Messenger of Peace: Volume 2 (1883)

The sick man had brought a delicate wife from New Zealand to see a noted physician. On arriving in Edinburgh, he found that death, at too early an age, had just swept the illustrious man from the land of the living, and then himself contracting typhus fever, his condition on the fifteenth day quite warranted the remark just given. The speaker was a kindly but shrewd lodging-house keeper, who had offered to the worn-out wife, and nurse of the sick man, to relieve them for a little, wait my midnight visit, and receive any directions I might give, while they got a rest.

Much interested in the welfare of his lodger, he was rather cheered by my reply, and readily took A my orders. Seeing this, I added, “Whether he lives or dies is very doubtful, and all will depend on the nursing of the next twenty-four hours; but any way, I can tell you this, that Mr. A―is ready to die. He is a true simple believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, has long rejoiced in the knowledge of the Lord, and of a present and eternal salvation; and if he departs, it will be to be with Christ forever.”

“Oh yes, sir, I am sure he’s ready to die; he’s a very good man,” was the rejoinder.

“And I hope you are ready too, my friend,” I said, turning to him, “for typhus fever is an ugly occupant of a house, and is no respecter of persons.”

“Well, as to that I really can’t say; in fact, I don’t think anyone can know that he is ready in this life.”

I did not stop at the moment to point out to him the contradiction of his two last speeches, ―in one breath assuring me that he was sure the dying man was “ready,” and in the next asserting that no one could know he was “ready” while here. It is worthy of notice, however, that this curious condition of matters is very common, when you begin to apply any special truth to a sinner’s conscience.

Perhaps, my reader, you feel there is safety (it is only fancied safety) in generalities, and therefore avoid personalities and individualizing. But let me assure you, that you must individualize yourself, and find out really where you are.

“Then, in plain language, you are not yet saved?”

I went on.

“No; I could not take it on me to say that,” was his reply.

“I see. But if you are not yet saved, have you found out that you are lost?”

“Lost? Me lost? No, God forbid I shouldn’t like to think I was lost.”

“Well,” I argued, “that is strange. You are not saved, and you will not own that you are lost.”

“Certainly not. Of course, I am not as good as I ought to be, ―no one is, ―but I am respectable and religious; that is, I go to church now and then; and though I can’t say I’m saved, I shouldn’t at all like to think I was lost. Because a man is not saved, it surely does not follow that he is lost.”

At that moment the shrill whistle of a railway locomotive, about to move in the Waverley Station nearby, disturbed the midnight silence of the air.

“What is that?” I exclaimed, hoping to shunt him to a subject which would just illustrate my point.

“That is the whistle of a railway engine.”

“So I thought. By the way, can you tell me how many lines there are on a well-conducted railway?”

“Two, of course.”

“And what do you call them?”

“The up line and the down.”

“Exactly so. Now tell me, did you ever see a man with one leg in an up train, and the other in the down?”

“No, of course not, and I never expect to. If a man is on the rails at all, he is either in the up, or in the down train; he can’t be half in one and half in the other.”

“I quite agree with you, and now I would just ask, Which line are you on? You are either an unbeliever or a believer. If still an unbeliever, you are in your sins, and steadily going on your way towards death, judgment, and the lake of fire,-the awful terminus of the down line. If, on the other hand, you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are certainly on the up line, and soon will find yourself in the glory to which the Saviour’s blood brings every redeemed sinner at last. Now, be honest with yourself, which line are you on?”

This appeal laid hold of his conscience, and after a moment’s silence, during which I saw he was convicted, he replied, “I admit your illustration is very apt; I never thought of it in that way before, but I must see to the matter in future.”

Whether the Spirit of God used this conversation to his awakening and conversion, I cannot say, as I did not meet him again, but my patient through mercy recovered.

And now, my reader, let me ask you, “Which line are you on?” It is the merest evasion of the truth, and the veriest folly, to say you cannot tell. If your lips will not utter the truth, let God’s Word witness against you.

Did not David say? “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa. 51:5.) Are you other, or better, than the sweet psalmist of Israel? But, again, he testifies, “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psa. 53:2,3). He convicts himself of sin in the first passage, and you and me in the second. How solemn!

Hear another witness. What says Isaiah? ― “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (64:6). This testimony is tremendously solemn as to the natural state of every one.

Again, hear the words of our Lord Christ, and He spoke to a most respectable, religious, and morally excellent man, when He said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh... Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:6,7).

What an inexorable “must” is that! It applies to the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate, the moral and the immoral, the religious professor and the careless scoffer, to prince and peasant, peer and pauper. It embraces all, and excludes none, from the necessity of the new birth; and it is manifest that all are yet on the “down line” who have not been born again by the word and Spirit of God.

But, further, the Lord says to Nicodemus, ― “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:17,18). Now nothing can be plainer than this. The man who has not truly and really believed in the Son of God, who has not, in other words, been “born again,” and turned to God through faith in Jesus, is “already condemned.” He is not on trial, and the state of his soul an open question. The trial is over. The Judge has spoken. The verdict is given. The unbeliever is “condemned already.” The only thing future, is the execution of the sentence-death; and “after this the judgment,”―the lake of fire forever, “the second death.”

The testimony of Scripture then, my reader, is clear as to the line you are upon, if still an unbeliever. You are already a lost sinner, and as such you are treated and addressed by God, in the Gospel. “The Son of man is come to seek, and to save that which was lost,” is the glorious news which Jesus Himself first proclaimed, and which the Holy Ghost yet carries forth. As an evangelist, it is my joy to tell you this. You are lost, but Christ came for such as you. He came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” Now, I beseech you, let Him save you. If He does not save you now, He must execute judgment on you in a day not far distant. Which shall it be? Will you have salvation, or judgment, from the hands of Jesus? “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Friend, I urge you, with all the energy of my soul, to open your eyes, see that you are on the down line, call a halt on the spot, turn to Jesus just now, and join that blessed company of saved sinners, who, having believed simply in the Son of God, are “not condemned,” and “shall not come into condemnation,” but “have everlasting life,” and are consequently, through grace, on the “up line.” Just listen simply to the words of the blessed Lord, and believe what He says, “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 the down line to the up) from death unto life”

(John 5:24).

In view thus of the Word of God, any honest soul can tell, with the greatest certainty, its real spiritual whereabouts and direction. So, as 1883 opens, I beg you, my beloved reader, just look this matter full in the face. If you are not yet Christ’s, do not lose a day without turning to Him. If His, through grace, seek to serve and follow Him faithfully.

Reader, “Which line are you on?”

W. T. P. W.

You must never bring in man’s will when you talk of the saved; you must never bring in God’s will when you talk of the lost,―else you will talk without Scripture.

The Blood That Cleanseth.

BELIEVERS are told to give thanks to the Father, who hath made them “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). Now herein is a marvelous thing. I was wont to be taught that believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and then immediately pass into glory; but here I am told that they are made meet for the heavenly inheritance while yet living!

It is not that they are justified in a moment, when they believe, which is true, and are then sanctified, by degrees, until they are fit for heaven, ―but they are made meet just now, and do not require to wait for death. If death should come, good and well, it finds them prepared; for they depart, and are with Christ, which is “far better” than being here (Phil. 1:23); absent from the body, they are “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). The blessed truth is, that whether they are sick or well, whether they live or die, they are in a state of completed readiness, whenever the Lord sees fit to call them to enter upon, and be partakers of, the inheritance of the saints in light. Mark these words, “in light;” not in darkness, where imperfections might be hid; but “in light,” where they could be easily detected.

But in their case there are no imperfections, for they are “complete in Christ” (Col. 2:10), they are “God’s workmanship” (Eph. 2:10); and so they are fit, at any moment, to pass into heaven, and dwell with that holy God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and who cannot look upon evil. But here the question of Nicodemus comes in:

“How can these things be?” Does not the Bible say that “there is none righteous, no not one?” Yes, it says that; and, moreover, what it says is true.

But it is also true―and oh, how blessed is the truth― “that the blood of Jesus Christ, his [God’s] Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Note these precious words, oh unsaved soul! How are they to be understood? Just as they read. And what do they teach us?

A most marvelous truth of unspeakable blessedness, even this, that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin. But you say, I am only repeating the same words again without giving any interpretation. Precisely so; and what is more, if you were to put that question to me half a hundred times, I would repeat my answer fifty times, and each time I would give you all the explanation that was required, for the words “the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin,” mean simply that the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Now do not, I pray you, permit yourself to be puzzled by a very simple matter. The question before us is, How can a sinner, steeped in sins, be fitted for heaven? In all probability your answer would be, By prayer, and repentance, and good works; things which, in themselves, are unquestionably good. Your thought, in short, is, that you yourself require to do something―perhaps you scarcely can tell what―in order that you may be made fit. But that is not God’s thought. It is the Father that makes us meet for the inheritance; it is the blood that cleanseth; in other words, it is God that fits the sinner for heaven, not the sinner that fits himself. What the sinner has to do, is to trust in the work of Another. In the matter of salvation the activities are all upon the side of God, the sinner is only a receiver. The man going down to Jericho who fell among thieves, and was left wounded and half dead, is a type of the sinner.

The good Samaritan who came to him, where he was, and poured oil and wine into his wounds, is a type of Christ, whose activities are the activities of love; as for the wounded man, he was simply the passive recipient of that love. Hence the completeness of the work, and the consequent meetness of the believer for heaven. The work which saves him, is the work of God. The magnitude of the blessing leads to the wondering exclamation, What hath God wrought! But note yet farther, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” What a description of the efficacy of the blood that cleanseth It can remove sins, though they be as scarlet or as crimson.

But let me illustrate. An English papermaker was giving a lecture on the art of papermaking. On the wall behind him, there was fastened a quantity of dirty-looking rags, of divers colors, and alongside of them a quantity of beautiful white paper. How strange, to think that it was out of such filthy material that the paper was manufactured!

But is it not stranger, that it is out of yet more unpromising material that God makes saints, fit to be partakers of His own nature, and inmates of His dwelling? And yet He does it. “All our righteousnesses,” says the Bible, “are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6); and God takes us, washes us from our sins, and makes us white as snow, and that too though He compares our sins to colors which human skill cannot eradicate.

After skewing, by experiment, how colors are extracted from rags, the lecturer said, that perhaps some of his hearers had wondered why blotting-paper was so often made red, and thought it was because that color was better fitted than any other to dry the ink; but the simple reason was, they could not help it. Frequently they had quantities of soldiers’ cast-off scarlet uniforms sent to them, and these they made into red blotting paper, because they could not extract the dye without injuring the fiber, scarlet being indelible.

“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” What no art of man can do, the blood of Christ can accomplish, and that in a moment. The thief upon the cross turned to the dying Saviour, saying, “Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom,” and immediately his scarlet sins were cleansed, he became white as snow, and so made meet, by the cleansing blood, to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light; he passed, from the cross to Paradise, in that same hour.

Reader, are your sins yet uncleansed? H. M.

The Gambler's Conversion.

T―P―, the subject of the following narrative, was the son of kind and indulgent parents, who from his earliest childhood did all in their power for his welfare and prosperity. But as he grew into manhood, he began to yield to the evil habits of gambling and drinking, &c., living without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).

In course of time, having married, he was started by his father in business for himself, but so neglected it, that he very soon found himself in difficulties, the money that ought to have paid his creditors being spent at cards or billiards. The true state of affairs was kept back from his father, who, to help him, backed bills that were drawn on the son. But when they became due the debtor decamped, leaving his poor father to meet them.

This sad conduct of their son caused both his parents the greatest sorrow and distress.

Nothing, however, arrested P― in his course. Satan’s captive, blindly he rushed on in his career of sin, never resting until all that he had managed to save out of the wreck had been spent at the gaming table. At last, being almost destitute, he took a situation in London, but his evil course of life brought him a speedy discharge. His poor wife, in the meanwhile, was suffering endless hardships and privations from his neglect, and the lack of proper sustenance.

Soon after this they removed to R―, and being taught by past experience that if he kept on at the rate he had been going, they would soon be brought to starvation, he determined to turn over a new leaf. For some months things went on considerably better. He neither touched a card nor entered a billiard room. Things wore a brighter aspect. But the heart was still unrenewed, and the old fire still smoldering beneath, only waiting for a breath to fan it into a flame again.

He now thought that he was strong, not having played for so long, and presently the tempter said, “Go and look on; no harm in that!” He went, and with the sight of the game the old passion for gambling returned, and again he plunged into it with greater avidity than ever, stripping his home of every saleable article, and making away even with his wife’s rings to satisfy his craving.

About this time the news reached them of the closing of a chancery suit, by which a certain sum of money became theirs. To obtain it, he had to go to the town where his parents lived. In the evening he walked down to the solicitor’s office to sign the papers. When the solicitor saw him, he asked him if he had been to see his poor father.

“Ah!” replied P― “he doesn’t want to see me.”

“Yes, indeed, he does, for I saw him this morning, and he told me you were in the town, but had not been to see him. Ah! young man, your father loves you; do go and see him he and your mother are longing for you to go back.” At length he was prevailed upon, but persuaded in his own mind that he would be turned out as soon as he set his foot inside the door. His conscience told him that this was what he justly deserved, and he measured his father’s love by, his own sinfulness. With such thoughts, gloomy and miserable, he turned his steps towards his father’s house. But, to his surprise, his misdeeds were all freely forgiven, his parents being only delighted to welcome back their scapegrace son.

The way was now open for his recommencing business at nearly the same spot as before. But Satan still ruled in his heart, and instead of turning to the Lord, he wandered further away than ever. His parents’ love was all lost upon him. They looked for a happy change, but their hopes were all blighted. Many difficulties again arose, but, regardless of consequences, he plunged deeper and deeper into sin. But all this while the eye of God was upon this infatuated young man, and His wondrous grace was now about to save him, for the glory of His own great name.

One Wednesday afternoon in the spring of 187―, T―P― drove out of an inn yard with another companion in sin, intending to enjoy a spree (as they called it) at some haunt of vice in a neighboring town. Coming through the gateway, the pony reared, the shaft of the gig was broken, and both were thrown out, but without injury. But, too hardened to pay any heed to the warning, and too foolhardy and bent on their love of vice to brook any disappointment, they speedily procured another vehicle, and proceeded upon their errand of sin. Returning home late at night, just as they approached the inn they heard the cry, “A man has jumped over the bridge! “His companion strode into the inn with selfish indifference, but T―P―ran to the bridge to help save the drowning man if possible. The drags were swiftly procured, but too late to save his life. The poor suicide, mad with drink, had rushed straight from the scene of his excesses into an awful eternity.

The sight of the corpse, and the thought of so fearful an end here, led P― to think; and with very different feelings from what he had ever known before, he adjourned to an inn to talk over the solemn scene he had just witnessed. While there, in the very room where he had spent many hours in gambling, drinking, &c., and in the midst of some of his very companions in evil, that same night God smote him down under such an awful sense of sin, that then and there, to the amazement of all present, he was obliged to pour out his heart to God for mercy. A ray of light from the glory of God had pierced his dark soul, and he thought that if he had not prayed he must have been struck dead on the spot. He saw himself as God saw him,—black, desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). Too wicked, he then thought, for a holy God even to notice, little apprehending that this very conviction was the Spirit’s mighty work, the dawn of a brighter day, the way in which God works to break the stubborn heart, which none but He can heal.

But though deeply convicted of sin, he was as yet a perfect stranger to peace. He began to read the Word of God, but it seemed like a sealed book.

Do what he might, he could not get rid of the awful fact that he had to die. The very thought of it frightened him. His sins rose up before him like a mighty mountain. And often too, when on his knees, he would be afraid to pray.

But so infatuated was he by his former habits, that the spell as yet was but partly broken. He would go, and only witness the seductive billiard playing, but not venture himself to join in the game. He thought if he dared even to touch a card, that the Lord would cut him off instantly on the spot.

And now he so realized and groaned under the load of sin, that he was veritably bowed down, and stooping so much in his gait, that his friends told him to walk upright. He tried everything in his power to lighten the burden, but all in vain. He went to church, joined the choir, and tried to lead a good life, but still no peace. The teaching he heard was all do, do, do; come to early communion, &c. But he discovered, like thousands more, that all his doings were mixed with sin. No one seemed to understand his case. At last, almost in despair, he was tempted to have one more try at the old life. But his misery only increased, and bitterly he learned the lesson, that “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

Just at this time death snatched away his little girl, an infant of six months old. Feeling it was the Lord’s hand, he knelt down, and promised Him he would live only to serve Him. But, though earnest and sincere in his resolve, he knew not the Lord as his Saviour, and was only seeking to serve Him in his own strength. Next he tried chapel going, and Sunday school teaching, but only to find, at the latter, that some of the children were more qualified to teach him than he them.

What was to be done? There lay the ever-increasing burden of sin. He could neither cast it off, nor deceive himself that all was right. Life was misery, death more dreadful still. The tidings of the removal of one, whom he had known, so added to his alarm, that he would often when in bed shake and tremble, through fear that his end was near, and he all unprepared to meet God. At times it seemed as though in a few more moments he might find himself in hell. He knew he justly deserved it. Ah! hell was to him an awful reality (Luke 16:19-31). He now attended some evangelical sermons, but still remained in darkness. At last his distress so impaired his constitution, that his health began to give way, and he could scarcely get about.

About this time he took into his employ a youth that was a true Christian. He soon perceived what was the cause of his master’s state, and one day said to his mistress, “Ah, he does not feel safe. If he knew he was saved, he would soon be all right.” The wife communicated this to her husband, and he confessed that it was that which was the cause of his trouble. And now this youth began to pray for his master, and the master for himself, the youth urging him to believe on the Lord Jesus. Still there was no light or peace in his heart.

Men, in ignorance of their state, sporting on the brink of danger, may despise these convictions as mere fancy, enthusiasm, or cant, but to one in whose conscience the sentence of the law’s condemnation has been heard, and by whom Christ has not yet been accepted, the horror of being damned is indeed a solemn dread reality. “The heart knoweth his own bitterness.”

But the happy hour of deliverance was now at hand. One day a Christian friend came into P―’s shop, and began to speak about singing. As they conversed together, Christ revealed Himself to his soul. He was telling this friend that the first piece of music he had learned to sing was,

“Saviour, breathe an evening blessing;”

and when he came to the words,

“Thou can’st save, and Thou can’st heal,”

his friend said, “Why ever don’t you believe that? That is all you have to do to be saved, ―to believe!”

This was enough. God, by His Spirit, applied these few words to his heart, and now he was in the secret, ―faith in Christ. Then and there he believed, not only that Jesus could save him, but that Jesus had saved him. His sins were many, but Christ had borne them on the tree. The awful weight was gone. For more than a year he had been bowed down under the heavy burden. But now it was gone. He believed, and he was saved (Acts 16:31).

Oh! how he could praise God now. He danced for joy. He shouted praise to Him who had died in his stead. Fear was all gone. He was as sure of heaven as he was sure Christ had died. He felt as though he had never lived till that hour. It had hitherto been dying all along; but now he had life, ―life eternal! It seemed almost impossible that he could live and have such joy and peace. He was something like a poor captive shut up in a dark damp cell, without any hope of liberty, suddenly brought out into the glorious sunshine, a free man (John 8:36). He who was afraid to go to sleep the night before, could not now sleep for praising God. It was his continual delight to praise Him for His great grace to so great a sinner. What a transition! From darkness to light! from death to life! from Satan to God! He now felt he had a new object to live for,― that is, to live for the One who had died for him. “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15). He longed, too, to tell out the wondrous story of redeeming grace to others, and soon found opportunities to speak of the Saviour to many around. Hitherto drink had been a great hindrance to the work of God in his soul, but, as soon as he was saved, the desire for it was taken away. He found that he had power from God to resist the temptation.

And next the wife, who had been trusting in her own goodness, found that the hitherto ungodly husband had a joy and peace that she knew nothing about. All her morality and good deeds had not brought her to the knowledge of Christ as her Saviour. She too, however, was led to see that all her righteousnesses were as filthy rags in the sight of God (Isa. 64:6), and that unless she was born again she could neither see nor enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). And her saved husband having pointed her to Christ, she also found pardon and peace through faith in His name, so that they could together sing of His loving-kindness and grace. Both live on, walking together in the pathway of faith, and waiting together the return of their Lord to receive them to Himself.

And now, dear reader, a word in conclusion. Let me ask you, Are you still Satan’s slave? or are you Christ’s freedman? Are you carrying about the awful burden of unpardoned sin? or have you believed on Him who bore God’s judgment against sin upon the cross? Can you sing from the heart? ―

“He breaks the power of cancell’d sin,

He sets the prisoner free,

His blood can make the foulest clean,

His blood avail’d for me.”

None but Christ can save you. Your own efforts are utterly vain. His precious blood alone can cleanse you from all sin (1 John 1:7). May God give you to rest by faith in His Son. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

E. H. C.

THE faith that trusts in Christ is always saving faith. Its measure or quantity is not the question. Be it ever so feeble, if it rests on Christ, the soul that exercises it is indissolubly linked with the Son of God, and therefore is ever after the possessor of eternal life! W. T. P. W.

"I Am Going to Be With Christ."

“COME and see him today, doctor; he is very anxious to see you; he is dying, and this will probably be the last time!”

This was the message brought by the mother of the dying man, to the doctor who had attended him all through his painful illness. This young man’s life had been a wild, careless, reckless one, and now it was come to an end, and he was called to die. Not knowing Christ in the beginning of his illness, the prospect of death was dark and dreary to him; but the Lord’s loving eye was upon the poor prodigal, and in His wisdom He so arranged it, that the doctor chosen to attend him was the young stranger, as yet but little known in the district, but who knew the Lord Jesus as the Friend of sinners. The poor sufferer had learned that he was a sinner, and through the doctor God sent him the blessed message of peace. He told him of the blessed One who had come down to die for him; of the loving One, who casts none out who come to Him for salvation; of the mighty love of God, in giving His only begotten Son to die for poor, helpless, hopeless sinners like him. He had received the message, owned himself helpless, and accepted the blessed remedy which God had provided; and now, he wished once more to look upon the face of the one he loved, as the bearer of the message of rest to his weary soul.

Though pressed with other engagements, the doctor felt that his favorite patient must not be neglected, and so he went. The moment he entered his room, the dying man stretched out his worn hand, and grasping his, with an indescribable look of deep love and gratitude, he said, “Doctor, I have sent for you to see you, to see you once more. I want to tell you something. First, I would say that I thank you for all your goodness to me. How kind you have been, I could not tell; but you told me about Christ, and now I am going to be with Him. I thank God for that. I am going only a little while before you. How glad I shall be to meet you there I would willingly wait a little while for you in the border land; but I am going, and I shall wait for you there. It won’t be long, and I shall see you again; for I am going to be with Christ. Washed in His precious, precious blood from all my sins, I’m not afraid. He shed His blood for me, the very chief of sinners. Oh, how good He is! He is my Redeemer, and now I am going, and I shall be forever, ―forever with Him. I shall be so glad to see you again there.” Then he burst out into words of rapturous thanksgiving, and of burning love, to the One who had died for him, and washed him from his sins in His own blood, but in broken sentences, for his breath was failing fast, and the death dew was thick upon his brow. His friend bade him farewell, and with bursting heart he left the room. He had looked for the last time upon the face of his patient.

Beloved reader, have you ever known what it is to be brought face to face with death, and to have shrunk back tremblingly from it, because you knew not Christ as your Saviour? If so, you will realize a little of what that young man felt, when the unwelcome consciousness forced itself upon him that he must die. But I would ask you one other question: Do you know what it is to have come to Jesus, the Friend of sinners, in your distress? to have found in Him an all-sufficient Saviour, the Refuge which God has provided to shield you from the storm of judgment, which must otherwise sweep over your soul and destroy you? If you have not, I beseech you to delay no longer. Death may come to you, how soon you know not; and if you are not found in Christ, an eternal hell must be your portion, the eternal burnings of the lake of fire. But God willeth not the death of a sinner, “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezek. 18:32). “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11).

In your sins and ruin God loves you, and has He not dearly proved it? For “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Jesus, His beloved One, the delight of His heart, He gave up to die for sinners, even for those whose hearts were at enmity with Him. “For when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). “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. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. vss. 20,21). God has done all that He can do to win your poor worthless heart. Can you then refuse Him the delight of taking you to His bosom as His beloved child? I pray you no longer to refuse His loving call. E. L. W.

REDEMPTION sets us at rest, and in peace, in the presence of God. The whole character of Christian life flows from being brought back to God, and thus we are called to walk with God. To believe that we are brought back to God, is not presumption; it is faith. It is presumption to think we can be saved in any other way. It should always be remembered, that Christ is not our life, without being our righteousness; and that neither is He our righteousness, without being our life. If this be surely grasped, it will enable the soul to look at the judgment-seat of Christ with perfect calmness. Confidence is founded on His being made our righteousness, who was made sin for us.

J. N. D.

A New Year's Appeal.

HOW does this New Year find you, dear reader? For Christ, or against Him?

Which? oh, which? I earnestly ask you.

What think you of Christ? Do not cast the question away from you, but put it to your own heart, and answer it truthfully. You are either saved or unsaved, ―serving Christ, or Satan; in the narrow road leading to glory, or treading the downward path to hell. You will spend eternity either with Christ, or―solemn thought―in eternal banishment from Him. Again I ask you, Which is it? which will it be for eternity, heaven or hell? Blessed it is for you if you can say, ―

“Now I can call the Saviour mine,

Tho’ all unworthy still;

I’m shelter’d by His precious blood

Beyond the reach of ill.”

Beloved, if this be the language of your heart, it is well with you; and I would just say, Be true to the One who loved you, and gave Himself for you, and who is coming to receive us to Himself! But oh! if my reader be still a stranger to that blessed Lord Jesus Christ, I would say, How awful is your position! ―unsaved, without the question of your soul’s eternal salvation settled; judgment staring you in the face! Does this startle you? or do you think the case exaggerated? Nay, it is not; and no matter how you look at or regard it, you cannot change God’s word. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but “―awful thought―” the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

O, beloved unsaved one, in the face of all this, can you deliberately turn your back on Christ? “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3). We cannot; and surely you cannot be so mad as to begin another year as a rejector of Christ, duped by the devil?

Do not talk, I pray you, about “reforming,” and “turning over a new leaf.” It will not do. Reformation is not SALVATION turning new leaves is not CHRIST and nothing else will stand. God wants none of your doing. Why? Because His Beloved Son finished all on Calvary, when He stood in the guilty sinner’s place. He said, “It is finished.”

Can you add aught to what is already complete, think you? What could you bring to God? Nothing; for He says, “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” What an offering! And when our best is “filthy rags,” what about our, WORST, ― the sins of which the wages is death? Do you think you will be able to stand before God in rags? Will they cover you? Ah! you know they will not. As one once said, “‘Snow water’ is not enough to cleanse, nor ‘filthy rags’ to clothe; but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is enough for everything.” Christ has completed the work of salvation more than eighteen hundred years ago, and you have only to believe it, to accept Him, and life, eternal life, is yours. Is it not simple? God offers this free salvation to you now. Will you take it?

And now one parting word. God in boundless grace offers to “whosoever will the water of life freely;” but remember, it is now He offers it. “Now is the day of salvation;” beware how you neglect it

“‘All things are ready;’ come,

Tomorrow may not be;

O sinner, come, the Saviour waits

This hour to welcome thee.”

C. E. S.

“NOT OF WORKS.” ―A man is rowing a boat on a river just above a dreadful cataract; the current begins to bear him downward; the spectators give him up for lost. “He is gone,” they exclaim; but in another moment a rope is thrown toward the wretched man; it strikes the water near the boat. Now how does the ease stand? Do all the spectators call upon him to row? to try harder to reach the shore, when with every stroke of his arm the boat is evidently nearing the falls? O no! Give up your desperate attempt! take hold of the rope! But he chooses to row, and in a few moments he disappears and perishes. All his hope lay, not in rowing, but in laying hold of the rope; for while he was rowing he could not grasp the rope. So the sinner’s hope lies, not in struggling to save himself, but in ceasing to struggle; for while he expects to accomplish the work of salvation himself, he will not look to Christ who did it for him.

Faith's Touch.

(Read Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-49).

WE have, dear reader, in this beautiful narrative, a simple, but striking, illustration of the state in which the sinner is, before he comes to Christ, and what the result is of coming to Christ; so that you will see everything turns upon coming to Christ. You may have gone through all sorts of experiences before you come to Him, but they are of no value whatever. Not one of the questions of your heart, though you may have had many, have been answered till you come to Christ; and all are answered the moment you do come to Him.

Look at this woman, with her incurable malady, of twelve years’ standing. Twelve in Scripture is the number of human completeness. Her case was shown as completely incurable. She had sought all kinds of means of being healed, had gone to all sorts of physicians, but at the end she found herself penniless; not better, but worse, and “could not be healed of any.”

This is your state exactly, my unconverted reader. You have an incurable malady, you are a sinner. Perhaps that does not disturb you very much, you may not be very concerned to hear you are a sinner; but, oh what a solemn thing it is, for “the wages of sin is death,” and “after death the judgment,” where you have to meet God about your sins.

Yes, you will have to say to God about the thing that never caused you any anxiety in your life, and that is your sin. You may have settled up everything with man before you die, but you have still to meet God about your sins. Perhaps you have been awakened to the solemn fact that you are a sinner, and have tried to have this matter put right before God; and, like this poor woman, perhaps you have tried every way but the right way of getting this solemn question of your sins settled; and you know it is not settled yet, for you have not yet come to Christ.

People think there is a certain balm and cure for their disease in becoming religious; and there are not wanting many spiritual physicians, who will tell you, You will be healed by “turning over a new leaf,” and becoming religious; but there is nothing in religion to meet your case, — it is not religion, but Christ that will meet it. You have, perhaps, been trying to be religious for years; you may have said many times over, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” but, are your sins blotted out yet? No, you reply, I could not say that. Ah! then, you believe in the possibility of the forgiveness of sins; but that is a very different thing from being able to say, “I believe that my sins are forgiven,” which every true believer is entitled to say.

Take this woman as an example. Had you met her on her way up to Christ, she would have told you, “If I can get only near enough to Christ to touch Him, I believe I shall be healed.” “But are you healed?” you say. “No, but I believe I shall be, if only I can touch Him.” Had you met her, however, half-an-hour after she touched Him, and said, “Are you healed?” she would not have said, “I know I can be, or shall be,” but, “Thank God, I am healed.”

Reader, I ask you, are things right with you? Have you peace with God? Have you pardon, forgiveness, the knowledge of acceptance with the Lord? If you have not been to Christ, you must know you are not right with God. Your conscience tells you that you are not right, though the devil knows well how to give you some soothing syrup. But again I ask you, Have you peace with God? Can you look up, and call God Father?

It is a good thing for the soul when it hears that all that is not Christ is utterly valueless. Twelve years of most earnest efforts to be healed had this woman spent. And at the close of twelve years, what does she find? That she is worse than ever, and more, that she “could not be healed of any.” Have you learned this, that all the physicians of your soul are valueless, and all their prescriptions worse than useless? But in her ease, when she was well-nigh in despair, she heard of Jesus. Blessed hearing! Have you heard of Jesus? Oh, you say, I have heard of Him from my infancy. Then I will ask you another question, Have you come to Him yet?

There are six beautiful points in this woman’s history: ― She heard, she came, she touched, she felt, she confessed, and was confirmed.

1.―Hearing.

“She heard of Jesus.” Tidings of this blessed Saviour reached her, and I tell you now of Jesus,―tell you He is the Saviour’s friend, and He has come down from the heights of glory, that He might unfold the wonderful news of the deep and eternal interest of God in man; that He is so holy, that sin must be judged, but so loving, that He gave His only begotten Son to bear the judgment of sin in His own blessed person, and to save you from its consequences.

This woman “heard of Jesus,” heard of His love. And have you not heard of Jesus? heard that He “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15)? heard that “as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:27-28)? heard that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8)? These are the tidings, that the Son of God has come down into this world, and died for the sinner; that the guiltless One has suffered for the guilty, the Just for the unjust; that He has paid down on the treasury bench of eternal justice the price of your redemption, and all you have to do is to come to Him.

2. Coming.

And this woman, “When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind.” I do not think she waited long after she had heard. She had found that her case was hopeless,—that there was no possibility of cure. Every hope had fled, when the tidings came of Jesus, and the Holy Ghost says, “When she had heard of Jesus she came.” She was entirely possessed by two great truths,―1st, that her case was utterly hopeless without Christ; and 2nd, that if only she could get to Him, she would certainly be healed.

Have you ever got to this point, that your case is hopeless? that you are under the judgment of God, and that nothing can ensure your escaping the damnation of hell but your corning to Christ? “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” and it matters not though you have been outwardly moral, for the Christ of God you know not, and you are yet in your sins. You were born in sin, and you have lived without Christ from your infancy, and now you are only so much nearer the pit of hell, ― so much nearer eternity; and oh, what an eternity it must be, if you are Christless!

Oh, if only you were brought to this point, like the woman, to believe on the one hand you are incurable, and to believe on the other the power of Christ. She came to Him; her heart was all alive, her whole moral being was moved. She heard the Saviour was passing near her, on His way to raise Jairus’s daughter, who was dead, and faith sprang up in her heart, and she said, “If I may but touch His clothes, I shall be whole.” That was faith.

3.―Touching

Does your heart wake up to say, “If I may but touch Him, I shall be saved?” That is faith, and do not give it up. Faith always gets the blessed answer from God. You are not asked for tears, or for prayers, but for simple faith in Christ, ―confidence in Christ. This woman wanted to get to Christ, and she came behind in the press. There is always a “press” when a soul wants to get to Christ. Satan makes that, he tries to raise up every possible difficulty; and if you are going to be saved, you must break through the press. Either you must break through the press, and get to Christ; or the pressure will press you down, until you are eternally damned.

This poor woman was determined to get near the Saviour. This one thing filled her heart, “If I may but touch Him.” There is everything in the touch. If you have not touched Christ, you are still a lost soul, though you may be as religious as you like.

Methinks I see the wave of people pressing the woman beck, and Christ passes on, He is not standing still. But again she presses forward, and her finger goes out. She touches Him, and then He stands still, and she stands still; and oh, what a difference “She felt in her body that she was healed.”

4.―Feeling.

Oh, say you, I should like to feel saved. You will never feel, until you have touched. Then you will feel, ―feel liberty, feel joy, feel peace with God. It is first faith, then feeling. Put feelings in their right place, and they are all right. They must come after the faith that trusts Christ, never before. If you have simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, feeling will come after. The Holy Ghost gives beautiful experiences; not that your feelings, or your experiences, are in any way the ground on which you rest.

The moment the woman touched, that moment a change took place. “She felt that she was healed.” Mark, it was “immediately,” there was no delay in the blessing when faith touched the Saviour, nor is there ever.

But the Lord always knows when faith touches Him. So we read, “And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?” He does not do this out of curiosity, but He wants to give her an opportunity of confessing Him, and also the divine assurance that she was healed, and could never again relapse into that state in which she was before. “Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me,” He says, for He feels the touch of faith. Does He look down from heaven today, and see you touching Him, my dear reader? If so, the Lord does not like you to be in anything but the full enjoyment of His love, and what His salvation is; and wishes to assure you, that you can never get back into the state in which you were before you touched Him.

This query of Christ at length brings the woman out of the crowd; in fact, detaches her from the unbelievers around. “And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and, falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.” There is always trembling at first. The soul trembles, not knowing fully Christ’s grace, and lest also it should lose what it has got. But, though trembling, she declares everything to Him before all. Here then we get.

5.―Confession.

I had a malady, she says, which no one else could heal. Alas, that Christ should be the very last we come to for healing Yet He is the first to meet our case, and to pardon and heal. Many a soul has heard of Christ, and has come to Him; and there has been the touch of faith, and after the faith has come the feeling, but it has failed to own or confess what has taken place, and hence never gets fully clear as to what grace does for its object.

This woman owns publicly what has taken place. She confesses Christ before all, and He confesses her. We have here one of the loveliest confirmation scenes in all Scripture.

6.―Confirmation.

Mark what Jesus says to her, ― “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.” “Daughter!”

Blessed word of relationship! The moment I trust Him, He acknowledges me. Are you touching Him, but trembling at this moment? He says, “Be of good comfort.” He is acknowledging you. Have you faith in Him? Are you conscious that there is power in Christ, virtue in the blood of Christ, to save you if you come to him? And do you trust Him now? What is His word to you? “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” And what is the next word? “Go in peace, and be whole.” First, He comforts; then He lets you know you are saved, and sends you away in peace.

The Lord lets the believing soul know that its case is entirely altered. He takes up the case, and the one that was lost is saved. The moment you commit your case to Christ, put your guilty soul, with all your sins and all your misery, into His hands, what then? “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” He says. And what more? Is not that enough? Not enough for Christ. He says more, “Go in peace.” The devil may say, “What about the judgment?” Christ says, “Go in peace;” the judgment you should have borne, I have borne for you.

Peace is this, conscious knowledge that there is no question that can be raised between God and me about sin. Every question was settled at the Cross, and “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He says, “Go in peace.” More, even, He adds, ― “And be whole of thy plague.” That is, you shall never have a relapse, never fall back into the old state you were in. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any (angel, man, or devil) pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). “I am persuaded,” says the apostle, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

“The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29), and if He has given you life and peace, He will never take them away.

If you are Christ’s, do not be ashamed to own your Lord. Own Him, confess Him, wherever you are. He will give you the assurance in your heart that you are His, and that He never means to give you up till He has you with Him forever. What a Saviour, and what a salvation! What devoted service and testimony should ours be! The Lord help us to steadily yield it.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). W. T. P. W.

"I See It All Now."

AMONG my patients there was an old man who suffered from frequent attacks of bronchitis. I took a special interest in him, and always liked to visit him. He was of an amiable and sympathetic disposition, and in appearance also I thought he bore a striking resemblance to my father. One day I was sent for to see him, and went immediately; but when I arrived, was deeply grieved to find him very ill, so ill indeed that I saw he was not likely to recover. There was an eager, wistful, anxious look on his face, that was new to it; and on his bed was lying a little prayer-book, in which he had evidently been reading. When I entered, he took my hand, and said, “Doctor, I am very ill; but, worse than that, I am very unhappy. I think I am dying, and I am afraid to die. I have been trying to pray, and the clergyman has been here; but I have not rest; I am not ready to die.”

I thought, “Well, I know what would give him rest; I ought to tell him.” But the thought of my own unfaithfulness rose up before me; I had been living carelessly, as I knew I ought not, and the remembrance of this stopped me. I prescribed for him, bade him good morning, and left; but as I got to the door, something seemed to say, “Go back, and tell him what you know.” An irresistible impulse seized me. “I must go back,” I thought; “I am not worthy to speak; but they won’t be my words, a higher Power will speak through me;” and so I returned. He looked up eagerly at me, and I said,

“You are unhappy?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You can get no rest; you know that you are a sinner; you have offended God, and have been trying to please Him by praying and striving; you have been trying to believe, and are still unbelieving; the only fruit of all your efforts has been to show you that you are lost; is it n

“It is just that,” he said sorrowfully.

“Well, listen; I shall put the whole thing before you in a nutshell. Adam disobeyed God, and through his sin all his posterity is lost. You have sinned yourself, forgotten and disobeyed God, so that by birth and practice you are doubly condemned. There is no hope for you; you are utterly helpless to atone for one out of your many sins. But God in His great love provided a remedy; He took His own beloved Son, sent Him down to this world, allowed Him to be nailed to a cross; God Himself laid your sins on Him, and He suffered and died instead of you, and God is satisfied to accept His sufferings, His death, instead of yours, so that you can go free. In fact, you have not got a single thing to do in order to save yourself, because God’s Son has done it all; God is satisfied with what He has done.”

I left him, feeling that I had finished my message. On calling next day, I heard the feeble failing voice singing a hymn. His face was quite changed; the look of anxious weariness had given place to one of peaceful happiness. He took both my hands, and looking in my face, said, “Doctor, I thank you; I see it all now. I am dying, but I am not afraid, for I know now that Christ died for me. He is my Redeemer, and I am going to be with Him, for I know that God is satisfied with what Christ has done.”

He lived for a few days longer, and was quite happy all through to the end.

Reader, I have told you this simple story, just as it was related to me by the young London doctor whose patient the old man was, in order that you also may be led to see that you are a poor lost sinner, and that the Lord Jesus is your all-sufficient Saviour. You may be of an amiable and sympathetic disposition, as the old man of the story was, but that will not bring you nearer to God. You may have spent long years in trying to please God by prayers and works, but that will never be a ground for you to stand upon in the presence of His holiness. “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” God says; and the very best thing you can bring Him, will still leave you but a naked sinner in His sight. Will you not let Him clothe you in His best robe? By nature and by practice you are far from God, “for all have sinned,” therefore you are unfit for His presence; but washed in the blood of Jesus, you, a filthy vile sinner, will be perfectly spotless in the presence of that God who is Light. Poor sinner, God loves you; Jesus died instead of you. Believe it, and you need not fear to stand before Him. Take this one word from God Himself, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth fron1 all sin” (1 John 1:7).

E. L. W.

God's "Faithful Saying," and Christ's Finished Work.

1 Tim. 1:15; John 19:30.

“WE need all God’s Word to live on, but one verse is enough to die on.” So said one who must have known the value of the Word of God, and the work of Christ therein made known. One verse containing the glad tidings of salvation, setting forth God’s way of meeting the sinner’s need; one verse, stamped with divine authority, is enough for man to rest upon for time and eternity! God’s Word gives the soul a security that all the systems of theology put together can never give.

What a relief to turn away from what man says, with all its uncertainty, and to find that God has spoken! Reader, have you found this out for yourself yet? God has spoken so plainly in His Word, has shown out the real questions at issue between Himself and man so clearly, that there is no excuse for ignorance. His Word speaks for itself. It lays the ax at the root of the tree; it deals with what is beneath the surface; it speaks to the conscience and heart; it opens up eternal realities. How wise then to give heed to it. Peter tells us that “the word of the Lord endureth forever” (1Peter 1:25). Again, in the Psalms we read, “Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps. 119: 89). Nevertheless, man refuses to believe it; seeks to obscure its meaning, or to lessen its force.

Now, dear friend, there is one point I do press on your earnest attention, viz., that by this same Word of God you and I must be judged. By it we must stand or fall; the Word of the living God must either be the seal of my security, or of my doom. Eternal interests are at stake, and one verse from God is enough to settle our destiny forever.

Let me point you, in all affection, to one verse, always remembering there are many more containing the same grand truth, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Mark the last word of the quotation—sinners! This one word condemns us. Over and over again God declares man’s guilt, his ruin, his sinful condition. The third chapter of Romans gives us God’s estimate of him, “There is none righteous, no, not one;” “all are guilty,” and so on. God says it, and does not your conscience confirm it? If we are honest in His presence, and with His Word in our hands, we must plead guilty. His Word is the only authority on this point; His verdict must stand. God faithfully exposes your real state and mine, as lost and undone by sin. Nothing is plainer in His Word, and that is the standard by which we must abide. The balances of the sanctuary are adjusted by the Word of God. That Word declares of one what is true of all, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting” (Dan. 5:27).

Oh, friend, do admit thyself a lost, ruined sinner. Own thy guilt. It is not a matter of opinion. “God is not a man, that He should lie;” nor can one jot or one tittle of His Word ever fail. Why press this point? because it is the very thing we are so unwilling to admit. We do not like to be all reduced to the dead-level platform of sinners, yet it is only there God can meet us.

This blessed “faithful saying” is only for sinners. It has no application to a man built up in self-righteousness, or blinded by the forms and ceremonies of a human religion. “’Twas for sinners Jesus died.” Faithful is the word. Say, do you credit it? do you believe it? God’s Word it is, and brings good news to sinners of every class and clime. To appreciate and appropriate this for yourself, dear reader, you must take the place of being what God says you are―a sinner.

It suffices not to assent to the fact that we are all sinners, or that we are not what we ought to be, and such like expressions; there must be the true conviction of sin. Like the publican in Luke 18, when he said, “God be merciful to me THE sinner.” God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, will have brought home to us our sinfulness and guilt. He it is, on the other hand, who gives us this “faithful saying,” which all the powers of earth and hell cannot touch. It is “worthy of all acceptation.” If faithful, surely you will believe it. If worthy of all acceptation, will you not accept it for yourself now? Listen to it! believe it! accept it! rejoice now in the full benefit of it! “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Blessed be His name; His purpose was to save. He came not to condemn, but to save! Not to help merely, — not to improve man’s state, nor to patch him up in his ruin,—but to save him! Reader, are you saved? If not, why not? Does this verse apply to you or not? Do you not belong to the class to which God says all belong-sinners? He links those two words together by ties of blood—sinner and Saviour. What a meeting when such are brought together! Peter in Luke 5 is an illustration of this. He says, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord;” at the same time falling at His knees, as the only One that suited his case.

Jesus came! No action on man’s part. In the fullness of time, He came. When man has been tried and proved guilty, He came. To carry out God’s righteous judgment? Nay, but to bear that judgment Himself, and save the sinner. Into this very world, where was all the sin and misery, He came to save!

Now, hear from Calvary that wondrous cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The work is done. The salvation-work for sinners is an accomplished fact. God says it! Christ does it! The Holy Ghost is the witness of it! I believe it! The finished work is the ground of my salvation; the faithful Word is my authority for resting on that work. God’s Word surely is enough. Think too by whom the work was done. None less than the blessed Son of God He it was who said, “It is finished.” Yes, the very salvation-work of which we speak is gloriously finished? Not may be, or is going to be, but is finished. What a truth for an anxious sin-burdened soul God’s own Word declares that Christ’s work is finished. What security! what assurance!

Reader, is this where you rest? Have you divine authority for your belief? and do you believe that Christ’s work was finished for you, for your salvation, for the putting away of your sins? If Christ did not put your sins away on the cross, they will put you away in eternal judgment. One word more, dear friend. Listen to it, as for eternity. You have before you the “faithful saying,” on which you can rest secure. God has raised up from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ. He is now a RISEN, LIVING, COMING SAVIOUR. He Himself says, “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). T. E. P.

"If You Should Die; What Then?"

“What shall it profit a man, if lie shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” ―Mark 8:36.

HE was a strong and burly young man, by trade a blacksmith, and apt enough too at his trade. Brought up respectably, to attend a place of worship, and so forth, Jim (for so he was generally named) found his way, despite all such barriers, into the more open wickedness to which man so readily gives way. God has said in His Word, “The heart” (not one person’s more than another’s; He speaks of it as if there were only one) “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9); and truly Jim, the black-smith, yielded easily enough to the temptations of Satan, and the deceit of his own heart.

He took to drinking, and became more and more entangled and held captive by this most miserable and degrading habit. His father died, and some relatives too about the same time, and each left him a small sum of money. This was a fresh incentive to persist in the downward course—the broad road—which ends in everlasting destruction; and the money left him, together with the little he had saved of his own earnings, was soon swept into the publican’s till.

How blind and ignorant is man, when left to himself! He will ruin his happiness, and blight his prospects even for the things of this life; while as to the never-ending ages of eternity which lie before him, and which must be spent in the brightness of the presence of God, where there remaineth a rest for His people, or in the dark gloom of everlasting hell, shut out into darkness and gnashing of teeth,—of these tremendous facts he never stays to think!

But God is over all, and His eye was noting Jim the blacksmith, poor drunkard as he was rapidly becoming. After a drinking bout one night he went home, as best he could, and got to bed. The next morning― not yet cut off in his sins! ―he awoke with violent palpitation of the heart, a thing he had never suffered from before. Alarmed, he hurried to the doctor, and there received some medicine, with orders to go home and rest quite quietly.

“That’s good for a blacksmith’s trade,” said Jim to himself; “to have to bide quiet and do no work! No, if I’ve got to die, I may as well be at my work as lying idle on my bed.” So to his work he went.

In his forge, as he strove by hard work to forget his trouble, the Lord God, His Maker, met with him. He saw no vision, heard no thunder peal, but the still small voice of God inquired of him, ― “If you should die―what then?” He toiled on, vainly endeavouring the while to drown the inquiring voice; but in his ear the words kept ringing still, “If you should die—what then?” Weak and ill as he was, he had to leave his work, and take the needed rest and medicine, which in due course had their effect, and he was soon well and strong again. Gladly would he have forgotten that warning voice, and have put it from him with the empty medicine bottle; but vain was the effort. The question was still pressed home upon him, and awakened him to deep and real anxiety and misery about his soul.

For twelve long months he went on thus. Now trying to get away from the question which tormented him, now eagerly desiring to go somewhere, ―to some gospel preaching, to hear how his soul was to be saved, yet ashamed to be seen going.

He could no longer find satisfaction in his drink, but only the more miserable unhappiness when he had given way to its enslaving demands.

Reader, God asks you, What shall it profit, if you gain the whole world, and lose your own Soul? How do you answer? You are no drunkard, you say; not a poor wicked immoral blacksmith. That may be true, perhaps, but if you should die—what then? What of your soul? Will it be well with you, because you are no drunkard? Are your good deeds good enough to enable you to stand before God? “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.... All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:12, 23).

One Lord’s day evening, a friend saw Jim loitering at his door step, and said to him, “Will you came to a gospel meeting tonight? “This was Just what poor Jim was longing yet fearing to do, so he answered briskly enough, “That will I, and gladly; “and away they went together. That night be heard the simple story of the full and glorious salvation which God has provided, free of cost, but has only provided for sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). The preacher was a child of God, and preached His truth, and poor Jim was born again that night, ―begotten of God by the “word of truth” (James 1:18). He saw what a poor guilty sinner he was in the presence of a holy sin-hating God, and he was enabled, just as he was, to cast himself upon God, as one who deeply needed mercy, and to trust in the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanseth from all sin (1 John 1:7).

That was seven years ago, and still Jim is rejoicing in the knowledge of forgiven sins, and the possession of eternal life.

Perhaps this story may fall into the hands of some who will say, “He must be a very ignorant and presumptuous man, ―this Jim,―to say he knows his sins are forgiven; and more so, still, to pretend to know that he has eternal life.” Well, let me point you to the Scriptures (do you believe them to be the Word of God?) which wrought such a blessed change in blacksmith Jim, and let me ask you to ponder them, as he did, before God who wrote them by His Spirit. Yes, even as he did, the poor black-

smith, for God has hidden His truth from the wise and prudent, and has revealed it unto babes (Matt. 11:25); and, “except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

First, then, as to the knowledge of forgiven sins. Let us look at John’s first epistle; in the second chapter, verse 12, we read, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins ARE forgiven you for his name’s sake.” The term “little children”

(or children) embraces all the Christian converts to whom the Apostle was writing; and did he write to them to teach them how their sins might be forgiven? No; they knew the salvation of God, and he was writing unto them because they were already forgiven, and in order that their joy might be full (ch. 1:4). Compare this blessedly simple statement with Isaiah 53:6 and 1 Peter 2:24, and the Lord graciously give you to take Him at His word.

Then, as to the known possession of eternal or everlasting life, we find God speaking very plainly in His Word. Will you turn to John’s Gospel, chapter 3:36? —wondrous blessed testimony “He that believeth on the Son HATH (not “hopes he has,” nor “will have,” but hath) “everlasting life.” Again, chapter 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, HATH everlasting life.” Read the rest of this precious verse, and then turn to John 6:47; and again I say, the Lord give you to take Him at His word. Can you, dare you, doubt the Word of the living God—while you call those who believe it presumptuous? Oh, dear soul! I beseech you, pause for a moment, and think which is really the presumptuous person, ―Jim, who takes God’s Word as it stands and believes it; or you, who seek to introduce conditions for salvation which God has not seen fit to mention, and which He most surely does not demand, and will never recognize? Anyhow, Jim is no drunkard now, but a bright and happy Christian man. He is no longer a slave to his evil passions, a child of wrath, for he knows the truth, and it has set hint free (John 8:32).

And so I say to you, my reader, you must know Jesus Christ the Lord as your own Saviour, as the One who has died in your place; you must bow to the truth of God, and be freed from sin (Rom. 6:7) ―before you can know anything of newness of life.

God’s order is, first, Salvation, — life out of death; then, good works. You cannot do good works before you have life; and by nature you are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1; 2 Cor. 5:14). To all who are still unsaved, ―unwashed in the blood of the Lamb (1 John 1:7), ―I say, if you should die thus, there remains nothing but the lake of fire for you (Rev. 21:8); while the sweet and precious message from God to the poorest, humblest believer in His Son is this, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:17).

Blessed be His Name! God is love. He that believeth on Him shall not be ashamed (Rom. 9:33). A. S. L.

You find in Hebrews 10. the holy Trinity active for our blessing. God wills (vs. 10), Christ works (vs. 10), the Holy Ghost witnesses (vs. 15).

The Sign of Jonas.

AN evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:39, 40).

A sign is something that points to something else. By the very words of the Lord Jesus, above quoted, Jonas in the whale’s belly is made the figure of Christ in death. The sins of Nineveh were up before God, and judgment is pronounced against them. But love has pity, and spares nothing to turn away judgment; Jonas, therefore, is sent to call them to repentance. His comfort is disturbed; and the self-denial of the mission brings out the shameful selfishness of his heart, in wonderful contrast with that of his antitype; for Christ, sent with the mission of calling sinners to repentance, takes it up with all its consequences in this spirit, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God;” and again, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Lovely obedience! calling out the adoration of those who know and taste the blessed end of it for themselves.

But, willing or unwilling Jonas must drink the cup which God’s love to Nineveh necessitates. He must be pitched into the raging sea, that it may be calmed. He must be made to cry from the horrible darkness, “The floods compassed me about; all thy billows and thy waves passed over me;... I am cast out of thy sight.”

How solemn is the scene of Calvary, where all this is carried out in Him who is “greater than Jonas,” and who has come to call men to escape from as much greater judgment than that of Nineveh. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He cries, as all the billows of the wrath of God pass over Him on account of our sins.

But now, “the sea ceased from her raging,” Jonas is “upon the dry land,” and he cries to Nineveh with blessed effect, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” They hear, they believe; they repent, they are saved!

Reader, Christ has been in the deep for our sins, and, therefore, instead of a “raging sea,” instead of “sin reigning unto death,” we have “grace reigning through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21). He is now “upon the dry land.” He is risen from the dead, and in His precious name I preach to you repentance, and the remission of sins.

Instead of taking upon you the “sackcloth and ashes,” bowing your face to the ground, and confessing yourself a guilty sinner, deserving only judgment, a repentance which is sure to produce a new life, are you going to excuse yourself? Are you going to measure yourself with sinners more guilty, in your judgment, than yourself? Are you going to make promises of amendment of life, put on a religious profession, and perform religious rites, which in the end will prove only “fig leaves?” Then I plant before you the “sign of the prophet Jonas,”―the suffering death of our Lord Jesus Christ, ―and, solemnly, I ask you, What does it mean?

Do you talk of goodness, of kindness, of morality, of anything that may be found in cultivated man? I set again that awful “sign” before you, and I say, Repent! His death means, that nothing but that could turn the wrath of God from you, because you are a sinner, a guilty sinner, in His sight, whatever else you or your neighbors may think. And well indeed can you afford thus to repent, for through that same death is now preached also the remission of sins; not any man pronouncing it over your head, but a proclamation from God Himself, to all that repent; for He looks with delight upon His blessed Son, once in death, now risen and seated at His right hand. Hear it for yourself, ― “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 13:38, 39). P. J. L.

HEALTH is unconscious existence. Spiritual health is just the same. The healthy soul, delighting in and occupied with Christ, has neither time, desire, nor need to look at itself. Happy state! W. T. P. W.

"His Death."

Tune― “Lux BENIGNA.”

His blood was shed: His heart, His body, broken―

Pierc’d by the spear;

The bread He broke, the wine He gave in token,

Have told it here:

Lord Jesus Christ! Where’er on earth we go,

Thy death we see, Thy death on earth we show!

O Saviour! Thou who barest that Thine own

Received Thee not;

{link src="\\The" alt="Who" /} barest ALL, ―the terrors of the throne,

And Satan’s plot;

Thou, Lamb of God, made sin, for us hast died;

Beneath the sun Thou here wert crucified!

Thon art not here; but, where Thou hast Thy rest;

We rest in Thee,

Thou in Thy Father,―He who Thee possess’d

Ere light could be:

Eternal word! revealer of His name,

Thou, night or day, abidest still “the same.”

H. K. B.

Escape! Escape! Escape!

“Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” ―Genesis 19:17.

WHY? Why should I escape? To escape from any difficulty or danger is surely the last resource? Ought not every expedient to be tried first? May we not hope to improve matters, or effect a compromise, or look for relief where we are? Is there no reason to expect that thus the evil may be averted, without going to the extreme of escaping?

Well, no doubt in ordinary cases this would be a sensible question. But this is not an ordinary case. It is the most extraordinary of all cases. It is a matter of life or death. “Escape for thy life,” is the cry; nor is there hope of deliverance in any other way. It was so with Lot. It is so with every unsaved soul now. Eternity is at stake! Heaven or hell forever! Christ in the glory, is the only Saviour; believing in Him, the only way of salvation; and that is escaping. “Come unto Me,” He says; “Look unto Me;” “Follow Me;” “Abide in Me;” “Without Me ye can do nothing;” “With Me thou shalt be in safe guard.” Satan seeks to devour, to deceive, to destroy. Death is impatient to hurry into everlasting woe. And who can tell when the last word will be uttered; when the last moment of grace and forbearance will arrive, the awful end be reached, and the soul be forever lost?

Is it not then a matter of extreme urgency? Can you afford to lose a moment, for any consideration? Can you cherish the least hope of security where you are, or venture on the most promising expedient, or hazard an experiment of any kind, or wait for relief from any source? No, my friend, there is nothing for it but to escape. Be assured of this. As when the house is burning, there is no alternative but escape or death-for the place is doomed, the fire has gained the mastery, and will devour all that remain within its reach—so, in a world lying under judgment at this very moment; ever since the Cross, indeed, as our Lord says: “Now is the judgment of this world.” The sentence is pronounced, but not yet executed, in order that grace might linger and save some. And who can tell at what moment that judgment shall descend on this doomed world, involving in one tremendous burst of wrath the destruction of all who have trifled with God, refused salvation, and chosen to remain within the precincts of such a place? And this is your position. You may doubt, or discuss, or deny, or deride, but that will not help you. The word of God cannot fail. The sword of judgment falling on those who shall be here, when once it is drawn, will devour without mercy. Now, now mercy waits, love entreats, the Spirit pleads, the blood avails, and offers its perfect shelter for all who in faith hide beneath its ample cover. But, when the day of grace is over, neither mercy, nor love, nor the Spirit, nor the blood, will befriend those who have refused the Saviour. You must escape; escape from, as well as to. The very place, I repeat, in which you are is wrong. Like the Israelites in Egypt; they had to get out of the place, as well as be delivered from the power of Pharaoh. And you, my friend, are thus doubly wrong, yea trebly. You are in a wrong place, a doomed world; you are under a wrong master, the devil; and you are on the road to a wrong end, even “the place prepared for the devil and his angels.” Yea, you yourself are wrong in God’s sight, so that “you must be born again.”

What can you do but escape? “Escape for thy life,” fly from the scene of peril and death, ere it be too late. One moment too long, and you are lost forever! One moment’s delay, may prove to be the last straw, the last opportunity, the last gleam of hope forever! Thousands have parleyed, reasoned, hoped, deferred, until they dropped, in an unexpected moment, out of this scene into the bottomless abyss, and are forever lost! Thousands have tried to make a compromise with the world, and enjoy both it and Christ, but “Ye cannot,” says He, “ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The only end of such a compromise is hell I entreat you, then, not to venture on any experiment that affects Eternity. For what will you do when you find it has failed? It will be too late ever to try again, and impossible to bring your dearly bought experience to bear on that which will be the only thing before you, and you in it, forever Oh then, escape, “escape for thy life.”

But How? is another question that may be asked. And this the angel answers: “Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape for thy life.”

That is, without one lingering look. Not thus did Lot’s wife escape, alas! She “looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Perhaps she doubted the word of God, and looked back to see for herself how matters stood. She had no faith in God, and “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Oh, what a penalty she paid for unbelief! God had said, “Look not behind thee,” and she did look, and in an instant was riveted to the spot, not only lifeless, but a solemn monument of God’s judgment on unbelief and disobedience.

Not thus has He dealt with you, my friend. Oh, what longsuffering! what forbearance! what patience, He has had with you! You cannot deny it. Has not your conscience often told you that you deserve punishment and death? and you have feared it too. But He has waited still, and verified the word of Peter, “the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.” Yes, that you might be saved, He has waited thus, though you have doubted, disbelieved, and even denied His word a thousand times!

But oh, doubt Him no more. And if now you resolve to escape, ―if, receiving Christ for yourself, you really turn your back on the world to follow Him, ―let it, I beseech you, be without one lingering look on the doomed and dangerous scene you have left. Doubt not that it is doomed. This for you would be the fatal look of Lot’s wife, though judgment might not be as speedily executed. Believe Him. Think not of proving for yourself anything He has said. For He that cannot lie invites your confidence, and says, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord.”

But perhaps she cherished a lingering love for the doomed city, and looked back sorrowfully on leaving it. She had left her heart there evidently. Her treasure being there, and not where God was awaiting her on the mountain, her heart was there also. And so she looked back to gaze once more on the loved spot. Thoughts of happy days now forever gone, of loved ones now forever left, of pleasures now forever lost, may have impelled her to look back; and that one look cost her, her life. But if she was one in heart with that which God was about to destroy as too bad to be borne any longer, was it not right that she should be destroyed too? As with many, who love the world yet hope to go to heaven; what would they do there, or find to love or to enjoy there? Heaven is not a refuge for the destitute, who love the world, and hate God in their heart, but don’t want to go to hell. It is rather the home of the Father for. His beloved children, who love Him and His dear Son, and whose joy and delight it will be to praise Him and enjoy His presence forever. So Lot’s wife did but find her right place after all. Sodom was destroyed, and so was she, for she and it were one. Therefore, my friend, if you do escape, look not back on the painted harlot world you have left, for it is not worthy of your love, and the sooner you forget it the better.

Again, let me urge you to escape without one faltering step; “stay not in all the plain.” “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it” (Heb. 4:1). To linger at the first, to look back afterward, or to stay in all the plain, are equally incompatible with the purpose of God for us. He longs to deliver the sinner from Egypt, only that he may bring him into Canaan (Ex. 3:8). Any one of the three would be destruction, as much and as certainly as to remain in Sodom. To come short of the glory of God, is to perish forever. There is no middle place. Oh, learn that “Christ suffered for sins once, that he might bring us to God.” Rise to the height of His thoughts about you, my friend. He can never be satisfied without having all whom He has given to Christ with Him, forever. Not to save you, but to have you, is his desire. Therefore, find no resting-place in all the plain, whether in a good part or a bad part of it. Too many, I fear, stay in the plain, and settle down there, because they think it pleasant and profitable and allowable. But no, it is what God says that must decide us. And His word is clear: “Stay not in all the plain.”

WHITHER then must I escape? is yet another question to be answered. “Escape to the mountain, least thou be consumed.” Nothing short of that, the place “where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God,” will satisfy either Him or us. Christ now in the glory, as the One risen from the dead, is really the only place for the soul to apprehend as its ground of acceptance before God; though possibly, as with Lot, He may show grace to those who fail to reach it experimentally. Lot sought to find rest in the half-way house of Zoar, having no heart for God’s heavenly place. Yet even he could not rest there long, and soon left it for the mountain. How much better had he gone there at the first! And because this is the only right place for the believer, the Word of God most beautifully and blessedly assures us that He has provided this place for us as a free gift. “He has made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;” yea, He “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” As soon as we become “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” we are carried up to the mountain of His presence, and seated there, in Christ; all, in His rich grace, having been done to entitle us to the place through the wondrous work of Calvary. But if any escape from Sodom, this doomed world, without being made the children of God, they are as much without Christ as if they had never left the city, and will perish even at the door. As in Matt. 7, He says to such: “I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Whereas with Christ, our life, our salvation is secure. Still, our responsibility is to keep the eye and the heart fixed on Him, never looking back, and our feet ever pressing on, neither staying in all the plain nor halting, until we reach, in glorified bodies, the glorious home on the mountain top!

Is not this enough, my friend, to inspire you with both dread and desire? With dread, lest the fearful doom pronounced on “this present evil world” should be yours; lest the wrath of the Lamb should fall on you; lest, having neglected to escape whilst the door was open, you find it shut against you forever. And with desire too, for your own admission into the place which Christ has gone to prepare for them that love Him, the eternal meeting place of the redeemed, forever free from sorrow, suffering, and sin, with Him in whose presence there is fullness of joy, at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore!

The Lord give you now to take that one step, that will both “deliver you from the wrath to come,” and unite you to “him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” T. L.

God's Love to Poor Sinners.

THE first time I ever knew the meaning of Romans 5:5, ‘Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,’ it was conveyed to me under circumstances which I can never forget. I was called, in the early part of my ministry, to visit a poor creature dying with a fever. It was a hovel on a mountain side in the county of Wicklow. The door leading from the miserable chamber to the kitchen was built up to prevent infection, and the only entrance was through a window about a foot and a half square, out of which the frame had been taken for this purpose.

In the corner of that wretched apartment, on some straw, lay a young man of twenty-one years dying, but in full possession of his faculties.

“A few moments’ conversation convinced me that I was there not to teach, but to learn, in witnessing the triumph of a believer over sin, death, and hell. The young man was rejoicing in Christ, and as a passage of Scripture which seemed appropriate to his state of mind, I opened the 5th of Romans, and began to read it, applying each successive sentence to the young man, as according to his experience; to which he gave a most cordial response. When I reached the fifth verse, I said, ‘Now you feel this to be true; you have that blessed hope which maketh not ashamed, for you feel such love to God shed abroad in your heart, that it must be by the Spirit of God which is given you.’

“‘Ah, sir,’ said he, ‘that is not the meaning of the text at all.’”

“What,” said I, ‘not the meaning and I looked at the verse again, never having thought that any other could be attached to it; what meaning then do you give to it?’

“Ah, sir,” he replied, ‘it would be a poor hope I should have if it was derived from any love I feel to God. When I think of what He has done for me, and how I ought to love Him, I feel so cold and dead compared to what my love ought to be, that I would be in despair, instead of having a hope that maketh not ashamed, if my love to Him was to be the ground of my hope. No, sir; it is God’s love to us poor sinners that the Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts, and it is that gives us the hope that maketh not ashamed. Read on, sir, and you will see.’

I read on, and the three next verses convinced me at once that he was right.

That poor youth had, not many months before, been brought to the knowledge of the gospel through the means of my lecturing in the cottages in that distant district of the parish. Too poor, too much engaged in labor to go to school, he had learned from a young companion to read in the evenings when his work was over, that he might read that book which had revealed a Saviour to his soul. He had read, and had been taught by Him who can teach not as man teacheth.

“His name was never printed in this world before, but as certainly as it is recorded here, so surely in the Lamb’s book of life is written the name of Charles Armstrong.” R. J. M’GITEE.

A Walk to Land's End, and a View of Man's End.

ARRIVING at an hotel in Penzance, a few months ago, late on a Saturday evening, I found two travelers in the commercial room arranging for a walk to the Land’s End the following day, and discussing the various routes and time of starting, and anticipating the pleasure all the varied scenery would afford them.

As soon as opportunity offered, I asked the elder of the two, a very cheerful and intelligent gentleman, if he had ever visited Man’s End. My question was rather a surprise to them, and quickly answered in the negative; and both were anxious to know if it was on the road to Land’s End. I told them the scenery from the place was unequaled for grandeur, and well worth surveying; the descent to it was by an old and well-trodden path, but rather difficult, and a friendly guide was always in attendance, whose skill in leading was never forgotten by all who had visited the spot.

All kind of speculation was now at work as to where Man’s End could be, for neither had ever heard of it before. At length I agreed to give them a sealed letter, before leaving the hotel in the morning, with a full description of Man’s End, and the magnificence of the view from this particular point, on the most unimpeachable authority, provided they would promise not to open the letter until their arrival at the Land’s End, and were seated on the further-

most rock they intended to visit.

The conditions were accepted, and assurance given that they should be honorably kept. I bade my friends good night, and retired, arranging that the sealed letter should be ready for them at nine on Sunday morning, half-an-hour before their purposed start.

According to appointment, my friends left for their tour, the elder gentleman, who had given me his name, carrying the sealed letter, and after some four or five hours’ walking reached the Land’s End; and, when comfortably seated on a rock, and doubtless enjoying both the rest and scenery, my friend having the letter said, “Now then for this Man’s End mystery,” drew the envelope from his pocket, and brought out its contents, written on a sheet of note-paper thus:―

Man’s End, as God sees it.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher: with their tongues they have used deceit: the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:10-19).

The scenery at Man’s End, as described by the Son of Man, who came to seek and to save that which was lost.

“I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:18-24).

God’s love to the guilty one, who has reached Man’s End, and has now known and believed the love that God has to us.

“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).

“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. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.... We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:9, 10, 19).

Thus ended the letter.

On returning to the hotel on Sunday evening, I heard my friends had arrived back about seven, the younger very wearied with his journey. I did not see them then, but the following morning met the elder gentleman, who was down for an early breakfast, and for some time we were alone in the room. He thanked me very sincerely for the letter, and acknowledged the solemnity of it. Neither had suspected the character of the contents, and were not a little surprised on opening it to find such a subject before them. They had supposed it would have been a matter for carnal mirth; but to find themselves thus confronted with the truth of the living God, both as to man’s ruin and end, as well as the boundless ocean of love and mercy on God’s side, in the gift of His beloved Son, and all the infinite value of His precious blood shed for poor ruined man, caused no little uneasiness, and especially to the younger.

It appeared that during all the hours of walking down, our young friend had not even uttered a word that would lead his companion to suppose “he was even religiously inclined;” and after the reading of the letter, he acknowledged, to the surprise of his friend, that he had preached about these matters himself twice last Sunday at N―A―in Devonshire. God had evidently used His word to the conscience of both. The younger I have never seen since, but the elder received the truth with evident seriousness of heart; and I trust both they and all who read this paper, may know the reality of man’s end, and the fullness of the love, and grace of God, that brings salvation to a poor ruined sinner just at that point. E. P.

Abraham's Conversion.

WE are familiar with Abraham’s justification. We read how that he “believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness;” but he was converted long before this declaration was made to him.

Now, it is always a matter of interest to know how people become converted, especially how those of great celebrity in divine things first apprehended the truth.

For instance, we read with intense pleasure the conversion of Luther, Bunyan, Whitfield, and others, and adore the grace that saved such men, and then qualified them for the wonderful work that characterized them. We ponder too the extraordinary conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the chief sinner, who, whilst on his blood-thirsty way to Damascus, commissioned, as he was, to imprison and kill the dear unoffending saints in that city, was arrested by a sight of the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto him in the way, and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” a sight and a sound that completely turned this violent superstitionist from his course, to the zealous espousal of that which he had previously destroyed. Miraculous conversion indeed! This chief opponent of Jesus, now and henceforth, became his stanchest disciple.

But if Paul was, through grace, a light so bright and burning, none the less so was he of whom I write, ―Abraham, the great father of the faithful.

And how was he converted? In a manner not very dissimilar from that of Paul. “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2).

The God of glory appeared to Saul in the way to Damascus. The same glorious Person, though not seen as the once crucified Saviour, appeared to Abraham in far-distant Mesopotamia. This appearing produced his conversion.

At this time the world was sunk in idolatry. The flood which, four hundred years earlier, had swept all but eight human beings off the earth’s guilty surface, had not swept sin out of the hearts of the eight survivors, nor, therefore, from their successors. Indeed, sin became, if possible, more flagrant, and the worship of false gods readily usurped that of the true. Of this awful sin Abraham’s family was guilty (see Josh. 24:2). The judgment of the deluge failed in teaching the truth of God’s abhorrence of sin. Ah! when will man learn the lesson of wisdom?

But the grace that dealt with Abel, Enoch, &c., and that saved the eight from the flood, could not be restrained now; and hence the God of glory appeared to Abraham. Bursting in upon that scene of dark idolatry, and eclipsing, by the splendor of His grace, all the pride of Mesopotamia, did the God of glory thus disclose Himself to Abraham. Further, He deigned to speak to Abraham. Marvelous condescension! And what did He say? Ah! He made use of the very word which, of all others, sounds the sweetest in the sinner’s ear, ― “Come,” said He, “come into the land which I shall show thee?”

True, he had to abandon “his country, his kindred, and his father’s house,”―for the call of God was then, as it is now, separative and sanctifying; but before he assumed the pilgrim life, he had seen the God of glory; and before forsaking his natural and evil associations, he had the promise of the land. Quite enough. God for the present, and both God and the land for the future, and Abraham’s heart was won!

God winning my heart, is conversion; God forgiving my sins, is justification. Both are the fruit of faith, and both were true in principle in Abraham. His heart was fully won by this revelation; and then, long afterward, when God promised him a son, he believed, whereupon he was justified.

“But what has this to do with me?” some reader may say. “I am not an idolater, like Abraham, nor the chief sinner like Saul. Do I need to be converted, whose birth is of a Christian land, and character of moral stamp?” Yes, my friend, conversion is as necessary in your case, as in that of a pagan or a prodigal. “Except ye be converted... ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”

(Matt. 18:3).

“Well, but if conversion be the winning of the heart, how can God win mine?”

He makes no revelation of Himself as of old, but He has told the story of His grace. And what a story! A Father giving His Son; that Son giving His life, bearing the judgment due; so that the guilty one should receive, by faith, all that love can give. “Hear, and your soul shall live.” This did Abraham. Let him, dear reader, be your example.

J. W. S.

And That He Died for All.

AN engine-driver on the Pennsylvania Railway, on October 22, 1882, saved the lives of about six hundred passengers, by an extraordinary act of heroism. The furnace door was opened by the fireman to replenish the fire, while the train was going at the rate of about thirty-five miles an hour. The back draft forced the flames out, so that the car of the locomotive caught fire, and the engine-driver and the fireman were driven back over the tender into the passenger car, leaving the engine without control. The speed increased, and the volume of flame with it. There was imminent danger that all the carriages would take fire, and the whole train be consumed. The passengers, recognizing the terrible state of things, were panicstricken. To jump off was certain death, to remain was to be burned alive.

“In order to save the lives of those six hundred passengers, it only needed the devotion of one life, the daring deed of one brave man. Joseph Sieg resolved to do it, and there and then, without an instant’s hesitation, he prepared to retrace his steps, ―back from the burning car, back across the red-hot tender, back through the flame, the roar, and the smoke that surrounded him, ―to stop the train, though he should die in the attempt. For an awful moment or so the engine-driver was lost.

No one could see through the cruel flames and the blinding smoke. All at once the paralysis of terror, which had run through the cars from one end to the other, ceased. The train stopped; the danger was over, save for an explosion; and the fireman, half mad with excitement, made a rush for his devoted comrade. He was alive, but sorely hurt, burned and scorched almost to death by the intolerable flames. Almost in despair, he had climbed into the water tank to assuage the agony of his sufferings. There they found Joseph Sieg, his clothes literally burned off his back; his face, hands, and body cruelly scarified by the pitiless flames.

There was no more danger now. The six hundred passengers were safe, and rendering thanks for their merciful preservation; the burning train was easily extinguished; and reverently they bore the injured man to the hospital, where his hurts were pronounced to be so serious that recovery was supposed to be well-nigh impossible. The poor fellow lingered a few days, and then died.”

The above account of the deliverance of some six hundred persons in a railway train from an awful death, by the devotion of one man, is a forcible illustration of the great salvation wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of poor sinners by His death upon the cross.

What a striking picture of the moral state of the world at the present moment, was the condition of the people in this train. The world, like the train, is rushing on, swifter and swifter, in its mad career of sin; men following their own uncontrollable will, with nothing before them but sin’s wages―death, and after this the judgment (Rom. 6:23). Little did the passengers think of the awful danger to which they were so suddenly exposed. Probably persons of all grades of society, rich and poor, old and young, their minds filled with the thousand and one cares or pleasures of this life, were being carried rapidly on, thinking they were perfectly safe, when suddenly the awful alarm of fire spreads from one end to the other of the train.

What a terrible moment! Some six hundred of our fellow-creatures brought face to face with death, and that in one of its most fearful forms. And little does the giddy world think of the judgment to which they are hastening. Fire threatened the whole of these travelers, and there seemed no way of escape. And, in fact, had it rested with them to deliver themselves, their case was hopeless. The eternal judgment of the lake of fire now threatens the whole world that lieth in the wicked one (1 John 5:19). Wrath of God is now revealed from heaven (Rom. 1:18). But, lulled into carnal security by the arch-enemy of souls, men little dream of the doom that awaits them.

Oh! sinner, have you been aroused to the awful danger in which you stand? Have you heard the sound of alarm? Are you alive to the solemn fact, that you are one of the many who compose a guilty and lost world, that is rushing on, with more than railroad speed, to the everlasting doom of hell? (Rom. 3:19.) Far better to be aroused to a sense of your ever-increasingly perilous position, than to go on blindfold into death, and wake up in hell when it is too late. May God, in His rich grace, use these lines to warn you.

Have you discovered that you are lost? How then are you to escape? What can you do? Do! Ah! poor sinner, you cannot do anything. What could the people in the burning train do? They could neither stop the train, nor extinguish the flames, nor jump from the carriages without being killed. Neither can you, sinner, stop for one moment the rapid progress of the world’s, or your own, career of sin, nor put off the hour of death and judgment, nor escape by any device of your poor deceived heart. What, then, is to be done? Let us see.

Just at the moment when the whole of the occupants of that train seemed given over to certain death, it began to slacken speed, and very soon was brought to a standstill. How was it accomplished? Not by the efforts of the passengers, but by the wonderful devotion of the engine-driver. One man sacrificed his life for all. Nothing but facing death could deliver; and without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed into the midst of the blinding smoke and the pitiless flames, and stopped the train, sacrificing his own life in accomplishing it. And what a full and perfect deliverance! Not another person was injured. The train having stopped, all that the passengers had to do, was to avail themselves at once of the deliverance wrought for them by another, and simply get out of the carriages. The moment they were out, they were perfectly safe.

How strikingly this illustrates the gospel as to deliverance from death and judgment. For just as the engine-driver went into death to deliver the trainload of passengers from destruction, so Jesus, the Son of God, stooped to the awful death of Calvary’s cross, to deliver this world of sinners doomed to eternal destruction (1 Tim. 2:5,6). This was the only way that sinners could be saved, and Jesus sacrificed His own life once for all. The terrible fiery judgment of God, due to the sinner, fell upon the spotless Lamb of God upon the cross. There God hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21). There the awful curse fell upon the holy Christ of God (Gal. 3:13). “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” was the bitter cry of the Beloved, as He, the Holy and the Just, endured the hiding of God’s face (Matt. 27:46). Blessed Saviour! His work is done. Yes, dear reader, He finished the work the Father gave Him to do (John 17:4). “It is finished!” was the dying Saviour’s cry (John 19:30). And God raised Him from the dead (Acts 2:24). Thus has He wrought a full and perfect salvation. Christ is a propitiation for all (1 John 2:2). He died for all. And what is the result? Why, just as the people in the train availed themselves at once of the deliverance wrought, so any poor sinner has now but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Saviour, God’s great Deliverer, and thus to accept His free and great salvation.

What would you have thought of any person who refused or neglected to get out of the train when it was stopped? Why, you would have thought them mad. What! remain in a train that was on fire, to be burned? I doubt not that every seat was emptied with the utmost haste. But not one passenger there was so mad as you, sinner, if you remain where you are in your sins. Behold, the Judge standeth before the door (James 5:9), Delays are dangerous. Escape now from this condemned world (Gen. 19:17). Behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2), Christ is the only Saviour, the only Deliverer (Acts 4:12). Believe on Him, and you are saved, delivered from judgment and the lake of fire (Eph. 2:8).

God hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

Your own efforts are utterly unavailing to deliver yourself from the impending judgment. You are without strength. But when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). I press upon you, therefore, the immense importance of the present moment to accept God’s deliverance. Tomorrow may be too late. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). Oh! that men would consider their latter end (Deut. 32:29). “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3.)

As long as you are part of this poor world, you cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). You may turn over as many new leaves, and make as many good resolutions as you please, but only to find, again and again, that you have blotted the leaves and broken the resolutions. But once you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, you are for ever delivered from eternal judgment,—a child of God (John 5:24). Then, and not till then, can you walk in God’s ways, and bring forth fruit to His glory. Have you believed? E. H. C.

Light and Darkness.

THE true nature of the Scriptures and of man, is markedly seen when the two are brought in contact with each other.

The light of the one, and the blindness of the other, become thus manifested in a way which is often striking. An incident, among many, brings this thought to my mind. One very dear to me by the ties of nature, had been a very earnest professing Christian for many years. She had read and prayed with her children, and toiled and struggled in her spirit for them, that they might be among the company of the blessed in heaven, and on earth escape the corruption that is in the world.

Like Apollos of old, however, she knew only the baptism of John. She spoke much of repentance and its goodly fruits, and kept looking forward for something better. Christ’s sufferings and death moved her to tears, and in his resurrection she believed, but she knew not what those two wonderful events implied. They were spokes in the great wheel of the Christian religion, ―not yet the center and foundation and seal of everything.

Her children grew up like her, for she was true and earnest, and children grow up according to the atmosphere they live in, rather than after a creed they may hear. As they grew up, and got in contact with the world, they shrank from it. They felt God―the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ―was not the one the world worshipped, and the fear this produced only increased the need in their souls. They cried to God, and He heard their cry. Like honest Apollos, He brought them in contact with Aquila and Priscilla, who expounded unto them the way of God more perfectly.

They saw that the death of Jesus was the full payment for all their sins in a lump; that while in death, He was there for us, under the judgment of God against us because of our sin; and that His resurrection, was His release from under that judgment, and therefore our release. Thus the truth became known to them, and it set them free. It was out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of bondage into the liberty of the children of God. Living realities for heart and soul now sprang up on every side, from what before was little more than sacred history. It was a time of feasting, such as utterly beggars all the feasting the world had ever offered them.

Who could now be desired at this blessed board like the beloved mother? Not one on earth! Neither was the throne of grace going to be let alone till she was there. And she is there! Let infidels say, There is no God. God heard and answered these children’s prayer. Let them “seek after truth” all their days, without ever finding it! All these have found it, and are proving day by day what it claims for itself.

But to return to my incident. One of the sons had returned home at the time of these circumstances. Accidentally he noticed a New Testament which belonged to his mother, and which she had used for several years. He was struck to find, on opening it, that it showed much more sign of usage in some parts than in others. The Epistle to the Romans especially so. The margins were entirely gone, and the pages which had from the third to the eighth chapters scarcely held together.

“Mother,” he said, “how is it you could have read these Scriptures so as to wear out the book thus, and yet not know the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works? How could you go on still without the certainty of your salvation, after reading such a passage as this, ‘who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification’?”

“My son,” she said, “I cannot understand it. There was like a veil over the eyes of my soul. I felt there was there something I wanted, some wonderful treasure, but I could not see. I was blind. But now I see; and there, in that word, is the light bright as noonday.”

“And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world; that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:39). P. J. L.

THE Gospel is a declaration, not of God’s decrees, but of God’s heart.

Cleansing and Thanksgiving.

“And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, He said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: an he was a Samaritan. And Jesus, answering, said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” — Luke 17:11-19.

WE have in this simple narrative very sweet instruction as to the way of blessing for souls. The scene has great simplicity about it, and God has recorded it as illustrating the way in which souls, if they are to get blessing at all, must get it, now. We have simply to listen to the word of Jesus, and the moment eve obey His word, blessing comes down.

These ten men, who met the Lord, had one characteristic, they were lepers, and lepers whom none but God could heal. The ravages the disease had made might be more or less marked, perhaps different in every case, but they had one common characteristic, ―they were all lepers. Leprosy, in Scripture, is used as a type of that terrible disease which afflicts the whole family of man, ―Sin. You, my friend, are a sinner, and I want you to look fully in the face what is involved in being a sinner.

Where did their leprosy put these men? They “stood afar off” I grant you they had a sort of fellowship, or companionship, but it was fellowship in sorrow, companionship in suffering, and there can be no comfort in that; but such is the terrible effect of sin on men’s souls, that they treat the fact of their being sinners with levity, because they think every one else is as bad as they are.

These lepers dared not company with any but lepers. In Israel, according to the law of God, the leper had to own he was unclean. The priest, who stood for God, had to discriminate if he were a leper or not; the priest it was who had to pronounce him unclean; and when the priest had thus pronounced him a leper, and unclean, the leprous man had to own his state, ―had to confess it openly. And what do we gather from that? That God would have every sinner take his true place, ―own, and confess, that he is a sinner.

You are a sinner, my reader, and Scripture calls you a lost sinner. Unless you have been brought truly and really to the feet of the Lord, you are, and God addresses you as such, a lost sinner! Have you ever owned it? “No,” you say, “I never owned I was lost; I never thought I was lost.” I ask you, Are you saved? “No,” you say, “I could not take upon myself to say that.” Then, my friend, God sees but the two classes, ―the saved and the lost, the clean and the unclean, and you are yet in the latter class.

You and I must subject ourselves to what God says. God has spoken, and we have to hear what God says, and act accordingly. He tells me, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” He tells me, too, that “The Son of Man is come to seek, and to save, that which was lost.”

All have sinned, all are condemned, all are lepers in that sense, but there is this mighty difference, some are saved, and they know it. And how do they know it? Because God has said it, and they have believed him.

These ten men were alike in this, they were all lepers, and they all knew they were lepers, and had taken the place of lepers, outside, apart from everyone else; and there they must abide, till God Himself restored to them the privileges they had lost.

Do not think, my reader, that man can be restored to an earthly paradise, and the innocence that Adam forfeited. But Christ Jesus did a work, whereby God is justified in taking the sinner out of the place of degradation and death, in which he is, and putting him, not into an earthly paradise, but ―like the thief who died on the cross, believing in Jesus into the paradise of God, and not only putting him there, but putting him there in righteousness.

I find, then, these men, conscious of their condition; not daring to draw near, they “stood afar off.” And where is the sinner? Afar of from God. Christ Jesus brings the soul nigh; but if you are still in your sins, my reader, you are “afar off” from God.

“And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus Master, have mercy on us,” That is a sweet word― mercy. Do you feel your need of mercy? Oh, what a cry to meet the ear of that blessed One, who said, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” He delights in showing mercy. The last thing God does is to judge. Judgment is His “strange work;”

and therefore, when these poor afflicted souls cry “have mercy,” it was the very thing Jesus came to do, ― to show mercy, to meet man in his misery.

The very thing these men want, is the very thing Christ came to bring. They said, as it were, “Lord, you know our case, our state of misery, but there is that in Thee which can meet our case.” And is there not something in Jesus that can meet your case, my reader? Oh yes! If you are feeling your need, turn this day to Jesus, and what will you find? Mercy in abundance. At first, when they found they were lepers, given up to a terrible and life-long malady, that no one could meet but God, no doubt they felt something akin to despair; but they heard of Jesus, they came to Jesus, they stood “afar off” in their wretchedness and leprosy, and cried to Him for mercy.

And you, my reader, have a malady, not only life-long, but eternal; a malady that will make eternity a torment, unless you turn to God in time. Now is the moment when you may taste His mercy, and find He has nothing but mercy for you.

You may well be afraid to meet Him by and by; to meet Him at the great white throne, when He fills the seat of judgment. But now, He holds the scepter of mercy, so you have nothing to fear. If you come to Jesus today, He will have nothing for you but blessing, nothing but mercy.

“And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests.” He saw them. He looked upon them in their misery. Have you, my friend, ever known what it is to have His eye upon you?

What is the meaning of His saying, “Go, show yourselves unto the priests?” In Leviticus 14, which gives to us the interesting record of the law concerning the leper, we read, that if God in His mercy healed a poor afflicted creature, the law of the leper was this, he was to go again to the priest and show himself, and the priest was to look on him; and if it was clear that God had healed the leper outside the camp, the priest said he was healed; and then there were certain things to be offered for his cleansing.

There were to be brought for him “two birds, alive, and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet and hyssop;” and one of the birds was to be killed over running water, and the priest was to take the living bird, and the scarlet, and the cedar, and the hyssop, and dip them in the blood of the bird that was killed over running water, and sprinkle upon the man, who was to be cleansed, seven times, pronounce him clean, and then let the living bird loose into the open field.

The scarlet is a figure of human glory, and the cedar of human grandeur, while the hyssop is the type of human baseness. That is, we have man in every shape and form, in his elevation and in his baseness, ―all must go down into death. The priest takes all these, and the living bird, and dips them in the blood of the slain bird. The living bird and the slain bird are both figures of Christ. Why are there two birds? you ask. Because one would not have sufficed for this type. One must be killed, for there must be death, and the scarlet, the cedar, and the hyssop, are all put out of sight in the waters of death; and the living bird, let loose into the open field, is the type of resurrection.

But if you had seen that living bird flying away, what would you have seen on its body? The marks of death, the blood of the slain bird. The living bird, flying away into the open field, bore with it the marks of death; and if I look up into heaven to-day, what do I see? The fifth of the Revelation tells us, “a Lamb as it had been slain.” Yes, Jesus bears for evermore the marks of His passion and of His death,

The resurrection of Christ, since He bore my sins, shows that those sins must be gone, for He has not carried them into heaven with Him. The living bird, let loose, told that the leper was clean, the priest pronounced him clean.

The Lord, we observe therefore, says to these men, “Go, show yourselves unto the priests.” He recognized the existing state of things, for His death had not yet set it all aside.

Here the faith of the ten lepers came in. (It is Christ’s blood that cleanses, it is your faith that lays hold of it.) If they had not believed His word, they would not have gone; but the moment they had faith in the Lord, and obeyed His word, that moment they were cleansed. “And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

He says to them, as it were, “Have you the faith to leave my presence, and go to the constituted authority, trusting my word? “They had. If they had looked at themselves, they might have thought, we are as bad as ever, what is the use of going to the priests; but they took Jesus at His word, and, as they went, they were cleansed. Cleansing was the fruit of faith; and have you, my reader, faith in the Lord Jesus today? If so, you are cleansed from every stain of sin.

Then what have we after? Nine went on, but the tenth, when he found he was cleansed, could not go any farther, because he felt, ― “I have had to do with God. The One who bade me go to the priests must be Jehovah Himself, for none but God can heal the leper!” and his heart was attracted to Christ. Do you take Him at His word Do you see it is His work, His shed blood, that has cleansed you? Oh! then, may your heart be attracted to Himself, to feel you must be near Him.

This Samaritan turned back. I do not believe they had gone very far before this healing action took place, and he turned back at once, and “with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face.

at his feet, giving him thanks.” Have you, dear reader, ever turned round to the Lord Jesus, and given Him thanks for saving you? Do not, I beg of you, keep company with the nine. The nine went on, they had no thanks for Christ.

How sweet for the Lord Jesus to hear a soul thus turn round, and praise, and thank Him! If you have never gone, and given Him thanks, I beseech you to go now. Would you be among the nine? I will show you what you will miss, if you are among the nine.

Jesus says to this man, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” That is the way the Lord confirms the faith of every soul that simply looks to Him; and if you have been brought to rest your sin-stained soul on Christ, this is what He says to you, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” It is not thy feelings, nor thy prayers, but “thy faith.” And if you ask how my cleansing has taken place, the two birds show it. The death and the resurrection of the Lord, are the two great pillars on which the whole superstructure of Christianity rests.

Christ Himself is the object of the faith of your heart, and when you believe the word of Christ, ―turn to Christ,―immediately you get saved, get blessing but you do not get the full cup of joy the Lord would have you drink, unless you are attracted to, and turn again to Himself, and hear Him say to you, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Were not all the others cleansed? They were; but I believe they were not fully happy. I believe they lived in fear lest their leprosy should come back again. They had not heard His own voice say, “Thy faith hath made thee whole; “and that is the case with many souls now. They have doubts, and fears, and uncertainties; they have not gone back to Him, and fallen at His feet, and thanked and worshipped Him, and heard His own voice say, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” They have not been so attracted to Him, that they have been turned into worshippers.

Let me urge on you, my reader, if you have never yet drawn near to Him as a sinner, with a cry for mercy, draw near now and if you feel He has had mercy on you, draw yet nearer still, and give Him thanks. For when these men first cried to Him, where were they? Afar off. And when the Samaritan returned to give Him thanks, where was he? As near as he could possibly be, viz., at His feet. Do you ask, Can I get as near as that to Him? You can; you can get near enough to Him, to hear His own voice whisper in your ear, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” W. T. P. W.

NEVER permit what you do not understand to upset what you do; for what you do understand is founded on knowledge, whereas what you do not understand is connected with ignorance. Bearing this simple, but patent rule of thought in view, would save skeptical minds from an immensity of trouble and needless distress. W. T. P. W.

The Deity, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

TRAVELLING in the Midland counties of England, I found myself, on a certain occasion, alone in the railway carriage with an elderly gentleman.

He proved to be a Unitarian, ―that is, one who disbelieves in the deity of the blessed Lord Jesus. We had nothing in common, save the mercies of a common and most gracious God. But whilst I, through sovereign grace, had found rest of conscience, and peace of heart before God, in the atoning death of His Son, this man, like the party which he represented, saw nothing in Christ but a very good man, and nothing in His death but a seal, placed by Himself, on His devotedness. His Christ was merely a model, —a pattern for others, but nothing more.

“The Word was God,” “The Word was made flesh,” “Before Abraham was, I am,” “The glory which I had with thee before the world was,” “God manifest in the flesh,” “God blessed forever,” “This is the true God, and eternal life;” or again, “The Son of man must be lifted up,” “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,” “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission;”―and many other passages, demonstrating the necessity for the death of Jesus, as the ground of salvation, were repudiated by this poor man.

Neither His person on the one hand, nor His work on the other, were accepted by him. He “wrested the Scriptures to his own destruction,” and perverted their plain and solemn object.

Our “Immanuel”― “Jesus!” Thrice blessed One. “God with us,” in wonderful grace. “Jehovah― Saviour,” in infinite love. Sweet combination! Ah! we know Thy grace, who for our sakes becamest poor, that we through Thy poverty might be rich. We love to look at Thee creating all things, sustaining all things, effecting expiation by Thy death, rising from the dead, taking a place at the right hand of God, coming again for Thy people, reigning where now Thou art rejected, sitting as Judge on the great white throne, folding up these heavens and this earth, and building the new creation on the solid basis of Thy blood.

A man He was! yes, but what mere man could do all, or any of these things?

Nay, nay; man He was, but God as well, ― “Immanuel.” Have you considered these things, dear reader? Believe me, “All men shall honor the Son, as they honor the Father.” As He said, “I and my Father are one.” Again, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “The only Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Distinct in person from the Father, yet equal as to deity.

I ask, have you, professing Christianity as you doubtless do, seriously thought upon the personal glory of the “Man Christ Jesus” as “God manifest in the flesh,” and have you bowed before Him in worship and praise? Your eternal destiny depends upon your correct appreciation of Him. “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins,” was His solemn declaration to the unbelieving Jews of His day. Take care that the same sentence be not yours.

Presently there entered the carriage another passenger, somewhat younger. On hearing the nature of our conversation, he at once took part.

“Do you, an intelligent man, in this nineteenth century,” said he to me, “really believe that Jesus was raised from the dead?” His accent indicated a Jew, and his countenance betrayed signs of hatred against the name he had just mentioned. I calmly replied,—that the resurrection of Christ was the ground of my hope and joy; that His blood procured my pardon; His resurrection secured my salvation forever. “It is all a fable,” said he, and passionately sunk back in his seat. Another enemy of Christ, thought I. The first denied the glory of His person, and the value of His death; the second denied the truth of His resurrection. Neither knew Him.

All a fable! Could this man have read the long chapter (1 Cor. 15) devoted by the Spirit of God to the subject of resurrection? Impossible!” “Ah! but that chapter is all about the resurrection of men-saints.” Just so, but it is based on that of Christ. In fact, we have seven distinct witnesses to His resurrection. We read that, “He rose again the third day: ―

1. According to the Scriptures.

2. That He was seen of Cephas.

3. Then of the twelve.

4. Of about five hundred brethren at once.

5. After that He was seen of James.

6. Then of all the apostles.

7. Last of all He was seen of one also,” said the Apostle Paul.

What an array of evidence, and how satisfactory to all but those who won’t believe!

Let the incarnation of Jesus be an established fact, that He was the Messiah of Israel, and the Son of God. And, further, establish His resurrection, and you place the Christian beyond his sins, ―beyond judgment for them; and you put in his mouth the grand triumphant challenge, “Oh death, where is thy sting? oh grave, where is thy victory?” Death’s sting is gone, and the grave is shorn of its victory!

Yes, we worship a risen Saviour; nay, One who is glorified on high. We know Him there. We look for Him thence. We will spend eternity with Him in the glories of the Father’s house. All this is certified to us by the fact of His resurrection. Hence we wait in patience His return, and suffer with Him in His present rejection till that day. He loves us with an everlasting love, and to Him we owe our all.

But, turning from the Unitarian and the Jew,― who, although so different in their creeds, yet agreed, like Herod and Pilate of old, in their common hatred of Jesus, ―let me again ask you, my readers, “What think ye of Christ?” Everything hinges on your answer to this question. “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Do you believe that He is the Son of God, the eternal Son of the Father? And do you trust in the alone but all-sufficient sacrifice of Himself? Do you? “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:29.)

Unbelieving reader, let these two words be deeply engraven on your memory, “sorer punishment.” God intends to vindicate His honor, whom now you in your folly contemn; but He first tells you of the consequences of your wickedness. The greatest of all sin is, the rejection of Christ.

The rather, as besought in Psa. 2, “Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.” And mark the precious result, “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

J. W. S.

Three "Trying" Sins.

THERE are THREE GREAT SINS― crying sins ―against God, which are found, not among the heathen, nor among Jews, nor Mohammedans, but among, and only among, professing Christians; people who have their Bibles, and who enjoy many of the external privileges of Christianity. The sins I allude to are not the gross, evil abominations of murder, lying, drunkenness, &c., &c., which even this wicked world itself condemns. The sins I speak of are religious sins; the worst of all sins, because they are the most blinding and deceptive.

No person ever thinks of trusting to bad works to win God’s favor or to take him to heaven, but many a person is trusting to dead works to gain the favor and blessing of God, and everlasting life at the end. Now the Word of God declares that “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). Mark, it is not our sins, but our righteousnesses (the best things we can do) which are filthy in God’s sight. But how few really believe this!

Alas, how many there are who are vainly dreaming of salvation without faith; who imagine themselves on the way to heaven, but have never been born again; and who have and profess religion, but without Christ. Christless religion is soul-destroying religion. Christless religion makes the man who follows it, the persistent, inveterate, implacable enemy of the Christ of God. Saul of Tarsus was full to the brim of religion (see Phil. 3). No one had more in the flesh to trust to than he, but his very religiousness made him the apostle of the bitter hatred and enmity of man’s heart against God’s Christ, and God’s religion. Oh, what an opening of his poor blind eyes (though they were shut to all earthly objects), when he was led to see that the crucified Nazarene, whose name he was endeavouring to blot out from under heaven, was really THE LORD; that the earth-rejected Man, who had lain in death in Joseph’s tomb, was now seated on the throne of God, in the power of an endless life! What a vile wretch he must have seen himself to be! A poor insignificant little creature, made of dust, daring to fight against the Lord of glory! How much was such religion worth? His very zeal for it had made him the persecutor of Christ and His saints. Had any one come to Saul that day, and congratulated him on his religious life and zeal, what would he have said? Would he not have answered something to this effect? ― “Do not talk to me of my religion or of my goodness; I am vile; I have been going right against God and His Son; my religion is hateful now to me, as it must be to Him: it has led me astray, and made me the chief of sinners, and all but destroyed my soul.”

Now, everyone knows that if you tell one who is going on in a course of open, vile sin, that he is wrong, and the judgment of God will surely overtake him, he will admit that what you say is true, even though he may still pursue his old ways. But tell a Christless religionist, a lifeless professor, a self-righteous sinner, that all his religion, his profession, his righteousness, counts nothing in God’s sight; nay, more, that the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to Him; nay, more still, that if ever he is to be saved, he will have to come as a poor, undone, lost sinner, that God will give him no credit for all his fancied good works, that he will have to cast them all overboard, and come as a poor needy soul, vile, and absolutely dependent upon the undeserved mercy of God; ―tell him all this, and that God says there is no difference (for all have sinned) between him and the most wicked on the earth, and how angry, how indignant he will at once become! Such, indeed, is the result of man’s religion, when the blessed grace of God is presented to him.

Now the three religious sins of Christendom which I wish to warn my reader against, are very specious, and very commonly met with. They are not what people would at all call SINS. Let us hear what they are: ―

1. Trying to be good.

2. Trying to love God.

3. Trying to believe.

These, so far from appearing to be sins against God, may look to be very right, proper, and commendable attempts for anyone to make, and likely to insure the blessing and favor of God to those who thus try. But wait a moment, dear reader.

1. “Trying to be good” is flying in the face of Scripture, for it declares “There is none righteous; no, not one.” “There is none that doeth good; no, not one.” This is God’s verdict upon man in his natural condition, no matter what his outward life and ways may be. Again, in John 3, the Lord in speaking to Nicodemus, who to all appearance was a good man, and trying to do good, solemnly tells him, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” A new birth is necessary. It will not do to try to be good. To make the effort, is to deny that you are undone, that you are so unimprovably bad, that nothing short of a divine work in your soul, wrought by the Spirit and the Word of God, can ever reach your case. You must be born again. The only way to be good, is for the sinner to tell God how bad he is; to plead guilty, and acknowledge himself undone, and lost! This is the first upright thing a man can do. God can then meet you and bless you; not because you are good, but because He is good. He blesses you in spite of your badness, because of what His own beloved Son has done.

2. “Trying to love God!” “But is it not right to love God? Should we not do so?” someone will exclaim. Yes, my friend, it is perfectly right to love God, but that is an entirely different thing from trying to love Him. Just think of it. A mother says she is trying to love her child. A husband is trying to love his wife. There must be something greatly amiss. One would naturally say, What sort of husband must he, or what sort of wife must she, be? And what sort of God is He that you, my reader, must try to love? Ah, you are all adrift. You are giving the God of all grace a bad character, by saying He is One you have to try to love. You are sinning against Him by thus thinking and thus speaking. You have begun at the wrong end. You have forgotten His great love. “We love Him, because He first loved us,” is the answer they can give who have given up trying, and have found that “God, who is rich in mercy,” loved us WHEN we were dead in sins (Eph. 2). The Lord’s word to Nicodemus, in John 3:16, makes it all plain. The heart of God is the source of all good, and of all love. God loved, and God gave.

He so loved the world, that He gave the best, and the brightest object in heaven, for the vilest on earth.

But how Satan deceives and blinds poor souls as to this! What days and months and years of misery are spent by honest souls in trying to love God, and yet they fail. “Oh, sir,” said a poor dying girl to a servant of the Lord who called to see her, “I am so unhappy; I lay awake all night trying to love God, but I cannot.” “Well,” replied her friend, “I will give you something else to do. Lie awake all this night and try to love your mother.” “Oh, but I do love my mother,” said the poor girl; “she is so good to me, I cannot help loving her.” This then enabled her visitor to point out to her serious error in “passing over the love of God” to her, and thinking only of hers to Him, which however she could not find.

“I have it, I have it,” cried a gentleman, as he ran upstairs, and burst into the room where his wife was, “It is not OUR love to Him, but His love to us!” This poor distracted soul had been for months and months trying and failing, trying and failing, to love God, but that day, at a meeting, heard the verse of the hymn given out, ―

“O by Thy love constrain us,

And fix our hearts on Thee.”

This was enough. He waited for no more, but leaving the meeting in haste, he got into the first cab he found, and hurried home to his wife with the joyful tidings above related. To love God, because of His marvelous love to us, is right; in fact, we cannot help doing so; to TRY to love Him, is sin.

3. “Trying to believe” is the commonest sin of all. “But ought we not to believe God?” you say. Yes, surely, yes. But trying to believe God is quite a different matter. Have we to try to believe what we know to be true? or have we to try to believe one whose truthfulness we do not doubt? What sort of God do you suppose Him to be, whom you have to try to believe? Again, to turn to John 3:16, we find not only God’s love and God’s gift spoken of, but the Lord declares, that whosoever believes (not tries to believe) should not perish, but have everlasting life. How plain all this is!

1. You must be born again; not try to be good.

2. God has loved the guilty, and those who know His love, love Him in return; they have not to try to love Him.

3. God has spoken the truth; unless you deem His word doubtful, you have not to try to believe Him. F. C.

"Be Ye Also Ready."

(Matt. 24:44.)

HOW many of those we have seen and known are passed from time into eternity! But as yesterday, they were alive amongst their friends, or at their daily work, like ourselves; but now they are gone. Such will be the reader’s experience, as well as mine, if he only look back over even one year.

Just now three special cases come before me. Two young men, just starting in the world, take fever, and in two short weeks their life-span is ended; they pass into eternity in a state of unconsciousness. Time was soon over to them, and eternity begun, but where? People speak of how the time has to be spent, referring, it may be, to a brief hour or two.

Dear reader, let us ask ourselves this solemn question, “Where am I going to spend eternity?” Time is soon over. Eternity once begun, never ends. All in eternity is a fixture, ― “a great gulf” is fixed between heaven and hell, between the saved and lost. Oh, my friend, on which side of that gulf will you be for eternity? In eternal happiness, or eternal torment? eternal joy, or eternal woe? eternal glory, or eternal judgment? In an eternal day of bliss spent with the Lord Jesus, or an eternal night of misery spent with the devil and his angels? Oh, dear reader, on which side shall your eternity be spent? These things are realities, and have to do with that soul of yours which can never die. Oh, turn not a deaf ear to the voice of pleading and warning.

As regards the young men referred to, I cannot tell how it fares with them. If trusting in Jesus, if resting on His work, and cleansed by His blood, sure I am, on God’s authority, they are saved and happy for eternity. If there was no Jesus, no Saviour, no precious blood, as their souls’ resting-place, then too God’s Word must speak, and that only of judgment, for “he that believeth not, shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

A third case, a young girl of only seventeen, passed away after a few days’ illness. There is an old saying, “All men think all men mortal but themselves.” What folly this is. These three were, only a few weeks ago, as likely to live for years as you or I are. Their sudden removal speaks to you and me of the uncertainty of time, of the certainty of death. “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27); or again, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming “quickly.” In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the saints are caught away from earth to be forever with the Lord. That is their eternity;

reader, what is yours to be?

“Be ye also ready.” Are you ready? A death-bed you may have, or you may be cut down suddenly. Death is one terminus for time. The coming of the Lord is another. It must be settled in time where we are to spend eternity. You and I are responsible to have it settled. God tells us in His Word how it can be settled. Our sins deserve the judgment of God, and one sin must as surely shut us out of God’s presence as ten thousand. Oh, think of the sins of one short year, or month, or week; sins of thought, and word, and deed; but the greatest sin, is that of unbelief. Oh, let me earnestly entreat of you, dear friend, if still in your sins and unbelieving, even now to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour. There is no other Saviour. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He died for sinners, and therefore for you. Salvation, full and free, is proclaimed. Now is the day of salvation. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Not “if,” or “perhaps,” or “maybe;” but “shall be,” the moment you believe.

The only way to be ready for death, or Christ’s second coming, is to trust simply in Him who died and rose again. The Lord Jesus Himself says, “Be ye also ready.” Oh, hasten to Him. The ark of old rose above all the waters of judgment, and Noah was safe in it; so Christ alone, and those in Him, will be beyond the reach of judgment for ever. Yea, the Saviour has already borne the judgment for all who believe in Him. It is past; the storm burst on. Him who was on the cross as the sin-bearer. There, see Him, bearing all suffering, all for you, dear reader. Now risen, and seated at God’s right hand, I thus know His work is finished.

God is satisfied; and believing, I am free. To be ready, my sins must be put away. To be ready, I must have salvation. To be ready, I must have eternal life. In short, to be ready, is to have Christ as my all.

“O sinner, to Jesus Come now; O sinner, to Jesus come now;

O come while you may, while still ‘tis the day Of grace, salvation, and love.”

T. E. P.

Man's Way and God's Way.

EVERY person hopes to go to heaven. Even the professed infidel says, “If there is such a place, hope I shall go there.” But the question arises, How are they going to get there? Various men express various thoughts about that, and were it a matter left to our option, no doubt we should have each preferring his own way to that of his neighbors. But here is just the whole point, and all will be forced to see, sooner or later, that their thoughts have no place. God has made the way Himself, and each must avail themselves of God’s way; or find out, like Saul of old, that they “have played the fool,” and perish forever in their own way.

My reader, perhaps you say like many, “Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners.” But what does it mean? Do you understand what you say? Can you have weighed it? A sinner! A rebel against God! Guilty of the crime of sin against a holy God, who never did you anything but good How terrible! Do you know the sentence pronounced by Heaven’s unalterable decree? Allow me to tell you, lest your sleepy conscience has forgotten it; and perchance it may wake up and lead you to repentance.

“THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH” (Rom. 6:22).

God has a right to make His own laws, and an equal right to punish the creature who breaks them. Who can deny Him that right? Ah, dear reader, as your eyes scan these lines, you know that God would be just if He were this moment to cast your guilty soul into hell forever, as an unrepentant, unconverted, time-serving, pleasure-seeking sinner. You may well say with those of old, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not” (Lam. 3:22).

But there are those who say, “I do not think God will cast men into hell. He is a God of love. He is not cruel. And I do not see casting men into hell consistent with love.”

Away with such soul-trifling thoughts! Let not the enemy of your soul throw dust in your eyes, and thus lead you on blindly to everlasting ruin. Awake, sinner, awake! God is not cruel. You know He is not. But He is righteous, and you forget that. Would He be a just God if, after you had sinned, and He had pronounced the penalty to be death, then, out of pity, He did not inflict that penalty? You know He would not.

Blessed be His name, He is “a just God, and a Saviour” (Isa. 45:21). Just, in punishing sin. Loving, in providing the Saviour who died for it. But He does not display love at the expense of righteousness, so beware!

Then there are others who say, “But why should God punish me, simply because I cannot see as you see?” I reply, “He will not punish you because you do not see as I see; but because you refuse to see as He sees.” “The wages of sin is death.”

God in His boundless love provided the Saviour who took the wages. “When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). His blood was shed, and it is recorded of it, that “it cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). And all God asks is, your acceptance of Christ as your own Saviour, for “there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). But what are you doing? Denying God the right to prescribe the way in which you should approach Him. Coming to Him on the ground that you are not so bad as some, and a great deal better than many. You go to your place of worship, attend all the means of grace, pay everyone their clue, and do the best you can; while many with as high pretensions do not do so much. And thus you lull your soul into a false security, and rock it to sleep in Satan’s cradle of self-complacent Phariseeism. May God arouse thee, my self-satisfied, blindfolded, benighted reader, ere it be too late.

Allow me to advise you to write down on paper what you call your best,―all the good you can say of yourself, and for which you think God ought to allow you to go to heaven. And then write above it all, one little sentence from God’s word, ―

“Without Shedding of Blood is no Remission” (Heb. 9:22).

Now, in the light of that divine sentence, tell me what is your very best worth? Nothing! Why? Because there is no blood in it. Then take care, sinner! Your road is the wrong one, and leads to hell. Beware! Far better trust Jesus and his precious blood.

There is no salvation by works, prayers, tears, fastings, vigils, penance, or any such thing. Hear it, ye workers for salvation. God declares it is “NOT OF WORKS” (Eph. 2:9). Then stop, as you value your soul, stop! Listen to the cry of the dying Saviour on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Believe it, and live. See, written as it were over His best, the divine testimony to the value and efficacy of His blood, “It cleanseth us from all sin;” and let your heart rest forever.

I beseech you, go on no longer in such a dangerous and slippery path. There is a solemn moment coming soon. Do you ask me what moment I mean? I mean your last. When your soul is slipping away into eternity, laden with a lifetime of guilt. Yes, your last. When the thought of the wasted moments, missed opportunities, and rejected blessings, are sending a thrill of horror through your palpitating heart, until the chill of death creeps over it and stills its throbbings and beatings forever!

Do you curl your lip, and laugh and sneer at this warning? You will not always do so. The day will come, when you will wish you had heeded it, and taken God’s way instead of your own. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25). “Jesus said, I am the way” (John 14:6). And “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Heb. 7:25). It is Jesus who says, “Come unto me,” and “Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.” Surely God’s way is best! W. E.

FAITH is the soul’s reception of a divine testimony; repentance is the effect of such reception, or, in other words, it is the tear-drop in the eye of faith.

Trying and Trusting.

L―had been anxious about her soul from early childhood; but she grew up to womanhood without knowing the forgiveness of her sins. It may have been partly owing to the bad teaching she received; for she was told by those who, while professing to be guides, knew not the way of salvation themselves, that if she gave up the world, and prayed more, she would at length get peace.

But L― loved the world; and though she made many resolves to give it up, she found herself unable to resist its pleasures. The illness or death of a friend would make her feel very miserable; for she not only grieved for such, but thought afresh of her own unpreparedness for eternity. At such times she would go to church oftener, and try to conform outwardly to religious observances, which only made liter the more unhappy.

Had L―read the Word of God, instead of resting on man’s word, she would have found that God’s way is quite different from man’s way. Man looks within, to find something he can give to God. God gave His Son for the sinner, and says, “Hear ye Him.” L―had yet to learn her utter power-

lessness to give anything to a holy God from a fallen corrupt nature.

When L― was about eighteen, she thought perhaps she should feel happier if she were confirmed; so she went to have a conversation upon the subject, with the clergyman of the church she attended.

Mr. G―seemed to think her hardly eligible for confirmation, as she was not sufficiently acquainted with the Catechism, and advised her studying the same, and would then see her again.

“But, sir,” said L―, “should I die before I am confirmed, what will become of me?”

“Confirmation,” he answered, “will not fit you to die; it will make no difference to you whether you are confirmed or not.”

“Then, Mr. G―, I will not be confirmed.”

“Very well,” he said; and they parted.

As L― walked home she thought over the conversation with the clergyman. “He never told me how to prepare for death,” she thought. “Perhaps he did not know my misery. Oh, that I could be a Christian! Will God have mercy upon me?”

Later on a fierce thought took possession of her, that she would throw herself into the river flowing silently at her side. But there came to her remembrance, “After death the judgment.” Why did that thought still her wicked design? Many years afterwards she could speak of what she then feared; it was not death to the body, but the great white throne, the having to give an account of herself to God. How could she face a holy God unwashed, unforgiven? How could she dare to rush into His presence, so vile, so unsuitable for eternity? How good of God to hold her back from destruction, and how little she then knew it was His goodness leading her to repentance.

Several years passed away, only leaving her more anxious and dissatisfied. She had tried the world’s pleasures, and she was weary of them. She had passed through deep and bitter sorrows; but the only One who could, have sympathized was yet unknown. Would she ever find rest for her burdened conscience? Yes. The One who seeks the lost was seeking her. He was only waiting for her to give up trying, then she would trust Him.

Mentally worn, and really ill, she went with a Christian aunt to the seaside town of B―. While there it was thought desirable for L― to have medical advice. The late Dr. M happened to be staying in the place, so the aunt consulted him about her niece, telling him also of her distressed state of soul. He was greatly interested, and saw her at once; not before, however, specially praying on her behalf. When Dr. M― handed L― her medicine, he said,―

“Do you believe this will do you good?”

“Yes,” she replied, “or I would not take it.”

“True; so you can trust me, a man, for the healing of your body; and can’t you trust God for the healing of your soul? ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’”

“There was a slight pause, then L— looked up.

“Doctor,” she said, “I do believe.”

A heartfelt “Thank God,” and shake of the hand, and he was gone.

“My dear L―,” said her aunt, “do you really mean what you told Dr M―?”

“It would have been untrue to have said anything else. As the question was put to me, I felt that I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“And are you clear as to the forgiveness of all your sins?”

“No, aunt; but I trust God to show me now, for a great light has dawned upon me, and all fear of the future has gone.”

The following day, as L― was bathing in the sea, the following scriptures came with power to her soul: ― “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa. 43:25); “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19). Her burden was gone; she rejoiced with all her heart. She saw how God could blot out her transgressions; not by her strivings, her prayers, her tears, nor anything she ever did, or could do, but solely on the ground of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how good to her weary soul! What sweet rest! How could she have been so blind, as not to have seen before, that Christ died for her sins, according to the Scriptures; and thanksgiving and praise went up to the precious Saviour, whose blood had cleansed her from all sin.

L―was literally a new creature; she felt she was. Her old companions saw the great change, for her happiness was as apparent as her misery had been, and confession followed. Wherever she went, she ceased not telling that God had put away he sins, through the precious blood of Jesus, and that He would remember them no more; and then in the words of scripture she would say, “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him” (Psal. 34:8). Could L― be more intensely happy than she was? Yes; she had only just entered into the joys that will last throughout eternity.

But, dear reader, before I go further, let me ask you if you are as miserable as L― was? Are you in a helpless, hopeless condition? Do you feel the burden of your sins? And have you been trying to do what another has done for you? If you can answer “Yes” to each question, then do not be afraid to trust.

But, perhaps, you will say you do believe on Jesus, but you do not feel happy. I fear, if such is the case, that you really do not know what helplessness, hopelessness, sinfulness, and real badness mean. Hence you do not really trust. When at length L― found her strivings increased her unhappiness, she left off trying, and simply believed God; then she became happy. And so it has been with every happy believer in the Lord Jesus, and it is yours to prove, dear reader, that “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10).

L― had arrived at a wonderful stage in her soul’s history, ―the forgiveness of sins! Could she know anything better? She thought not, and for a time it was her one theme. Then she began to think more of the One who had wrought such a great deliverance for her, and her heart said, Where is He? Not in the grave surely, for did not the angels tell the women at the empty grave, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen” (Luke 24:5, 6). And in the fifty-first verse of the same chapter did she not read, “He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven?”

What a new thought for her,—she had a living Saviour in glory! What an Object for her soul’s worship and praise! O what a salvation! How she would like to see the One who had redeemed her.

As John 14. was pointed out to her, she read in the Lord’s own words, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Would that coming be when she died? No; but a living Lord, coming for living saints, as she also read in Thess. 4:17. L―’s joys became deeper now, though only just treading the path of the just, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Does one ask how the freshness and brightness could continue in her soul. Let me answer,—By the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13, 14). When God in His grace picks up a poor lost sinner, taking him out of one condition, and putting him in an entirely new one, He does not expect him, or require him, to go on at his own charges. He undertakes for him, as it is written, “He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

From the moment when L― trusted in the Lord Jesus, till her earthly course was run, she was kept by the mighty power of God!

Following her conversion came sixteen years of suffering and trial, but her mind was kept in perfect peace, because she trusted in Him. Now she is present with the Lord―her body in the grave― awaiting His return, when sleeping and living saints will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and then to be with Him forever.

Reader, are you trusting Him, and then simply waiting for His return? E. E. S.

The Cross and the Resurrection.

(Read Matthew 27:24-61, 28)

NEARLY two thousand years have rolled away since these scenes took place, which God has recorded here in His Word for us, ― scenes more wonderful than any that have occurred in days preceding, or that can follow for nothing can be so wonderful as the death and resurrection of the Son of God, and especially when that death is for the blessing of guilty man, ―for your blessing, and for mine. But though nearly two thousand years have rolled away, these scenes are as fresh as though they happened yesterday, to the eye and heart of God, and to the heart of the believer; and whether you, my reader, shall be in the depths of hell, or in the heights of everlasting joy, depends on how you understand these scenes, and on what is your relation to the blessed Saviour whose death is here recorded.

Has your heart ever yet been moved by these scenes? If not, listen again to this wonderful story, and may it be this day moved by it. May the Holy Ghost use this oft-told tale of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for your blessing. Everything hangs on your relation to Him who died and rose again.

There never was anything so wonderful as this, and never anything so sorrowful, took place on this earth. Creation is marvelous, and the incarnation of Jesus is wonderful indeed; His life most wonderful; but oh, how much more so that He, the Son of God, died, and died for us! Can you, my reader, say, He died for me? Blessed word! If not, may you be able, in faith, to say it henceforth.

What a scene this is, and the more wondrous when we think it is our blessed adorable Lord who thus suffered and died! He, who went about doing good, meeting every need, manifesting by the power of His actions, that He Himself was God! You would have thought that every heart would have been attracted to Him. But no, He was sold for thirty pieces of silver, the price of the meanest slave. One of the little company that surrounded Him, sold Him, and betrayed Him; and another, though He loved him, denied Him; and all forsook Him and fled! Men taunted and derided Him, bound Him with thongs, blindfolded Him, treated Him with every indignity; took Him from one high priest to another, and then to Herod, who mocked Him and set Him at naught, and then sent Him back to Pilate! And we read, “the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together,”―shook hands on the rejection and sufferings of the Son of God! Oh, what a basis for friendship to be founded on, the refusal and casting out of the Son of God But let me tell you, my reader, that is the world’s basis of friendship even in the present day.

They brought Jesus out, bearing the crown of thorns, and Pilate said “Behold the man!” And I say to you, “Behold the Man,” whom men mocked with a crown of thorns, with a reed in His hand, and a royal robe, in derision; and whom some wretch, harder and more degraded than the rest, smote on the head, driving those thorns more deeply into His blessed brow, giving Him more of pain and agony!

Pilate had to say, “I find no fault in him.” No, what fault could he find in Him? What had He ever done, but gone about doing good; and now He was going to die, to finish His work of love and grace! And, as though to mock Him, the very place where He was crucified was a graveyard! They took Him to Golgotha, Calvary, the place of a skull; as though they would say, We have heard of His being the Prince of Life, we will put Him to death in a graveyard!

And “there they crucified him.” No more solemn words in all Scripture! “There,” in a graveyard, “they,”―the polished Greek, the warlike Roman, and the religious Jew,—all combined to put Him out of this world; and they crucified Him between two thieves, men whose crimes had made them pests of society! But what did Jesus say, as it were, “I will have a trophy even here;” and one of those very thieves He took that day with Him to the Paradise of God!

The thief looked at Him, and learned at length that Christ was more than a man; for he turned to His neighbor, and said, “This man hath done nothing amiss.”

Could you say you have done nothing amiss? No, you could not. Nor could I, but “This man hath done nothing amiss.” Then why did He die? He died for the one who had done something amiss, the just for the unjust, that He might “bring us to God.”

This poor thief looked at Jesus, and trusted Him; and Jesus said to him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” But the rulers and the people derided Him. “He saved others; himself he cannot save,” they said. We read also, “And sitting down they watched him there.” Terrible words!

As it were, they sit and gloat over His sorrow and His suffering. Do you say? What hearts theirs must have been! My reader, your heart and mine are exactly the same!

The soldiers gamble for His very garments beneath His dying eyes! “And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying,...If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

When you and I are twitted and taunted, what do we do? We like to show the people who twit and taunt us, that we can do what they say we cannot do. But He bore it all.

They said, “Himself he cannot save.” That is not true. Himself He would not save. He could have saved Himself, He could have come down from the cross; but had He answered to the taunt, and done what they said He could not do, He never could have saved you and me, never could have saved the countless myriads He has saved since that day.

Has He saved you, my reader? Are you among the “others” that He has saved. He would not save Himself, that He might save you. To extricate you from your condition as a guilty sinner, awaiting the judgment of God, He would not extricate Himself. Will you not then, my reader, turn to Him today, if you have never turned to Him before.

Again the taunting cry is raised, “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.” Do you think they would have believed Him, had He come down from the cross? They would not; for He has come down from the cross, and come out of the grave, and gone up into Heaven, and yet men do not believe Him.

“He trusted in God,” they say. Do you, my reader, trust in Him now? You will be damned, if you do not. Did God deliver Him? No. There was a compact between God and his Son, that the work should be accomplished by which the guilty sinner might be rescued righteously from judgment. When man had shown himself in his blackest light, the work of atonement was done, whereby the very vilest sinner may be saved.

We read, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” The sixth hour was mid-day. At mid-day darkness veils the land. Creation was staggered at the sight. The Creator on the cross, and the creature mocking Him! Creation veiled its face from a scene so awful, so terrible!

Darkness covers the land, and what took place in that darkness? Man was shut out; and there were three hours in which God was dealing with Jesus about man’s sin, man’s guilt, man’s iniquity.

I have no doubt those guilty souls quaked as the darkness settled in, and thought, “God is going to judge us.” But no, no dealing of God with guilty man takes place. Silence reigns, and darkness prevails for three long hours, and then a voice is heard, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

In the hour when everyone was against Him, when everyone had gone, God forsook this blessed One too!

Ah, my reader, in your hour of sorrow, is not the sympathy of those who love you sweet? It may be very inadequate to meet your sorrow, and yet it is sweet to know that some sympathize, some hearts feel, some eyes weep with you; but Jesus no eye pitied. “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me,” He said; and at that very moment even God forsook Him too. He was left alone.

Reader, if you die in your sins, and awake in hell, left alone by God, you will never say, “My God,” for He is not your God, the world has been your God. Faith only can say, “My God.” What is the answer God gives as this sorrowful query rolls out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? “The open graves, the rent veil, the riven rocks, are the answer from God. There is nothing more sorrowful on earth than to feel forsaken, but what must it be if you are cut off in your sins? You may have a grand funeral, and then time goes on, and men on earth have forgotten you, and God has forsaken you, and forsaken you for evermore. Oh, my reader, your future is awful, if you are not the Lord’s! Will you not turn, and say to Him, “From today I trust Thee; my heart shall be Thine, for what hast Thou not done for me?

“But the darkness passed, and then there came a cry that reached up to the heights of heaven, and, I believe, down to the depths of hell likewise, — a cry that rent the rocks, and shook the earth, “IT IS FINISHED!” Wondrous cry! And then another, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Some said, He “calleth for Elias;” others said, “Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.” But no Elias comes to take Him down, and He bows his head, and gives up His spirit; and on that cross there is a dead Saviour, and that Saviour is the Son of God! Do you love Him? “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22). What does that mean? “Cursed at his coming.”

The veil was rent. God rent it from the top to the bottom. Who opened the graves? God’s own hand. The moment the Saviour died, the work of redemption was accomplished, and the graves were opened. True, the bodies of the saints did not arise till after His resurrection, because He must be “the first-fruits of them that slept.” But the graves were opened, proof that the power of death was annulled.

He went into the grave, into Joseph’s new tomb, and the first day of the week he arose again.

An angel came down and rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulcher. I believe that angel will ever delight in the blessed bit of work he got to do that morning. What did he roll away the stone for? Not to let the Lord out, most surely.

Ah no; Christ had already risen. But the stone was rolled away, that you and I might look in. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” says the angelic messenger “I know you seek Jesus.” Is that true of you, my reader? Are you seeking Jesus? Come, see the place where He lay. He is not there, He is risen. There is no dead Christ now on the cross, or in the tomb; He is in the glory!

The angel adds, “Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him.”

But now He is not in Galilee, He is at God’s right hand. Do you not see Him? Look up in faith today, and see Him crowned with glory and honor.

There is often a great mingling of fear and joy when a soul first gets hold of the gospel; and so we read here that the women to whom the angel spake “departed from the sepulcher, with fear and great joy.” But as they went, Jesus met them. Ah, that is a very different thing. They fell at his feet then, and held Him, and worshipped Him. Yes, that is all you have to do. Have you been seeking Jesus? May you meet Him today, and cling to and worship Him.

“When the Saviour said, “Tis finished!’

Everything was fully done;

Done, as God Himself would have it, ―

Christ the victory fully won.

All the doing is completed;

Now, ‘tis look, believe, and live!

None can purchase his salvation,

Life’s a gift that God must give.”

W. T. P. W.

"If That Is Christianity, Then I Am a Christian."

ONE bright summer morning a cab drove up just as the great entrance-door was re-opened after the departure of the nine o’clock train from the B― station.

“You are just two minutes late, Miss,”

said a porter, as he came forward and leisurely carried her boxes through, and set them down on the platform. “The train did not go to time today either, as we were delayed for five minutes.”

What a disappointment! Circumstances unforeseen and unavoidable had caused a delay of several minutes beyond the time fixed for leaving for the railway station; but she went, still hoping that quick driving would make up for lost time.

“Seven minutes past nine,” the porter said again, glancing at the railway clock, “and the next train for S― will not go until four.”

With a weary disappointed feeling at her heart, the young girl threw herself down on a seat near the window of the waiting-room; for the “next train at four o’clock” meant a wait of nearly seven hours there, afterward a journey of 140 miles by rail and car; and she was going home from school for her holidays.

For a moment a rebellious thought arose in her heart, “How tiresome this is! God could have prevented this disappointment if He chose, and I shall never be able to stay here for seven hours.” It was but for a moment, however, and then the thought came, “Perhaps He has got something for me to do here for Him.” Her heart went up, and she whispered, “Father, is there anything I am to do for Thee? If there is, show it to me, and give me power. O give me power to do it for Thee, Lord. I am very foolish and very feeble, but Thou canst give me wisdom; and if I am to speak of Thee, Thou canst give me words to say.”

Several people went in and out of the room, but she spoke to none of them. At length a shadow crossed the window, and an old lady entered and took a vacant seat beside her. The lady was in mourning, and looked, oh! so sad and weary, and careworn.

“This is the one; I must speak to her,” the girl thought; “but how shall I begin? It is so hard to speak to strangers.” Her heart beat very quickly, but she moved closer, and ventured a commonplace remark. The lady answered kindly, and so the ice was broken.

“May I ask if you know that your sins are forgiven?” she began.

The old lady looked a little startled at first, and then said, “O, I pray to God, and hope He will forgive me; but certainly I cannot say that my sins are forgiven.”

“But Jesus died; and He would not have had to die, if our prayers, or anything we could do, could gain us pardon for our sins from God.”

“I am not trusting in anything I can do; but certainly one must pray. I am a sinner, a great sinner, I know; but I know also that God is a very merciful God, and trust that He will hear my prayers and receive me, though I sometimes fear I am too great a sinner.”

“It was for sinners that the Lord Jesus died. We were covered with sin, and could not do one thing to help ourselves, for God says, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’ Now death to us for our own sins would be eternal banishment from God. But the Lord Jesus was very pitiful; He loved us, and He said, I will die instead of them; and He came down and died. We owed a great debt to God, and the blessed Lord Jesus undertook to pay it. God is too holy to pass over sin, and death was the only price that He could accept for our ransom, because He had pronounced death to be the penalty for sin, and He cannot lie.”

In her eagerness the girl had slipped from her seat, and knelt before her friend. She went on:―

“Now that the Lord Jesus has fully paid the price that God’s justice demanded, God is able righteously to save sinners. The blood of the Lord Jesus was poured out for the vilest, and now God would not be just if He punished a sinner, instead of whom Jesus has died, and who trusts in Him for salvation. There is a little verse of a hymn that says,―

‘Payment God will not twice demand;

First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,

And then again at mine.’

Will you not believe it? ‘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). And now you have not got a single thing to do but just to take God at His word, and believe that He so loved you as to give His beloved Son to die instead of you, and God says you are saved. There is not a tear, not a prayer to be added to His work, for the Lord Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ Will you not take the salvation that God is freely offering you? There is nothing left for you to do but just to trust in Jesus.”

The lady had listened very attentively to every word. Now she looked up, and while tears of joy burst from her eyes and rolled down her furrowed cheeks, she exclaimed, “If that is Christianity, then I am a Christian.” Then, as if searching in her memory for something hidden deep down there, she repeated, very softly and very slowly, ―

“Perish! it cannot be,

Since Jesus shed His blood;

The promise is both rich and free,

And He will make it good.”

She was very glad, and no wonder. She had found the Saviour, who had long been seeking her, the One whose pardon she had been craving, while all the time He had been pressing it upon her. Now that her blind eyes were opened, she could look up and see Jesus as her Saviour, ― Jesus, the One whose very presence there, at God’s right hand, is enough to prove to a poor anxious sinner that God is forever satisfied about his sins. Once God laid the sinner’s sins upon His beloved Son, as He hung upon the cross. There He fully atoned for them. Now He is seated in brightest glory at God’s right hand, — a proof that the sins are forever gone.

A porter entered the waiting-room to say that the old lady’s train was about to start. She got up, grasped her young friend’s hand and went, tears of joy still welling up in her eyes, leaving behind her in that waiting-room a glad and thankful and happy heart. E. L. W.

Believeth; Hath.

IT is astonishing what a number of difficulties souls get into about that which is presented in Scripture in the most simple form. Nothing can be plainer in the Word of God than that every one that believeth on the Son of God is the present possessor of eternal life. We have it from His own blessed lips, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).

The Lord’s servant, moving to and fro in his Master’s work, continually comes in contact with souls who profess to believe, and yet are uncertain whether they have eternal life or no. The following will give you some idea, both of the endless difficulties and perplexities many get into through unbelief, and also of the simple way they get to know that they have eternal life by faith. Sayings such as these constantly salute our ears. May the Lord in His grace use them to lead some to take Him at His word!

You go to one, and say, “Well, friend, do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“Oh yes, certainly; I should be sorry if I didn’t.”

“I am glad to hear that. Then you know what it is to have everlasting life.”

“Well, I hope so.”

“Hope so! But the Lord Jesus said, ‘Verily, verily, he that believeth in me hath.’”

“Oh yes, I know that. But I can’t get beyond a hope.”

“But He said, ‘hath.’”

“But I don’t think anyone can be sure about it. Do you?”

“That is your thought. What does He say?”

“Oh! He says ‘hath,’ I know.”

“Well, then, you have everlasting life.”

“Ah I shouldn’t like to say that.”

“Shouldn’t like to say it! But it is what He says, not what you say. It is for you to believe it.”

“I do believe.”

“Then, dear man, you have it. He says so.

What can be plainer? Do you think He would tell you a lie?”

“Oh no; that I’m sure He wouldn’t.”

“Have you everlasting life, then?”

“I shouldn’t like to be presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous! It’s no presumption to believe the Lord. It is faith to take Him at His word. And notice how strongly He prefaces it, ‘Verily, verily,’―or, Truly, truly, — ‘I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.’ Come now, do you believe?”

“Oh yes; indeed I do.”

“Well, believing is having. The two go together. You can’t separate them. Then, have you it?”

“I shouldn’t like to deceive myself, you know, sir.”

“But, my dear man, you are deceiving yourself, and letting Satan deceive you, by not believing Christ’s own word.”

“I think mine can’t be the right kind of belief.”

“What kind is it? Is it with the head, or with the heart?”

“Oh, it’s with the heart. I believe it with the heart. Yes, oh yes, I believe it with the heart.”

“That’s the right kind of faith then, so the difficulty is not there. Now, then, once again, Do you believe?”

“Yes, surely.”

“He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life. You have it?”

“I hope so.”

“Hope so, again! It doesn’t say, Hope so. Hath. H-A-T-H spells hath, not hope.”

“That’s true. I’m well aware of that. I know what it says. But you know, sir, I don’t act up to it.”

“My dear man, look how you go away from the point. There’s nothing in the verse about your actions. Actions and good works follow. You can never act up to it, until you have it. You must have the life first, and then live it.”

“But, supposing I was to say, ‘I have it,’ and didn’t act up to it tomorrow, how then? I shouldn’t like to be a, hypocrite.”

“Wait till tomorrow comes. What have you to do with tomorrow? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You might die today. And if you haven’t eternal life before you die, the only other alternative is, you ‘shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on you’ (John 3:36). It will be tune enough to talk about your walk, when you are sure you have eternal life. And the Son of God says, that he that believeth on Him hath it. And therefore, if you truly believe, you have.”

“Well, you make it very plain.”

“It is plain. Christ spoke plainly, and means what He says. Is it yours?”

“I can’t seem to feel it.”

“Can’t feel it! What has it to do with your feelings? Does it say, He that feeleth hath, or he that believeth is to feel it?”

“Oh no, it doesn’t say that.”

“Then, why do you? Why do you turn in upon yourself and your feelings?”

“But then, people do feel it, don’t they?”

“That’s quite true. But you must have it first. You want to feel it, to have it; instead of have it, to feel it. He that believeth―not feeleth — hath, HATH; H-A-T-H, HATH. You cannot make anything more or less of it. H-A-T-H always did, and always will, spell hath.”

“You’ve got me in a corner now. But―”

“No, there’s no but.”

“But―”

“No, no, no; don’t bring in a but. You will spoil it if you do. I don’t read anything about ‘but.’ It is hath,’ not but.’”

“Yes, true, but there must be a great change.”

“Indeed there must. But how? There will be a great change in you, if you let your huts and feelings and thoughts go, take God at his word, and are assured you have everlasting life.”

“I think I see it a little plainer.”

“But do you believe it?”

“I believe on the Lord Jesus, the Son of God.”

“ ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.’ Now, have you it, or have you not?”

“It says so there.”

“Exactly.”

“Then I must have.”

“No; it doesn’t say, must have, but hath. Have you?”

“If I was like you, ―”

“No, no, no; never mind about me. I’m only a good-for-nothing sinner, saved by grace.”

“Well, then, I have.”

“You have?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“He says so.”

“Just so. Can He deceive you?”

“No. I see it.”

“Praise the Lord!”

“Dear me, how very simple! But is that all?”

“What more do you want?”

“Nothing more. Believeth―hath! I never should have thought it. Dear me. Yes, I can see it. How foolish! I wonder I never saw it before. But I thought there was something more than that. I thought I had to do, or feel something.”

“That’s it. It is the same with thousands, and that is just why they remain in the dark; following their own thoughts, instead of taking God at His word. Let me repeat it then once again, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.’”

“It’s as plain as plain can be now. I believe, and therefore I have. How blessedly simple, BELIEVETH— HATH.”

And now, dear reader, a word in conclusion. How is it with you? Do you believe? Have you everlasting life? May God give you to answer in the affirmative. May He enable you to say, conscientiously and truly, “Yes, I have.” It is a question that it will never do to put off. Delays are dangerous. There is no believing, and having everlasting life in hell. Unbelief now will shut you up in everlasting misery then (John 21:8). “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). God has coupled BELIEVETH and HATH together, in one indissoluble eternal sentence. May God give you to say, “Both are mine.” E. H. C.

Falling Away.

IT is a common delusion, shared in by many, that the believer in Jesus can fall away and be lost. This mistake arises from what is taught in the New Testament about falling away from profession, being confounded with falling away from Christ. Take, for instance, 1 Corinthians 9:26, 27: “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Here the apostle presents himself as one really the Lord’s, as well as a preacher; and the proof of this was, that he kept under his body, else, although a preacher, he might be a cast-away, ―that is, one might be a preacher and yet be lost; but a child of God cannot be lost.

Then in 2 Peter 2:20-22, where it speaks of those who have known the way of righteousness, and have turned from the holy commandment delivered unto them, they are compared to the dog that returns to his vomit, and to the sow that, having been washed, goes back to wallow in the mire,―the teaching being, that the sow, in spite of her washing, is a sow still; and so with those who turn away, their nature is unchanged, and although for a time they were kept out of the mire (escaped the pollutions of the world, verse 20), they prove by returning to it, that they never were Christ’s sheep, and that they never were born again. A sheep, it is true, may get into the mud, but instead of wallowing in it, will be miserable, and will want to get out. Thank God, the sheep of Christ are safely kept; carried home on the Good Shepherd’s shoulders, and they are as safe now as they will be in heaven. Read. John 10:27-29; notice those four words, “they shall never perish.” To illustrate this I will relate a story told me by a friend.

An old man, who had been preaching for fifty years, was talking to him about falling away, when the substance of the following conversation took place: ―

“Would you be safer than you are now if you were in heaven?”

“Yes,” was the reply; “we are never quite safe till we get to heaven.”

“How do you know you would be safe if you were there, for you know some have lost their place in heaven, ― Satan and his angels, for instance?”

“Oh! but Christ did not die for them.”

“But did He die for you?”

“Yes.”

“What will make you safe when you get to heaven”

“Why, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Will it be more efficacious then than now?”

His reply was, grasping his friend’s hand, “No! it will make me no safer then than it does now.”

He had been preaching for fifty years, and had only for the first time learned the fullness of God’s present salvation.

A year or two after, the friend was summoned in haste to what proved to be the death-bed of the preacher.

“James,” said the dying man, “I sent for you to hear my dying testimony. It is pleasant to look back on a well-spent life.”

“Yes,” was the reply; “yours has been a very good life.”

“James,” said he,” it is all nothing. I am a poor sinner saved by grace, going straight to glory solely through the blood of Jesus. I want you to read for me.

His friend read 1 John 3:1-3, and then left him, and a few days after he fell asleep.

Reader, are you saved? M.

Seven Prayers and Their Results.

IT is a well-known fact, that although there is so much preaching, and (in a general way) so much knowledge of the truths of Scripture, it is quite the exception to find anyone who knows salvation as a personal matter. In other words, there are but few who know that their sins are forgiven; that they have eternal life, and can never perish; that they have peace with God, and can look up to Him, crying, Abba, Father! On the contrary, it is not unfrequently urged, that no one while in this world can be sure of his acceptance with God; that it is the merest presumption for anyone to say his sins are forgiven, or that he is “sure of going to heaven.”

Now, in the New Testament, we find when the Apostles wrote to the Christians of their day, they addressed them as saved people (Eph. 2:8), whose sins were forgiven (Eph. 1:7; 1 John 2:12), who had eternal life, and who knew they had it (1 John 5:11-13). The Word of God is as true now as it was then; the Gospel is the same; the blood of Christ is as precious as ever; and there is as much power in the name of Jesus now, to bless and save the poor needy sinner, as in days of yore. How is it, then, so few know the blessed, simple truths of salvation? The answer is simply this, in the vast majority of cases: They form their own thoughts and ideas apart from the Word of God, and they go by what they think, and not by what God says! No wonder, indeed, that they err and are ignorant, for the Lord declares, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”

Let us look at a few specimens of men’s thoughts. On asking a paralytic man, who had been assuring me that for eighteen months past he had read his Bible more than he had ever before done during all his life, if he now knew his sins were forgiven, he replied, “No, I could not say they are yet.” “Well,” I said, “will you tell me in your own words how you think you are to be saved?”

“Well, my idea is,” was his answer, “that a man must pray, and give his mind altogether to it. He must pray from his heart, and give his mind to it altogether.”

“But have you not read in your Bible of One called Jesus Christ “I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I did not mean to leave Him out.”

“Ah, but you did leave Him out. The only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, you never mentioned; but you spoke of your prayers, and giving your mind to it, as the way to be saved.”

Now this is not an uncommon case. I put the same question to another man a few months since, a poor old creature fast approaching the grave. His reply was, “I am working, and doing, and striving the best I can.”

Another said, a little while after, in answering the same question, “I suppose a man must do the best he can, and pray.” Alas for man’s thoughts! He puts his doing and his praying instead of Christ the only Saviour. What must the end of this be?

“Oh, we must pray,” is a remark one often hears. Or again, “If we don’t ask, we’ll not receive (meaning salvation).” Or yet again, “Well, I ask and pray continually for the forgiveness of my sins.” From such remarks, and many similar ones which are constantly heard, it is evident that people are much more occupied with their own ideas of prayer than with Christ.

I desire to point out some prayers that we find in the Gospel according to St Luke, some answered, and some not answered. Let us mark them well.

The first I call your attention to is in chapters 18:11:12. It is the prayer of the Pharisee in the temple, if prayer it may be called. It is the utterance of the heart of a self-righteous man. He tells God about what he is not, and what he has not done.

He looks at others, and tells God be is better than they. He further adds, that he abstains from meat twice a week, and gives a tenth of his income to Him from whom he receives all. Do we wonder that there is no response to such a prayer? How could such a statement of his own imaginary goodness be pleasing to the God who searches the heart, and has pronounced it to be desperately wicked? There is not a word more said of the scornful self-righteous Pharisee.

Beware, my dear reader, of your own goodness. It is not their sins, but their righteousness, which hinder many and many a soul from coming to Christ. Your sins are no obstacle at all to your coming to the Saviour! The fact that you are so bad, is your very title to come. But when any have an idea that they have something meritorious of their own, they do not like the thought of giving it all up, and coming as poor, lost, undone ones to Christ, for grace, because they are so bad!

Real prayer for mercy, from a broken and contrite heart, has never to be repeated. God answers it at once. He cannot deny Himself. The prayers people speak of repeating, and going on with for years, are a mere delusion.

A woman of eighty-six years, told me once she had been all her life asking God-morning, noon, and night-for forgiveness.

“And has He not forgiven you yet?” I naturally enough asked.

“Oh, I could not say that, but I hope He will,” was her reply.

I said to her, “Now, suppose I had sinned against you, and had wronged you very grievously, but afterward was brought to see my fault, lamented it, and besought you to forgive me, would you, if you saw I was really in earnest, keep me waiting eighty-six years without forgiving me?”

“Oh, no,” she said, “I would not have the heart to do that.”

Now see, in chapter 18:13, the prayer of the publican. Here is a really honest man. How different from the Pharisee. He sees none but himself, and all he sees of himself is, that he is THE sinner. “God be merciful to me the sinner” (which is the true translation), as if there was not another sinner in the world. How immediately there is a response to this prayer! The Pharisee’s is unnoticed. He exalted himself; but of the two, this man who humbled himself, ―who had not a good word to say for himself, ―this man, who was nothing but a bad sinner, there and then goes down to his house justified, rather than the other, with all his high opinion of himself.

Again, in chapters 23:42, 43, when the poor dying robber turns to the Saviour, and in spite of all that men said against Him, owned Him to be the Lord, and sought to be remembered by Him in the day of His glory, how long was he kept praying? Had he to go on year after year with this prayer? Why, the man was dying! And the question is, Will Christ have anything to say to him? This poor ignorant malefactor believed three things about the bleeding sufferer on the cross beside him, which many a professing Christian today is not so clear about,— 1St, he believed He was LORD; 2nd, he believed that He was coming again; and 3rd, he believed that He had a kingdom, which would then be displayed. Willing to sink every thought of present relief and deliverance from the pain and shame of the cross, if the Lord would only remember him in the day of his coming glory, he casts himself in all his vileness, “justly condemned” as he was, upon THE MERCY of the Blessed One beside him. How long was he kept waiting? Was it left a matter of uncertainty with him whether the Lord would hear him or not? Oh, no. The assuring, soul-comforting answer comes to him at once, “Verily I say unto thee, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

Mark it well, my reader, ere we turn to notice some other prayers of another kind, that these cries for MERCY from contrite hearts, were then, as they ever are, answered at once. God will never say to the poor penitent who casts himself upon His mercy,

“I have none for you.”

Beware, my dear reader, whoever you are who may read this paper, of persisting in a routine of prayer saying, as if there were some merit in it that God will mark with His approval. Prayer, true prayer, is the expression of need, ―of conscious, dire necessity.

What an awful thing to pray, ―really to pray, ― to pray under the sense of the deepest want, and yet to find no relief! None can ever do so but those who have left it till it is too late. In chap. 16:19-31, we read the solemn account of one who waited till after his death to begin to pray in earnest. Terrible as was his need, and earnest as was his prayer, there could never be an answer to it, save to tell him of the hopelessness of his request ever being complied with.

Again, in chapters 13:24-28, we find others― “many” seeking to enter in, and not able to do so-loudly, and with earnestness, calling for admittance. But no. Their cry is in vain. Their prayer, the most importunate and deeply fervent that had ever been uttered by them, cannot be answered now. Why? Because they have waited too long. They have delayed till the Master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, and it is too late now!

O my reader, let me say a solemn word to you. Do you not know the Lord Jesus is coming again very soon? His saints are looking for Him. Thousands of them are expecting Him daily. When He comes, He will call out of this poor guilty world all “His own,” to be forever with Himself. The hope of this is the joy of His people’s hearts. They long for it more than they who wait for the morning. On the other hand, what a fearful awakening it will be for dead professors, to find that what they had often heard of, but never heeded, has actually taken place! The Lord has come, and taken away every saint from off the face of the earth! What a stir this will make among those who were easygoing professors before! Of them it may then be said, “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites: who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Notice well that these unhappy people were not the openly evil and profane. No. They were those who had the form of godliness, without the power thereof.

They had a name to live, and were yet dead. They plead their past privileges. But these cannot avail!

“We have eaten and drunk in thy presence,” they cry; as though they said, “Lord, we have taken the sacrament; we have been church members.” Alas, it will be found by-and-bye, that many received what they called the sacrament who had never received God’s grace. There will be many who were “church members,” who were never members of Christ; many whose names were on the “church-roll,” who were never written in heaven. Beware, any reader! Privileges cannot save you. A man could kiss the Son of God, and yet perish after all. The only answer to the prayer of these poor (but too late) awakened ones is, “I know you not whence ye are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.”

There are two prayers in chapter 8 which I must notice briefly before concluding. One was answered, the other was not. In verse 37 we find that the whole multitude of the Gadarenes, who valued their unclean swine more than the Lord of glory, “besought him to depart from them.” He answered their petition, “he went up into the ship, and returned back again.” A sad day, indeed, for them. The Lord had come into their midst, in rich grace and mercy, and they did not want Him. The world and its gains were much more to them, than the display of God’s goodness in their midst. It is a solemn day for the man or woman who, for the sake of any worldly advantage, refuses the grace of Christ, asking Him, as it were, to leave them. There is the awful probability of His taking such at their word. He may answer their prayer, to their everlasting sorrow and loss.

In verse 38 we have a prayer of another kind, but unanswered. This poor demoniac, who was so infinitely indebted to the Saviour, very naturally “besought him that he might be with him.” The Lord had delivered him from the power of devils, and had brought him to “his right mind,” and now he wants to be with his Benefactor. How like this is to the thought in the heart of many a young convert, “Oh, how I wish the Lord would come, or that He would take me to be with Himself.” And yet the Lord does not respond to this request. He leaves us here, instead, in scenes of sorrow and strife and sin. The brightest and the best day has yet to come; but, meanwhile, He leaves us here to witness for Him. So it was in the case of the delivered demoniac. The Lord sends him home (to begin at his own house), to say a good word for Him, and to testify to His grace and power, in the very place where He Himself had been rejected.

Christian reader, have you apprehended this fact, that because you are on earth, and not yet in heaven, though you belong to it, you are a missionary here (a sent one), sent by the Lord, who has saved you, to witness for Him for a little moment in the world out of which He has been cast? See to it, that at His coming you may be owned by Him as a good and faithful servant.

Let us now put these prayers in Luke’s gospel together, thus: ―

1. The Pharisee’s prayer. Unnoticed; it, so to speak, went no higher than the ceiling (ch. 18:11:12).

2. The publican’s prayer. The cry of a broken and contrite heart for mercy, which was at once bestowed (chs. 18:13, 14).

3. The dying thief’s prayer. Immediately answered; he gets assurance of salvation, and is taken to paradise that day (chs. 23:42, 43).

4. The rich man’s prayer. Too late in hell,—the great gulf fixed,―none can pass (chs. 16:23-26).

5. The Christless professor’s prayer. Too late I the Master has risen and shut the door; He knows them not (chs. 13:24-27).

6. The Gadarenes’ prayer. “Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways” (Job 21:14); the world preferred to Christ (ch. 8:37).

7. The convert’s prayer. Not answered at the moment; he must testify for Christ now, and be with Him by-and-bye (chs. 8:38, 39).

F. C.

The Blood, the Ground of the Sinner's Justification.

WHEN Jehovah had delivered His people Israel from Egypt, He desired to dwell among them. He accordingly instructed Moses to build Him a tabernacle, and in the mount showed him a pattern thereof.

But the holiness of God required that man, with whom he dwelt, should be holy too. So He made known the measure of His requirements, by giving the Ten Commandments. In the Holy of holies, where God promised His presence should be, the ark was to be placed, and in the ark two tables of stone, upon which were inscribed the ten commandments.

Here, then, in the dwelling-place of God, in the midst of Israel, was the testimony of what man ought to be for God. Now, if man failed to come up to the Divine standard, as set forth in the law, did he not bring judgment upon himself?

Most certainly he did; and in anticipation of this very failure, God had made a most gracious provision. He not only commanded Moses to make the ark, He directed him to make a mercy-seat as well. Now where was the mercy-seat placed? Turn to Exodus 25, and read from the 21st verse, “And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat.”

Now, notwithstanding that God had not declared in so many words the impotence of man, the mercy-seat was the proof that he could not fulfill God’s requirements expressed in the law, and that he accordingly stood in need of mercy; the mercy-seat was the proof also, that there was mercy for him.

The question may now arise, Admitting man’s inability to keep all the commandments, how could a holy God show mercy to him without receiving satisfaction for his transgression?

The answer to this I get in the 16th chapter of Leviticus, where I find that, once a year, on what was called the great day of atonement, the high priest, as the representative of the people, entered within the veil, and there upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat, sprinkled the blood of the slain goat.

This sprinkled blood was man’s recognition of God’s holiness; it was the expression of a life offered up, to meet His righteous claims in respect of sin.

So we see, that if the law was in God’s presence, in all its divine integrity, a testimony of what man should be for God, there was also the mercy-seat a testimony of His gracious interposition on the sinner’s behalf; and the sprinkled blood, which furnished Him with a ground upon which He could maintain Israel in relationship with Himself.

Furthermore, it is apparent that the very presence of a holy God in the midst of a sinful people, meant nothing less than judgment, unless His righteousness could be satisfied with respect to sin. Bearing this in mind, I can understand the action of the high priest in entering the holiest to sprinkle the blood upon and before the mercy-seat, for three things did that blood accomplish, ― (1) It met the claims of God’s holiness; (2) It averted judgment; (3) It furnished Him with a ground upon which He could, in perfect righteousness, provide a substitute to bear his people’s sins. For Aaron’s first act upon leaving the holiest, was to place his hands upon the head of the scape-goat, and confess over him all the sins of the people, putting them upon its head; and afterward delivering it into the hands of a fit man, who took it into the wilderness, the land not inhabited.

But the law made nothing perfect; it had only a shadow of good things to come, and Scripture teaches us that all these sacrifices and ceremonies were but types of the glorious person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now the cross was the proof not only of man’s guilt, but of his utter inability to produce a righteousness for God. It was the termination of God’s trial of man, a trial which had lasted for four thousand years. He then concluded the whole world (Jew and Gentile) guilty before Him (Rom. 1, 2., and 3); man had been weighed in the balance, and found wanting; he was devoid of righteousness.

Now the tabernacle was but a shadow of heavenly things (Heb. 8:5). In heaven, the eternal abode of Deity, there is a temple, and in the temple the throne of God (Rev. 16:17). Even as Aaron entered into the holy of holies, to sprinkle the blood upon and before the mercy-seat, and thus vindicate the majesty of God,―so “Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:11:12).

Yes, beloved reader, on that great day of atonement, when the Lamb of God was lifted up at Calvary, a sacrifice was made to God, the fulfillment of all the weak and imperfect types from Abel downwards, — a sacrifice so gloriously complete, as to need no repetition.

And, in resurrection, Jesus entered into the very presence of God, ―Himself the mercy-seat; His poured-out blood the evidence of a life, pure, spotless, and holy, offered up to meet the righteous claims of God upon the sinner.

Wondrous sight! the precious blood of Christ carried, as it were, into heaven, and sprinkled upon the very throne of God, vindicating His majesty and holiness, and speaking on behalf of the sinner!

The earthly tabernacle, with its ceaseless services, and its perpetual blood-shedding and sprinkling, passes away before its great antitype, and the one finished work of Christ subsists eternally in all its divine perfectness before God.

In the presence of such a work, undertaken on the sinner’s behalf, what demand can God make upon him? None. But in answer to that infinite sacrifice, and in proof of his perfect acceptance thereof, and complete satisfaction therein, He opens the flood-gates of His forgiving, justifying grace and mercy, and thus addresses man: — “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in His blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Rom. 3:23-28).

What a marvelous exhibition, both of the wisdom and grace of God! Man had shown his utter inability to bring a righteousness to God; he was a helpless sinner. Now, God’s love desired to save him, but His holiness demanded his punishment, and God must be true to His nature. The question then was, Can such a ground be furnished whereby God in righteousness can save the sinner?

It was clear that man could not furnish this. God Himself therefore comes upon the scene, and brings forth One who, by His blood poured forth in death, laid the basis for God to show forth grace in righteousness, the glory of the person of the Adorable Victim giving effect to the work, and on the ground of that accomplished atonement, satisfied justice withdraws its claims, and divine love shines forth in all its power and fullness. God forever ceases to demand that man should gain a righteousness by the works of the law, and gives him one on the principle of faith a righteousness which is as imperishable and eternal as the throne of God itself, depending for its subsistence no more upon the future works of the justified sinner, than upon his past works, but upon the finished work of Christ.

Thus God is glorified about sin, the devil’s vile attempt to thwart His purpose is frustrated, and man is blessed with far richer blessings than would have been his, had he remained innocent in paradise forever.

Do not mistake, however, because I am justified by the sovereign grace of God, and my eternal blessing thus secured, I have no license whatever to sin. On the other hand, I am told to walk as Christ walked (1 John 2:6). To be holy, for God is holy (1 Peter 1:15). To be careful to maintain good works, now that I have believed (Titus 3:8).

It is the Christian’s answer to the grace of God.

It is thus seen that a holy God does not justify the sinner at the expense of His holiness. The very act of justification serves to display divine righteousness, for the ground of that justification, i.e., the death of Christ, is in itself the proof of His infinite Holiness. The righteousness of God is thus manifested, not in judging the sinner, but in justifying him.

The death of Christ can be viewed in a twofold aspect, ―(1) It was a perfect vindication of God in His nature and character, testifying to the truth that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;

and, (2) It opened up a way for God to reveal Himself, in all the fullness of His grace, as one who loved man and sought his blessing;―that grace finding expression in the justification, on the principle of faith, of the man whom, four thousand years before, He had driven out of paradise because of sin, and whose history downward only developed his hatred of righteousness and truth; that hatred finding its culminating point when he laid murderous hands upon God’s only Son, and cast Him out of the world by the way of the cross.

Is further proof required that God has ceased to make demands upon the sinner by imposing the law upon Him as a means of righteousness?

Shortly stated, the matter stands thus, ―

Before the cross, man was responsible to bring a righteousness to God by the works of the law.

Since the cross, God reckons the sinner righteous the moment he believes on Jesus. The blood of Christ forms now the foundation of that throne whereon grace reigns in righteousness.

To attempt, therefore, to gain a righteousness by human effort, is to go back to the first covenant; and this is to frustrate the grace of God, for He annulled the first covenant in order that He might bring in a better. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

The very essence of the Gospel is, that righteousness is a free gift, its source being the GRACE of God, the ground thereof the BLOOD of Jesus, and FAITH the principle upon which the sinner obtains it (Rom. 3:24, 25). W. H. S.

God Waiting.

THE long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a pre-

paring, wherein few, that is, “eight souls, were saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20).

We get a wonderful view of God’s attitude towards man in this passage of Scripture. It was while the ark was a preparing. During that deeply important and solemn period, God’s long-suffering waited upon man, ―waited in wondrous patience, unwilling to strike the blow of judgment. Let us look at the condition of things in those days; for “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” Solemn fact this, and which upsets the idle notion that the world is getting better. The “as” and the “so” of Luke 17:26, to faith, prove beyond question that things are going from bad to worse, and that judgment is the only remedy.

What was the condition of the world then? Genesis 6 will furnish the reply. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (vs. 5). Solemn testimony this, borne by God. But more: “The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt: for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (vss. 11, 12). Such was the state of things; such was the condition of man. Could the Creator, the God of holiness and truth, tolerate such a state of things? Could He wink at the open violation of every law of nature, and the disregarding of His claims and authority? No. God must be God, though it be in awful judgment. “The Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God, that is holy, shall be sanctified in righteousness” (Isa. 5:16). Amid that scene of sin and corruption God speaks: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). Again: “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them: and, behold, I will destroy them with (from) the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher-wood” (vs. 13).

Here God speaks of four things, ―First, The end of all flesh had come before Him; second, The destructive judgment with which He would visit the earth; third, The ark of gopher wood, ―His gracious provision for the saving of Noah and his house; fourth, The period of long-suffering―a hundred and twenty years―during which He waited in wondrous patience upon an apostate and corrupt world. Noah begins to build, and with that commences the period of divine long-suffering. “God’s long-suffering waited... while the ark was a preparing.” Could anything be more solemn?

The first year of the hundred and twenty begins, and continues; Noah builds, God waits; Noah preaches, but not a soul turns to God. The second year, and the third, run their course, but not one penitential cry is heard throughout the whole world;

but still God waits on (and His long-suffering is salvation); Noah builds and preaches, but all in vain. Fifty years have passed,—fifty years of divine patience, and fifty years of ark building and preaching; but God waits in vain for one returning prodigal. “They eat, they drink, they marry wives, and are given in marriage,” but not one turns to God. Time rolls on, Noah builds still, his faith is strong in God, the ark rises in its dimensions. See the old man of nearly five hundred summers; see how he builds His sons, too, moved with the same fear, their faith strong in the message of judgment, build on with him. Hearken! The woods echo with the sound of the ax, and all is life and activity about that strange ship, built in the middle of the land. Each sound of the ax is but a testimony of the coming judgment; every freshly added plank, and every stroke of the workman’s hammer, are but proofs of the gathering storm.

Noah works on. But he not only bears a silent testimony, he also publicly declares the mind of God in reference to what is coming. He is a preacher of righteousness. He lays down his ax and hammer, and preaches to the gathered crowds. See the old man; look into his noble, earnest face; listen to his words, now pathetic enough to melt a heart of stone, now loud enough to awake the dead. He beseeches, he entreats, he implores, he expostulates; he reasons, he warns, he thunders, he denounces; he enforces the claims of God, he magnifies the creature’s responsibility, he spreads before them the awfulness of their sin; he proves to them that the earth is corrupted by them, yea, groans beneath the weight of their guilt, and that the cry for judgment is ever rising to the ears of the Judge of the universe. But all in vain. Not one heart is melted, not one tear is dropped, not one cry is heard, not one knee is bowed in repentance. God’s heart is not refreshed by the return of one prodigal. The people return to their sins and folly, and Noah to his building again.

One hundred years have gone by, and nineteen more besides, and seven days only are left of that period of divine long-suffering. The ark is finished. “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.... For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him” (chapter 7:1, 4, 5). Only a week, seven days, and God’s word shall be verified. The thought is overwhelming! There stands that ark, and eight souls therein, and the vast crowds of unbelievers and mockers without, for unbelief but hardens the former, the objects of divine favor; the latter, by their own sin, have fitted themselves for divine judgment.

Monday is gone by, also Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday’s sun has risen and set, and Saturday morning has broken forth as brightly as ever; the sun shines, the people awake but to renew their sin and shame; the warning note has ceased; they dream of peace and safety; their wise men have declared the folly of Noah; they speak of future prosperity, and of a golden age; they are rocked in the cradle of Satan’s lie. But the moment has arrived, the awful moment of divine vengeance. God stretches forth His hand, and closes the door of the ark. “And the Lord shut him in.” Ah, blessed place! Wonderful figure of Christ risen, in whom all believers are seen. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are IN Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

The awful moment has come; the objects of divine favor are safe; God’s long-suffering is exhausted; He has risen up to judgment; the day of grace is past; the moment of judgment has arrived. “Weep, O earth, for thy desolation shall come in one day;” and God, by judgment, shall rid Him of the stench of human iniquity! God stretches forth His hand and speaks the word, and “the fountains of the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened,” and the two mighty forces meeting, overwhelm and engulf forever the guilty inhabitants of the earth.

It is done! “The Lord of hosts is exalted in judgment, and God, that is holy, is sanctified in righteousness.” “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the clays of the Son of man” (Luke 17:26-30). “When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thess. 5:3).

Beloved reader, I beseech you to make sure of Christ (the ark of safety) now, and escape the awful judgment that is impending. Delay not, for the storm will soon break forth.

E. A.

A Present Precious Possession.

IN temporal matters men are divided into three classes,—rich, poor, and middle-class; in spiritual matters there are only two, boundlessly rich, and miserably poor. The first of these two is composed of those who know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for their sakes became poor, that they through His poverty might be rich (2 Cor. 8:9). To them have been preached the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8); they have embraced all in simple faith, and are now rejoicing in that precious Saviour, and all the precious things they possess in Him. I now call your attention to some of those things described in a few simple words of Holy Scripture. In Ephesians 1:7, it is written, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Notice―

1.―The Character of the Possession.

“There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Eccl. 7:20). “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). How sweeping are God’s statements! He speaks of all as “sinners,” and our guilty consciences echo, “sinners.” He tells of a day when He will judge even the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, rendering to every man according to his deeds (Rom. 2:6, 16). If Adam for one sin was driven from Eden, what will become of those who have many sins? If God cannot have any in His holy place but those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who can stand there? (Psa. 24:3, 4.) We are unclean, within and without; hearts and hands defiled with sin. For such sin-defiled creatures, what place can there be but the everlasting prison-house of hell?

Ah, listen, God speaks of redemption, of forgiveness! The dungeon of hell is not to be the eternal habitation of those whom He addresses, for He says they have redemption, their sins are forgiven. Can it be true? Yes, for God Himself says it; nothing less than this is the possession of those to whom He writes,― redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

2. Who are the Possessors?

“We,” says the text. But the anxious one cries, How may I know that I am included? Look lower down in the chapter to see who are included in the “we.” In vs. 12 we read of those who “trusted in Christ;” and in the following one, of those who heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, and believed on Christ, being consequently sealed with the Holy Spirit. This makes the word in our text clear; “we” embraces in its blessed circle all who have heard the glad tidings of salvation, and have believed on Jesus as their Saviour, trusting only in Him. Anxious soul! have you heard and believed? Many struggle and hope for salvation, they are not included in the “we;” but the feeblest, most sin-sick soul, that simply hears and believes, has his place amongst the rich possessors.

3.—When Have we the Possession?

Now, in the present time; for our text does not read “bad,” nor “will have;” it refers us neither to past nor future, but speaks of one blessed continuous present in the words “we have.” Do not then, dear soul, be deluded into the thought, that you cannot know your sins forgiven while upon earth. Men are either in their sins before God (a place of terrible solemnity), or they have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. They who have heard and believed the gospel, have now this blessed possession.

4.―On what Ground have we this Possession?

If God be the thrice-holy God, before whom the seraphim veil their faces and feet; if righteousness and judgment are the establishment of His throne, ―how can He forgive the sins of such an unclean thing as I am? Our text beautifully conveys the answer; it is “through His blood.” Much as God desired to bless the sinner, He must do it in a way consistent with His own righteousness. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins; but Jesus, God’s beloved Son, came, suffered as a lamb without blemish and without spot; and His blood, which God delights to call “precious blood” (1 Peter 1:19), is the ground upon which He forgives sins. Mark this well, reader; it is not on the ground of anything you are, nor of anything you have done, are doing, or will do; but on this simple basis alone, ― “His blood.” In that precious stream which flowed from the Saviour’s pierced side, read your title to the “forgiveness of sins.” Learn in it God’s thorough abhorrence of your sins, but His unutterable love in providing a ransom for you Nothing short of the untold sufferings and agonies of the Son of God could purchase you this possession. His work being finished, do not think to add to its perfection by any doings of yours; His precious blood having been shed, do not dream of adding anything to its value. God could not act upon a lesser basis, but He needs nothing more. Beholding then in His blood an indisputable title to present and everlasting blessing, embrace that blessing in simple faith, your soul adoring the peerless Person of Him who died that it might be yours.

5.―According to what Measure is the Possession ours?

You may say, I have been a great sinner, can God forgive such a one? Here is His measure, ― “the riches of His grace.” Are you afraid that your need is so great that it would more than exhaust God’s riches to meet it? That cannot be. He is “rich in mercy;” He has “riches of grace;” do not fear Jesus, dispensing those riches, said of the poor woman, whose case is recorded in Luke 7, “Her sins, WHICH ARE MANY, are forgiven.” Saul of Tarsus, the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), was himself used of God to write the words of our text, and he includes himself in the circle of blessing, saying, “we.” But again, you may say, I fear that I am not worthy of such favor. It is quite true, you are not worthy; but mark well, the measure of forgiveness is not your worthiness. It is not according to anything you have been, anything you are, or anything you hope to be, but it is “according to the riches of His grace.”

6.― IN WHOM IS IT POSSESSED?

The words “In whom” of our text, refer to the previous verse, from which we find that it is “in the Beloved.” How fitting that it should be so. In days long gone by, when famine was in all lands, the word was, “Go unto Joseph” (Gen. 41:55). He who had been despised and sold, ―was the dispenser of the plenty which had been stored. Jesus has been crucified by the world; but the believer gladly owns that everything He possesses, he has in and through Christ Jesus, the Beloved One of God’s heart. Those who have their sins forgiven now, will throughout eternity adore Him who loved them, and gave Himself for them, ascribing all glory to Him.

J. R.

The Dying Peasant.

MRS. S―was dying, and she knew it. A poor peasant woman, living with a married son and daughter-in-law, she had but few comforts in this world, and yet the prospect of leaving it was a very gloomy one to her. Death in one of its direst forms―by cancer―was very close to her. To live, was simply an agony; and yet she dared not die, for very terror of meeting a God who was a stranger to her. A stern stranger, too, she thought Him, for as yet she knew Eat that He was the God of love.

Her life had been shameful, so her neighbors said, but we shall draw a veil over the details of it; enough, that God knew all about it, and yet He loved her. Yes, reader, He loved her, ―loved that poor sinful woman so much, that He gave His only Son to die for her.

Does this statement startle you? If it does, I fear you have not yet learned how unfit you your-self are to meet God. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Ponder that word, for if you cannot take your place on the same platform as that on which she stood in His presence, Christ has died in vain for you.

Mrs. S― looked back on her past Me, and the retrospect was appalling to her. She owned herself vile; therefore God’s time had come to reveal His love to her, and I will tell you of the way He took to do it. The wife of the Pastor who sometimes visited her, heard of the poor woman’s illness, and (herself newly converted) called to see her. Her heart was melted at the sight of her sufferings. She spoke soothingly to her, and the voice of sympathy is very sweet to the ear of suffering. Her confidence was gained, and she soon told her visitor that she had found out that she was a great sinner.

Gladly her friend told her of the One who is called Jesus, ―the Saviour, ―the Sinner’s Friend. How sweet that name is! She spoke of the deep, deep love that had brought Him down to die for the chief of sinners, to hang upon the cross in agonies for them; bearing the punishment of their sins, that they might not have to bear it. She told her that God had said, “It is the blood which maketh atonement for the soul,” and of how the blood of His own most blessed Son had been poured out for her on the cross; of how God had forsaken Him, because our sins were on Him there; and of how He had cried out, “It is finished.” That the wonderful work which He came to do was done; and then, when all had been accomplished, that He was laid in the grave, and rose again, triumphing over it, an incontestable proof that God’s righteous claims against the sinner were forever satisfied. She read to her the verse that had brought peace to her own soul.

I will tell you what it was, reader, because it has brought peace to many a sin-burdened soul besides. May God bless it to you! It is in Romans 10:8, 9 ― “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” That, with many another beautiful gospel verse, she read to her; and at last she saw it all, for her blind eyes were opened. She saw her very own sins laid upon the head of the blessed Son of God (just as if He had died for her alone), and her only claim to the merits of that death that she was a sinner, because it was for helpless good-for-nothing sinners that He had come to die.

Ah! it is a grand thing to be able to take one’s place as utterly vile, for it is of such God says, “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24).

At once the poor sufferer’s heart was filled with joy. She found Christ, and in Him all she needed. Terror gave place to confidence, for she saw that God’s own Son had undertaken her cause, and she feared not to leave it in His mighty hand.

Her sufferings were now intense, yet she scarce heeded them, so mightily did the consciousness of the Lord’s love sustain her. She had heard One voice, sweeter, ten thousand times sweeter, than the sweetest earthly voice, and she longed to be with the One who had spoken peace to her soul.

Jesus’ name was music to her ear. What cared she now, though the affection of those she loved best was becoming estranged because of the loathsomeness of her disease, and they would have been glad if she were gone!

There is a superstition which prevails among the Irish peasantry, that if there are wild birds’ feathers in a bed it is impossible to die upon it. So they took her from her bed, and laid her upon a pallet of straw. For some days longer she lingered, enduring agonies, many a half-muttered moan suppressed; while ever and anon, from those parched and suffering blanched lips, issued forth the bright song of praise. Above all others she loved these words, and sang them loudly, while those around her wondered, ―

“And when on that bright day I rise

To join the anthems of the skies,

Above the rest this note shall swell,

My Jesus hath done all things well―

My Jesus hath done all things well.”

She is with Him now; and throughout all eternity her heart will rejoice to sing the song of praise, begun in pain and feebleness here, for He is “worthy.”

Can you not trust this blessed Lord Jesus? His breast, what a pillow it is for the dying head! His truth and His love, what a resting-place! Whatever your life may have been, His word to you is, “Come unto me” (Matt. 11:28); and, “him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37). E. L. W.

Jonah's Sermon.

(Read Jonah 3)

JONAH’S was a short sermon; it contained but eight words in all. Hear what he said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” That was the burden of Jonah’s preaching. It was a word of threatening judgment.

“Nineveh, that great city! Who can overthrow it? who can touch Nineveh?” unbelief might have so said. And what does unbelief now say? ― That the Bible is an old woman’s book. Ah! but why then is there such a fuss made about the ruins of Nineveh? Do they not prove that the Bible is true? What Jonah threatened, has come to pass. Nineveh has been overthrown.

Mark what effect these eight words of God had on the inhabitants of the great city. Did the Ninevites sit down, and calculate what they could do before the day of overthrow should come? Did they say, “We have forty days before us yet; we will have our fling of sinning?” No! not one so spoke. “The people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” They believed God, and neither scoffed at the preaching, nor reckoned on these forty days of grace. They one and all of them repented. You might have heard the king say, “What avails my kingly robe, if in forty days I shall be in eternity?”

He flung his robe aside. We read, “The word came unto the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.” What a wonderful sight I King and people are clothed in sackcloth, and sitting in ashes!

Sinner, have you laid aside your robe? Have you clothed yourself in moral sackcloth, and do you sit in the ashes of repentance? Hear what the Lord says, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it.” Why? “Because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Matt. 12:41). Yes, indeed a greater than Jonas was here! But have you repented? The Ninevites repented when they heard the prophet’s words; and you, my reader, have often heard the words of the Lord’s ambassador, but have you repented?

Do you ask, “Must I repent in order to be saved?” Most certainly you must repent. Then what is repentance? “Repentance is the tear-drop in the eye of faith.” Faith is believing God, and repentance is humbling one’s self before God. You have sins, for you know you are a sinner. Do not think of others; think of no one but yourself. I mean you. When a man really repents, he thinks every one right but himself. Have you been wakened up to the fact that you are a ruined sinner? The Lord Jesus has come; but the point is, do you believe it, and do you see you need a Saviour? The Ninevites repented, and mercy followed their repentance. “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did not.”

If you repent, you will first come to yourself. This is what we read the prodigal did in Luke 15:17, when he had spent all in the far country, ― “he came to himself” Did you ever think that you were a spiritual lunatic, my reader? You may have read in the daily paper of one who in a fit of momentary insanity took away his life; but did it ever occur to you, dear unsaved soul, that you are a spiritual suicide, that you are sacrificing your precious, your never-dying soul? Yours is no momentary insanity! Is any moral insanity greater than that evinced by thousands, who are hastening on the road which leads straight to hell, where they perish forever? They are spiritual suicides, who hear the Gospel, but do not believe it. The men of Nineveh were wiser than you are. They heard, and they repented, for they believed the word of God.

Repentance is a blessed thing. The moment you repent, God rejoices. “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” Jesus said so; and why all this joy? Because the sinner who repents, is awakened to see his real condition before God. It is the Spirit of God which works this repentance, and it is because the word of God is believed and received into the heart. What is it that makes the sinner anxious at the Gospel meeting? It is the Spirit of God at work with him. He hears God’s word, which tells him what he really is, namely, a sinner before God. Oh, what a beautiful sight is a company of anxious souls! Heaven beheld a city-full, when in Nineveh, from the king downwards, every soul believed the word of God, and repented. The people were clothed in sackcloth; and if you repent, as you read this paper, God will see you in the dust of repentance, and clothed in moral sack-cloth and ashes.

Had you gone into Nineveh after the day of Jonah’s preaching, you would have found no laughter there. Solemn anguish of soul was written on every face. What a thorough humbling before God that was That is what you need, my friend; what must be, before God can repent Himself of the evil He hath said must fall―yea, does now rest― on the impenitent sinner. I suppose earth never presented such a sight as that which Heaven beheld when, from one end of the city to the other, the people of Nineveh lay in self-abasement before God.

When a man judges himself, and believes that which God says is the truth regarding him, he repents. Now what has He said of you? I address my unsaved reader. He says, You are lost! Do you believe it? You say, “I hope not.” Friend, you have not repented, ―that is clear. You have not yet gone down in your own eyes, as did the prodigal. He said, “I am no more worthy to be called thy son.” He allowed and declared what was the true state of matters within. There was no cloaking up of what he really was, yet he had a wrong thought about his father. He expected to get a servant’s place in the house; and with all the humbling the Ninevites manifested, there was something wrong at the bottom with them also. They had a wrong thought about God. They said, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

“Who can tell if God will turn?” Ah, that was all they could say of God? They did not know the heart of God; but I do, and I can tell you that the moment the sinner repents, God will save him. “If,” was all they could venture on. I can tell you assuredly, that when you bow to the word of God, you will have the Father’s kiss of love. He longs to see you coming from “the far country.” God gave His Son to take the guilty sinner’s place. God was never unreconciled, and now we pray you to be reconciled. Listen to the Saviour’s words, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth, in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The men of Nineveh might say, “Perhaps we shall not perish;” but Jesus said, “Whosoever believeth shall not perish.” That is God’s answer to all doubting, all unbelief.

They repented at the preaching of Jonah, but the Gospel we preach tells more than Jonah’s sermon did. It tells that Christ has come and done a work, which enables God to bless every one who comes to Him, having “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

When you believe what God says of you, you will have this repentance toward God; and when you simply trust Jesus, you have faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

You tell me you are miserable! Well, I thank God you are miserable; I rejoice to hear it, for then I am sure you are on the way to blessing. But do I hear another say, “I never was miserable because of sin?” So much the worse for you; but your day is coming, you must get into God’s presence sooner or later. Better far to get there now, when God is blessing, and whilst grace reigns. Listen to what the Word of God says to you: ― “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”

Heed what Romans 2. says. Oh, what an awful thing for a sinner to despise the goodness of God! Well, you have done this, for you have heard the Gospel which tells of His grace, and you have not bowed to it. You are still unsaved! What a testimony against yourself! You know not that the goodness of God ‘would lead you to repentance. Oh, embrace the present moment. Come to Christ now. God is working by His grace, Christ has finished His work, and the Holy Ghost is here convincing of sin. Turn to God, and you shall be blessed. Salvation is sure, if you come now. Listen to the beseechings of grace, ―the rich grace of the Saviour-God. Let His goodness lead thee to repentance. Come to God as you are, ―a sinner, in your rags. Come now, ―

“Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,

Lost and ruined by the fall;

If you tarry till you’re better,

You will never come at all:

Not the righteous―

Sinners Jesus came to call.”

Did the prodigal get new clothes before he started for the father’s house? Not In his rags he came, filthy and unworthy as he was. Oh, touching love! He got the kiss of reconciliation the moment he came. Let this repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, be found in your soul. Let there be the simple earnest reception of the Gospel now. God calls you. When He called Abraham, Abraham obeyed; “he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” May you do so just now. I have believed God, I have seen my ruin, I have come to Jesus. I know His work is done, and it avails for me. Do you think you are too great a sinner to share the benefits of what Christ has done? I can relieve you on that score, if only you will listen to the precious words of Revelation, which calls upon every soul who reads this to believe. “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” “Whosoever,” charming word! heaven-born word! Sinner, of whatsoever caste you are, that word whosoever calls upon you to bow to God’s invitation to believe, to rejoice, and to be saved.

W. T. P. W.

Man's Question and God's Answer.

“WHAT must I do to be saved?” was the earnest cry of the trembling prison-keeper of Philippi. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou, shalt be saved, and thy house,” was the immediate reply of the two devoted servants of God, whom he had so recently thrust into the pestilential inner prison, and fastened their feet in the cruel stocks. Blessed be God, neither prisons nor stocks, neither men nor devils, can hinder His grace from flowing, nor His Spirit from working.

A mysterious voice had awakened the sleeping Apostle, as, one night, he pillowed his wearied head on the Asiatic shore, calling him over into Europe, to meet, by the Gospel, the appalling spiritual need that abounded. Assuredly gathering that the Lord had called him for this service, in a field new and untried, he, with his companions, set sail from Troas, and hastened to Philippi, a chief town of Macedonia. But no warm welcome awaited him. The spiritual walls of Philippi reared their haughty pride against this bold evangelist. Deputations and invitations failed to greet his arrival. His was a path of faith, and one that was sustained not by man but God. Undaunted, he marched to victory.

Yet notice, “he abode in the city certain days.” Idly? Nay! Seeking human countenance? Nay! It was the pause of faith. The servant is passive. He waits on the Master. See the honor heaped upon him. Outside the city, in the strange “place of prayer,”―substitute for the synagogue, — a few women had habitually assembled for the purpose of expressing their need to God. How insignificant! A handful of women praying in the outside place!

Yes, but God heard them. Little does it matter whence prayer proceeds, since the ear of the living God is on the watch.

Supplicants, plead on; “continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

Not Europe only, but Christendom, is indebted to that little knot of earnest seekers for God.

“Help,” as expressed by the vision, arrives. Paul speaks to this company. The Lord opens the heart of Lydia, who at once identifies herself with the messenger and his work; becoming, like Zacchaeus, the host of the truth, and, through her conversion, stirs up the wrath of Satan. Evangelistic work that has not this effect, is not worth much. When religion goes in silver slippers, she has plenty of followers, says Bunyan.

The result is, that Paul and Silas are imprisoned. Double walls and firm stocks are Satan’s plan to hinder their work. How futile! The God who had heard the prayers of Lydia from outside the city, now hears the prayers of Paul inside the prison. They prayed and sang praises, ―they gave thanks even there. What a moral victory!

Well, the keeper of the prison was asleep, but He that kept the prisoners “neither slumbered nor slept.”

“Happy they who trust in Jesus,

Sweet their portion is, and sure;

When the foe on others seizes,

God will keep His own secure.”

Infinitely more happy was Paul, in the stocks for Christ’s sake, than the jailor, on his bed of down, in the service of Satan. On him, the foe of a guilty conscience was just about to seize. His time of trembling was at hand. That in which the prisoners were to retire, as “more than conquerors,” drew nigh.

The prison was shaken, and the prisoners’ bonds were loosed. God had interposed.

Supposing the prisoners had fled, and knowing that their escape and his life went together, the guilty jailor was about to commit suicide.

“Do thyself no harm,” said the voice of pity and forgiveness, from the loathsome dungeon.

All this proved too much for this stouthearted sinner. The evident blending of judgment and mercy; the power of God in shaking the prison, and the grace of God, in the words of Paul, completed the conquest of his stubborn spirit.

He came in, trembling, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

How sudden a collapse! The Philippian jail and the Philippian jailor were broken down together; it was God’s power in each case.

The jail might have been reconstructed after the old form, on the same foundation; not so the jailor. It was no mere reformation that he craved; the foundation and the structure must be totally new. In a word, he must be a “new creation.”

What he sought, therefore, was salvation.

When a man finds out, as all must do sooner or later, that he is lost, then nothing short of salvation suffices. Reformation may do for a man who deems himself only bad; but when sin is duly felt, a Saviour is sought, and, through mercy, readily found. Hence the quick and blessed answer to the jailor’s cry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

And the result? He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes. Like Lydia, he at once identified himself with God’s messenger, and would have undone, had he been able, the cruel sufferings he had inflicted. Then he and his were baptized; and he “set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.”

Thus he believed and rejoiced, and fed and ministered to the very men whom, just before, he considered only fit for imprisonment.

How real a thing is conversion to God! My reader, are you converted? This is a plain but all-important question; as necessary in that of the gentle Lydia, as in that of the violent jailor; absolutely necessary in all.

But how many a soul, brought to the discovery of its guilt, has, like the jailor, found peace through the answer to his question! Salvation connects itself with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment you truly believe in Him, then you are saved.

Thank God for such a way. J. W. S.

The Good Samaritan.

(Read Luke 10:30-37.)

“A CERTAIN man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” that is to say, his back was turned upon Jerusalem, God’s center, God’s dwelling-place on earth, and therefore the place of blessing; and his face was turned towards Jericho, the place of the curse (Josh. 6:26, 1 Kings 16:34.) He is thus a true type of every unconverted, unsaved man, woman, and child. Such are indeed traveling away from God; their backs are on heaven, and they are facing the lake of fire, and each step they take brings them nearer and nearer to that awful place of endless misery.

Reader, are you at this moment helping to swell the ranks of the giddy, thoughtless multitude, who are rushing headlong to destruction? In real love for your precious soul, and with deepest desires for your eternal welfare, I feel bound to tell you, that if you have not come to Christ, as a poor lost sinner, for salvation; if you have not yet trusted Him; if you are still unwashed in His blood, it matters not what else you may be,―the most religious, the most moral, the most amiable personage in your county,― you are indeed going straight to hell! May God use this paper to awaken you to a discovery of the awful fact; for to be alive to one’s danger, is to have taken the first step towards escaping it.

But further. He “fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” Man has tried to do without God; but alas, turning his back on Him, it is but to fall into Satan’s grip! Who is it that has thus made man his captive, but the devil? and what is the treatment man receives at his hands? Stripped of his innocence, he is a naked sinner before God; wounded, in other words, covered with sins; half dead, for the wages of sin is death.

What a wretched, worthless, pitiable object! guilty, ruined, and ready to perish! Is there no eye to pity? None to have compassion? Must he indeed die in his sins, and be eternally lost? “By chance” a certain priest came that away, “likewise a Levite;”

but they had neither the will nor the power to render assistance in such a desperate case, for

“None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good.”

But now came “a certain Samaritan.” Why a Samaritan? Ah, reader, that poor perishing Jew would doubtless remember how he had hated and despised the Samaritan! He would not have been seen in his company; he looked down upon him, despised and rejected him; he had therefore no claim upon him whatever; and had the Samaritan left him to perish, all we could have said was, he richly deserved it at his hands. But no. “A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed” (no chance here, mark, as with the priest and the Levite), “came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him.” Blessed grace! thrice blessed Saviour! Thou didst come where I lay, not by chance, but on purpose to save me! I had no claim on Thee. It was

“Love moved Thee to die, on this I rely;

My Saviour hath loved me, I cannot tell why!

But this I can tell, Thou hast loved me so well,

As to lay down Thy life to save me from hell!”

He did not come half-way, or three-fourths, or nine-tenths of the way; he came where he was, and, in a word, he saved him. He bound up his wounds; and Isaiah 53:5 tells me how He did this; for “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Yes, it was by actually taking my place on the cross, becoming my Substitute there, bearing my sins and all their judgment, that He is able to save me now; to pour in the oil and the wine of His salvation, and thus close my wounds forever; for who dare open what He has closed? “Your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more! “Blessed, perfect, eternal salvation! Say, my reader, will you accept it? It is “the gift of God sent free.” Any conditions? Yes; but oh, how simple! Only to take your place before God, a helpless, bankrupt, ruined sinner, and let Him save you. “Wilt thou be made whole?” is His question. He waits to save you the moment you will unreservedly trust Him.

One word more. Some soul says, “I would like to be saved now; but I am afraid I would not be able to keep on right.” Is that your thought? Then mark what follows in our chapter. Did the Good Samaritan leave the poor man to make the best of his way along afterward? Indeed no. He set him on his own beast, brought him (temporarily) to an inn, took care of him, promised to come again, and charged himself with providing for all his necessities during his absence. What more could he do? Blessed Jesus! Thou hast saved me, art caring for and keeping me, and wilt come again for me! Thou hast acted, art acting, and wilt act in a way altogether worthy of Thyself? True, he did not wish this object of his love to settle down in luxury during his absence, so he did not leave a large sum of money; but he left a sufficiency, two pence. But with the two pence he left the promise of coming again. Oh, how blessed to belong to Christ! Death and judgment are behind me; His coming, to take me to His home, before me; and by the way He cares for me, provides for all my need, and will never leave me nor forsake me. Come, poor sinner; do come.

“Come to Jesus

Just now!”

H. P. A. G.

Thanksgivings for What?

Matthew 26:26-29; Luke 22:19, 20; 17:15, 16; 18:11, 12; Col. 1:12-14.

THANKSGIVING becomes the creature, and especially the fallen creature. The passages at the head of this paper give us instances of this. In the Gospels we read on more than one occasion of the Lord giving thanks. He gave thanks ere He fed the multitude in the wilderness (Matt. 15:36); He gave thanks ere He raised Lazarus (John 11:41), and we learn that from the evangelist, who doubtless heard what it was that He said. He gave thanks likewise at the institution of His supper; but though Matthew was present, who acquaints us with its institution, and John was in the closest possible connection with Hint at the moment, neither of these evangelists, nor any other New Testament writer, has put on record a word that formed part of that eucharistic service. A reason for their silence we may all understand. Had the form of this thanksgiving been preserved, we may be pretty sure it would have been the form used at each celebration of the Supper; instead of the person then leading the thanksgiving of the company, being dependent on the Spirit’s guidance for the way in which he should express himself to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our Father too.

Instructive, however, it is for us, as we learn that the Lord at that time gave thanks. And for what? He was holy. He had no need for a sacrifice to be offered on His behalf; yet evidently His heart was full, as He gave expression to it in a eucharistic utterance. Now this simple fact, is enough to settle all doubts and unbelieving fears as to the fullness and sufficiency of His sacrifice on the cross! He gave thanks! He did not pray; He did not ask for anything. Thanksgiving is all that we learn at that time came forth from His heart and lips, as He broke the bread and gave it to the disciples, and likewise the cup to drink of.

He had a baptism to be baptized with, He tells us, and how was He straitened till it should be accomplished (Luke 12:50). Till all His sufferings connected with the cross were passed, He would, He must, be straightened. But His death over, His resurrection an accomplished fact, He would be able to give free vent to the desire of His heart, and to tell His disciples of the rich results for guilty men flowing from it (Luke 24:46, 47). He did this on the day that He rose.

Looking forward doubtless to the far and wide-reaching results of His atoning death, He, the spotless victim, the Lamb of God, gave thanks. God would be glorified in a way He never had before, or could be equally again. His holiness, His righteousness, would be seen, maintained in all their perfection; yet love, mercy, and grace be known and enjoyed by some who had sinned. Nor only was it that guilty ones should know divine love by being objects of it, but God would have the joy of showing it; and He, the victim about to die, would see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied (Isa. 53:11). Sin dealt with, and to be put away from the heavens and the earth; guilty ones to be freed by grace from its power now, and by and by from its presence! No wonder, as He surveyed these results, He gave thanks when He took the bread and break it, and gave it to the apostles to eat.

Further, atonement to be made by His blood, God’s righteousness to be displayed in accepting guilty ones before His throne, forgiveness of sins by His blood to be preached and enjoyed; justification too to be known, entrance into the holiest to be opened by it likewise, and redemption both by blood and power to be accomplished? What joy must have filled His heart, as, handing the cup for them to drink of, He could anticipate in thought the blessings to be purchased by His blood!

Nor was this all. Not only would guilty ones be pardoned and justified, and alienated hearts be reconciled to God, but new heavens and a new earth shall appear, wherein shall dwell righteousness, — no stain of sin being found there, nor the presence of that hateful thing which now weighs on creation ever effecting a resting-place in either the one or the other!

“All root of evil banished,

No breath of sin to wither,

In earth, on high;

Naught else but joy

And blissful peace forever!”

Who can wonder that, in view of all these results to flow from His atoning death, He gave thanks? And what becomes each one who shares in blessings founded on atonement? Thanksgiving.

Let us now turn to the picture presented in Luke 18:11, 12. There we see a creature―a responsible creature, a sinful creature― giving thanks to God. And for what? “God, I thank thee,” are the words, “that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” What he said he was, what he had done, what he had given to God’s service, ― these are the grounds of his thanksgiving. Very possibly he had never been an extortioner, or knowingly unjust; but could the absence of these sins make him perfect? Doubtless he fasted twice in the week. Granted, too, that he gave tithes of all he possessed. Did the enumeration of what he was not, and the sum of what he did,—did all that constitute and exhaust the whole duty of man? If it did not, he was a guilty creature, and deserving of divine judgment.

But in what a circle did this man’s thoughts run! All was about himself. Not a thought had he of anything received. He went into the presence of the Giver of all good, not to own himself even a dependent creature, nor an object of divine mercies, but simply to tell God how good he was, or had been. He was not as that publican. How true; but how solemnly true. That publican was real before God. He, wrapped up in his own self-righteousness, knew not that whilst saying he was rich, he was the wretched and the miserable one, ―poor, blind, and naked. Yet eucharistic was his utterance, and addressed to God. God heard it, but He did not accept it; for the publican, we read, “went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

But some will say, That was a parable. Granted. But a parable to teach us something. The Lord’s parabolic instruction has in it a definiteness and purpose, which men would do well to understand.

Did such a character as that pharisee exist only on paper? Was it only created for the parable? Were there none of that class on earth then? Are there none now? Is the race quite extinct? Have none had to plead guilty to its being a picture of what they once were, when ignorant of themselves, ignorant of God, and ignorant of the need and value of the atoning death of Christ? Let the reader ponder over it. A creature born in sin, deserving only the wrath of God, coming to Him just to narrate its own goodness, and what it was not! How poor was that pharisee! How blind! He had never partaken of the grace of salvation. He had never learned his need of it. And any one who answers to this description, is just moving on to that day of judgment, when, if he continues unchanged, he must inevitably be condemned, and that forever.

We have said that the Lord, when on earth, on more than one occasion gave thanks. There are just two besides Him in the Gospels of whom we read that they gave thanks,—the pharisee to whom we have referred, and the healed Samaritan leper (Luke 17:16). From no others have we eucharistic utterances. The leper healed, with his companions the nine Jews; he received all that he had desired; he had tasted of divine mercy and favor, and he was healed of his disease. In common with his companions in misery, he had started off to show himself to the priest; but, healed on the way, he turned back. He, a Samaritan, who could not, like a Jew, claim Messiah’s help, had yet sought, and found it in common with them. A step further then he could not go, till he had owned to the Lord what had been done for him. He had received; so he would, he must, give. Thanksgiving came forth from his lips to express the feelings of his heart.

The pharisee spoke only of his own goodness; the Samaritan only of that which had been shown to him. God heard both. But which was pleasing and acceptable to Him? Not the one who only spoke of his goodness; but the one who could tell of divine favor consciously received. It was that which filled the Samaritan’s heart, and opened his mouth. And that was pleasing to the Lord. The pharisee in the parable got no word from God. He spoke to Him, but there was no response. God heard, but said nothing. The Samaritan spoke, ― he could not help it, ―and the Lord responded at once. “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” It was well worth turning back, to receive such a word of commendation and assurance from Christ.

But for what would the reader of these lines give thanks? For anything received? Any favor, any soul blessing? All are not lepers needing to be healed. But each of us by nature is both guilty and lost. The guilty one needs forgiveness and justification. The lost one needs salvation. Now it was this, and more than this, that the Colossian saints had received in common with Paul. So, as recipients of divine favor, he and they could give thanks together. Once under the power of darkness, and guilty, they were set free from its thraldom, and were forgiven. And they knew it. The power of darkness what a thought. Darkness is the opposite of light, so is opposed to God, who is Light. In darkness that pharisee clearly was and how great was that darkness These saints had been delivered from the power of it, and were translated into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, and were made meet by the Father to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Relationship to God was theirs, and they knew it. He was their Father. An inheritance, too, was theirs, and they were made meet to share it with the saints in light. What they had been—guilty, and under the power of darkness—is plainly stated. What they had, and were, is as definitely detailed.

Imagine that pharisee in their company, ―they and he engaged in a eucharistic service. But not together. How could they? He would be extolling himself. They would be celebrating divine grace. He would be trumpeting forth his own praises. They would be proclaiming the praises of God and of His Son. The remembrance of the Lord’s death, and that He only gave thanks at the institution of the Supper, would be filling their hearts to overflowing. The pharisee would be a stranger there. A strain of worship he would hear, in which he had no part, and which he could not understand. Of God, and the Father of the Lord, and of His death, they would speak. He would only be talking of himself. They and he, though alike children of Adam, would in their thoughts and words be as wide as the poles asunder. They were God’s children. He was not.

With which of these would each reader of these lines be most at home? Has thanksgiving flowed from each heart? And for what? Has it been hitherto the thanksgiving of the pharisee, or in principle that of the Samaritan, and in reality that of the Colossian saints? A recipient of the grace of God in salvation, is the only one who can fully and acceptably thank Him. C. E. S.

“THE grace that brought the father out to the prodigal, reigns through the righteousness which brought the prodigal in to the father. It would not have been grace, had the father waited for the son to deck himself in robes of his own providing, and it would not have been righteous to bring him in in his rags; but both grace and righteousness shone forth, in all their respective brightness and beauty, when the father went out and fell on the prodigal’s neck, but yet did not give him a seat at the table until he was clad and decked in a manner suited to that elevated and happy position.” C. H. M.

Innocence, Guilt, Grace.

THERE are three distinct aspects in which Scripture speaks of man. I desire to look a little at each of them. First, ―

Innocence.

How bright the picture of man and his circumstances that we have traced for us in Genesis 1, 2. He is not merely the noblest of all God’s creatures, but in his Very being he is different. When God made the other creatures, He had but to speak, and it was; to command, and it stood fast. But when man was in question, there was counsel: ― “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” In that he stands alone.

Then, again, look at man’s place in creation, as set forth in these words, “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing.” What a position! What an inheritance! What a noble being was man, as created in the image and likeness of God! What an exalted position was his, as set over all the works of God’s hands! Such was man, and such his place in creation.

In Genesis 2:19, 20. we see man installed in his place, and God is the first to own him in that place; for He brings all the creatures He had made to Adam, and he gives them their names. What a sight to gaze upon! The creature filling his place according to God, and God owning him in that place. Man perfectly happy. Not a fear in his heart, not a misgiving in his mind, as God draws nigh to him. How interesting all this is! And all the more interesting, because it is gone; and gone, never to return. How dark and terrible the contrast between man then and man now! Instead of being lord of creation, having dominion over all things, he is the miserable slave of circumstances, eating his bread by the sweat of his brow. Instead of being happy with God, he is full of fear at the very thought of meeting Him. On every hand suffering meets the eye, and groans salute the ear. What has wrought all this sad, sad change? Can you account for it, proud man, with all your knowledge? Can you, with all your wondrous discoveries, provide a remedy for it? Can you hush the groans of creation, and dry up the tears of a suffering race? Can you arrest the onward march of the king of terrors? You cannot? Why not then listen to God’s account of it, and accept His remedy?

Now, let us turn and look at the next aspect, ―

Guilt.

In Genesis 3:8, 10, we read, they heard the voice of the Lord God; and what took place? Did they run to do Him homage? Nay; but they ran and hid themselves. Oh, how different from chapters 2:19, 20.

There all was peace, joy, and gladness. Here all is fear and terror. Why? Reader, your conscience tells you why, ―they had sinned. They had given up God for the creature. But He will not give them up. He becomes a seeker; man is a hider. God’s “Where art thou?” is answered by Adam in these words, ― “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Surely, if we saw man in all the joy and blessedness of innocence in chapters 2, here we see him in all the helpless, hopeless misery of sin and guilt. And is it not the same to this very hour? Is there any one that man so much dreads to meet as God? Were I asked to prove that man is a sinner, I would put in as conclusive proof, that he is afraid of God. Reader, is your heart at perfect rest as you think of that holy Lord God? Think of it, exposed to death every moment, and afraid to meet God, ― what a condition to be in!

Well now, we have seen man in innocence, and enjoying its blessedness for a little season; and we have seen him in guilt, and dreading its consequences forever. Let me ask you, can you do aught to help yourself in such a case? Man soon began to try and repair the mischief. They made themselves aprons of fig-leaves, and they were satisfied with each other’s doings, like thousands today. But, whenever God’s voice was heard, they forgot all about their aprons, and said they were naked. What! naked with their fig-leaf aprons on? Yes; and it is still true. Thousands are working away at their aprons, ―I am doing my best, I am striving, I am a member of a church, I take the sacrament, I give to the cause of Christ, ―but, in spite of all, when the thought of meeting God comes before them, they are afraid, all their doings give them no comfort. Could you conceive of a sadder picture, than the creature afraid of and hiding from the Creator? What thoughts must have passed through Adam’s mind as he crouched among the trees of the garden What dark forebodings must have been his! And that in the presence of perfect helplessness. Oh, unsaved reader, will you be warned by all this? If, after all the warnings, all the entreaties, all the privileges and opportunities you have had, you meet God in your sins, what misery will be yours, ― what endless remorse!

Now, let us look at what Scripture tells us of man in

Grace.

What a fine picture of this we have in Genesis 3:21. “Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” They had just proved the utter worthlessness of their own doings, but now they are clothed by God Himself.

Reader, try and picture to yourself what Adam’s experiences were when hiding among the trees of the garden, and what they must have been as he stood before the Lord God, clothed in God’s own provision for him. Oh, how different Every time that his eye rested upon his coat, his heart would go out to God, ―that God he had deeply grieved and dishonored; and its language would be, “Oh, I know God better now than I knew Him when an innocent man. Then I knew Him as Creator, but now I know Him as Redeemer.” At the same time, he could never forget the terrible consequences of his sin; the memorial of it was ever before him, in that very coat wherewith he was clothed, for it was a skin. A victim must die, life must be given up,—ere the naked rebel sinner could be clothed.

How this speaks to us of the death of God’s beloved Son. No hope for guilty man can be, except one be found to bear his sins, and meet the claims of God. But oh, wondrous grace, God Himself has met my need. He has provided the Victim, which at once meets the claims of His throne, vindicates His majesty, and puts away my sins. The very Lamb whose blood has blotted out all my sins, is Himself my righteousness. He who knew no sin, was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). The believer can say, “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength” (Isa. 45:24). How blessed Righteousness to fit me for God’s presence, and strength to bring me there.

Let us for one moment go back and see how Adam got into this wondrous position of grace. Brought out from his hiding-place, he tries to excuse himself, by saying, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

Then the woman blames the serpent (how like ourselves this is, making miserable shifts, instead of owning the truth), and God, in pronouncing the serpent’s doom, tells of the deliverer. The woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the one ray of light and hope, kindled by God Himself, that Adam laid hold of. No sooner had God ceased speaking those sad, terrible words, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” than Adam opens his mouth, and gives a name to the only creature he had not already named. He called his wife’s name Eve, i.e., living. God, in His last words, spoke of death, and now Adam speaks of life. What presumption! you say. Ah! God did not think so; for at once He crowns his faith by clothing him with the coat of skins. Blessed faith; wondrous grace. Reader, Innocence is gone.

Where are you, ―in your sins or in Christ? Guilt or grace it must be. G. R.

"A Living Saviour."

NOT long ago I called upon a lady, and, after some conversation, I asked her how long she had been a Christian. She replied, “I have been a believer for years, I might almost say from childhood; but I never knew ‘peace with God,’ or my place as a Christian, till this summer at one of your preachings, when I saw for the first time in my life that there was a real living Man in the glory of God, and that Man was my Saviour. I had been accustomed to think of Jesus as a Spirit, but never realized till then that He was a real living Man, alive in heaven.”

Are there not numbers in the same condition? Believers in Christ they undoubtedly are. Their hearts have really trusted Him. They believe He died for them; but there they stop; they have never seen Him alive in heaven. They often sing, ―

“Cling to the cross, the burden will fall;”

yet somehow the burden does not fall, in spite of their clinging to the cross; and time after time they are disheartened, and cast down in despair, and even doubt their conversion, and groan and sigh for deliverance.

I feel sure this is really the experience of numbers of believers in the present day; and what passes current amongst them as real Christian experience. Groaning in bondage, ―clinging to the cross, and longing for deliverance!

But is “clinging to the cross” the gospel? Does it rid believers of their burden, and give them “peace with God?” Does it bring them deliverance? Most certainly not.

It reminds me of a dear young Christian in Scotland, who was net one day by a very worthy man, who had long known her, but had not seen her for some time. After the usual salutations of the day had passed, he very kindly inquired, “Are you still clinging to the cross?”

“Oh, no!” replied the young woman. “I’m not doing that now, sir.”

“Indeed!” said he. “And can you do without the cross, then?”

“Oh, no, sir!” she answered. “I cannot do without it. It is the foundation of all my blessings. But the cross is nothing without Him, sir; and I have found out that Christ is neither on the cross, nor in the grave, but on the throne; and I’ve got my Saviour up there. It is only giving the cross its right place.”

Yes! Everything depends upon whether Christ is on the cross, in the grave, or on the throne. Where is He? “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain: ... ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14-17). So said the apostle. “But now is Christ risen from the dead” (vs. 20). Then, believers are not in their sins.

When the blessed Lord hung on the cross, He bore the believer’s sins. He “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). He “was delivered for our offenses” (Rom. 4:25). At that moment Jehovah made to meet “on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Then the sword of divine justice awoke against Jesus, the Man who was Jehovah’s fellow. “He who knew no sin, was made sin for us,” and treated as sin. Darkness covered the earth; and the Son of God, in deepest, fathomless sorrow, cried out, “My God, My God, why halt thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46-52.) Christ at that moment was forsaken of God, and bowed His head and died.

Where is He? The resurrection morning dawned on the women at the grave, and the angel proclaimed the glad tidings, “He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (Matt. 28:6). The vacant cross, and the empty grave, alike repeat the blessed news, “He is risen.”

Look up, believer; look up! Stephen “looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus” (Acts 7:55). See yonder throne, occupied by the Son of man, Christ Jesus! The glory of God shines in His face. Could He be there, if the sins were not gone? Could the glory light up His face, if the sins were still upon Him? No! No! A thousand times, No Mark, then, the contrast between Christ on the cross, in the distance and darkness bearing our sins and forsaken of God; and Christ on the throne, without our sins, accepted by God, “crowned with glory and honor,” the glory of God shining in His blessed face. Now say, Is it clinging to the cross, or is it looking up to the throne where Christ is? I know your heart replies at once, “It is looking unto Jesus.”

Why was He raised? Let Romans 4:25 answer. He “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again four ow justification.” After Christ had glorified God at the cross about the question of sin, it was positive righteousness on God’s part to take Him out of the grave, and put Him up in the glory.

It was the divine answer to His work. And is it not due to Christ, who did that work, that God should give every one who believes in Him the same place as He has given Him? Certainly it is; for Christ died not for Himself, but for us; and God has raised Him for our justification. Therefore every believer is justified in a risen Christ. Christ in the glory, is the believer’s ever-subsisting righteousness.

The cross has closed the believer’s history as belonging to the first Adam, under condemnation, and exposed to death and judgment. For not only has “Christ died for our sins,” but we have died with Him. We can say, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). And if crucified with Him, God sees us no longer as men alive in the flesh, but associated with a risen Christ, ― “the last Adam,”―in life and everlasting blessing.

This is the standing of every believer in Christ; and the knowledge of this, received into the soul by faith, gives not only peace about the question of sins, but deliverance from the power of sin; so like-wise from the world, and from law. For if associated with Christ in resurrection, united to Him in heaven by the Holy Ghost (and faith receives this on divine testimony), then we are done with the world in all its varied forms; our interests, and hopes, are all above, where Christ is (Col. 3:2). Meanwhile, our path through this scene is marked out by Himself, and we are set here for a while to display what His power can do for us, till He return to receive us to Himself.

Then, spread the news far and wide, there is a real living Man in the glory of God to-day. At the same time, He “is over all, God blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5). He is not finishing the work of salvation on the cross, but alive in the glory, as the everlasting witness of its accomplishment.

W. E.

Christ at Cana.

(Read John 2:1-12; John 4:46-54.)

THE allusion which the Spirit of God makes in John 4 to the miracle related in chapters 2, makes it clear, I believe, that these two miracles are given for a special purpose. They are given only in this Gospel, and I consider they go together, for they both bring out the fullness of Christ in scenes which reveal the emptiness and the weakness of man.

The second chapter of John gives us a marriage consummated, and the fourth chapter gives us a death-bed impending; and surely these are the two most important moments in a man’s history, ―the day of his marriage, and the day when he has to die.

We find, then, that on the brightest day of a man’s life, that which is the expression of joy fails, ―the wine runs out, and Christ comes in with something far better; and in the fourth of John, where it is not the joy of life ebbing away, but life itself which is ebbing away, Christ comes in and meets that too.

Jesus is called to this marriage, and, entering, as He does in His grace, into all man’s history down here, He is present; and the next thing we find is, that that which, in Scripture, is the expression of joy, the wine, runs out. Take man at his brightest and best estate, and there is something better; for the brightest thing we have in nature does not abide, death comes in and robs us of it. There is not one of us that has not seen this or that loved one snatched from us by the cold grasp of death; or we have watched with trembling hearts, fearing this result, perhaps for the one we love best.

I read here that the mother of Jesus comes and tells him, “They have no wine.” She tells Him the need, and to the servants she says, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Jesus tells the servants to fill the water-pots that stood there with water; and when they were filled, He says, “Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine.... the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.”

Never was such wine on earth as that. And why? Because Christ’s new wine is better than any of man’s old wine. Christ gives what cannot fail, what is divine and eternal; and I want you, my reader, to taste what Christ can give.

Christ has brought in something for the heart of man, something which, when you taste it, you feel you have never had anything like that before. I ask you, Have you tasted it, this wonderful wine that Christ can minister? Something brighter and better than can be found here, —something divine and eternal. Have you tasted yet the love of God revealed in the person of His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus? If not, ―though you may have had an unequaled life, and God may have given you many bright things down here, ―there are brighter and better things yet than any you have known.

May you, my reader, wake up to know them.

Everything down here passes away. But what God wants you to know, never fails; it is ever fresh, and everlasting; and it is brighter and better than anything you could know in this scene.

You have a heart, my reader, which nothing down here can thoroughly fill or satisfy; and God would fill that heart with the knowledge of His love. And more, God would put you into association with His beloved Son; and, if you do not know this blessedness, you have not tasted what God has for you.

Now look at the other scene in John 4, — practically a death-bed. Death was impending; and the Lord has given the record of what took place between this nobleman and Himself, as a beautiful illustration of the way a soul gets deliverance. And if you, my reader, want to get deliverance from that which hangs over you, that which is impending, ―namely, death and judgment, ―this little narrative will show you the way.

Capernaum was the place of notorious unbelief. We read in Matthew 11 That if the mighty works that had been done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, it would not have been overthrown.

Capernaum, then, in its unbelief, notwithstanding the favors shown to it, is a true and striking picture of the heart of man. Man does not believe what God has told him. But here is a beautiful instance of one who did believe in that unbelieving city; and in this unbelieving age, may you be found, my reader, simply trusting in Christ.

Let this nobleman show you the way. The thing that was afflicting his heart was, that his beloved son was about to be snatched from him by death. But he had heard of Jesus.

Capernaum was fifteen miles from Cana, where Jesus had made the water wine; and the fame of that miracle had gone abroad.

What brought that man the fifteen miles from Capernaum to Cana? Hearing of the power and grace of Jesus. And what brings the sinner to the feet of Jesus now? Hearing of His power and of His love. The nobleman felt there was no hope but in Christ, and he came to Him with his need.

And there is no hope for you, my reader, but in Christ. But people do not believe that; and they put off coming to Him, until it is too late. Oh, be warned now; and if you are still unsaved, turn to the Lord as you read this paper. You may never have another opportunity.

If you come to the Lord as a ruined sinner, and with the consciousness that every other hope is vain to meet your need, you will find that He has nothing but blessing for you. Jesus tests this soul, as it were. He knows how to test and try us, and to bring out whether our hearts are in downright earnest or not. “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe:” Christ says, as it were hinting, You are from an infidel city; and you, my reader, belong to a race of infidels, ―a race of unbelievers.

Does this man turn away in dudgeon at this statement? No; he tacitly accepts it. The faith that only rests on signs, and wonders, and miracles, and evidences, is not faith at all; and Jesus tests this man, to bring out his real faith in Himself.

The nobleman’s answer is very simple, ― “Sir, come down ere my child die.” What does he mean by that? It is as though he said, “My only hope is in you.” He is downright in earnest. He thought the Lord would have to come down to Capernaum; but still He thought He would come. He believed in His love and interest, and in His power; and he said, as it were, “Lose no time.” He knew the value of every moment. Would to God that you did too, my unsaved reader.

The nobleman prayed, ― “Sir, come down ere my child die,” and Capernaum was fifteen miles off. But do you think the Lord wants to keep an anxious soul waiting, while the fifteen miles are traveled? No, no! Jesus says to him, “Go thy way, thy son liveth;” and he goes down, ―but when? I believe not until the next day; for we read that his servants met him the next day as he was going down, and told him “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” It would not have taken him from the seventh hour one day till the following day to travel fifteen miles. No; I believe the Saviour’s word had filled his heart with joy, and he could quietly rest that night. There was no need to go and see if his son lived.

“The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him;” and that was, “Thy son liveth.” And have you, my reader, heard and believed the word that Jesus has spoken? If so, you may hear His voice saying to you, “Thy soul liveth;” for “They that hear shall live.” “The hour is coming,” said the Lord, “and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.”

You and I, by nature, are dead in trespasses and sins; but Jesus says, “They that hear shall live,” and “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” Have you, my reader, heard His word, and believed on Him that sent Him? If so, then the Lord lets you know that you have everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but have passed from death unto life. Oh, what a wonderful thing to take God at His word.

What had this nobleman before him, ―any sign? None. Any wonder? None. He had the word of the Lord, and he believed it.

His servants tell him, when he inquired of them the hour when his son began to amend, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” It was no gradual convalescence, no progressive getting better; at the word of the Lord, there was complete cure.

And you, my reader, if your soul is simple in believing the word of the Lord, may get complete deliverance this very moment.

The nobleman believed the word that Jesus said. Do you believe the word that Jesus says? It is the work that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you that saves you; and it is the word He speaks to you, that lets you know you are saved.

What more do I want, than the blessed, imperishable work of Christ, and the divine, eternal word of God, which cannot change? On these the believer rests. God has let us know that “Christ died for our sins.... and was raised again for our justification?” We rest on the word of God. Faith takes God at His word, and rests on what God has said.

Are you, my reader, able simply to say, “I believe God; I believe Him, when he says I am a ruined sinner; I believe Him, when He says that my sins will bring me into judgment,―that the wages of sin is death; and I believe Him, when He says that the gift of God is eternal life, and that He that believeth hath everlasting life?” I believe Him in everything He says; and when a soul simply believes what the Lord says, He gives what will confirm and strengthen the faith of that soul.

The servants meet the father, and tell him, “Thy son liveth,” He has not to wait to get home to find out the certainty of what he had believed; he is met on the road, and his faith confirmed. Then, what is the effect? “Himself believed, and his whole house.” He himself rests by faith on the Son of God, and the next thing is, faith spreads in his house.

We who believe ought to be expecting great blessing from the Lord, ―looking to Him, that the circle of blessing may widen, and widen, till it has reached each soul around us.

May you, my reader, know this blessed Lord Jesus Christ; and not only know Him as your Saviour from judgment, but as better than the best, and brighter than the brightest, of all earthly things; and certainly more than enough to meet the darkest circumstances. May your soul know what it is to rest for time, as well as for eternity, on Christ the Son of God! W. T. P. W.

A Sailor Lad's Story.

UP to sixteen years of age, J― F― was outwardly moral and religious, went to school regularly, and sang in the choir every Sunday. His education completed, he joined Her Majesty’s navy, and became efficient in the duties of a seaman, traversing various seas in one or another of Her Majesty’s vessels.

Becoming tired of a seafaring life, and finding it hard work to rise in the service, he had resolved to leave it; but hindrances, through his being a valuable servant, were put in his way. This preying much upon him, in a moment of temptation he deserted, and for about a year secluded himself from the authorities. However, at the close of this period, he gave himself up to them, and had to suffer an imprisonment of three months.

This punishment was used of God, as he said afterward, “to bring him to his senses” (Luke 15:17); and that not only before his fellow-men, but also before God, and he was led to see himself a sinner in His sight, and to feel the burden of his sins, so that he was enabled to turn to Him, confessing his sins; and this, as it always does, resulted in his receiving His eternal forgiveness.

A little tract, called “A Present Knowledge of Salvation,” was a great help to him at that tune.

He saw, too, that his early moral life would no more fit him for the presence of God than his subsequent sinful one could; that neither his own righteousness (Phil. 3:9) nor his own sinfulness was the question, but that faith in Christ the Saviour was God’s only way of salvation; that God could only accept the sinner who came to Him, trusting in His blessed Son.

J― F―wrote to a friend about this time, the writer of the above tract: ― “You ask me, Fred, do I believe that our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ, died for me, and am I willing to accept Him as my substitute? I do with all my heart, and I pray that God will give me grace so that I may not depart from that belief.” He further wrote three weeks later, “What a blessing it is to me now that God’s own dear Son died upon the cross to save all such sinners as I am. I feel how undeserving I am of His love, but I am willing to accept Him as my substitute; and I feel that I have true joy and peace in my heart, and my thought shall be all of the future. I will, as you tell me, forget the past. ―Your old schoolmate, but now, thank God, your brother in Christ Jesus, J. F.”

Again, he said in another letter, “How thankful I ought to be, and how I ought to love that heavenly Father who has spared me, and brought me into this state of salvation through His dear Son... How happy I ought to be to know that I have a full assurance of salvation in Christ Jesus.”

Then J― F―was not only saved, but he knew it, and confessed it, and was happy, as it is God’s intention that every one of His children should be; and if they are not, it is because of unbelief. God speaks in the written Word. Do you, my reader, believe Him? Let Him be true, though every man be a liar. “These things have I written, that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

After this, notice how blessedly the Lord led J―F― on. He writes, “I have not any one on board here, save one that I know of amongst our class, that is a believer.... I thank the Lord He has given me a companion who is a believer, and another came on board yesterday, and my joy is reinforced. We do spend some pleasant minutes together, talking of a Saviour’s love for us, and we are endeavoring to let our light shine before men.”

So, after receiving full assurance of salvation, through believing God (Rom. 4:3 and 24), taking Him at His word, we see J― F― valuing the fellowship of other believers, loving the children of God, and finding “his own company” (Acts 4:23)

being with them. Then together were they found in sweet communion, and in prayer to God for others, resulting, as he writes, in “one man coming to express his wish to go on the Lord’s side;” and, he adds, “there is a lot to be done in the service (the navy) for Christ.”

The last letter his friend received from J — F — is most interesting. He writes: ― “Dear Brother in Christ, ― ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost’ (Titus 3:5). How great, dear Fred, is the mercy wherewith He saved us, that He should look upon such worms as us; but there still remains the fact that it is so, that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8), ―a blessed thought, ―and that we are ‘seated in the heavenlies in Him’ (Eph. 2:6). How can we follow the things of the world, when we are not of it? ‘Ye are not of the world’ (John 17:16), ‘therefore the world knoweth us not’ (1 John 3:1); but yet we find the old man coming up and trying to gain the mastery. But, thanks be unto Him whose strength is perfected in weakness, He will enable us to overcome. Dear F., I must tell you that we have met another dear brother here, ―one who has remained out in the ship. We meet every evening, when we are not kept away by our several duties, and have some very happy moments of praise ‘unto him who hath washed us,’ and a talk over the Word; and we often get an opportunity of speaking a word for Him who has done so much for us. I am (God willing) going on shore this evening to meet with a few of the Lord’s that are gathered to His name.... I thank the Lord. that I have had a very pleasant passage thus far; it has indeed been most happy. The Lord was showing me some pictures on one occasion. It was while I was in the ship ‘Nepaul.’ I looked out one morning, about four o’clock, and all was as black as ink across the sea; I turned back into my hammock, and laid till about half-past five, when I looked out again, then I saw the sky was red. About half-an-hour or so after, I looked again, and I saw that it was golden, and with that sight I was filled with glorious thoughts. There I had been looking at a transformation, figuring the one that had been wrought in me. My sins were black, but they were washed away in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; henceforth there awaits me a crown of glory. I did indeed feel built up by that, and was rejoicing all day, in fact have been ever since, to think that the Lord should show me by His manifold works in the heavens what He had done for me....”

How wonderful and manifold indeed are the works of the Lord, not only in creation, but much more in redemption; and how manifest in the case of this young sailor, leading him on step by step, giving him still further to see himself as “seated together in the heavenlies in Christ” (Eph. 2:6), consequently not of the world; and to know the blessed power of this in his own soul, the strength too of Christ made perfect in his weakness, enabling him to overcome daily the world, the flesh, and the devil. We see him also enjoying the privilege of the worship of Him who loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood; valuing the reading of the Word of God; and finally, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:2), looking for the Sun of righteousness to appear in glory to this sin-stricken world. One thing, would we add, is our desire for him, and for you also, dear reader, to know and realize also. We know, ere the Lord Jesus arises as the Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2), He will shine as the bright and morning star in the heavens (Rev. 22:16), coming quickly for His own; and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, will J― F―, with all the saints of God,―the sleeping ones raised, and the living changed,―be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air, and so be forever with the Lord (1 Cor. 15: 51, 52; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; Phil. 3:20, 21).

Had J― F― looked closely before the sun rose that morning upon the “Nepaul” on the high seas, doubtless he would have discerned the morning star in the material heavens, thus completing the interesting picture, as he styles it, “the Lord gave him to confirm and strengthen his faith, and to rejoice his soul.”

May some other sailor lad, or reader of this unvarnished and true story, be brought as simply as J― F― to see himself a sinner in the sight of God, with whom each one has to do; and to accept His provision, in the Person of the blessed Saviour, so as to share with all the saints these glorious blessings so freely given by the God of all grace, Who, having not spared His Son for us, with Him freely gives us all things (Rom. 8:32). J. S. C.

A Heavenly Saviour.

THE Lord Jesus Christ was once upon earth. When here, it was ever His delight to minister to the necessities of those around Him, ―both in relation to the body, with its present sufferings;

and the soul, with its eternal need.

You are doubtless aware of the solemn fact, that men in that day refused Him a place here. They could not endure the light of His presence, for there was that in the presence of Christ which ever discovered the true moral condition of those near to Him. Where this was owned and confessed, it was His unceasing delight to minister forgiveness and eternal blessing. The multitude, however, in that day, loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil; and that they might continue in their present course, they shut out from their souls the light that would have revealed not only their own condition, but the blessed reality that a Saviour was in their midst.

The cross on Mount Calvary was, as far as man is concerned, the open declaration that they would not have Him; they “crucified the Lord of glory;” they “killed the prince of life.” But God “raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”

But, reader, I ask you to remember, that what the Lord Jesus Christ was as a Saviour upon earth, He is now as a Saviour in heaven. There, in those realms of light; there, in the very center of the glory of God, ―He is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” There He is a Saviour for you; there He waits upon you, in this blessed character, “Mighty to save!”

Do you not need His present service? You surely cannot, dare not, say, “I need Him not.” If the light of God’s truth has ever dawned upon your soul, has it not, with “a still small voice,” told you that you need a Saviour? If angels came from glory to announce the birth of a Saviour upon earth, what tidings are these for you today, that, although the Lord Jesus Christ has been rejected by man on earth, He is for you, today, a Saviour in heaven above?

To have despised Him on earth was surely to expose themselves to judgment in that day; but what if you now despise Him in heaven? The greater the presentation of grace on God’s side, the more terrible will be the judgment if you despise it! “Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” E. P. C.

Hell.

Luke 16:19-31.

THERE is so much said about hell, and what it is, that it is well to turn to Scripture and hear what God says. In this passage we have the veil drawn aside that hides the other world from our eyes, by Him who is the truth itself, ―One who never exaggerated, and who never kept back part of the truth.

In verse 28, we learn hell is a place of torment.

But there are three words that describe hell as no other words could: ―

1. Remember― (vs. 25). Reader, think what it must be to remember in hell where it would be untold luxury to forget the past, with all its privileges and good things, ―ay, and Gospel meetings and Bible lessons. People say hell is remorse, but it is only part of it.

2. Tormented―(vs. 25). This one word tells of the awful present in the flames of hell.

3. Fixed―(vs. 26), —completes the picture, and tells us that no ray of hope ever enters that dark abode of misery, ―that place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Pain, torment of any kind, can be borne, if there is any hope of relief but what must it be when the doom is fixed forever?

Reader, is there any chance of your coming into that place of torment? Have you heard Moses and the prophets? Listen to them now: ― “To him (Jesus) give all the prophets witness, that, through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). And “Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22-23).

The rich man in hell wanted one sent to his brethren from the dead, but was refused. God has sent One to us from the dead, and He says, “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven” (Heb. 12:25). Yes, Jesus is raised from the dead, and now speaks to us from heaven.

Reader, if you refuse to listen to Him, if you neglect this great salvation, you will come into that place of torment which is called hell. Oh! think of those three words: ―Remember, ― Tormented, ―Fixed. No words of mine can add to the vividness of the picture; and remember, no matter what men say, this is what God says is hell, M.

The Threefold Witness.

(Read John 19:28-37; 1 John 5:6-14.)

THE writings of the apostle John are remarkable in this way, they are occupied with presenting to you, very sweetly and fully, the Person of the Son of God, and the wonderful blessings that accrue to the soul that is connected with Him. In the Gospel of John, the great blessing of eternal life is unfolded; but that blessing is in the Son of God. In the Epistle, likewise, he shows that the believer has eternal life; but all hangs on our relationship to the Son of God. He has come into this world, in order to communicate to us that which we have not, and also in order to take away from us that which we have,— i.e., God proposes in the gospel to take away our sins, and to communicate to us that which we have not, namely, eternal life.

In the nineteenth of John, the Holy Ghost gives us some aspects of the death of Christ. What a wonderful thing to think of, ―the death of Christ! The death of the Son of God! Does it not sound strangely in your ear, ―the death of the Son of God?

If I spoke of your death, of my death, it would be in nowise strange; but the death of the Son of God,—the fact that God’s Son was in this world, and that God’s Son died in this world,―that is marvelous indeed!

The fact is, there was no way by which life could be communicated to you and me, except by the death of God’s beloved Son. Man was a sinner; you and I were under sentence of death, with judgment hanging over us, and after that the second death.

Yes, my reader, if you are without Christ, you have only this before you. Death and judgment are before you. You will leave your friends behind, and your pleasures behind; but you will carry into eternity with you, your sins and your conscience. And oh, remember, if you pass into eternity without Christ, your eternity will be fixed, and you will know then the meaning of a word you may have scoffed at now,― Lost. Oh, face it now, my reader; face the fact that you are a lost soul now, if you have not Christ.

Did it ever strike you why Christ died? He died in the full blessed grace of His heart, to deliver you and me from the state we were in; and therefore the inference is most conclusive, that there is no way for your soul to be delivered from the state you are in, save by the death of the Son of God, and your interest in that death. How much, then, hangs for you upon that death!

Here, in this chapters 19, we see the Messiah dying. The Jewish nation had refused Him. It was Jehovah Jesus who hung on that cross, cast out and set aside by all. Pilate trembled; but he set Him aside, set the murderer free, and condemned Him whom he knew to be guiltless. The people clamored for His blood; they set Him aside. Man did his worst. At the same moment God showed His love, and man showed his hatred, to the very full.

Verse 30, ― “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” You have here Jesus presented as the Son of God; and, therefore, with all divine calmness and dignity, He did what no one else could do, —He gave up His spirit. Oh, that your eyes, my reader, may be opened to see the glory of this blessed Being, to see the glory of His Person, Whom He is, and what He is; and, if your heart has never been attracted to Him before, may it be attracted to Him now, and forever.

Christ was able, in the moment of His death, to say, and say truly, that all that God would have done was “finished.”

You may ask, what do those words mean? They are inexhaustible. Whether it be the expression of the heart and love of God to man; whether it be the perfect glorifying of God, and vindicating His righteousness; or the fulfilling of Scripture; or the doing of a work, whereby sin is put away forever; or the showing out of the life of a perfect Man upon earth, ― “It is finished” is an answer to all.

I do not ask you to fathom those words. I only ask you to believe them. They are unfathomable. They reach right up to the heart and throne of God, on the one hand; and they reach right down to the sinner’s need, on the other. They are wondrous, unfathomable. You cannot explain them, or know their greatest depth but you can believe them.

They are a legacy left you by the dying Saviour, and if you only accept that legacy, everything that could trouble your heart would be divinely met. Do you receive it?

The Saviour dies, His work finished. Then Satan sets to work to try to mutilate His blessed body, but God intervenes. Satan would have had His legs broken, but Scripture had to be fulfilled, “A bone of him shall not be broken.” He was the antitype of the paschal lamb that we have in the Old Testament, which was to be roasted whole.

When the soldiers came to break Jesu’s legs, they found that He was dead already. Christ passed away before the two dying by His side, and no bone was broken; but, again, Scripture is fulfilled by their piercing His blessed side, and “forthwith came thereout blood and water.”

Why is this recorded? First of all, it was the most unmistakable and positive proof of the reality of His death. The Lord had not been long gone to Heaven before there sprang up the idea that His body was not real, and His sufferings not real. But God has anticipated and met all this folly and unbelief by His Word. Never until death has taken place could there come out blood and water.

Do you believe that out of the side of the dear Saviour there came blood and water? If you believe it, what was the necessity for it? There were two things which were needed, and which nothing but His death could accomplish. God needed atonement, ―expiation for sin; and that is what the blood gives. We needed purification from sin; that is what the water effects. God needed the expiation; we needed the purification; and both flow from the pierced side of the dead Saviour.

In the epistle of John we get a third witness to the glorious redemption He has wrought, viz.: the Spirit.

What the blood teaches is atonement. In the gospel it speaks about the blood and water, because the gospel of John takes up the matter in its God-ward aspect, and God must have the blood, before you and I can know the cleansing effects of the water.

The epistle of John, which speaks of the blessed fruits of this redemption, speaks of the water first, the purification that the guilty soul knows.

Do you, my reader, think that anything but the blood of Christ can make an atonement for your sins? The very fact of the Lord Jesus Christ dying proves to me I must be in a dreadful state, or He would not have died. Oh, what love there was in His heart, to make Him come down here and pass through death, that He might do a work whereby you and I could be taken out of the condition in which we were, and placed in association with Himself in the heights of everlasting glory.

In this fifth chapter of the Epistle of John we read, “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” You are in a spot where, if you belong to Christ, everything is against you, and therefore where, if you do not overcome, you will be overcome. The only thing that will deliver your soul from the world, and from the judgment that is coming on the world, is believing on the Son of God.

Do you say, How will that deliver me from the world? Because the soul that really believes that Christ died for him, will take his stand with the One who died for him, and to whom the world is an adversary.

“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood;” that is, Christ has died. Men do not object to acknowledge that Christ lived, and to acknowledge that His example is good, even that He sealed His doctrine with His blood; but there is a complete shirking of the question of sin, and the necessity for atonement.

Do you, my reader, believe that the Son of God died for you? Is it a real part of your soul’s; existence before God today, that the Son of God died to deliver you, to take you out of your lost state, and put you before God, and have your heart for Himself down here?

The water and the blood came from the side of the dead Saviour, but where did the Spirit come from? It came from the hand of a living Saviour, The One who died, who was seen ten times after He rose, passed into glory, and then ten days rolled by and the Spirit came down.

The blessing of redemption comes from the death of Christ; the knowledge of the blessing comes with the reception of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost delights to tell of Christ, and He links with Christ in glory everyone who believes in Christ.

It is blessed the way this third witness comes out. The historical order is, ―the blood, the water, and the Spirit. As to the knowledge of it in the soul, this is the order of it, ―the Spirit, the water, and the blood; because, when you have been led to believe that Jesus died on the cross for you, the Spirit comes to dwell in your heart to let you know you are redeemed.

“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” If you believe on the Son of God, you have the Holy Ghost in you. He is the witness. It is not some feeling, it is the Holy Ghost. If you are led by grace to believe on the Son of God, you have first the witness to you, and then the witness in you.

There are two ways given in this Epistle in which man may make God a liar. In the first chapter there are those spoken of who do not believe in original sin. Such make God a liar, for he says, “All have sinned.” Ah, let God be true, and every man a liar. “The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” but God is true, and He says, “All have sinned.”

There is another way of making God a liar, and it is a very specious way. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar,” &c. What has God witnessed to us? That He has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The person spoken of in this verse, who makes God a liar, is one who believes in a certain sense the truth of the Gospel, and the fact that he is a sinner; but when called upon to believe the whole truth, he draws back; and the reason, I think, is, because he is occupied with his own feelings and experiences, instead of being occupied simply and only with Christ.

Perhaps you say, “I do believe simply on the Son of God, but I cannot venture to say I have eternal life.” God does not ask you to say it. God says the one that believes has it; and you have only to take God’s word for it. You receive the witness of men; surely the witness of God is greater; and His witness is, that He hath the Son hath life.

Eternal life is your portion and possession, if you believe on Christ; and there are three things witness to it to you, ―the blood has made atonement, the water has brought purification, and from the glory the living Saviour has sent down a witness the Holy Ghost―to dwell in your heart, that you may know and enjoy the blessing He has given.

Let your eye drop for a moment on that charming 13th verse of this chapter, ― “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.” In the last verse of the 20th chapter of the gospel of John it says, “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” In the epistle he goes a little farther. He wrote in the gospel to inspire faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might get eternal life. He writes in the epistle, that they might know they had it, because they might have had a doubt.

The only thing God looks for, is simple, child-like confidence in Christ; and the moment there is that confidence, He says, “These things have I written ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life,” ―that you may have full assurance.

The moment you believe, you and Christ share together all that He has, and the Holy Ghost comes down to give you the assurance of it. Oh, who would have a doubt when there is such a word as this to rest upon? “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.”

“‘Tis eternal life to know Him,

Oh! how He loves;

Think, O think, how much we owe

Him,

Oh! how He loves;

With His precious blood He bought us,

In the wilderness He sought us,

To His fold He safely brought us,

Oh! how He loves.”

W. T. P. W.

"Is That All?"

HOW often have we heard the above question asked, when God’s way of salvation has been set forth in the very language of holy Scripture “Is that all?” How little do those who ask such a question know what it sets forth! They know not that it involves a positive insult to God and His Christ. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38, 39). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 6:31).

Here we have God’s blessed way of salvation set forth, in all its divine and heavenly simplicity. Christ is God’s salvation, ―Christ given from His bosom; Christ bruised on the tree; Christ raised from the dead; Christ crowned on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. And yet man’s legal heart can presume to ask, “Is that all?”

The Eternal Son of God laid aside His glory; came down into this dark and sinful world; took upon Him the form of a servant; emptied Himself, and made Himself of no reputation; went to the cross, and there endured the wrath of a sin-hating God, ―the wrath which else should have consumed us in the flames of an everlasting hell! No created intelligence can ever conceive what it cost God to hide His face from His only begotten and well-beloved Son; or what it cost that blessed Son to undergo the awful judgment of God, ―to be made sin for us, and lose, for a moment, the light of that countenance, in which He had found His home and His delight from all eternity. And yet the one for whom all this was done can presume to ask, “Is that all?”

“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isa. 53:10), “He hath made him to be sin for us, (he) who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold ... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Peter 1:18-20). Thus we have the eternal counsels of God, the precious blood of Christ, and the imperishable testimony of the Holy Spirit, ―in a word, we have the divine Three in One presented to us in the glad tidings of salvation. And yet, in the face of all this, we are met by the monstrous inquiry, “Is that all?”

Yes; with intense delight and holy triumph we reply, that is all And, we may lawfully inquire, what more would you have? You have the heart of God, to make you welcome; the blood of Christ, to make you fit; and the eternal record of the Holy Spirit, to make you sure. Are not these enough? Is it possible you can still reiterate the audacious inquiry, “Is that all?” Do you want to throw into the scale your miserable doings, your prayers, your alms, your sacraments, your vows, promises, and resolutions; your self-improvement, your moral reform, your tears and sighs, your frames and feelings, ― in order to make Christ’s person, work, and offices of full weight in the judgment of God?

Say, fellow-sinner, is this what you mean by the question on which we are now commenting? Do you imagine for a moment that you can add aught to the finished work of Christ? Do you think God wants anything more? Was not He satisfied, when He raised Christ from the dead, set Him at His own right hand, and crowned Him with glory and honor? And if He is satisfied, why not you?

If He rests in Christ, why not you? If he has been eternally glorified about the great question of sin, why should not your heart and conscience find sweet and abiding repose? Give up, we beseech you, once and forever, all your legal struggles, all your unbelieving questions, all your self-occupation. Look up to the throne of God, and behold there the Man who hung as the sinner’s substitute upon the cursed tree; and as you gaze on Him, in simple faith, you will be able, from the very depths of your ransomed soul, to give a well-pronounced reply to the inquiry, “Is that all?” C. H. M.

"Without Money and Without Price."

WITHOUT money and without price, are the blessed terms of God’s invitation to poor sinners; for to sinners, unsaved, and unconverted, is this passage in Isaiah 4 addressed. If you see your need of a Saviour, and are afraid to come to God by reason of your sins, let me tell you this passage from God’s Word applies to you. How blessed, then, to find God inviting you; listen to the invitation: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.”

These are God’s terms, and He wants you to accept them. The world does not offer such an invitation; it does not invite you to buy without money; on the contrary it offers nothing without it. But here is God offering, asking, beseeching, imploring you to come to Christ; to come and be, saved; to come to Him, and receive life, and joy, and peace; to receive forgiveness of your sins, through the precious blood of Christ, shed on the cross nearly 1900 years ago.

Oh! reader, think of it. God invites you to come. Ere the day of grace closes, He asks you to be a sharer in the blessedness of the work accomplished by His Son on the cross. God addresses the invitation personally to you. He says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18).

Are they not blessed words? Yes, indeed they are; and so simple, that a little child could understand them. And when God says, “Come,” are you going to refuse? Do you say, God does not mean it for me; He cannot mean me? Listen to this verse, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

It was not religious people, or charitable people, or people who thought themselves very good, and did not need a Saviour, that Christ came to save. No; He came into the world to save sinners, and this is the basis of God’s invitation to you; on the ground of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, God invites poor sinners to come and be saved. God can now, through the work of His own blessed Son, be “the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

God’s word says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23); but, through His finished work, Christ “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Heb. 7:25).

These are the grounds of God’s salvation, the salvation He offers to you through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; take your stand on that, there is no other. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Let us now look at what it cost Christ to accomplish this way of salvation for a poor sinner. It cost Him His precious life. Ere you or I could be fitted for God’s holy presence, Christ had to go through that terrible death on the cross. Before a poor sinner could be with Christ in the glory, He had to endure that shameful treatment at the hands of man. Read the 27th chapter of Matthew, begin at the 33d verse; “And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, A place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, “They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.” This is what it cost Jesus. The blessed Son of God went through all this, that you, and I, and countless thousands of ransomed souls, might be saved from death and judgment, and be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Himself. Vinegar and gall were given to Him; God offers you wine and milk, ―expressions of joy and peace.

Reader, whoever you are, and whatever your position in this world, ―whether young or old, rich or poor, high or low, ―if you are still unsaved, still unconverted, listen to God’s word, and accept His salvation. Read it again. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that bath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.”

On the cross Christ was forsaken by God. Not only was He forsaken by His own, as the Word tells us, “They all forsook him and fled,” but He was forsaken by God. Read the 46th verse of Matthew 27, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me “He cried to God, and was unanswered; not unheard, but unanswered. It was the moment of God’s judgment of sin, in the person of His own blessed Son; when He “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). God’s holy, spotless, blessed Son, bore the judgment of God upon sin; and now God can send out that blessed invitation to the vilest, as well as to the most respectable sinner, and say to such an one, “Come, come to Me, My Son has done the work, and cleared away everything that could hinder Me from blessing you.”

Oh, blessed Saviour Thou it was who finished the work necessary for the salvation of a soul, and glorified God thereby.

“Jehovah lifted up His rod,

Oh! Christ, it fell on Thee;

Thou avast forsaken of Thy God,

No distance now for me;

Thy blood beneath that rod has flowed,

Thy bruising healeth me.”

Surely these are comforting words, enough to fill the soul with peace, and the heart with joy.

May God enable you, my reader, to see His measure of yourself, as well as of everybody else, summed up in three simple words, “All have sinned.” But God in His mercy has provided a Saviour, and wants you to accept Him; He offers salvation, and wants you to receive it. His Word proclaims, in the plainest language, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

This is pure grace, undeserved gift from God’s boundless love, to every poor sinner that comes to Him through His Son, “the one Mediator between God and man.” Although He states your condition, He shows you the way of escape; “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

But it is not forgiveness of sins (great and blessed as that surely is) alone, that I want to press on you, so much as Christ. If you have Him, you have forgiveness of sins, you have life, you have peace, you have everything; and if you have not Him, you have nothing. You are, in the language of Scripture, “without hope, and without God in the world.” You belong to a world that crucified Him. By nature, and by practice, you are at a distance from God. Oh! let it not be said to you, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh” (Prov. 1:24-26). Oh, reader, these are solemn words, and worthy of your consideration; the day is coming for the fulfillment of them.

The second Epistle to the Thessalonians tells us of the judgment of those who received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, as well as of those who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. You may make excuses now, but you will have none then. You will be unable to say then, that you did not hear God’s call; for He is calling you now, and inviting you, and wanting to save and bless you, and unite you to His Son. Ere that terrible judgment conies on a guilty world, ―a world that is guilty of the death of the Son of God, ―God is waiting to be gracious to you, poor, wretched, vile sinner though you be; yes, He is waiting in grace, and bearing with the world that crucified His Son. Will you then accept God’s offer of mercy? or will you still go on with the world, over which judgment hangs, though grace lingers? The choice rests with yourself, and sooner or later will have to be decided.

God’s Word puts things very plainly. Read John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

And again, in the 5th chapter, “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.” This shows what it is to have Christ, and what it is to be without Him. To believe in Him, is to have everlasting life; to be without Him, is to have the wrath of God abiding on you; and as God’s Word so plainly states your condition as an unsaved sinner in God’s sight, surely it only magnifies the grace that points you to the only way of escape, namely, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” And just as certainly as Pilate put it to the multitude to decide whether he should release unto them Barabbas or Jesus, so surely does God inquire of you in your day, which is to be the object of your choice, ―the world, or Christ and on the answer depends your eternal destiny,—everlasting happiness, or eternal woe. And although it is not in your power now, nor in the world’s power again, to condemn God’s blessed Son to be crucified, yet God does certainly put the question to you individually, a question that you will have to answer sooner or later, “What think ye of Christ? “May God in His mercy give you to decide for Christ.

H. M. S.

Still the Day of Grace.

“BEHOLD, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear” (Isa. 59:1). Here we have a most blessed scripture, for it tells us of a God full of love and power; and it brings to mind that other beautiful passage, in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “As though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Dear unsaved reader, there is a day corning when the Lord’s hand will be shortened, a day when His long-suffering kindness shall have come to an end, and when the door will be shut; and then you will cry, Open unto me open unto me! But His ear will be heavy, and your cries will avail you naught. He is now in an attitude to save; and, oh think, God beseeching you! There is judgment coming; but God, in His wondrous grace, has made a way of escape for you from judgment and the wrath to come.

Dear reader, if still unsaved, you are ungodly, without strength, and a total bankrupt in the sight of God, absolutely powerless to do anything to earn or merit salvation; and yet, just because you are such, you can lay claim to Jesus, and the salvation freely offered through Him, because God tells us that it was while we were yet sinners, ungodly, Christ Jesus died for us. And how blessedly God has opened the way for poor lost sinners. It is not for the good, nor for the righteous, but for sinners, Jesus came to die. And so that all may lay claim to this salvation, He has concluded all under sin (Gal. 3:22). Let not Satan deceive you, by telling you that you are too bad, or not bad enough. Read Romans 3. from the 10th to the 20th verse, and there you see how God looks at man by nature, and you and I are included in that. It is a photograph of God the Holy Spirit’s taking, and He cannot lie. Only bow to what God says about you; take God at His word, vindicate Him in taking sides with Him, and thus realizing your own utter nothingness, look unto Him who is “mighty to save,” ―Jesus, uplifted on Calvary’s cross, the One, and only One, who can save you. His hand is not shortened, and He says: ― “Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out;” and that, dear reader, includes you, if you will but come.

Delay not then, hesitate no longer. Remember that “procrastination is the recruiting-officer of hell,” and tomorrow is the devil’s time. God’s time is now. He says: ― “Now is the accepted time” (2 Cor. 6:2). Ere tomorrow’s sun death may overtake you, or the Lord may come, and then your day of grace be over. Think of the man of whom we read in Luke 12:16, &c., &c., whose lands brought forth plentifully, so, plentifully that his barns could not contain it all. He meant to tear them down, and build larger ones, and lay up his fruits, as he said to his soul, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said unto him, “Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” And so it may be with you. Remember the time, and the only time, God gives between now and the ending of this day of grace, is but the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:52). J. H. D. S.

A New Kind of People.

THEY are described in 1 Pet. 1:2 as “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Why, it may be asked, do we designate those thus spoken of as a new kind of people? You will see, beloved reader, that they had been redeemed from their vain conversation, received by tradition from their fathers, by the precious blood of Christ (vss. 18,19). They were Jews by natural descent, and their fathers had been redeemed out of Egypt, and brought thence to have quite a different “conversation,” or manner of life, from that in which they walked while in the house of bondage. God led them to Sinai, and there gave them His law of the ten commandments, besides other injunctions and directions, which Moses wrote in the book of the covenant, and having read it in the audience of the people, they said, “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Whereupon Moses took the blood of the previously offered sacrifice, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you” (Ex. 24). Thus were these people enjoined a conversation, or manner of life, by God Himself, which was bound upon them by blood, ―that is, the penalty of death for the infraction of the covenant, or relationship, in which they now stood with God.

But, further, we see that they undertook that for which they had no love. Their hearts never really left Egypt (Acts 7:39), nor were right with God (Psa. 78:37); so that at the very time they were thus entering into this covenant, the Lord said to Moses, “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always” (Deut. 5:29). And in after years, by the mouth of Isaiah (29:13), the truth was declared which the blessed Lord affirmed in His day (Matt. 15:8, 9), that “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me.” Truly was it proved that what they walked in was a vain conversation, or manner of life, received by tradition from their fathers. What God had given them was “holy, just, and good;” but in their hands it had become a vain conversation, handed down from father to son, a religion of outward form, without a bit of heart in it.

Look around, dear reader; do you know any of this kind of people? Are you one of them? A person having a fair outward form of religion, but without any heart for God? Your religion a gratification of self, or an attempt to satisfy an uneasy conscience by the externals of ritual, music, ceremonies, or cold intellectualism; conforming strictly to outward observance, but your heart a stranger to the love of God and the preciousness of Christ? If it be so, yours is still “a vain conversation,” from which you have not yet been delivered.

Now, look at the characteristics of those who had thus been redeemed. And first, remark that it was the kind of people spoken of in verse 2 whom God had in His mind in eternity; not a people who undertook, however sincerely, to do His will in their own strength, and yet to whom He had never given “a heart to perceive” (Deut. 29:4), ―a people whose heart was far from Him. No, beloved reader, neither in the days of Sinai nor now are those the kind of people whom God chose according to His own foreknowledge. I do not say that you may not become one of this kind by redemption from your vain conversation, but you are not one if still in it.

Further, they are not those who stand in their own strength, and say, “All that the Lord hath said will we do;” but they are the subjects of a new power operating in them effectually, the power of the Holy Ghost. In 1 Peter 1:24, we are told that all flesh, high or low, rich or poor, one with another, withers like grass; but the energy of the Holy Spirit is mighty, and that by which He works―the word of God―is living and abiding, while all flesh is dying and passing away. It was the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost which moved on the face of the waters (Gen. 1), and garnished the heavens (Job 26:13). He came as a rushing mighty wind on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:2), and shook the place where they were assembled (4:31); and it was His resistless power which gently opened the heart of Lydia to listen to the things spoken by Paul, and broke the hard heart of the gaoler, so that he tremblingly asked of the men whom he had just before beaten, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16) It is the power of the Holy Ghost which sanctifies―that is, sets apart―this people to the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. In the former vain conversation it was an obedience of compulsion. The law said, “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not; and the heart did not go with it at all, but wanted its own will. The obedience of Jesus Christ was quite a new kind of obedience. He could say, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” It was not an obedience of compulsion, but of love.

Again, the blood sprinkled on the book and the people at Sinai, bound the penalty of death on them for its infraction. But the blood of Jesus Christ has paid the penalty; it is the witness, by means of death, of redemption of the transgressions which were under the first covenant. How differently it speaks to those whom the Holy Spirit has brought to know its value. See what His working effects! It brings a poor sinner to know that all flesh is grass, and in his heart―which naturally rebels at the obedience of compulsion, even if outwardly conforming to religious observances―to know a new divine principle of love manifested in Jesus Christ. He, in the midst of a world of sin and enmity against God, was ever the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; that is where He dwelt in eternity, and when down here He never left it. He could say, “I do always those things which please him.” How He knew the secrets of that bosom! How did He delight to do His Father’s will! (John 4:34.) And that will was for Him to come down here in grace, and then to die for rebel, ruined man. The Holy Spirit puts a poor sinner into association with this blessed Person, and teaches obedience to the heart as it was manifested in Him. The former vain conversation, while outwardly appearing to be near to God, really had the effect of creating distance of heart from Him. It is even so, beloved reader, and if you have not learned this divine principle of love, by the Spirit revealing it to you in Jesus Christ, you know perfectly well that your heart rebels against subjection to God, and that which He approves, though you may in your own mind nullify His holiness by trying to believe that He is as indifferent to disobedience of heart as you are.

But love, God’s love, as Christ knew it, draws the soul and bows the heart to itself. The Holy Spirit, we have said, acts by the Word of God, as in vs. 23; by it the soul is new-begotten, a new direction is given to it, which is towards God and not from Him; and the word which begets anew, is not the word of the law, but that which by the gospel is preached to us. The effect of the gospel is to give the taste that God is gracious; thus it draws the soul to God’s living Stone, the rock of His salvation. And, further, the taste of this grace and love of Christ which the gospel brings to us, and which was manifested in Him who delighted to do God’s will and shed His blood for sinners, by the sanctification of the Spirit accomplishes God the Father’s purpose, in giving us to know this new kind of obedience, the obedience of love, and the value of the precious, precious blood of Jesus Christ.

We thus learn what was in the bosom of God the Father towards us poor sinners, that He wanted our hearts. He knew that in our hearts naturally there was no love for Him, or for His will. He sought for it in vain, but He wanted our hearts to let into them the droppings of His own love. So Jesus came, came down to us to win us in love, by telling us what He knew was in his Father’s heart, and thus to beget in us the bowing of heart to Him. When a soul is awakened to this love, what a frightful amount of disobedience, self-will, self-gratification, alienation of heart and sin, does it not find in itself, all so contrary to what was in Jesus. But the Holy Spirit acquaints the soul with love as He knew it, sheds it abroad in the heart, and puts it consciously under the blood of sprinkling, which atones for all its frightful guilt; and, moreover, makes it know that it is begotten again, according to the abundant mercy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Reader, is not this a new kind of person? Such an one is a Christian. Are you one? or are you still a child of disobedience, one whose heart God’s love has never penetrated, outwardly saying, “I go, sir” (Matt. 21:30), but your heart far from Him? Or have you known redemption from your former vain conversation, so that, as one of the “children of obedience” (vs. 14), you are seeking now to be holy in all manner of conversation on this new principle of love?

“O largely give, ‘tis all Thine own,

The Spirit’s goodly fruit:

Praise, issuing forth in life, alone

Our living Lord can suit.”

T. H. R.

What Is God?

“GOD is Light,” and therefore our guilty first parents were driven from Eden, and cherubim, with a flaming sword, were placed at the east of the garden to keep the way of the tree of life.

“God is Love,” and therefore coats of skin were provided by Him for them, after their sin had proved their nakedness, ―type of a better covering for all who, like them, feel the shame of their spiritual nakedness.

“God is Light,” and therefore the flood swept away the world of the ungodly.

“God is Love,” and therefore an ark was provided by Him for the security of Noah and his family,—type of a fuller security for all who, like Noah, are “by faith moved with fear, when warned by God of things not seen as yet.”

“God is Light,” and therefore the carcases of the men of war fell in the wilderness, because all such, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, had sinned by “despising the pleasant land.”

“God is Love,” and therefore their children, who they feared would die in the desert, entered that land.

“God is Light,” and therefore, when on earth, He pronounced on that guilty people their awful doom: ― “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!” (Matt. 23)

“God is Love,” and therefore, “even at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace,” out of that very people; whilst, as we read, “so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (See Rom. 11)

“God is Light,” and therefore, “because of these things (fornication, all uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting), the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.”

“God is Love,” and therefore “you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;... And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” (Eph. 2)

“God is Light,” and therefore “I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works ... And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20)

“God is Love;” and therefore “the book of life.”

“God is Light,” and therefore “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

“God is Love,” and therefore He “showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God:...And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations.... walk in the light of it ... There shall be no night there.” (Rev. 21)

“God is Light,” and therefore “without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”

“God is Love,” and therefore “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22)

“God is Light,” and therefore “He hath made him to be sin for us.” “It pleased the Lord to bruise him.” “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” “The Son of man must be lifted up.”

“God is Love,” and therefore “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” “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.” The cross was the meeting place of these two forces. Sin demanded punishment, and therefore Jesus died, “being made a curse for us,”― was once offered to bear the sins of many; and the light, intolerant of evil, caused then the cry of His sinless soul, “My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me?” Why? Because he was then bearing the awful judgment of sin.

But at that very point, love reached her climax, was seen in her fullest beauty, and won her grandest victory.

Justice, being satisfied, her sword is returned to its sheath, and mercy stretches forth her hand,—her lovely hand of pardon, life eternal, and unchanging favor. “Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And whoever of Adam’s guilty race grasps the hand of mercy, finds the antitype of the coats of skin and of the ark, ―he finds God’s salvation; he occupies no “debatable ground,” but one that has been cleared of every charge of sin by God Himself, one that takes its character from the work of the cross, absolutely unimpeachable, and infinitely perfect.

“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” “What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?”

One word more, dear reader. Light is intolerant of evil, and the sinner, as such, cannot enter God’s kingdom, but must bear the consequences of his sin forever under judgment. Yet love yearns over such, and the prodigal is welcome, but welcome not without repentance. Light must operate first in the conscience, and then love opens her bosom. But if you desire to escape the eternal consequence of your guilt, ―that dread lake of fire, ―oh! in pity for yourself, act as did that prodigal. Own, in solemn truth, your guilt; pour out into the Father’s ear the whole dark tale of your misery; plead the substitution of the Son of God, His blood shed for the guilty, ―and there await you the kiss, the robe, the ring, the sandals, and, best of all, the fatted calf of blessed communion in spirit with the Father Himself. J. W. S.

God a Giver, and a Receiver.

John 4.

SHE came to the well at Sychar with her empty bucket to get it filled. But who came? Nameless is she among women, yet familiar to every reader of her history in this chapter of the gospel of John. We know her only as the woman of Sychar, a city near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. She came at noontide to the well, and there met with the God of Jacob, the Man who had wrestled with the patriarch, the Messiah, the Hope of Israel. She had a want which drew her there. But the Son of God, who was sitting at the well, was ready to supply a need greater than any she had ever felt, and one which God alone can meet, that which can satisfy the soul.

But if she had no felt need of this kind, how should she participate in the blessing He could give? He must create that want in order to satisfy it. What a thought is this about our God! So ready to bless, but the fallen creature is unconscious of its condition. Does He wait till the, creature discovers it? In the other world it might, it will, wake up, if unsaved here, to its real condition as a sinner! But surely, unless God speaks to the soul, it never will on this side of death, till too late, learn what it lacks. In harmony then with God’s ways in grace, the Lord commenced the conversation with that woman, saying, “Give me to drink.” A Jew to be thus indebted to a Samaritan That she thought was strange. Well, the Lord got not the draft of water that He asked for, but He found meat to eat of which even the disciples were unconscious.

The woman expressed her surprise at His request; but without, that we read of, supplying His need. He told her of grace, which was within her reach. The free gift of God, ―living water, which she should have, if she only asked for it. But to whom was He speaking? To a dead soul. To a guilty creature. To one who had never worshipped God aright. Living water offered to such an one! The Holy Ghost as the power of communion with God for a creature like her! Yes. It was true. It is still true. The living water was for her, if she would ask for it. It is for everyone who will receive it.

But she was dead in her soul, and she showed it. God as a giver she heard of from the lips of the Lord, but she understood it not. Her thoughts, her desires rose not above her temporal need, which Jacob’s well had hitherto supplied each day. “If thou knewest the gift (a free bestowing) of God (i.e., that God gives freely without money and without price), and who it is that saith to thee, “Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” A plain, a full offer. Would she accept it?

God was a giver. Man is to be a receiver. Good news this assuredly is! But she heeded it not. With thoughts bounded by earth, and not rising higher than her temporal need, she wondered how He could make good His offer, who had neither bucket nor rope to draw up fresh or living water, as opposed to stagnant water, as she thought, from that well beneath her and His feet. He, a Jew, had spoken of God as a giver. She, a Samaritan, would speak of Jacob as a giver. “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” That One, to her but a Jew, was sitting over that fountain from which the twelve patriarchs, with Jacob at their head had often slaked their thirst What more could He give? She seemed to think, and, like so many, in effect said,—What more do we want? Had He been so minded, He could have replied in a way which would have shut her mouth with astonishment. He could have told that He made the water, and created the gasses which composed it. He might have told her that He had seen Jacob, that He had wrestled with him, had humbled him, and then blessed him. He might have told her how Jacob valued His blessing, and earnestly sought it. But her real welfare was His desire, so He spoke to her again about the living water: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

But all seemed spoken to no purpose. Her only reply being, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” Nothing beyond ministry to her temporal need did she as yet care about or understand. God as a giver of spiritual blessing, she neither knew nor wanted to know. Of her condition before Him she was really in ignorance. Her answer showed that she was dead; for though the Lord’s words were plain enough, she could not by her intellect comprehend their real meaning. Life was not within that soul. He knew it when she came thither. He knew it when He accosted her. Yet He offered her the living water, the Holy Ghost, as the power of communion with God, if only she would ask for it. Her condition, viz., dead, was no barrier to her receiving such a blessing, if she would ask for it. Thank God, it is no barrier even now.

But, as dead, she could not receive it. A dead soul wants life, yet it cannot by any effort of its own procure it. A dead soul cannot enjoy communion with God; it needs first to be quickened. It is plain, then, that power from without must act on the soul for that, for no one can quicken himself. This the woman experienced, for it is by the word of God that souls are quickened. How simply in her case was this mighty and momentous change effected, and done by Him whose words of grace she had wholly failed to understand. “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” He put his finger on her conscience and convicted her of sin, and of her sinful condition at that moment. “I have no husband,” was her reply, — a truth, but only half the truth; and to her astonishment she finds that this, to her, Jewish stranger, knew all her history. Concealment was impossible; nor did she attempt it. “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet,” was the admission of her guilt, and the confession that He was more than she had thought. She was in the presence of one who had the mind of God, and knew all about her. A solemn position for a sinner to be in, but one from which she did not run away, nor did He drive her away. He convicted her, that He might bless her. He told her of her present life, that she might become a child of God, and a recipient of the living water. But what good news to learn, that one who had been thus guilty, and willfully so, could yet have, on the condition laid down for its reception, the living water, and have it as a well within her, a spring that could never dry up! The dead one, the guilty one, may, if willing, know God in the character of a giver, partaking of such a gift.

But all her condition had not yet come out. Her words and questions, however, drew it out. He was a prophet, she felt sure, so she asked him about the burning questions in dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews as regards the place of worship. He answered her inquiries, but surely in a manner she never expected, as He plainly declared that she and the Samaritans had never really worshipped God at all. “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” With these few words He dismisses the claims of Gerizim and its rival ritual, leaving her without one single thing to stand on by which to commend herself to God. Dead in her sins, that was plain; guilty, with no character and no righteousness to plead before God, that she had to own; and now nothing that she had ever offered to God in the way of worship at Gerizim had He accepted at her hand! She stood then in the presence of the Lord, stripped by Him of everything that man could cling to, ―character, righteousness, all gone; and though a worshipper of God by profession, one whose worship He had never accepted. Her life, whether as regards profession or practice, was without one redeeming point, without anything that God could really accept; and yet to such an one was the living water offered, and enjoyed, as the sequel shows.

What a waking up for her that day! God she had never known, till she met Him in the person of the Son at the well, and found she had met Him who would deal with her in grace, and not, as she deserved, in judgment. His word, in quickening power, she had never, never known, till she experienced it that day. His gift of the living water she had never heard of, till the day that she drank of it; and what it was to worship God acceptably, she had never proved till she learned about it from the lips of that stranger who came down from Jerusalem. How her whole position as a Samaritan was judged She must be indebted to One, whom she had viewed simply as a Jew, for her knowledge of the right way to worship the God of her fathers; and whilst He opened out a new way of worship, He distinctly condemned the Samaritan worship. God did not own it; God would not receive it. Yet God was to be worshipped, as the Father was seeking worshippers even among the Samaritans at Sychar. Dead in her soul, and guilty; a worshipper by profession, but not in reality. Such though she was, she might get, if she would receive, the living water; and she did, for the Lord, as the Son of God, quickened her; made her a subject consciously of grace; and giving her the living water, she could worship God as her Father in spirit and in truth. She came to know God as a giver and then as a receiver; and now she, who had lived for herself, worked for Him and for the benefit of those around her. What a change was wrought in that soul Energies, activities, desires, all called out, but in a new way, and from new motives. It was the same person, but a new creature.

Reader, have you like her been brought to know your condition by nature? Have you come to know God in the right order, ― first as a giver, and then as a receiver? a giver of life and of the living water, that He may receive the worship and accept of the praise of His creatures. Man would view God in the light of a receiver first, and then in that of a giver; accepting the good deeds of the fallen, but really dead and unsaved one, that He might show mercy to him in return. The gospel presents God to men in the inverse order, as it teaches that He gives life and the Spirit, that He may receive from those quickened and filled the worship that He can really accept, and the service which flows from the knowledge of grace, the outflow of life in the soul. C. E. S.

GOD ever loves to give. “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” and we must let Him have the “more blessed” place. Besides, “without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better,”

How simply this puts us in our place as receivers, and lets God have His place as a giver.

W. T. P. W.

Have You Peace With God?

THERE are many people in the world who think that it is impossible for any one to know that he is saved, and has peace with God, before the day of judgment.

But is this so? Surely if it is possible to have peace with Him now, down here in the world, it is a very desirable thing. Can it be had? Let the Word of God reply. The Apostle, speaking to believers in Jesus, says, “Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Not, “we hope to have;” nor, “we shall have if;” but, “we have peace.” Have you it? Perhaps you say, “No, but I should like to.” Then read on.

No Peace.

Now one thing is certain, and that is, that as long as you are unconverted, you must remain a perfect stranger to peace. There are but two classes in the world in the sight of God, the righteous and the wicked. All in the natural state are classed among the latter. The righteous, are those who are accounted righteous by God through faith, and walk in practical righteousness. Unconverted, you are found amongst the wicked. You may not be an open infidel, blasphemer, or immoral person, heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, No, you may be very correct in your moral life, a good citizen, amiable, kind, and everything that is desirable in nature; but, unconverted (I press it home upon your conscience), your heart and mind are estranged from God. You are His enemy (Rom. 5:10). There are degrees and measures of wickedness, but amongst the ranks of the wicked you are found.

And what saith the Scripture? “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isa. 57:20, 21). Oh! poor Christless reader, what an awful condition you are in. Troubled, restless, and sinful, a perfect stranger to peace. The troubled restless sea casts up its mire and dirt. And the hearts of troubled restless sinners of this world, cast up nothing but sin and iniquity in the sight of God. There is no peace. How can there be? God’s Word is ever true. Where is the sinner in his sins to be found, who knows what peace is? All are complete strangers to true peace. No peace, no peace.

“There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

False Peace.

Have you discovered that you are without peace? Do you desire to have it? Beware, then, of Satan. The moment he finds souls anxious, and desiring peace, he seeks to mislead them; and is only too often successful, by getting them to trust in something short of Christ; something in themselves, or something that they do. I warn you, therefore, that there is no foundation but Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). He, and He alone, is the rock-foundation that never can be moved, uprooted, or overturned, by all the power and subtleties of the wicked one. If you build on anything else, when the waves of judgment and the billows of wrath of Almighty God shall come, you will find, when it is too late, and there is no remedy, that you have built on sand (Luke 6:47-49).

Thousands, tens of thousands, have been hushed to sleep with the devil’s lullaby, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). Thousands have been aroused to their lost estate, and have set to work to right themselves before God. It seems so reasonable to man, that if he gives up his former habits and associates, reforms his manner of life, and strictly observes the externals of generally accepted religion, that he has a fair chance of reaching heaven. What more, thinks he, can be required of him? A man can but do his best. Ah!

sinner, you have forgotten one thing. You are reckoning without the Word of God. There we read that “God requireth that which is past” (Eccl. 3:15). “There is a way which seemeth, right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).

Mark well, the reformation of the present will not make up for the past, any more than keeping out of debt today will pay for the debt of yesterday. It seems right, but it is all wrong. Satan does not mind how long you travel that road, for he knows the end thereof, ―the ways of death. It is the way of reformation, but that is not the way to God. It is all very well as far as this world goes, yet only the cleaner side of the broad road after all. Christ is the way, the only way. Not a way, but the way. The way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Any other, and all others together, are false, and delusions of the enemy of your soul.

It is too late to be doing. You ought to have lived before the death of Christ for that. You are behind the times too late. You are on the ground of law, but it is a day of grace (Rom. 5:20, 21). You may talk about doing your best, but do you do it? No, you don’t. And if you did, would it be good enough for God? Nay, sinner, man’s very best is short of His standard. Christ is what you want; He alone can meet your need. Cease then from self, and self’s doing; cease from man altogether; cease, now and forever (Phil. 3:3). If this is your ground, you have been crying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. It is a false peace, and the sooner it is disturbed, and broken up altogether, the better for you. For there is a day at hand, when many shall cry, “Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them; .... and they shall not escape” (1 Thess. 5:2, 3). So,

“Cast your deadly doings down,

Down at Jesus’ feet;

Stand in Him, in Him alone,

Gloriously complete.”

Christ “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 4:25; vs. 1).

Partial Peace.

And now, dear reader, I desire to warn you against another danger, and that is, being satisfied with a partial peace. Perhaps you wonder what I mean by partial peace. Well, the Lord’s servants meet with persons on all hands, who are practically in the state that these words describe. They have a measure of peace; they enjoy it at times. They are not unbelievers, without peace at all. They say that they are not resting upon their own doings to get salvation. No; they speak confidently of having believed in Jesus. But although they believe on Him, and are pardoned through God’s grace for His name’s sake (1 John 2:12), yet they have still some question as to whether they will arrive in glory after all. I do not know a better name for them than “unbelieving believers.” They believe that their sins are forgiven up to date, but― But what? Well, if― If what? Ah! then it all comes out. Christ has saved them up till today; as though He only endured the penalty of some of their sins, and the rest depends upon an awkward but and if. In other words, depends upon them.

That is, Christ has done His part, and if we do ours, all will be well. “Christ has finished His work,” they say, “but suppose I don’t do my part right to the end, what then?”

Is this your case, my reader? I see where you are. It is Christ and you, as though He needed a little makeweight. Your salvation depends partly upon you after all. You don’t like me to put it in that way. It is not quite what you mean, perhaps. But it is what you say, and it is your practical state. The result, partial peace.

Oh! away with such delusions, dear soul. Christ’s finished work needs no patchwork additions of yours. Whether you bring your own righteousness to God, or add a little of your own to His, you spoil His best robe. No wonder your peace is disturbed; no wonder it is but partial peace. How can you expect to have true lasting peace with God, if it partly depends upon your conduct?

“Well, but we must act and live right, if we do believe in Jesus,” you will say. Surely we must; but not to be saved, but because we are saved. Not to keep the peace we have, but because we are amongst those who have peace with God. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). It is no good saying, I know God, and I am at peace with Him, and go on living in sin. Your life would then be an utter denial of your confession. But, wherever there is true faith in the Son of God (and it is the outward look of faith that gives peace within), that faith will surely produce fruit to the glory of God and His Son (John 14:23).

But the moment souls make their peace in any form or shape whatever depend partly upon themselves, it must be but partial peace. There is the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul, it is perfectly true, but it is impossible to find peace through being occupied with that; it is only through resting by faith upon the work of Christ for me. May God give you to cease from self altogether, and to enjoy peace with Him through our Lord Jesus Christ.

One might add much more upon this subject, but space will not permit. Let us now see from God’s Word how true peace is to be had.

True Peace.

Man in his natural state is God’s enemy, and knows not the way of peace (Rom. 3:17). But, blessed be God, He is not man’s enemy. He is his friend. God is love, and He loved the world. And He not only loved it, but has given the greatest proof of His love it is possible for Him to give. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). Gave Him for sinners, ― His enemies; and made peace through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20). The death of Christ met all God’s claims against the sinner once for all. Moreover, God raised Him from the dead to His own right hand in glory (1 Peter 1:21); and now, as a righteous and just God, presents Him as the object of faith to sinners, saying, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but shall receive remission of sins and everlasting life. Dear reader, dolt thou believe on the Son of God? “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

God has been infinitely more glorified in the death of His Son, than if sin had never entered the world; and peace is made (John 17:4; Col. 1:20). You have not to make it. It is done. Believe on Him, and peace with God is yours. Believe on Him, and the blessed words of Romans 4:25 and verse 1 refer to you, “Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Not, we hope to have; nor, we shall have if; but, we have. This is true peace; peace founded wholly and solely on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s Word declares it; the Word of Him who cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Faith appropriates it. Every believer is justified; justified by faith in His glorious Person and finished work. By grace on God’s part, faith on ours, the blood of Christ the basis, peace with God the result. True peace; present, permanent, and everlasting.

Once you believe, you are at peace with God, now and forever. Nothing can touch it, because nothing can touch Christ or His work. We have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you it?

But your enjoyment of this peace is another thing. That depends upon your walk and ways. Nothing can alter the blessed fact, that the believer in Jesus is at peace with God, and that forever; but a careless walk will mar your communion with God, and your enjoyment of this blessed peace, which alone can be restored through the advocacy of Christ, and the confession of sins (1 John 1:9; 2:5).

The peace of God is a distinct thing, enjoyed by the believer in Jesus, who follows the exhortation of the Apostle in Philippians 4:6, 7. “Be careful for nothing: but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Have you peace with God? E. H. C.

"They Shall Not Escape."

I WAS reading 1 Thessalonians 5. this afternoon, and had reached the 3d verse, in which occur the words at the head of this paper, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

I cannot describe the feeling which stole over me as the passage started up before me pregnant with an awful meaning; it seemed like the sound of the distant thunder presaging the advent of a terrible tempest; and I knew it to be the voice of the Spirit of God, warning the world of its fast approaching doom.

And my thoughts traveled rapidly back into the forgotten PAST, and I seemed to hear those fateful words, “I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth” (Gen. 6); and like a dream there passed before my mind the judgment of the flood, and I gazed upon the old world, and its peoples intoxicated with their sinful pleasures, heedless of the warning voice of “the preacher of righteousness,” the herald of coming judgment. “God destroy the world by a flood?” they mockingly inquire; and they look at the ocean, whose waves gently plash against the pebbles on the beach, and then quickly recede, as though not daring to exceed the bounds prescribed by Him who had said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further,” and the scoffers gaily say, “No cause there for fear!” and then looking up towards the cloudless sky, where the sun shines in unfaded brilliancy, just as it had shone since creation, they chant in mockery, “No cause there for fear!” and laugh God’s messenger to scorn.

Hark! the sudden rush of waters as of a deluge. What is it? The windows of heaven are opened, the fountains of the great deep are broken up! Above, the great dark clouds, bursting with God’s wrath, flit across the sky, and hide the face, of the smiling sun; below, the erstwhile innocent playful waves are changed into great vengeful monsters, which at God’s bidding break their bounds, and come leaping forth, swallowing up in their relentless jaws all things in their path. Onwards over the doomed earth they foam and roar, and a terrible cry of agony and despair goes up, as the living are engulphed in the black waters of judgment. But the cry is all too late; God’s righteous decree has gone forth, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE,” and His voice is heard above the howling of the tempest and the death-wail of the lost.

And there follows a terrible silence, that tells of universal death; and the ark rides above the waters of judgment, over the bosom of the lost world’s grave.

And Christ said, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”

And I thought of the scoffers of today, who were saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?”

and I shuddered as I dwelt on their certain doom.

And then my thoughts glided swiftly down the succeeding centuries until arrested by another scene of judgment.

The sun has risen over Sodom and Gomorrah, and the guilty inhabitants awake to sin away another day; the streets are already thronged with people, the object of whose lives is to gratify their horrid lusts, which have risen up before God in all their hideousness; and away they go to eat and to drink, to buy and to sell, to plant, to build, and to sin, with never a thought of Him against whom they sin, nor of His judgment, which is even now approaching them with lightning speed.

Hark! what sound is that in the air? See! what means that lurid light that spreads itself over the surface of the heavens? What mean those shouts and screams of deadly pain and wild affright? God is raining down torrents of brimstone and fire upon the guilty cities of the plain; and methinks I can hear, above the awful din, the voice of the righteous Judge in tones of thunder exclaiming, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

And Christ said, ― “AS it was in the days of Lot, THUS shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”

And, again, I thought of the scoffers of this day, who are even saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” And I stood appalled as I contemplated their awful destiny.

And then my thoughts came back to the PRESENT, and I found myself wondering at the unfathomable love of God, displayed in the gift of His only begotten Son to die for a world of sinners. And I listened with joy, as a voice told me that a holy God is now proclaiming peace through the blood of the cross, peace to the rebellious, peace to the rich, peace to the poor, peace to the young, peace to the old, peace to ALL. And as I listened, the voice went on to tell how that God required nothing of the sinner but an acknowledgment of his sins, and a simple faith in Jesus as his Saviour; that, through believing, the most wretched obtained peace; the lost, salvation; the dead in sins, eternal life, and a refuge from the coming wrath. And in response to my wonder how such wealth of blessing could be secured by the sinner on such easy terms, the voice told me that the blessed Son of God had undertaken the case of lost man, and at the cross had offered up His own pure and spotless life to meet the claims of God about sin; that God had accepted the sacrifice, and in proof thereof had taken the Sinbearer out of the grave and placed Him at His own right hand in glory; and that the Holy Ghost had come to the earth, to testify to a lost world of the sufficiency of Christ’s work to meet the sinner’s need.

And as I listened, I heard the blessed news that Jesus is coming to fetch His saints; that the midnight cry has sounded, and His coming may take place even today; that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised, and the living changed, and all shall be caught up to be with Christ forever (1 Thess. 4:1 Cor. 15.). And I inquired why Jesus had not long ago put an end to the weary waiting; and the voice replied, “The Lord is long-suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. The long suffering of the Lord is salvation.”

And then the voice changed its tones of tender grace to those of solemn, urgent warning, and it bade me leave the PRESENT and gaze into the FUTURE. And as I looked, the veil was taken away, and I saw Heaven open, and One descending; and as I gazed upon His form, I knew that it was Jesus. But not now as the Man of sorrows, the despised Nazarene. On His head were many crowns, His eyes shone as a flame of fire, out of His mouth proceeded a sharp sword with which He might smite the nations, and His name was KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

And an angel stood in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice to all the fowls that fly in the midst of Heaven, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great” (Rev. 19).

And the kings of the earth, with their armies, came up against God’s anointed; but the battle was short and swift, and the slaughter dire and universal, and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

And I wondered at the sight, until I seemed to see the awful words inscribed athwart a sky red with the flames of judgment, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

And the wailing cry of a doomed world reached the ear of my fancy, and I knew that the prophecy had received its awful fulfillment, that “man’s day” had ended, and that the great day of the Lord had come, and a Christless world was exposed to the wrath of Him whose love it would not have in the day of His long-suffering. And I remembered that it was written, “When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as a woman in travail; and THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

And then my gaze pierced yet deeper into the wondrous FUTURE, gliding over the events of a millennium, and I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20).

And then I knew that time was ended, and eternity had begun; and that the vast multitude who stood before the throne, were those who had rejected God’s salvation; that the open books recorded the history of their lives, each thought, each word, each deed; and that God, in righteousness, must judge according to them. And as each lost soul was borne away to its eternal abode of misery, there to agonize amid the flames of mingled fire and brimstone, again were sounded in my ears the words of doom, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

And I saw no more, for my heart grew sick and faint as I thought of the millions around and about me who were hastening on to this fearful end, without thought or care for their precious souls.

And I turn from my reverie to you, my unsaved fellow-creatures, and I bring before your gaze the solemn scenes of past and future judgments recorded in God’s eternal Word; and, with all the energy of my redeemed soul, I shout into your ear the awful fact, that the great and terrible day of the Lord is at hand. Flee, flee, this instant, from the coming wrath.

Oh! perishing soul, thou who art rushing onward to meet that awful doom, which is as quickly rushing towards thee to catch thee in its deadly embrace, — this moment, while God is sounding forth, Now is the accepted time, Now is the day of salvation, I implore thee to accept His offer of pardon, and find in Jesus an ark of safety, and a refuge from the fast approaching tempest.

Take to thy heart the wonderful fact, that God is willing, yea, waiting, to receive all who approach Him through the shed blood of His Son; that He is making no demand upon the sinner, but is offering an eternal salvation to “whosoever will.” (John 3:16.)

Oh! tarry not; the sound of the coming storm is even now heard by the attentive ear. Just as God shut Noah in the ark the moment before the flood came, and as the angels dragged Lot out of Sodom just before the destruction of the cities, so Christ will come, and in a moment catch His ransomed ones out of this doomed scene; and then, oh then, will the vials of God’s wrath and fiery indignation be poured out upon all who would not come to Him that they might have life.

“AND THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”

W. H. S.

The Power of the Blood.

I WAS coming along one of the worst streets in this very wicked city, at about two o’clock A.M., a week or two ago, when a woman of the town came up to me and said, “Are you an English Church clergyman, sir?” On my saying that I was, she said, “For the love of the Saviour, come with me; there’s a woman dying here without God.”

She was so earnest in her entreaty that I went with her; and though I knew the misery of the neighborhood, and that the police record was chiefly filled up from it, I was hardly prepared for what I saw. In a miserable log cabin, through whose roof you could count the stars, on a wretched straw pallet lay a bundle of rags, surrounded by other bundles as filthy. When I got accustomed to the struggling light, I distinguished the wasted form of a woman apparently about sixty, cloths round about flecked with blood, and her slender face showed me she was slowly bleeding to death from her lungs. Her surroundings were women, who, like herself, were sinners, yet each vied with the other in kindness to their sister in misfortune.

The poor woman looked eagerly at me, and, half raising herself, clutched my hand and gasped out, “The blood the blood!” They said she had raved like that for some days. It was no raving, however. At first I thought she referred to her bleeding, but she again said, “The blood! His blood!” I saw what she meant, and whispered to her, “Do you mean the blood of Christ?” “Yes, yes, if it cleanses.” “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,” I answered. “That’s what I have wanted these forty years,” she cried.

On inquiry I found she was an Irish Roman Catholic, and that when she was twenty she was walking the streets of Dublin. Passing St. Andrew’s Church she peeped in one night, and heard the clergyman give out the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” She left the porch, but through all her forty years of sinful life she remembered these words in part, and now they haunted her. I said, “Shall I go for your priest?”

“No,” she said, “he can do me no good.” I opened my Bible, and read her the passage, and spoke to her of the woman who had been a sinner, and of Him who had not rejected her, and again whispered in her ear the words she loved to linger on. “From all sin,” she said once more, and, clasping her hands together, she died.

These words of forty years ago had borne fruit, and I trust had caused her justification, though at the eleventh hour. It was five o’clock before I got home, and thought as I Saw the sun rising bright and glorious over the eastern waters of the lake, that his rays seemed to tell me of a blood that spoke better things than that of Abel, of a soul washed in it but a few moments before, and now singing the new song of Moses and the Lamb. It is a comfort to me that I had kept to the words of the Bible only, and not used my own. It is the best way in the end. E. K.

"Who Gave Himself."

(Read Galatians 1:3, 4; 2:15-21; 4:4-7.)

THERE is much in the Epistle to the Galatians that reminds you of that to the Romans. In Romans you have the great foundation truths of the gospel unfolded in all their breadth and beauty, the truth of the total ruin of man, and then the truth of the redemption which Christ has accomplished, so that man is brought to God, perfectly justified, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It answers Job’s question, “But how should man be just with God?” (9:2) by showing that the sin you had Christ has died for, and the righteousness which you had not, and never could have by any work of your own, is conferred on you by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Romans teaches, while Galatians is a recalling of the soul to these simple truths. The Galatians had been turned aside by false teachers, who taught them that while Christ had done a great deal, yet they also had a great deal to do before they could be “just with God.” Now, though the Galatians, to whom the Epistle was written, lived in the days of the apostle Paul, yet there are many Galatians in this day, who, while they believe that Christ has done a wonderful work, yet think that they have something left to do for their salvation, and consequently they have not peace with God.

Now, what is the first thing the apostle starts with? No less than this, that our Lord Jesus Christ “gave himself for our sins.” These people had been thinking that they must do something to affect the blotting out of their sins. But Christ “gave himself for our sins.” What a wonderful thing! what marvelous tidings for sinners! that the Lord Jesus Christ “gave himself for our sins.”

But why did Christ give Himself? What was the need of this wondrous act? The reason is not far to seek. Your state and mine, dear reader, could be met in no other way. In proof of this I wish to draw your attention to two very solemn conclusions that the Holy Ghost presents in Scripture. The first is, “But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” (Gal. 3:22). Thus, you see, you are under sin, my reader, if you have not Christ. You may say, “I do not conclude that,” but the Scripture does. You have a dominant master, sin; and if you are honest, you will own it.

“The scripture hath concluded all under sin.” Who gets out of that? The man that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. What are the wages of sin? Death; and after death, eternal damnation. You may say, “I do not believe it.” That does not alter the fact; “the wages of sin is death,” and after death the judgment. O do not put it from you, my reader the Holy Ghost has penned this solemn statement as to your condition. You are under sin. Do you say, “I am trying to get out?” That you will never do by trying, but only go on sinning the more; for as long as you try, you do not get the right way out. While you are trying you are not believing.

The second conclusion is this, “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32). Not only, then, are you a sinner, but you are an unbeliever. God concludes all in unbelief. Why? That He may judge all? Nay, but “that he might have mercy upon all.” Then, if God concludes you in sin and in unbelief, ―and God knows it, and the Holy Ghost comes and testifies it to your conscience, ― do not you, I beseech you, refuse to bow to what God says about you.

Do you ask, “What will bring me out of this terrible condition?” Listen to what God has to say to you, that will bring you out. Galatians 1:4 gives the answer. The Lord Jesus Christ “crave himself for our sins.” You are thoroughly under the power of sin, and, if God does not intervene, there is no help for you, and hell must be your portion forever.

You may think, “I will turn over a new leaf and amend my life.” Yes, but what about all the pages of life’s book that have already been blotted? If from this hour to the end of your history you went on without committing one sin, you would be none the better off. There are years of sin already lying at your door. How, then, are you going to escape God’s judgment? Ah, this lovely truth comes in, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” He “gave himself for our sins.”

Do you say, “How can I get quit of my sins?” The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the living God, gave Himself for them. Think of the majesty of His person, think of His glory, think of who He was, and whence He came, and then think He “gave himself for our sins.”

Can I have a doubt or a misgiving? Suppose the devil comes and says, “What a sinner you are!”

Quite true, I reply, but He “gave himself for our sins.” It was not merely that Christ gave what He had, He gave Himself. Then what ought I to do? say you. Why, first of all believe it, and then give yourself to Him.

Blessed be His name, He gave Himself. Faith says, “for my sins.” Then where are my sins? Gone forever, put away by Christ. He poured out His blood upon the cross; but as that blood flowed forth, it washed every one of my sins away. On the cross He bore every one of my sins. Man had forsaken Him, He was betrayed by a false friend, and denied even by true ones; and when He was alone in His sorrow, and alone in His grief, when all had forsaken Him, and He looked for some to take pity, and there was none, and for comforters but found none, ―then God forsook Him too. Then He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Amazing truth! Here is a righteous man in the deepest depths of woe, and, you would think, God would stand by and comfort Him. But no, God forsakes Him. Why? Because He was bearing our sins, and God and sin never can meet except in judgment. He cannot look upon it, though it be on the person of His Son—and that sin not His own ―without utterly judging it. Every saint of God had had the Lord standing by him and strengthening him, but Jesus was alone and forsaken.

On the cross He bore my sins, and put them away. When He went on to the cross, there was not a sin upon Him; and when He came down from that tree, there was not a sin upon Him. While on the cross, He bore sins, and His blood rolled them all away. If now my sins could be found anywhere, they must be found on Christ, and that, you know, is impossible. He took them, and therefore, if they are anywhere, they are on Him, not on me. We know they are not on Him, ―His resurrection was the proof of that.

But not only has Christ put away my sins, does this Epistle teach me, but I am justified by faith in Him “who loved me and gave himself for me.” We read in chapter 2:16, ― “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Here the contrast is between the works of the law and the hearing of faith, i.e., between what I do, and my believing on Him who has done something for me. What you and I can do can never clear us before God. How, then, can we be justified? By what Christ has done. When you justify God, ―bow down to what God says about you, and believe what He says about His blessed Son, ―then God justifies you. God is now looking about to see whom He can justify. He justifies everyone who condemns himself.

The value of the law is this, that it shows you that you are downright wrong, but it can never put you right. God knew that your heart and mine were deceitful to the very core, but the law exposes these hearts to our own gaze. There is not one thing in you or me that can suit God. “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing,” and the law makes this manifest. How, then, can I be justified by keeping it? Never! It can condemn, but cannot clear me.

Knowing, then, that I cannot be justified by what I can do, as Paul says, “We have believed.” There is the turning point, my reader. Now, have you believed? If so, we may go farther, as the Apostle does, saying, “The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me.” It is not only my sins that are gone, but I myself am gone, ―the man that sinned. Where, then, is my life now? Blessed answer, ― “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 the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Yes, Christ is my life, ―I live in Him, and He in me. I should not be satisfied with knowing that Christ gave Himself for my sins. I want something for my heart; I want to know that He loves me. “Dost Thou love me, Lord? “I look up and say. “I loved thee, ―I gave Myself for thee,” is His sweet answer. “Ah! then,” the Christian says, “my heart is His, now and forever; my sins are forgiven; God justifies me; Christ is my life; I am a child of God; and more, I possess the Holy Ghost, because I am a son and heir of God.”

These last truths we get in chapter 3:26, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”; and in chapters 4:4-7, “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

A “child” gives the thought of intimacy, but it is the eldest son who knows that he is to get the title and property. He can enter into his father’s mind, and he says, “I must comport myself with the dignity that becomes my station.” And so, my reader, from this day, if you really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will surely lead an entirely new life. You will not alter your ways to get life, but, because you have it, your ways will be altered to suit Him who has so richly blessed you.

W. T. P. W.

The Good News.

EARLY in the day of April 8, 1865, the welcome words, for which weary hearts had been waiting for four years, were flashed over the United States, “Richmond is ours!” At once the nation gave vent to its enthusiastic joy. In the cities bells were rung, and flags flung to the breeze, till the streets were festooned throughout with bunting. Over and over again the short dispatch was read, amidst tears of gladness, and huzzas and shoutings. Steam whistles, bells, and lungs gave their utterance to the wild rejoicings. Everywhere, men, women, and children were gathered in groups, in crowds, in masses, congratulating each other, as though it were a personal blessing, more welcome than gain, more important than labor. The scenes of the day were suggestive of two or three thoughts as to the nature and effect of faith.

1. None of those thousands, so radiant with happiness, had seen or taken part in that act over which they exulted. They simply heard and believed an announcement. It was given in very few words. It was a bare assertion, once only made, and yet no one doubted it.

2. The cause of this belief was the perfect reliability of the testimony. It was from the highest authority. The Lieutenant-General in the field telegraphed to the President, and the Secretary of War gave the word to the country in an official bulletin. It was not a guess, or a theory, but a proclamation by those who would not deceive, of something absolutely done.

Even so, the good news from God concerning Jesus Christ is the announcement of something done. “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He hath “made peace by the blood of the cross.” “He hath made him sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “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 simple the message, and yet how full of meaning! The testimony here, too, is wholly reliable. We know that He is true. God cannot lie. He has said, “I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa. 43:25). “If we receive the witness (testimony) of men, the witness (testimony) of God is greater.” How strange would the question have sounded on the 3rd of April, “What is it to believe?” And yet multitudes, to whom the precious record comes that “Christ was once offered, to bear the sins of many,” that it is Christ “whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,” are propounding this question. What is it, but to receive, as true, the testimony of God concerning His Son, that “by his stripes we are healed?”

Again, the effect of believing the testimony of the President was joy. So, being justified by faith, we have peace; believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable. Peace and joy come only from belief.

Another result of the news was, that loyalty was confirmed, and a new desire to do something for the Government sprung up. So, believing that we have eternal life in Christ transforms the whole life into service. We love Him, because He first loved us. This, then, is the order in the gospel: first, the good news; then, the news believed; then, walking in Christ as we have received Him. The grace of God that bringeth salvation teacheth us, “that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”

Reader, do you believe the good news from God? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. M. T.

"Religious, but Lost."

“I HAVE been the superintendent of the Sunday school, and an elder of the Church, for a great number of years, Sir, but I never knew I was a lost man till I heard you preach.” Such were the words of a respectable old man to me at the close of a gospel meeting. He was religious, but lost; a Sunday-school superintendent, but lost; an elder, but lost. How many there are who, like that old man, are religious, but, alas! have not learned they are lost. And they are slipping quietly, and respectably, and religiously, down the broad road to hell!

Reader, come, be honest before God, which are you, yourself, SAVED or LOST?

Perhaps you say, like many, “I don’t like to be spoken to in that way; and our minister never asked me such a question.”

Probably he never did, dear reader. And is there not just a possibility of his being unsaved himself? If so, then certainly he will never ask you such a question. Moreover, if he goes to hell, that surely is no reason why you should go too, is it?

Maybe you reply, “I hope I am not going to that dreadful place. I am not a wicked person. I go to church, and I take the sacrament, and I teach in the Sunday school, and I sing in the choir, and I pray to God, and do the best I can.”

Well, granted you do all you say. Now, just take a slip of paper, and write down all those things, and then add this one short sentence, and then you will have the startling truth before your eyes, “I do all that, BUT — I AM―LOST.” Yes, there is no question as to your being religious; but, you are lost.

Do you not see, my friend, you have a religion without Christ? You are a lost sinner, and God has provided a Saviour for you; but, instead of accepting the Saviour, you are working away at your religion to try and save yourself. Take care, my friend, or you will be damned!

The old man was religious, but lost, and had to receive Christ as his own personal Saviour. Nicodemus was religious, but lost, and had to receive Christ as his Saviour (John 3:1-16). The Apostle Paul, too, was religious, but lost, and he says, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). I could tell you of hundreds who were religious, but lost, and who came to Jesus just as they were, ― poor, lost, needy sinners, ―and He received and saved them. The churches and chapels, and meeting-places of various kinds, are crowded with people who are religious, but, alas, lost! And “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4).

A young man was dying, but he knew he was lost, and was in a terrible state of anxiety. Ah! death is a terrible reality, and makes people anxious who never were anxious before. The clergyman was sent for. He came, and read the prayers and administered the sacrament to the young man, and told him he had nothing to fear. As soon as he had left, a friend said to the youth, “I hope you are happy, and can die peacefully now?” “No!”

replied the young man; “I’m not happy. I have not peace, and I cannot die without that. What shall I do?”

No! my reader. Religion with all its rites and ceremonies, without Christ, can never give peace to the soul in the dying hour. Never! Shortly after another friend went to see him, and began to read him that beautiful hymn: ―

“Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come!”

No sooner was the first verse read, than the dying youth looked up, and with deep earnestness said, “Read that again.” It was read over again, and he drank in every word, listening as for his life. As soon as the verse was finished, he said, “There, that will do; I can die with that.” The dear fellow there and then came to Jesus, “just as he was, without one plea,” without one solitary spark of goodness,—he came with all his deep need, and the Lord saved him. Reader, you must come in the same way, and He will save you.

O hear His voice, saying, “Come unto me” (not come to church, or be religious, and pray). “Come unto me,” a divine person, the blessed Son of God, who died on Calvary that you might be in glory. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). All your religious routine is but religious slavery, the devil’s drudgery. And your sins are a heavy load. Then, come to Jesus, and He will give you rest. He can save you, for the work is done. His last words on the cross were, “It is finished.” Yes, the sin question is settled, and Jesus is risen and in the glory, the proof that all is done. Then, where you are, and as you are, just hear His voice, and obey it, ― “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Take care, and do not hold to your Christless religion till you are eternally lost. W. E.

We are known perfectly; and loved everlastingly.

God's Salvation; Present and Eternal.

THERE is peculiar sweetness in the word salvation, and none know its meaning so well as souls divinely convicted of their sins; as those who have been brought to see that they have destroyed themselves, and have no strength whatever to save themselves. Oh, the sweetness of the word salvation to such! Salvation from sin; salvation from Satan’s thralldom; salvation from hell; and salvation for eternal glory. We are saved from something, and for something,— from outer darkness, for the light of God’s countenance, and His eternal glory.

God―blessed be His holy name! —is the author of man’s salvation. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Jonah is but a picture of the sinner. He had sinned, disobeyed, and run away from God; then, cast overboard, and swallowed by the great fish, prepared by God, there, at the bottom of the sea, he learned what his sin was, how he had destroyed himself, and that his only hope was in God. So at the end he cried, “Salvation is of the Lord.” As soon as that was confessed, “The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (2:10).

Salvation to him meant something. It was from the misery and horror of his condition in the fish’s belly, to be brought to enjoy the light of day, to tread the place of safety, and to serve the blessed God who had saved him.

So with the sinner; it is from the darkness and ruin of nature, from a state of death and condemnation, from the power and kingdom of Satan, from the pit of everlasting woe, he is saved. And God, the blessed Saviour-God, is He who has saved him, for His service here and His glory hereafter. Oh, let it be well remembered that “Salvation is of the Lord.”

But it is also a blood-purchased salvation. Let this be well noted. If it cost us nothing, if it is as free to us as the very air we breathe, and as full as the ocean’s tide, let us adoringly remember that it cost the Son of God everything. He became poor, He was rejected, spit upon, buffeted, nailed to the accursed tree, was forsaken of God, and poured out the price of our salvation in His most precious blood. The Son of God died! What for? That it might be possible for God to say, in matchless grace, “Deliver him (the sinner) from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). Oh, that sweet word “Deliver!” Who can realize the sweetness of it so well as a sinner, “wakened up from wrath to flee,” and finding out that God alone can deliver?

God can stand then upon the ground of the death of His dear Son, and say of every repentant soul, “Deliver him,”― “deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” Oh, my reader, are you delivered? Has God saved you with that salvation purchased by His dear Son on the cross? Can you say, “Thank God, I am saved?”

It is of the utmost importance for us to see that it is a present salvation. God “looketh upon men and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light” (Job 33:27, 28). Here is present deliverance, present salvation, for all who take the ground of repentance. The sinner’s “I have sinned,” is met by God’s “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” It is always so, from Genesis to Revelation. God meets the repentant one with a divine, blood-purchased, present, and everlasting salvation. God “hath saved us,” says the Apostle, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim. 1:9). Oh, precious statement of our salvation! What clearness! what simplicity! “God hath saved us.” “By grace ye are saved” (Eph. 2:5).

Then it is a great and an everlasting salvation. It is great, because God, who is great in love and rich in mercy, is the author of it; because it was obtained by a great and mighty sacrifice, that of Christ on the tree; and because it was designed for great sinners, in great need, doomed to a great and eternal destruction. It is an everlasting salvation, because it is the purchase of a once offered, an eternally accepted sacrifice, and because God says that it is. We, who believe, have eternal life, eternal forgiveness, eternal redemption, and are called to inherit eternal glory. Oh, what manner of persons ought we to be!

Thus, God is the author of our salvation. Christ has purchased it; and it is a present, great, perfect, glorious, and everlasting salvation. Oh, let our hearts ring out His praises, now, and forever.

E. A.

Jonah.

(Read chapter 1 and 2)

IN taking up Jonah as an illustration of a sinner, and how God meets him, we find that there are four things which characterize him in the first two chapters, ―1. Will; 2. Independence; 3. Indifference;

4. Helplessness. The word of the Lord coming to him, making a demand upon him, at once sets his will at work. God tells him to go east; Jonah goes west. He has a will in him, that is opposed to God; a will that is determined to have its own way, the result of having the flesh in him, ―that evil principle in every man, “woman, and child on the face of the earth, ―which is enmity against God, not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7). And the will of man never brings him to God; it carries him farther and farther away from Him.

Like Jonah, every man by nature is away from God and out of His presence; not out of His sight, for the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. But, sin having entered this scene, we find that man first of all hides himself from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 3:8); goes out from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:16); and later, in the case of Jonah, flees from His presence (Jonah 1:3). Man listens to the lies and seductions of the devil, and by him is led on to everlasting perdition. Jonah intends going to Tarshish (destruction), and his eye is attracted by Joppa (beautiful). Satan, knowing what man likes, presents something to suit him naturally, something that he likes, something he can gratify himself with, but does not show to man what is behind it all. He shows him the pleasures of sin, but carefully avoids mentioning to him that the wages of sin is death, and after death the judgment, and consequently the lake of fire forever and forever. Thus Jonah’s eye is attracted to the beautiful Joppa; but he little thinks of the destruction that is beyond it.

It was very convenient when Jonah arrived at Joppa to find a ship going in the very direction be wanted to go, and doubtless Jonah thought so, little thinking that the devil provides accommodation for those he is alluring on to destruction. Jonah has, however, to pay his own fare. God would have sent him to Nineveh at His own expense; but Jonah, living in disobedience to God, is also independent of God. Thus we not only have man opposed to God, but instead of being dependent, he seeks to be independent of God. But is Jonah any better off? Assuredly not. He finds himself on board of a vessel, and now he is not only fleeing away from God, but is found going down into it; and we shall find, as we trace his history in verses, 3-5, 2:6, that his course was a downward one. Man vainly thinks that he can get up to God; get to heaven, not only in his own way, but also that he can merit it. Yet if we trace God’s word, we shall unquestionably find that man’s course is not heavenward but hell ward, ―not to God, but from God; his course being ever and only downward; and, unless the strong arm of Him who brings salvation is stretched out in delivering power, he must, sooner or later, find himself in the lake of fire.

But Jonah is also indifferent. He is callous, hard, reckless, thoroughly indifferent to the fact, that at any moment he may be taken from time into eternity. Blinded by Satan as to his eternal interests, God may speak in such a way as to be understood by others around him, yet here is one that is fast asleep in the midst of danger. Not the peaceful slumber of one who is trusting in God and knows His power, His might, and His love, but it is the sleep of an indifferent callous man, careless as to danger, and reckless of its consequences.

But although Jonah flees away from the presence of the Lord, yet God’s eye is upon him, and He sees him wandering farther and farther from Him, going down, and down, and down, until he sees him as it were on the very point of being eternally lost. God works in His own way, and with Jonah He works in such a way that He produces exercises of conscience. And, beloved friend, have you ever known what it was to be brought into the immediate presence of God, to learn what you are as a rebellious, independent, indifferent, and lost sinner?

First of all, Jonah is awakened out of his sleep of indifference with “What meanest thou, O sleeper?

arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not” (vs. 6). He is aroused, first of all, that he might call upon God; and also the fact is plainly stated that he is perishing. A needful, yet solemn, warning to Jonah’s soul; and equally needful to you, my friend, if you are not saved. You are perishing, and this little paper is written to warn you—yes, you—before it be too late.

Secondly, they cast lots, and the lot falls upon Jonah. He is singled out in the midst of the crowd as the sinner. They were all sinners, equally away from God; and we are all sinners, and we are apt to speak of this fact in a very general way; but what is of every importance, is to find out that I am a sinner, and nothing but a sinner, before God.

Thirdly, he judges himself. A most wholesome and necessary thing to do, for “God will have all men everywhere to repent.” God will have self-judgment; and if man will not judge himself in time, he will be judged, and judge himself too, in eternity. Blessed indeed, although painful, for man to find out what he is and what he has done in time, in order that he may judge himself, loathe and abhor himself, and repent of his evil ways and conduct, so that God may turn him to the person of His precious Son, who died upon the tree, and shed His precious blood that the poor lost sinner might be cleansed, pardoned, redeemed, and brought to God. Jonah, however, has not only to learn what he has done, but also what he is. He is cast forth into the sea, and there he is swallowed up by a fish prepared by God, to learn a most needful and salutary lesson, — his own utter helplessness to deliver himself. Jonah not only needs deliverance from his sins, but also from sin. God not only judges sins, but He also has condemned the nature that has committed the sins. It is not only true that man, as such, has committed wickedness against God, but also he has an evil nature that is so bad that it cannot be improved, and he needs an entirely new nature—to be born of God—before he can produce any fruit for God.

In the second chapter of the book, we observe Jonah passing through deeper exercises to learn the powerlessness of man, and that salvation from sins, and sin, is of the Lord.

First of all, Jonah prays. In chapter 1 he does not, but now he does. The first mark of a divine work in the soul is, “Behold he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). His soul is afflicted, and he had the conscious sense of being heard; not that prayer delivers him, He owns too that it was God who cast him into the deep; man may have been used, but he now traces God’s hand in it. Have you, beloved friend, learned the wondrous blessed news, that God is not against the sinner but for him (Rom. 8:31); that He has proved it by giving His Son (John 3:16), not sparing Him (Rom. 8:32), but delivering Him up to death? Yes, Jonah finds out that it must be God, and God only, that can deliver him out of his present condition, and place him in a place of liberty from sin, Satan, and the world. Jesus is a Saviour who not only saves His people from their sins, but also from the power and dominion of sin, to which the soul has been heretofore a slave.

Jonah next looks toward the temple. Solomon in his prayer (1 Kings 8:38-39) requests of God, “What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house: then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men).” Jonah doubtless remembers this prayer, and acts upon it.

But his prayer does not deliver him, neither his looking towards the temple―God’s dwelling place.

Then he proposes sacrifices, and offers to pay his vows. Still he does not get delivered, neither is he in a position to either sacrifice or pay vows; but the human heart will cling to something it is able to do for God, instead of allowing God to do everything, so that He, and He alone, may get all the glory and the praise that is due.

Jonah at last comes to a dead stop. He has been talking to God about himself all through chapters 2; at last he turns away entirely from self, and turns to God. “Salvation,” he now owns, “is of the Lord.” He immediately gets deliverance, for the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land. What a change of position for Jonah. We have traced him going his own way to destruction, and we have found that God’s will as well as Jonah’s has been at work. God is not willing that any should perish. And He works first of all by the storm and the tempest, and then next of all by passing Jonah through deep exercises, to learn not only that he is a sinner, but his utterly helpless condition, unable to save himself, and that God only can meet him and deliver him as he is and from where he is.

What a contrast between Jonah’s position in the first and the end of the second chapter. Carried hither and thither by a terrible tempest on a sea of unrest, now we find him upon dry land. What solid comfort it must have been to his soul, to find every question with a holy God settled, and divinely settled; and now free, from self, from sin, the world, and Satan, to go and deliver God’s message to others.

Have you, beloved friend, found rest of conscience in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and found also rest of heart in Him by bearing His yoke? (Matt. 11) He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. He was always dependent upon God, although independent of man, He was always cast upon God. He was neither indifferent to the claims of God or man; and He went voluntarily into death, in obedience to God’s will, to carry out God’s will and His purpose, that He might be free to save poor, wretched, ruined man righteously. And God, who did not deliver Him from death, but delivered Him up to it, has delivered Him out of death, having raised Him from the dead, and seated Him in the very highest place in glory. And not only so, but everyone who has taken his true place, as a guilty hell-deserving sinner before God, has been led on to find the wondrous fact, that Jesus has died for his sins according to the scriptures (1 Cor. 15), and has been raised again; and also that now he is looked at as being in Christ (Rom. 8), accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1), made meet too to be a partaker , of the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1), standing on ground that has been already swept over by divine judgment, executed upon the person of Him who did nothing amiss (Luke 23), and having a place before God in conscious acceptance in all the present favor of Christ.

And now, beloved friend, God is waiting to be gracious to you, ―not willing that you should perish. He, in the love of His heart, has given His own precious well-beloved Son, and all the waves and billows of God’s righteous judgment against sin have passed over Him. He has been down under it all, that you might not bear the judgment righteously due to you, but that you might be delivered from out of the kingdom and power of Satan, and be translated into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Col. 1). Are you willing to bow to God’s verdict passed upon you, owning yourself subject to the judgment of God, deserving eternal punishment? If so, may you trace not only Jonah’s history, but your own; and also learn too, on the other hand, that God is a Saviour God. He is the source of blessing and salvation; and may He get His joy in saving your precious soul; and may you, conscious of your sins being forgiven, and of being in Christ and Christ in you, be found to be living for Christ, following Christ, serving Christ, until you are taken from this scene to be forever with Himself, and like Himself, who loved you and gave Himself for you (Gal. 2).

“Jesus, spotless Lamb of God,

Thou hast bought us with Thy blood;

We are Thine, and Thine alone,

This we gladly, fully own.”

E. G.

A Leap in the Dark.

“THEN, to you, death will be a leap in the dark?”

“Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be.”

The one who made this terrible confession was a shoemaker of middle age, slowly nearing the grave under the fell power of consumption. Worse than this, he was an infidel, ― a determined, avowed skeptic. I had been asked to visit him in his attic quarters by an old friend, who was himself a shoemaker, but, through grace, a Christian, and naturally most anxious about his unbelieving acquaintance. His friend obtained his permission for me to call by saying that, as a Physician, perhaps I could give him some prescription which would relieve his sufferings; and, when he begged me go, told me briefly of the sadly darkened state of the shoemaker’s mind, urging me to put Christ before him if I could.

Having carefully examined him, and thus got his confidence by the interest which I displayed in his case, he asked me, at length, if I thought his condition amenable to cure. To this I replied that I was sorry to have to tell him I did not think he could recover.

“Then, how long do you think I have got to live, Doctor?” he said.

“A few months, perhaps a year,” I replied.

He made no reply, and the stolid look of indifference on his gloomy face was in no way changed by my remark. As he said no more, I continued, ―

“And are you ready to die, Mr. F―?

“Of course I am, as ready as you, or anyone else.”

“And what has made you ready? Are your sins forgiven, and all washed away in the precious blood of Christ?”

“Oh, that’s all stuff I don’t believe in any of that nonsense. I’m a freethinker.”

“So I regret to perceive; but your being a free-thinker will not fit you for God’s presence?”

“I tell you I don’t believe in a God at all, so I shan’t have to meet Him.”

“Your not believing in Him will not help you to evade the solemn certainty of having to meet Him. The Scripture says, ‘So, then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God.’”

“But I don’t believe the Bible. It’s only fit for old women who can’t reason. No reasonable man believes it in these days.”

“Well, I am not an old woman, but, I trust, a reasonable man, and yet I am free to confess that I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I believe it heartily from cover to cover.”

“And what good has it done you?”

“Untold good, thank God. It has given me the knowledge of Himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know from its blessed pages that my sins are all forgiven, that I have eternal life, and, though I am sure of nothing for a moment in this life, I am quite clear and happy as to the future were I to die, or the Lord to come.”

“Oh, that’s all a delusion. Nobody knows anything about the future. How can they? No one has come back from the dead to tell us what comes after death.”

“That is a great mistake. Why, the One who died for me is the very One who has come back from the dead, to assure me as to my future blessedness, as the fruit and consequence of His death for me.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. No one can know what will be after death.”

“Then, to you, death will be a leap in the dark?”

“Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be,” was his rather hesitating reply.

“Ah, my friend!” I exclaimed, I am far better off than you, through God’s infinite grace. If I should die, death will be a leap in the light.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Because I have got the light now. Christ is my Light. He said, ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life’ (John 8:12). And He also said, ‘Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whether he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness’ (John 12:35, 36, 46). Both you and I are alike sinners before God, but the difference between us is this:―You do not believe in the Lord Jesus, are walking in darkness, and know not whither you are going, viz., to judgment, and the lake of fire; I do believe in Him, have got out of darkness by letting in the light, and know clearly where I any going, viz., ‘to be with Christ, which is far better.’ Don’t you think, now, that I have the best of it? All I can say is, that a man who takes a leap in the dark, when he may take a leap in the light, must be a downright fool. What say you to that?”

He paused a moment or two, and then replied, “Well, Sir, I never looked at it quite in that way before. I won’t say there’s not some reason in your argument.”

With this our interview closed. I left him with my heart lifted to God that His word might do its own work in his heart and conscience. I never saw him again. Upwards of twelve years have rolled away. Last June his friend, who had asked me to visit him, called to see me, and said,

“Do you recollect, many years ago, visiting an infidel shoemaker in L― Street?”

“Perfectly; and what took place between us too.

What became of him?”

“He died in the Royal Infirmary just a year after you saw him.”

“Died an infidel?”

“Oh no, thank God, he died a happy Christian, confessing his faith in the Lord, and giving a bright testimony. He dated the beginning of the change in his heart from that morning you saw him. Something you said to him about a leap in the dark stuck to him, and he was never happy till he found the Lord.”

“The Lord be praised,” was my rejoinder, as I heard, with deep joy, of the Lord’s grace to one who seemed so fortified in unbelief. It is, however, but another illustration of His goodness and of the truth of His word. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper whereto I sent it” (Isa. 55:8-11).

And now, my dear reader, let me, in penning a few concluding lines in this year, during which you have so often been appealed to in these pages, ask you, Are you still in “darkness?” or, Have you received Christ as your “light?” Were you to pass into eternity before the year runs out, will it be for you “a leap in the dark” or “a leap in the light?”

I beseech you, most affectionately, not to put these queries from you. Answer them honestly before God. If you cannot reply, “To me death would be a leap in the light,” turn to Jesus now Trust Him, as you read these lines, and your eternal salvation is sure. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth, on me should not abide in darkness,” may well win the confidence of your heart towards the blessed One who speaks, and who

“Suffered in the shadow

That we might see the light.”

Yes, He tasted death, that we might live; endured the darkness, that we might enjoy the light; and sustained the judgment of God, that we might be truly justified. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Again, “But now once, in the end of the world, hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many:

and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation” (1 Pet. 3:18; Heb. 9:26-28).

Trust Him, then, simply, my reader; and then when called hence, whether by falling asleep in Jesus, or, better, His coming into the air for His own, to you and to me, through infinite grace, it will be

A LEAP IN THE LIGHT.

W. T. P. W.

Have You Repented?

REPENTANCE is absolutely necessary on the part of man, and without this he cannot be saved. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). It is morally impossible for God to save an unrepentant sinner; for salvation is not an act of omnipotence merely, but a question in which the character and glory of God, and man’s sins, and therefore his relations to God, are involved.

The truth is, there is but one God over all; man is a creature of His hand, but a creature that is responsible for his conduct, and held to be such by God, whether he believes it or not; and a creature that has sinned and rebelled against God, and is living a life of alienation from Him. “All have sinned;” “There is none that doeth good, no, not one;” “There is none that seeketh after God.” The whole world standeth guilty before God (Rom. 3). “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue confess to God” (Rom. 14:11).

Two facts stare us in the face here, ―1st, What man is, ―a sinner and rebel against God; 2nd That God will bring man into His presence, and there to confess to Him. “Every tongue SHALL confess to God” (Rom. 14:11). Omnipotence will bring the unrepentant sinner there at the judgment day (oh, what a day for him!), while grace leads the repentant one there now, to receive the forgiveness of all his sins.

Repentance is not a favor that man is doing God. No the whole case demands it, ―God’s character, and man’s sin. God’s majesty has been insulted, His divine claims ignored and trampled underfoot of man. It is the only true and proper place for rebel man to take in the presence of the offended majesty of heaven. The case will admit of no other.

God demands it. God “commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Mark, reader, He commands you to repent. Have you repented? Have you retraced your steps, like the prodigal in Luke 15, and in self-judgment confessed all to Him? “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

This, truly, is the only becoming language of one who has turned his back upon God, ignored His authority, sinned against Him, done his own will, and served Satan rather than his Creator. Reader, have you returned to God, confessed to Him? Be assured, it is the only right place, and the only place of blessing. God can only meet the unrepentant in awful judgment.

Then, see, “it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance” (Rom. 2:4). Blessed thought! He labors to bring His guilty creature back to his true place, so that He might bless him. God has no pleasure in the death and judgment of the sinner, but rather that he should turn and live. “O turn ye, O turn ye, for why will ye die?” is the plaintive cry of God towards His erring creatures. His goodness leads to repentance.

Before Christ ascended to heaven, He gathered His apostles around Him, and said, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24: 46, 47). The risen Christ connects two things together, repentance and remission of sins,—they are preached in His name among all nations. Having accomplished the glorious work of redemption, He sends His heralds out to all nations, calls upon them to take the place of self-judgment before God, and receive from Him the purchase of His blood, ―the everlasting forgiveness of sins.

Reader, it is preached to all nations, and therefore to you. Have you obeyed the summons? have you received the message of the risen Christ? are your many sins forgiven? If not, delay not, I beseech you, for I hear the sound of judgment already.

All heaven bows to the authority of God, they serve and worship Him. There is not a rebel that has a home there. Everything is morally right there, because God is fully owned. The rebel angels were cast down, and are irrevocably lost. Man has followed their awful example, but, thank God, there is salvation for him, though guilty he may be. “Christ died for sinners.” On this ground only can man be saved. Christ “hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). When man repents, heaven rejoices; they rejoice that a fallen rebel creature has returned to his right place of allegiance to God, returned in self-judgment and confession of sin, returned to the only place where God can meet him with pardon and blessing. They rejoice, because God is fully owned and glorified, and the sinner eternally blessed. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10). Blessed, unselfish joy!

Repentance was the burden of the apostle Paul’s preaching, “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

Repentance, to which the goodness of God leads, is indeed a blessed thing. We make a clean breast of everything. “I am vile,”― “I have sinned.” This is toward God. Then God says, “I gave my Son to die for you, His blood cleanseth from all sin.

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

This is the fruit of “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” E. A.

A MOTTO FOR LIFE.

FOR a Christian, the secret of peace within, and power without, is to be always and only occupied with Christ. J. N. D.

"Why Not Trust Me?"

IT was after years of attendance on my beloved father, lately gone to be with the Lord, ―the occupation gone which had so long taken up my time and thoughts; cast down, too, by the loss I had sustained, ― that I was induced by a relation to try change of air and scene. This was in 1859, a year memorable to many who passed from death unto life during the revival at that time.

We went together to a part of Ireland where Mr T., an earnest servant of the Lord, labored with great blessing. Hearing of the work that was going on, and understanding little of the nature of it, curiosity partly prompted us to attend the meetings. It was all new to me. Night after night souls cried for mercy. Often meetings were protracted till after midnight, as those who were anxious would not leave until they found rest in Christ. Suddenly they would rise from their knees, full of joy and peace, and go on their way. Blind as to spiritual things, I did not know that the Lord had spoken peace to the hearts of such; and asked myself, from time to time, why I had not the joy of those who said they had found the Lord, and lovingly entreated others to come to Him. There was now a great attraction to me in the meetings, and I began to ponder deeply the state of my soul,

My father was a Christian. I had been brought up to read my Bible, and was strict as to the outward observances of religion. Duty to those I loved was a real source of pleasure to me; all was fair in the eyes of indulgent relations and friends, but I never thought myself converted, and only hoped I should become a child of God at some future time. Thus I delayed for years, but now, as I listened to faithful words of warning from the lips of the Lord’s servants, I trembled, and thought I must decide.

One night the story was told of a lady who dreamed she was hanging over a precipice, and to prevent herself from falling had taken hold of a twig growing from the side of the cliff. One below said, “Let go the twig.” She was induced to do so, and, falling into the outstretched arms of her deliverer, was saved. Mr. T. said, “There may be some here holding on to a twig, some fancied righteousness of their own, too proud to be saved entirely by the work of another. Ah, let it all go.

Bring nothing in your hand. You cannot be saved in that way. The work was finished on the cross; you have but to look and live.” Mr. T. described my case. I looked on natural affections, and a wish to please, as likely to win the favor of God, forgetting that in all my ways there was no thought of Him. The Lord in mercy did not leave me thus. I returned home thinking of what I had heard.

As I lay down to rest that night, the last words that came to my mind were, “Let go the twig;” again, as if spoken in a louder voice, “Let go the twig.” I slept, and awoke in an hour or two, and again the same words seemed to ring in my ears, “Let go the twig.” Then the words darted into my mind, “Don’t be a fool; you are all right.”

Perplexed, and greatly distressed, I started up, and a gentle voice whispered, “Why not trust Me?” I said, “I cannot do anything, Lord; I cannot even trust Thee.” It was all very real. I had never before thought of the Lord as speaking to me. Now I knew He was near.

The next day (December 25th) was the Lord’s Day. I did not mention to any one the exercises of the past night, and was quite silent as I repaired with others to the place of meeting. I heard as for life or death, all seemed so solemn. The hymn and prayer over, Mr. T. read the words, “His name shall be called Wonderful.” Well knowing how many anxious souls looked for words of comfort, he told simply of the One who came to die, of the wonders of His love, and how it is His joy to save. As he thus spoke of the glory and beauty of that wondrous One, all else faded from my sight, I looked to Him, I trusted Him, and I was saved, and saved forever. There was no effort, no thought of giving up anything. He had taken captive the poor foolish heart, that would fain have clung to a twig of its own righteousness rather than trust Him.

Dear, anxious reader, will you not allow this tender, loving Saviour to have the joy of saving you?

M. F.

Confidence in God.

WHEN the Lord Jesus Christ came down into this world, He came to win back the confidence of man in God. Besides that, He came to bring to us, and to give to us, what perfect confidence always does give to us; and that is, the fullest satisfaction in the One confided in.

It is a principle which you will find true throughout the wide range of the truth of God, that wherever there is a full trust and confidence in Him, it always brings with it the most perfect rest of heart and satisfaction to the one who trusts Him. So we read, “Trust in the Lord,... and verily thou shalt be fed; “and again, “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.” It is not that God satisfies us with ourselves, or with the scenes and circumstances through which He calls us to pass; but He satisfies us with Himself, and meets all our need there, ―in Himself, where, blessed be His name, there is an infinite, resource, ― “according to his riches in glory.” It is in view of this that the psalmist could say, “How excellent is thy loving-kindness, O God, therefore the children of men do put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.” And what must follow? “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasure.”

Now, I want you to notice that man, in the garden of Eden at first, got away from all this. He mistrusted God, listened to Satan’s voice, and got to think that after all God was not perfect goodness to him. Well, he got away from the only source of satisfaction, goodness, and blessing; but God took care that man, in leaving Him, should carry away a constant yearning and craving for satisfaction, which nothing but the One he turned away from could answer to. But, man left God, and turned to himself for satisfaction. He began, as we say, to develop his own resources. He built his cities, and made his musical instruments, and cunning devices of man’s art; but it all told a sad, sad tale of distance and departure from God. “God hath made man upright, but they have found out many inventions.” The invention met the necessity, it is true; and, so far, all was right in that way. But what made the necessity? why was the need felt? They tell us that necessity is the mother of invention; which is true enough. Oh, that all would as readily believe that needs and necessities result from departure from God!

Well, in wondrous grace, the Lord Jesus Christ, came here, to win us back to that place of depending confidence where God can be everything to us for time and forever. Man was a long time learning that he has not in himself the elements of true satisfaction. Indeed, save where grace has wrought, he has not learned it yet. Things went on, from Adam downwards, for a very long time; but still no satisfaction. God’s heart was still towards man, and in wondrous love and mercy, He anon called to him, “Why do you spend your labor for that which satisfieth not? “And, so it went on, till the Lord Himself, in this world, found a poor, lone, unsatisfied creature, at Sychar’s well-side, seeking to satisfy herself then, as all her life hitherto, with the poor things which earth afforded and held out to her. But there she was still, ―and thirsting Ah, said the blessed Lord, “If thou knewest the giving character of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink,’ thou would have asked of him and he would have given thee living water.”

He meant, “If you only had confidence in God, and knew the character that He is now showing Himself in towards poor man, ―that of a giver; ah, if you only knew that, and that I am here, His only-begotten Son, the expression of His heart of love to you in giving, you would have asked of Me, and I should have given you that which would divinely satisfy you, meeting all your need, answering to all the cravings of your poor needy soul.” Oh, how that showed out the heart of God! How truly could the blessed Saviour say, “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

Let me ask you now, who are reading this, do you know that love which passeth all understanding? God has proved it all out to you in the gift of His own dear Son. You know if a little child loves its mother, as it ought to, it would say, “Oh, I love my mother so much, I would do anything for her!” The child measures its love, and proves it too, by what it will do for the object of its affection. Well, it is written, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life; “and again, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, in that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” That was God’s unspeakable gift, by which He proved and measured out to us the perfect love of His heart,—perfect love, which casts out fear, because it provided that which took away its cause. Gold and silver, the precious things of earth, are nothing to be compared with this unspeakable gift. God alone knows its value, and He says, “the precious blood of Christ;” and He who measures all our sins, too says,” the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from every sin.” God laid all our sins on Him, and He bore all the consequences of them when “He gave himself a ransom for all.” Now, let me ask you, have you a portion in that? Can you say,

“My sins were laid on Jesus,

Who washed the crimson stains

White in His blood most precious,

Till not a spot remains?”

Well, if you cannot, God still lingers in grace; it is His day of waiting, “not willing that any should perish.” He still stretches out His hand, beseeching you to come and have confidence in that love which He has so fully proved to you. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses;” not reckoning against them all the bad things they had done. So the Lord Jesus said, He “came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” The day of grace still lingers on, ―God’s longsuffering too―but both must come to an end. Hear, then, once more the Saviour calling, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” W. R. S.

A Word in Season.

SOME years ago, the writer was bidding farewell to a young friend, who was much cast down at the prospect before her of going amongst strangers as a governess. As the train was about to start, the words were spoken into the lone one’s ear, “When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me” (Mic. 7:8). A young girl (a friend of the traveler), who had come to say good-bye, was present, and heard the text thus quoted, and the words impressed her so much that as soon as she returned to her home she began to search her Bible to discover where they were written, but, not having been previously a student of the Word, she did not know exactly where to turn. Accordingly, having learned through her friend the address of the writer, she wrote to her requesting that she would kindly inform her where the words were to be found; saying also, that the text had made such an impression on her mind that it was before her continually, and, being often sorely tried and tempted herself, she desired to know if the Light thus promised were a reality.

With great thankfulness of heart, the writer replied that she had from personal experience proved it to be indeed so, and seized the opportunity, thus afforded, to put before the young girl the way of salvation through a crucified Saviour; telling her, that if she cast herself upon Him, and took Him for her friend, she would certainly be enabled to realize the truth of the prophet’s assertion.

Several letters passed between the friends, and in the course of sometime the Light dawned on the young soul, and she rejoiced most fully in the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free.

During the remaining five years of her life she continued steadfastly walking in this Light, and though brought into deep waters of trouble, sorrow, and personal suffering, she died rejoicing in Jesus, and frequently referred, on her death-bed, to the precious words which had first awakened in her a longing to know the Lord, and that ever since then had been her comfort and mainstay. H. E. S.

"It Tells Me of My Saviour."

IN going through one of the wards of the ―Hospital, I passed and repassed an old German woman sitting beside one of the cots, with her head bowed down on her breast as if asleep, and looking so listless and uninteresting, I did not for some time speak to her. When at last I went to her, she put her hand to her breast and told me of her dreadful pain and misery, her countenance expressing the painfulness of her suffering. After a few words of sympathy, noticing a large Bible lying on her stand, with her spectacles on it, I said, “You have your Bible beside you, I see.” At once her face brightened, and, looking at me with an expression that only the love of Christ in the soul can give, said, “Oh, yes, that is all my hope and trust.” I said, “What does that book give you to hope and trust in, when your body is so full of pain?” Looking in my face, in a surprised way, she said, her voice assuming a defensive tone, “Because it tells me of my Saviour Jesus, who bore my sins in His body on the cross; and it tells me that He is going to take this poor body to be with Himself in glory.” After a little more drawing out, she said, “And when He suffered all for me, He had no sin, and He died to save the poor sinner.

Oh, it makes my pain easy when I think of Him.” After a few words of fellowship with her in the death and glory of this Lord and Saviour, I left her, thanking God that He “had chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom;” and His blessed Spirit, for using this poor woman for comfort and help where nature had seen nothing.

S. A. C.

Behold I the Lord.

BEHOLD! the Lord forsaken,

Upon the shameful tree;

There, life from Him was taken,

To set the captives free;

He died beneath the pressure

Of God’s almighty hand,

That we―His hidden treasure―

Before the throne might stand.

Behold! the Lord arising

Out from the silent grave, ―

Oh, love all hearts surprising!

His enemies to save:

All those who now believe Him,

Are made God’s righteousness;

All those who now receive Him,

Eternal life possess.

Behold! the Lord ascended!

All power rests in His hand,

Which is in grace extended

O’er every people, land:

But soon that hand, uplifted,

In judgment shall descend;

Of those, who grace rejected,

Destruction is the end.

Behold! the Lord beseeching

In rich abounding grace!

His boundless love is reaching

To earth’s most distant place:

Oh, hear the voice now pleading,

And fix on Him faith’s eye;

Submit to His blest leading,―

Why, sinner, shouldst thou die?

G. W. P.

The Last Call.

PERHAPS, my reader, you have heard it! It may be that, for the very last time in your life, you have heard the invitation, “Come unto me.” Never more may your ear hear its welcome sound the next moment may be your last on earth, and your first in hell!

That call―so long, too long, slighted―will sound never more, in tender tone entreating the sinner to believe and live. All is over; and naught remains but self-reproach―the most tormenting―as you realize, for the first time, that you trifled with God’s mercy just once too often! That call―so sweet, so patient, so clear―to have been so long despised!

This will be one of the bitterest dregs in the cup of woe. It is not only that you have sinned against Almighty power, and rebelled against Divine authority, but, alas, you have closed your ear to the call of loves. The last call has sounded! How solemn, how terrible! Ah, what would not that soul in torment give, could he hear, but once, the word so common, so well-known now? What would the multitudes of the damned give, ―had they ought to give, ―just to hear the message of heaven to earth, “Come?” But no; that word can never break the eternal monotony of their awful doom. No gospel is proclaimed there. No fountain of the water of life flows there. No voice of hope rings its glad-some note there. All is over! No Christ, no God, no hope! only judgments the word “Come” was intended for earth, but not for hell; and therefore their state is fixed forever.

Certain it is, that the call is heard once for the last time.

Noah preached for a hundred and twenty years to the people who lived before the flood, but once he preached to them for the last time, ―and the flood came! For eighteen hundred and fifty years has the gospel of God’s infinite grace been proclaimed far and wide, but the last proclamation will come, the evangelist will bend his knee in prayer for blessing on the message he is about to preach, ―once for the last time! and the ear of the sinner will hear that message, once for the last time!

Yes, for the last time!

Reader, is it possible that you have heard for the very last time? And, oh, how often have you listened to the message during the months of the year now so nearly run out! But, as you read these lines, once more, just once more, does the same call sound in your conscience. Soul, escape for thy life! look not behind Delay is dangerous that “convenient season” is on the wing! It may be now, or never! A moment too late, is an eternity lost! Why delay? why halt?

Sin demands speed; judgment hastens; time flies; eternity approaches! Behold that great white throne I list the awful sentence! Ah, soul, flee! flee!! A tender bosom still bids thee welcome; ―

the blood of Christ still cries for pardon But the Judge is at the door;—the coming of the Lord draweth nigh!

Once more, ― “Come!” J. W. S.

“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.

Messenger of Peace: Volume 2 (1883)

Table of Contents

"Which Line Are You on?"

The Blood That Cleanseth.

The Gambler's Conversion.

"I Am Going to Be With Christ."

A New Year's Appeal.

Faith's Touch.

"I See It All Now."

God's "Faithful Saying," and Christ's Finished Work.

"If You Should Die; What Then?"

The Sign of Jonas.

"His Death."

Escape! Escape! Escape!

God's Love to Poor Sinners.

A Walk to Land's End, and a View of Man's End.

Abraham's Conversion.

And That He Died for All.

Light and Darkness.

Cleansing and Thanksgiving.

The Deity, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

Three "Trying" Sins.

"Be Ye Also Ready."

Man's Way and God's Way.

Trying and Trusting.

The Cross and the Resurrection.

"If That Is Christianity, Then I Am a Christian."

Believeth; Hath.

Falling Away.

Seven Prayers and Their Results.

The Blood, the Ground of the Sinner's Justification.

God Waiting.

A Present Precious Possession.

The Dying Peasant.

Jonah's Sermon.

Man's Question and God's Answer.

The Good Samaritan.

Thanksgivings for What?

Innocence, Guilt, Grace.

"A Living Saviour."

Christ at Cana.

A Sailor Lad's Story.

A Heavenly Saviour.

Hell.

The Threefold Witness.

"Is That All?"

"Without Money and Without Price."

Still the Day of Grace.

A New Kind of People.

What Is God?

God a Giver, and a Receiver.

Have You Peace With God?

"They Shall Not Escape."

The Power of the Blood.

"Who Gave Himself."

The Good News.

"Religious, but Lost."

God's Salvation; Present and Eternal.

Jonah.

A Leap in the Dark.

Have You Repented?

"Why Not Trust Me?"

Confidence in God.

A Word in Season.

"It Tells Me of My Saviour."

Behold I the Lord.

The Last Call.