in keeping His company, and beholding Him in glory, where He now is, you will be “changed into the same image from glory to glory,” and thus reflect His moral beauty here below. The more practically we become like Him, the louder our lives speak for Him. Whenever you find that your appetite for secret communion with Him is diminishing, you may be pretty sure that one or more of the “little foxes that spoil the vines” are finding an undisturbed lodging-place in your heart. Therefore, search diligently, and spare them not, or else bid farewell to your joy and spiritual prosperity. But go at once to Him and say, with full surrender of your own will, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me [margin, way of pain and grief], and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa. 139:23, 24).

Ever may it be―

“Our deepest grief to give Him pain,

Our joy to serve and follow Him.”

What a luxury it is to one that loves the Lord to have the consciousness in his soul that he is ministering pleasure to the heart of Christ! It is then that the brightest offer the world can make you but crumbles into dust and ashes at your feet.

Steps Rightly Directed: A False Way Detected.

It is well, at the commencement of your Christian career, to be fully alive to the fact that it is the word of God which must be the touchstone for everything in your path, whether personally or relatively. Look at the Psa. 119:104, “Through Thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way;” and again, verse 128, “Therefore I esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.” Notice how decidedly the Holy Ghost speaks through the psalmist. It is either a right way, because according to the word, or is it a false way, to be hated. Man naturally loves to tone things down to keep his conscience quiet. God, in creation, “divided the light from the darkness,” and morally He does so still. Man would blend them together into a kind of dim twilight; but beware of these subtle compromises, and, like David, say, “I hate thoughts: but Thy law do I love” (Ver. 113).

Now, do not let this apply only to the question of your salvation and personal state, but to that also which I now desire briefly to dwell upon; Viz.―

Your Ground of Fellowship With Other Christians; or, in Other Words, Your Church-Position.

One of the first things, I believe, which the renewed heart craves for is fellowship with God’s people. He finds himself no longer at home in the world, and naturally seeks “his own company.” But amidst all the names and divisions of disordered Christendom, a new-born soul may well inquire, Where shall I turn to be right? My answer is, “To God and to the word of His grace” (Acts 9:32). Whoever is wrong, God and His word are right. Get that well-grounded in your soul, and “cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”

A few years ago, two Christians, hitherto strangers to each other, were traveling together in a railway-carriage, when, after some conversation about the Lord and His interests, one of them leaned forward and said, “May I ask what denomination you belong to?” “Well, that is a common enough question,” replied the other, “but will you first say what you think is to guide me in my path as a Christian?”

He agreed at once that it was the word of God alone that could with certainty direct him. “Then, if you will allow me,” said his fellow-traveler, “I will answer your question by proposing another, viz., WHAT DENOMINATION DOES THE WORD OF GOD PUT ME INTO?” After some silent deliberation, he said, “Why, none at all.” “Then I can’t belong to one at all,” replied the other; “for if I did (upon your own showing), I should clearly be in a position where the word of God had not placed me.”

“But,” replied the first speaker, “does not the word of God exhort us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, ‘and so much the more as we see the day approaching’?” (Heb. 10:25).

“Yes, it does. But a Christian need not belong to a denomination to obey that word; for the Lord Jesus said, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them’” (Matt. 18:20).

Now, dear reader, if you look at 2 John 6, you will find that he exhorts the elect lady, and those with her, thus: “And this is love, that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.”

Now, John had seen the Lord in His wondrous life, had seen Him die upon the cross, was a witness of His resurrection, beheld Him taken up into heaven, and was present when, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost came down from an ascended Christ to baptize believers into one body, and thus form the Church. He had lived long enough to see evil come into the circle of the professing church; but what is the remedy? Is it, “Begin afresh with a new and purer sect of a more improved constitution”? Listen to his reply by the Holy Ghost― “This is the commandment, That, as ye have beard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.” So that the Spirit of God makes it plain that He suffers no innovation of man’s to trespass upon the sacred principles of God’s word for the guidance of His people, whatever their exercises may be, or whatever the date of their history.

Now apply this principle today, and you must find yourself in one of two positions―either on God’s ground of gathering the disciples at the beginning, or on some ground that man, in his fancied wisdom or mistaken zeal, has set up since the beginning.

The One Body and Its Members.

In Acts 2:42, it is said of the early disciples that “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” After the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, an entirely new revelation was made to the Church through this once champion persecutor of the saints, namely, that every believer on earth was united to Christ by the Holy Ghost (see Acts 9:4; 1 Cor. 6:17; 1 Cor. 12:12-27); that “as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is [the] Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:12, 13). Then, in Eph. 4:3, 4, we not only get the same fact plainly stated― “There is one body,” but we are exhorted to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace;” that is, we are to maintain practically what the Holy Ghost has formed spiritually.

There are two classes of Christians in the world. One practically says, “Man has formed many bodies, and I, being a member of one of these, (the best, according to my opinion), desire to serve its interest in every possible way I can.” The other says, “God has formed one body, and made me a member of it, and now I desire, by His grace, to serve the interests of the Head of that body, according to the principles laid down in His word who formed it.”

Now, dear reader, to which of these classes do you belong?

Alas! how many a precious saint of God is represented by the first! Do you not often hear a Christian talk about “joining” this or that body? Surely such an one forgets (if he ever knew) that the only body which God, in His word, recognizes, is the “one body” of which Christ Himself is the Head, and of which every true believer is a living member. If saved, therefore, (to use a common expression), you are already a “joined member.” “He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). And in 1 Cor. 12:18, using the figure of the human body, the apostle says, “GOD HATH SET the members every one of them in the body, AS IT HATH PLEASED HIM.”

What sad confusion, then, to talk of joining some other body! Why not be content with the place God has given you in the “body of Christ,” and seek, through grace, to fulfill the responsibilities of such a place?

Now, the Holy Ghost certainly never baptized believers into a “sect,” or denomination. Look at 1 Cor. 1:12,13, and chap. 3:3, and you will see that He meets on the very threshold, so to speak, the incoming of sectarian spirit in Corinth with a most withering stroke of condemnation.― “Are ye not carnal, and walk as men? for while one saith, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I of Apollos,’ are ye not carnal?”

But you may inquire, If it is wrong to stand upon or uphold a sectarian position, is there any definite way laid down in God’s word of expressing the truth of the one body? To answer this, we must look at what Scripture says of THE LORD’S TABLE.

If you turn to 1 Cor. 10:16, you will find that just as twelve loaves on the table of show-bread expressed what Israel was, viz., twelve tribes (Lev. 24:5, 6), so the one loaf on the Lord’s table is God’s symbol to express the truth of what the Church on earth is, viz., one body.— “We being many are one bread [or loaf] and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread [or loaf]” (ver. 17). So that in partaking of the one loaf, the divinely taught Christian owns his union with all true believers on the face of the whole earth, whatever their ignorance, weakness, or Christ-dishonoring divisions may be. But while he does this, he can only have fellowship with those who are seeking to walk in obedience to the Word, and in separation from manifested evil. The Holy Spirit of God would never seek to maintain outward unity at the expense of inward holiness (Read 1 Cor. 5:6, 7, 8, 13, and 2 John).

The Lord’s Supper.

Here, our divine affections are called forth in remembrance of the blessed worthy One Himself, and whilst doing this together, we “show His death until He come.” Then we shall no longer need such symbols, but see Him face to face. But is it not sad to think of the cold-hearted neglect of this blessed privilege by many of those whose redemption cost Him His precious blood? Think you, is it nothing to His heart that those whom He loves so tenderly should manifest such disregard for what may be called His farewell wish, expressed, as it was, on the night of His betrayal, and re-expressed from His place of exaltation in glory? “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Cor. 11:26). And we find in Acts 20 that the disciples, in loving response to this their Lord and Master’s wish, came together “on the first day of the week to break bread.”

Yet, in our day, some consider the first Sunday in the month sufficiently frequent; others, once a quarter; and many even allow a still longer time to elapse without granting Him this special desire of His heart. Now, which of us would not freely acknowledge that it was deplorable ingratitude on the part of Pharaoh’s butler, when, after Joseph had turned his sadness into joy, it was said “Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him” (Gen. 40:23)? and this, too, after Joseph’s touching appeal, in which he said, “When it shall be well with thee, think on me.” But still Joseph only ministered joy to his fellow-prisoner for three days, and even this cost him no more than the mere utterance of a few short sentences, while for us the spotless Son of God has purchased eternal blessings, and joys that know no end, at such a cost as only He who can fathom the depths of Calvary’s bitterness and woe can rightly estimate.

Now, what shall be said of him (with whom it is well indeed) who, without a single merit or the slightest cost, receives these infinite and blood-bought blessings at His hand, and the words of eternal life from His lips, and yet can hear Him say, “This do for a remembrance of Me” without the least apparent response of heart to it? What must the angels who look on (1 Cor. 11:10) think of such unexampled ingratitude? Nay, let us ask ourselves, What must the blessed One Himself think of it?

Not long ago, we were told that a few Christians in a little country chapel were often kept for more than a year together from the privilege of eating the Lord’s supper, just because a certain preacher could not go over to “administer it to them.” This was truly a grievous mistake; for there is no such thing even hinted at in Scripture as any man (not even an apostle) being set apart for such a thing. “The disciples came together to break bread.”

It might be well to say here that, according to God’s word, all true believers are now priests (Rev. 1:6; 1 Peter 2:5, 9), and as such, they have the privilege of entering the holiest with boldness, bringing their praises to the Father and to the Son with glad and worshiping hearts.

How sadly has human interference set aside the simplicity of divine order, robbing the Lord of His glory, His people of their blessing, and dragging the highest heavenly privileges of Christianity down to the earthly level of Judaism. May the Lord deliver His own from such a state of things so contrary to His mind.

But, returning to our subject, let us never forget that the Lord’s supper must be received in the spirit of self-judgment (see 1 Cor. 11:28-31). Having judged ourselves, and spared nothing about us that is unworthy of Him, we come together, with grateful and undistracted hearts, to think of all the worthiness that is in Him who went down into death for us. What a soul-absorbing privilege it would ever be if our practical state were no hindrance to the Holy Ghost leading us into true enjoyment of such a heavenly feast! May the frequency of it never rob us of the freshness of it.

But there is another feature, that of

The Holy Ghost’s Presence on Earth

which it is important to be clear about. The Lord Jesus promised that the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, when He came, should not only be in them (individually), but with them (corporately) (John 14:16,17). And, without going into the matter now, it is evident from such scriptures as 1 Cor. 14 that in the beginning of the Church’s history His presence was owned and His guidance and operation looked for, both in public meetings and with individuals.

Alas! how human arrangements have set aside the word of God in this matter, robbing His people, and quenching His Spirit! And so widespread in Christendom has this evil become, that, look where you will, from St. Peter’s in Rome down to the smallest mission chapel, you can see it. Instead of believers, when assembled together for worship or edification, depending on the Lord alone for the guidance of His Spirit,—why, even a prayer-meeting can scarcely be held without appointment of someone to “conduct” it,—this one or that, whether led of the Spirit or not, is called upon to “engage in prayer,” while the “leader” is supposed to “open” the meeting and “close” it, whatever his state of soul may be. What is all this but man usurping the place of the Holy Ghost, the sad fruit of unbelief as to His personal presence? Some believers even go so far as to pray for Him to be sent, or to Him to come, and this notwithstanding the plain word of the Lord― “He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you FOREVER” (John 14:16). It should however be borne in mind that there is a wide difference between a meeting for preaching the gospel to the unsaved (when the individual servant, according to his measure of gift, is solely responsible to deliver His Master’s message), and a company of God’s people coming together for worship or edification.

Your Position Tested.

Now, with these simple facts before us, suppose that Peter, James, and John, with a few others of the early disciples, should have lived until the present day, and that they were still meeting in the simplicity of divine order as at the beginning i.e., gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus (comp. Matt. 18:20 with John 20:19), remembering Him in the breaking of bread on the first day of the week, and waiting for His coming again (examine Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:23-26); maintaining scriptural discipline (see 1 Cor. 5:9-13; 1 Tim. 5:20; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14, 15; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Tim. 4:2; Titus 2:15; Gal. 5:1); endeavoring to maintain the truth in practice that “there is one body” (Eph. 4:3, 4); and recognizing the presence and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst to guide by the Holy Ghost, whom He will and as He will, whether in worship or ministry, thereby ignoring, of course, all human rules and every vestige of what is merely man’s usurped authority. Now, calmly pause for a moment, and ask yourself the question just referred to— “To what denomination would THEY belong?” It will surely not take much spiritual discernment to answer that question with a decided negative, and, “Of course,” you will say, “none at all.”

But to bring the question somewhat nearer home, if you were living in that very town yourself, would not you like to have the apostles’ fellowship? I am sure you would. Well, then, in order to get it, you must first leave every kind of sectarian ground set up by man since the beginning of the Church’s history upon earth, and accept with its consequences, the “apostles’ doctrine.” Then having got upon their ground of “fellowship,” you would have the privilege of expressing it with them in the “breaking of bread.” “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). But you may say perhaps, that the apostles are not living on the earth now. Well, but, thank God, their doctrine is— “the word which liveth and abideth forever;” and that puts me, in this day, on the same ground of fellowship that they were upon in that day i.e., if I submit to be guided and governed by it.

Objections Answered.

This may perhaps fall into the hands of some older Christian, who says, Well, I see that the ground I have been upon has no warrant in Scripture; but I am not capable of getting things righted. Probably not; but your responsibility is to put yourself right. “If a man therefore purge himself from these [vessels to dishonor], he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:19-22). To Jeremiah of old, who stood valiantly for God amidst a sinful and rebellious people, it was said, “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them” (Jer. 15:19).

But, reasons another, ought I not to stay in the place and among the people where my soul was converted? Well, I think you will see at once that such a principle could not possibly apply to every Christian. Some are converted amid the gross darkness of Romanism; would you have them stay there? ―Saul of Tarsus, on the roadside, amongst the haters of Christ?

One is saved on the battlefield; and only tonight I heard of a young man brought to God while tempest-tossed and well-nigh driven to despair in the Bay of Biscay. In all true conversions God is sovereign (“the wind bloweth where it listeth”); He can convert a soul anywhere, and by any means. But from the moment he is converted, he is no longer his own, nor has he a right to choose his own path, or do his own will; he must henceforth consult the wishes of Another, even his own precious Lord and Master, and seek His all-sufficient grace and power to carry those wishes out.

A man may enlist for a soldier anywhere, wherever the recruiting-sergeant can prevail upon him to “take the oath,” but, as you are aware, from that day he is no longer his own master, he must prepare himself to obey the wishes of his chief. Now, what would you think of a recruit who insisted upon staying where he was enlisted, or even with the recruiting staff? Such a course might possibly suit him, but he must now yield to other and higher authority.

There may be another who says, Nearly all my Christian friends are in such a sect; and besides, is it not right to go where you can get the most good?

Well, I have no doubt that Jonathan might have reasoned thus when, in David’s days, he chose rather to think of his own good with his own relations in Saul’s court than of following one who so dearly loved him, in a pathway of suffering, loneliness, and rejection. But had poor, lamented Jonathan consulted David’s interest instead of his own, had he devotedly cleaved to him, hated and hunted though David was, he would probably never have fallen, as he did, on the mountains of Gilboa. Ah, dear fellow-believer, depend upon it, neither the opinion of your friends, nor your own judgment of what is most for your good can guide you in these matters! The truth of God alone can direct you in a Christ-honoring path, and the God of truth alone can sustain you in it. The Scripture, which makes you wise unto salvation, furnishes you unto all good works―i.e., with all needful instruction for your path (2 Tim. 3:15-17); and since this is so, you ought to be as sure of one as of the other. There can surely be no shadow of uncertainty to faith when God has spoken His mind; but how sad that so many, even of His own professed people, should glibly speak of “essentials” and “non-essentials” in the things of God! which usually means that whatever concerns their own safety and blessing is essential, and all the rest, no matter how closely connected with the glory of the blessed Son of God, is to be treated with comparative indifference as non-essential.

Oh, what miserable selfishness does this manifest!

What a different state of things characterized the dear apostle! The earnest desire of his heart was, that Christ should be “magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.” His one motto was, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:20, 21).

But there is yet another objection which is sometimes raised against leaving a human for a divine ground of association and fellowship, viz., the failures and inconsistencies of those who professedly occupy this ground.

Most sorrowfully, though frankly, do I own that those who, through grace have clearly seen the place to be of God, and sought to occupy it, have very painfully and disgracefully failed; while some, no doubt, who professedly took the ground, never saw what they were doing, nor had any depth of godly exercise about it, so that when their faithfulness to the principles which professedly separated them was put to the test, they either in practice denied those very principles or else forsook them altogether.

This, however, no more proves the position wrong than the failure of a Congressman proves that it is not the true Congress, or Uzziah’s failure in the temple, or, still worse, that of king Ahaz, prove that it was not God’s center of gathering for all the thousands of Israel (2 Chron. 26:16-20; 2 Kings 16:10-17); while, on the other hand, the most spotless morality in those assembled by Jeroboam at Dan or Bethel, the most ardent zeal, the most unexampled self-denial, coupled with the greatest popularity and the voice of the majority (ten tribes against two), could not possibly make those altars the right centers, or justify Jeroboam in setting them up.

Concluding Remarks.

God has ever claimed the right to fix a gathering-center for His people, and to settle the order of priestly service and worship; and surely this is not less true of the Church than of Israel. But let it be well remembered that He never regarded mere correct outward order as sufficient to satisfy Him (see Isa. 1:11-17). In the future history of His ancient people there will be, according to prophecy, a great re-gathering to God’s center―Jerusalem. But what a sifting will they have to pass through ere their state is suited to the holiness of Jehovah! and they will be sifted, too, by what is false among themselves.

What a solemn thought for us, since a similar state of things in church-history has been foretold by the apostle Paul in Acts 20:30― “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” But, as already noticed, the apostle at once carries them to the resting-place of the faith of His chosen in all ages, viz., God and the word of His grace. Whatever sifting may come, blessed be His name, we shall ever find in Him and in His word all that we need until the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, and with His “shout” bring about “in the twinkling of an eye” that great gathering around Himself spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:1.

“Then all that grieves shall pass away,

And saints shall see a glorious day.”

Not a division among them, nor a stain upon them! Till then, “every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3).

“Watching and ready may we be,

As those that wait their Lord to see.”

Amen.

Earnestly do I entreat you, dear reader, in view of that day when His eyes shall surely meet yours in glory, to test your church-position, as well as the ground of your peace and safety, by the Lord’s own question to some in the days of His flesh, viz., “Is it from heaven, or of men?”(Luke 20:4). Does it bear the unmistakable stamp of divine and scriptural authority? or is it merely endorsed by the hand of human expediency or mere religious opinion? Never, never rest until you can say, without a doubt, I am, through grace, in a position where my gracious Lord would have me, because I am where the word of God has placed me; and then, with purpose of heart and fervor of spirit, seek to adorn it by a holy, separate, and devoted walk, and so, when He comes, you will not only be ready to “go in to the marriage” through faith in Him, but get His approving “well done” for faithfulness to Him. Difficulties you may have, will have, but if in the path that pleases Him, you may, with all confidence, count upon His sympathy and succor; and even though the misunderstandings of your fellow-Christians add bitterness to your cup, yet the sense of His smile will more than recompense you. “Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Sam. 2:30). “If any man serve Me, him will My Father honor” (John 12:26). May such “honor” be yours, dear reader, now and “till He come.”

GEO. C.

The Lord's Second Coming

DEAR reader, are you aware of it? The Lord Jesus Christ is coming again? Thousands on every hand are waking up to this solemn, yet blessed fact. There is an unmistakable and growing conviction in the minds of God’s people all over the world―a conviction based upon the truths of His Word―that the Church’s history on the earth is about to close; that the Lord Jesus is coming to take His bride away to the Father’s house on high.

Are you, my reader, awake to the reality of this solemn matter, and what it involves? If not, may the Holy Spirit use these few pages to awaken your precious soul, “lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping” (Mark 13:36).

Many who know something of the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, seem to get their souls engrossed with “events” which they think have been, or are to be fulfilled, rather than with the blessed Person Himself who is coming.

A man of distinction has been far away, and his loving wife, who has long been looking for his return, receives tidings that he at last is coming. She watches for the first indications of his arrival. She sees preparations in many ways are being made in view of his return. But, whilst she is not indifferent to all these things, the uppermost thought in her heart is that he is coming.

Now, dear reader, there may be certain events happening today which seem to indicate that the time cannot be far distant when the “Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” for the remnant of Israel who “fear His name,” and with consuming judgment for the wicked, (as we read in the last chapter of Malachi), but the Christian’s immediate hope is the return of Christ Himself as “the Bright and Morning Star,” as He calls Himself in Rev. 22:16. Using His own precious, personal name, He says, “I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the Bright and Morning Star.”

Now, the morning star appears in the heavens before the rising of the sun. It is between the time that He comes as the “Morning Star” and the time He appears as the “Sun of Righteousness” that the terrible judgments spoken of in Revelation will visit the earth. Then will that terrible consummation of wickedness and lawlessness, that “man of sin,” the antichrist, come upon the scene (2 Thess. 2); then, too, the “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7), and “the great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21, 22.) through which a remnant from Israel will be preserved like the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. Then those in professing Christendom who have “not received the love of the truth that they might be saved,” will be given over by God Himself to a “strong delusion to believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11,12). Then indeed there will be signs—signs of an appalling character, with heart-crushing sorrows, so that “men shall seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Rev. 9:6). But remember that all these are to be expected after the “Morning Star” has risen, and not before, ―i.e., after the Church, Christ’s heavenly bride, has been caught away from the earth to meet the Lord in the air.

Oh let us never forget that it is Himself who is coming “to gather His ransomed ones home!”

When he was about to leave his disciples―full of sorrow because they heard Him say He was now to leave them to return to the Father―He comforts them with this: “Let not your heart be troubled,” He says: “ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” As though He had said, You trusted in God without seeing Him, and now that I am going away from you out of sight, put the same confidence in Me. Then He makes this promise to them: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Looking for “events” instead of for Him sadly robs the heart of that freshness and comfort which is the believer’s true portion in view of this heavenly hope. Indeed, the enemy has been but too successful in making the gracious promise of His coming to appear, as much as possible, like an angry, judicial threat; whereas, as we have seen in John 14, it was our precious Lord’s way to comfort the fainting hearts of His trembling followers. And when the inspired apostle, years afterward, writes his first letter to the bereaved and persecuted young converts at Thessalonica, he adds, to what he had just been telling them of the Lord’s coming, this short but significant sentence: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

Let us turn to 1 Thess. 4:16, and carefully examine these words of comfort: “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, TO MEET THE LORD in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Now notice that it was a real living Man, the Lord Himself; who was going to descend from heaven. It was the Lord Himself that they were going to meet in the air. At their conversion they had been taught that the “same Jesus” who had, by His death and resurrection, delivered them from “the wrath to come” was coming again; and they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait [not for certain prophetic events to be fulfilled, but] for His Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:9,10). And again, in writing to the Philippians, Paul says, “Our conversation (or citizenship) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ;” i.e., they were on the outlook for a Person, and that Person the well-known, loved, and trusted Son of God.

Now, where that blessed Saviour is not known―where His finished work is not trusted, nor His authority bowed to, there is little wonder that the news of His near approach should strike the conscience with terror and dismay, as in religious Jerusalem of old, which “was troubled” at the tidings that the promised King was born (Matt. 2:3).

But, beloved fellow-Christian, it ought not to be so with you. We ought, most assuredly, to be exercised about the suitability of our walk and ways to Him who is coming; and if we lay the promise of His speedy return to heart, we certainly shall be, for “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). Neither should we forget, that “we shall all be manifested before His judgment-seat;” when all our service shall be reproduced, and “every man receive his own reward according to his own labor.” But He is first coming for us, as a loving Bridegroom to take home His bride; and when we give account of ourselves before Him we shall be in glorified bodies like unto His own.

A few years since I overtook a little boy about six years of age, as he leisurely sauntered along the street. As I approached him he was singing a little song of his own composing. A tiny ditty it was! Three words took in the whole of it― “At ten o’clock I at ten o’clock! at ten o’clock!”

He seemed so thoroughly absorbed with it, and repeated it so very often, that my curiosity was aroused to inquire what he could mean by it. After a few kind words, he opened out his little heart to me. It appeared that his mother had been from home for some time, but that his father had received a letter to say she would be home that very day “at ten o’clock.” I need hardly say that the little fellow’s carol needed no further explanation. The news of his mother’s return had filled his heart. No doubt he had sadly missed her, and ardently longed for her return. But she was coming—coming “at ten o’clock,” and who wonders that this news made his little heart to sing?

Now, why should it be otherwise with you and me, dear Christian reader, when the tidings of our Lord’s return reaches our ears? Have we not tasted the sweetness of His love? Did He not suffer and die for us? Has He not kept us all along the way since first we knew Him—relieving us of many a burden, succoring and sympathizing in many a sorrow, restoring us after many a fall? Words cannot express how dear we are to Him. Ah, dear brother or sister, it is as we think of Him that our hearts warm with desire to see Him.

“Lord Jesus, when I think of Thee,

Of all Thy love and grace,

My spirit longs and fain would see

Thy beauty face to face.”

Not long since, a Christian lady said to me, “When I think sometimes of the Lord’s coming, my heart fairly leaps within me;” and a little girl I knew years ago―only eleven at the time―said, after returning from an errand at dusk one evening, “Mother, as I came up the lane just now, I saw the clouds moving so swiftly along the sky, I stood still, and looked up; for if the Lord Jesus were just coming, how I should like to be the first to see Him!” Now, what was the secret of this peace and joy in the bosom of that dear child as she stood all alone in that quiet country lane, and at evening twilight, longing for a glimpse of His blessed face? It was just this: She knew and trusted Him, “whom having not seen ye love;” she knew that, through His death for her, all her sins were forgiven.

But perhaps some one might say, “I should not be in such calm quietude if I thought He were coming at once, though from my heart I do trust His precious blood.”

Ah, then you are forgetting who it is that is coming. It is the “same Jesus” who once, “weary with His journey sat thus on the well,” and asked the poor Samaritan woman for a drink of water, only to give her the living water―the same who met the funeral procession outside the city of Nain, and gave back to the widowed mother her only son―the “same Jesus” who allowed the sinful woman in Simon’s house to tell out her love in tears and kisses at His blessed feet; yea, the very “same Jesus” who spoke such wondrous words of grace and mercy to the dying robber at Calvary! It is He, HE HIMSELF, who is coming!

Would you have proof of this? Read, in Acts 1, what those two angels said to the disciples on Mount Olivet. Their Master had just left them and gone to heaven, but not without first taking special pains to impress upon them that He was not a spirit, but a living Man with flesh and bones, whom, if they doubted His word, they could handle and see for themselves (Luke 24:39). “Ye men of Galilee,” say the angels,... “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Eighteen hundred years in the glory has not changed Him in the least. The self-same Person that Martha went forth to meet, after her brother’s death, is He for whom we wait; and should we “fall asleep” before He returns, the same Jesus who said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep,” will at His coming awake us too, that, like Lazarus, we may sit at the feast with Him “in saint-thronged courts above” (See John 11;12). Why, then, should we fear, when such a blessed Friend is coming from heaven to meet us?

“Surely I come quickly” is His cheering promise; and is it not due to such a lover as He that our hearts should respond, and say, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

I’M waiting for Thee, Lord,

Thy beauty to see, Lord,

I’m waiting for Thee―for Thy coming again.

Thou’rt gone over there, Lord,

A place to prepare, Lord,

Thy home I shall share at Thy coming again.

‘Mid danger and fear, Lord,

I’m oft weary here, Lord,

The day must be near of Thy coming again.

‘Tis all sunshine there, Lord,

No sighing nor care, Lord,

But glory so fair at Thy coming again.

Whilst Thou art away, Lord,

I stumble and stray, Lord,

Oh, hasten the day of Thy coming again

This is not my rest, Lord,

A pilgrim confessed, Lord,

I wait to be blest at Thy coming again.

E’en now let my ways, Lord,

Be bright with Thy praise, Lord,

For brief are the days ere Thy coming again.

I’m waiting for Thee, Lord,

Thy beauty to see, Lord,

No triumph for me like Thy coming again.

And the spirit and the bride say, Come.

And let him that beareth say, Come.

And let him that is athirst come.

And whosoever will,

Let him take the water of life freely.

(Rev. 17.)

Choice Reading for Christian Homes

Table of Contents

Minnie Gray; or, Sought and Found

"Must I Not Strive?" or, the Poor Man's Dinner

The Solitary Way

Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment

"What Did Jesus Come to Do?"

The Dairyman's Daughter: An Authentic Narrative - Abridged

A Preacher of the Old School

The First Prayer

Incidents in the Missionary Life of Egerton Young

Idols and Dog-Ovens.

The Personality of Satan and the Agency of Demons

"Just as I Am"

The Old Nature and the New Birth; or, the New Convert and His Difficulties

The Mother's Trust

Marguerite

Looking off Unto Jesus

Examples of God's Answers to Faith

Lessons From Nature

Hymn of Praise

"A Gift"

Luther Before the Diet of Worms

Submission and Rest

Are You a "Member"? and of What?

The Lord's Second Coming