Pardon—Divine.
Sir H. Crawford, when Under-Sheriff of London, once found it necessary to decide, almost at a moment’s notice, the fate of a criminal condemned to death. The day for execution had come, when a letter of reprieve was received at Newgate Jail. It was in due form, and was written on Home Office paper. The Under-Sheriff, however, noticed that the envelope was stamped with the Board of Trade mark. This showed that the paper had not come from the proper source, and he gave the order to proceed with the execution. Inquiries made later proved the ‘reprieve’ to be a forgery. Its writer was traced and sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
The pardon offered to us bears the hallmark of its Divine origin.
Pardon Refused.
In 1830 George Wilson was sentenced to death for murder committed during a robbery. The President of the United States exercised his right, and sent him a pardon, which Wilson refused! The matter was referred to the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice gave this decision: “A pardon depends on its acceptance by the person implicated. It is hardly to be supposed that one under sentence of death would refuse to accept it, but a pardon refused is no pardon.” So George Wilson was executed.
Parents—Negligence of.
We read a letter recently from a soldier boy who had just been home on leave. He thought his mother was the finest woman in the world; was sure that she would be praying for him, and would be interested in seeing him saved.
But when he arrived home, his parents did not mention the Lord once to him. So finally he brought up the subject himself and several times he asked them something about how to be saved, hoping that they would talk to him about the Lord. But even then he did not get any response.
When the time came for him to return to camp, he broke down and cried like a baby—not because he had to leave home, for he did not mind that so much. What hurt him so much was to realize that his dear parents did not have the least interest in his salvation. Then he pleaded with the preacher to do or say something that would wake up the fathers and mothers of America to see that their boys and girls needed to be saved, and that their parents should be the ones to help them.
Parting of Ways.
Near the Jaffa gate of Jerusalem is a small terrace, on the top of a watershed, so level that the rain, as it falls on it, seems undecided as to which way to go. But part of it is carried by a faint breath of wind over on the west side, and runs down into the Valley of Roses, and so to the beautiful plain of Sharon. Fertility and beauty spring up in its wake, and finally the odor from the fragrant blossoms of the flowers give pleasure to multitudes. Another part of it finds its way to the other side of the terrace, and descends through the dark Valley of Tophet, where it helps to produce the bitter ‘apples of Sodom,’ and is finally lost in the waters of the Dead Sea.
Parting of Ways.
Senator T—, of Georgia, was not a Christian and lived a godless life. His wife was a Christian, and he loved and venerated her profoundly. One day a friend said to him: “Something is going to happen after a while that will go mighty hard with you, T—.”
“What’s that?”
“You and your much-loved wife will be separated. She is going to heaven, and you to hell.”
T— was silent for a few minutes, and then said: “I can’t stand that; I never could stand such a thing.” It led to his conversion.
Password—the Correct.
In the American War, the Honorable George Henry Stuart, passing through a camp, was challenged by the sentry. He gave the wrong password. The sentry said: “Mr. Stuart, it is my duty to shoot you dead, but I know you; go to the General, and get the right word.” Mr. Stuart did so, came again, gave the word, and was allowed to pass. He then turned to the soldier and said, “You were very properly anxious about my having the right password; may I ask, have you the right password for eternity?”
He said: “Yes, I have.”
“What is it?”
“‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ You gave it to me in Sunday School, twenty years ago.”
People that Cannot be Saved.
A short while ago the writer heard a preacher make a statement which seemed at variance with facts, inasmuch as it was quite contrary to the declarations made by other ministers of the Gospel who proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. God’s ability and willingness to save are stressed by earnest gospelers who tell of the cleansing power of the blood of the Son of God, that it is an infallible remedy for sin; yet the speaker referred to above stated emphatically, “There are some people whom God cannot save.”
Memory passed in review many cases of persons who had sunk deep in degradation and sin, but found a refuge and cleansing at Calvary. Scriptures were recalled wherein sinners of differing positions in life, with varying degrees of guilt, are shown as cleansed from their defilement, transformed in character, and changed to be noble men and women.
The preacher went on to illustrate his assertion by giving instances of sheep which were lost on a certain farm. In the summer and early autumn the sheep fed on the hills safe and secure. As the winter approached, the dogs went out to bring them to the homestead and usually returned with the whole flock, but sometimes one or more were missing. Then like the shepherd of Luke 15, the farmer went himself in search of them. He called, but there was no response, so the quest went on. In some cases, a sheep was discovered in a deep crevice between the hills where it could be seen feeding on the succulent grasses growing down there, and then lying down, satisfied, ignorant of the fact that when that growth was devoured there remained no way out; and that death was inevitable. The animal was lost, but knew it not. At other times, when the dogs were on their errand of mercy, a sheep ignored their barking and their endeavors to bring it home where there was abundance of food and shelter from the coming storms; it would not come. Eventually the rains came, then the snow fell, covering the pastures, and the sheep perished of cold and hunger.
These are the pictures of the people God cannot save.
Place—Filling one’s.
At Baalbek a great temple was built, Some of the pillars still stand. In a quarry nearby, dressed ready for its place in the temple, is a large column, 70 feet long. A vacant place in the temple awaited it, yet for 4,000 years it has lain there, never occupying the place for which it was designed.
Place—Filling one’s.
“I amount to nothing,” said a small stone, as it rolled from its place in the dam. That night a town was flooded. Fill your God-given place.
Plan of Life.
Have you watched a skillful knitter? Then you have seen the knitting needles making mimic warfare one against the other. At least, so it seems. One will gain all the wool, then the other will recover everything it lost and more besides. The operation might appear strange to one who does not understand the art. But the knitter knows what she is doing, and what object she has in view.
Plans—Making our.
“Make your plans with pencil, so that God can rub them out.”
Possessions—Possessing our.
A man, acting on behalf of fifty friends whom he is going to settle in Australia, purchases some land. The condition is that the land must be occupied and put under cultivation within two years. He goes out alone, takes possession, signs documents and occupies the land on behalf of his fifty friends.
Possessions—Possessing our.
A man on the great Texas oil-fields said: “I know the man that used to own this land. He could scarcely make a living. Speculators bought up his land for a small price. They sank oil wells, and today the land is worth millions.” At one time the farmer owned every drop of that oil. But he did not possess the wealth, though all was his.
Potter and Clay.
George Macdonald puts into the mouth of one of his characters, a sufferer, the petulant cry: “I wish I had never been made.” To which her friend replied: “My dear, you are not made yet; you are only being made, and you are finding fault with the Maker’s process.”
Power—Condition for Spiritual.
An electric train carries no power of its own. Unless it is kept in touch with the flow of current from the generating station it is more useless than a coster’s barrow. But there is another thing. Just as the driving power for the train is only available on the lines laid down, so with the power of Christ. It is only available for us in the way of God’s will. GEO. CUTTING
Power of Christ—attractive.
Some drops of ocean one day looked up to the blue sky and the fleecy clouds, and the glorious sun, and they sighed: “Oh, that we could join you there!” Try as they would, they failed. By no struggle or effort of their own could they achieve their object. By and by a storm arose, and in the height of the storm those drops of ocean were often lifted up on the crest of the waves, dashed against the rocks and borne upwards into the air in the form of fine spray. Although they seemed to be about to achieve their object of reaching the blue sky, down they fell again into the ocean, and they sighed and said, “It can never be!” Have you had that experience, dear reader? Have you wept over it? You meant to be so different, but you found sin to be dwelling within you. You thought to find deliverance in your own strength, but time and again you failed and you said, “It can never be!” By and by the sun came out and the ocean lay warm and placid under its rays. Then a wonderful thing happened. Those drops of ocean, without any struggle of their own, found themselves rising up as imperceptible vapor, and in this way they joined the sun, and the fleecy clouds, and the blue sky! How did they secure this? By giving up their own efforts and simply yielding to the attractions of another.
Power of Christ—overcoming.
A skeptic, denying the possibility of miracles, said: “If I let go this knife it will fall; no power can suspend the law of gravitation.” The Christian replied: “Watch me let go my knife,” and he flicked it up, and it stuck in the ceiling. He said, “You see, I let it go, and it did not fall.” “But you did something to it!” “Yes; and that is what Christ did. He was able to do it.”
Power of Christ—transforming.
If you take a bar of iron worth £1, and beat it into horseshoes it becomes worth £7; if into needles, £100; if into watch-springs, £1,000. The transforming power of Christ; from glory to glory.
Power of God.
An Edinburgh professor was addressing a large company of students. Holding up a letter, he said: “Gentlemen, I have here a letter from one of your number in which he tells the story of his life, a record of shame and sinful indulgence. He asks, ‘Can God save such a one as I am?’” The speaker went on: “Coming along this afternoon I saw a beautiful, fleecy cloud spreading itself like a thing of glory in the sky. If that cloud could speak as to its origin, it would say something like this: ‘I come from the low, vile places of the city. The sun’s rays from heaven reached down and lifted me up, and transfigured me with their shining.’ I can say to the writer of this letter that my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, can reach down from heaven to the lowest depths into which a soul can sink, and can lift you up till He shines in you, and through you, and transfigures you with the light of His love and glory.”
Power of Life.
The first gunboat built by the Chinese to protect their rivers from pirates had been launched, and the day came for the trial trip. Many were invited on board for the occasion. The Captain gave the order for the engines to be started. The lever was pulled, but nothing happened. In their hurry and excitement they had forgotten to put the fire under the boilers. They had all but one thing, and that was POWER.
Power of Life.
There went three brothers from England to Virginia, across the Atlantic. They took their church and house with them, bricks and all, and erected a beautiful structure on a great farm. One of them in his will provided that his grave should be dug in the churchyard, and around it should be placed a great wall, twelve feet high, and a foot and a half thick, with a massive iron door, and after his burial the sheriff of the county was to lock the door, and throw the key into the Rappahannock, a great river nearby. He did not want any strange feet ever to desecrate his grave. When I stood beside it several years ago there were three big poplar trees about two feet in diameter growing within that wall. They had pushed the wall down, and had lifted the gravestones six inches, and the cattle were grazing on the grass that grew round about. It was all done by the power of life in three little seeds that just fell over and took root and grew.
Power of Life.
W. P. Nicholson went for electrical treatment and was set on a chair on an insulated platform while the doctor read a newspaper. After a while Mr. Nicholson asked that the treatment might begin. “You are undergoing it now,” said the doctor; and he took a board with several electric bulbs on it, and placed it against his chest. Instantly the bulbs glowed with light. The doctor said: “There is enough power passing through your body to run the tram on the street.” Yet he felt nothing.
Power to Shine.
A man rigged up an electric battery to ring his front door bell. Then he thought he would run a wire to his bedroom and use the battery for a light. After failing, he called in an electrical expert, who smiled and said, “Don’t you know that it takes more power to shine than to make a noise?”
Prayer.
A mason, coming down from a roof by a long ladder, found a little boy close by, who said: “Weren’t you afraid of falling when you were up so high?” and before he had time to answer, added: “I know why—you had prayed to God before you began your work.” The man never forgot to pray each morning after that.
Prayer.
The father of the well-known Dr. Talmage, when a youth, asked leave of his mother to spend the night at a nearby town. She knew the place he wanted to go to was questionable, so she refused. Finally he said: “I don’t care; I will go.” “Very well,” said his mother, “every single moment you are out of the house I shall be in prayer for you.” He went, but could not enjoy himself, and at 3 a.m.. he tramped back to his home in the country. He saw a light in his mother’s window, and looking in, saw her on her knees. He put his ear against the glass, and heard: “O Jesus, keep my boy.” He stole round the house, slipped into his mother’s room, dropped on his, knees by her side, and said: “Mother, I’ve come back.” As the result of his conversion fifty boys in the neighborhood were converted, and a revival swept over the state of New Jersey.
Prayer—Answering one’s Own.
A son, hearing his father pray that the wants of the poor might be supplied, said: “Father, I wish I had all your corn.” “Why?” “Because then I would answer your prayer.”
Prayer—Conditions for Answered.
The late Dr. H. A. Ironside, of Chicago, had a young woman in his church who at one time was very spiritual, and then began to drift, becoming very worldly, and interested in balls, dances and theater parties. Just then her father died, and a few days after the doctor met her. “Doctor,” she said, “I don’t know where I am spiritually. When my father was taken to hospital for his operation, I knelt down in my bedroom and took my Bible, and it opened at John 15:77If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7), ‘Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ With my finger pressing on those words, I said, ‘O God, bring my father safely through the operation’; and he died on the operating table.”
The sympathetic friend said to her: “I know your feelings are lacerated just now, but I would not be faithful to God or to you if I did not say what I want to say. If William Smith found a check payable to the order of John Brown, and put the name of John Brown to it and cashed it, what would he be?” “He would be a forger,” she replied. He said: “My dear young lady, that is what you tried to do at Heaven’s Bank; but no forger can be successful there. Let me read you the whole verse: ‘If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ Were you abiding in Him, and was His Word abiding in you when you were frequenting balls and theaters and dance parties?”
“Oh!” she said, “I have been responsible for my father’s death.” “No, you have not,” he replied. “You are going to the other extreme now. If you had been abiding in Christ and His Word abiding in you, you would have knelt and resigned your father into His hands to do what seemed good in His sight.”
Prayer—Conditions for Answered.
A Mrs. Cobley, of Leicester, was a devoted hospital visitor. One day in the wards the doctor was announced, and she rose to leave. Near the door a young doctor accosted her with: “Well, Mrs. Cobley, I suppose you have been telling these people that God answers prayer.”
“Yes.”
“I am very glad to hear it, for I am very hard up. Do you think if I asked God for a five-pound note that He would give it me?”
The group around awaited her answer with some curiosity. She said: “Suppose you were introduced to the Prince of Wales today, doctor, do you think you could at once ask him for a five pound note?”
The doctor haltingly replied: “No; I suppose I should need to wait till I got to know him better.”
“Yes; and you will have to know my Father better before you can ask Him for five-pound notes.”
W. Y. FULLERTON
Prayer—Secret of Public.
One night, during the American War of Independence, a Highland soldier was caught creeping stealthily back to his quarters out of the woods. He was taken before his commanding officer and charged with holding communication with the enemy. He replied that he had only gone into the woods to pray by himself. The officer was a Scotsman himself, a Presbyterian, but he had no sympathy with the prisoner. “Have you been in the habit of spending time in private prayer?” he asked. “Yes, sir.” “Then, down on your knees and pray now. You never before had so much need of it.”
Expecting immediate death, the man knelt and poured out his soul in prayer in such a way that proved that he knew what dealing with God in secret meant. When he had done the officer said “I believe your story; you may go. If you had not been often at drill you could not have got on so well at review.”
Prayer—True Character of.
When we pray we are sometimes like sailors in a boat who have flung their anchor on to a rock, and who, as they pull on the rope, seem to be pulling the rock to themselves, when really they are pulling themselves to the rock.
Prayer—Unheard.
Shakespeare says of a certain kind of prayer: “Our words fly up, our thoughts remain below; words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Prayer Meeting—Attendance at.
Michael Faraday was lecturing to a large audience in London. After the applause had subsided, the then Prince of Wales arose and proposed a motion of appreciation and congratulation to the lecturer. But when they looked round for him, they found he had hastily left the hall after concluding his lecture. His intimate friends knew that the hour of the weekly prayer meeting had arrived. That was where Faraday had gone. He said he could not afford to miss the prayer meeting. This is the man believed by many to have had the most massive intellect ever existing in this world!
Preaching—Powerless.
A man, giving his testimony at a meeting, said his feet were standing on the Rock of Ages. “No, they’re not,” said a voice, “they’re standing in a pair of shoes that are not paid for!” It was the voice of the shoemaker!
Preaching—Secret of Effective.
A clergyman was called to minister in a rural part of Scotland and preached learned and eloquent discourses. One of the congregation placed near the Bible in the pulpit a paper on which was written: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” It led to a complete change in his life and ministry. Many were converted, and believers edified. Another, wanting to express appreciation of the change that had come about, placed in the pulpit another paper on which was written: “Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.”
Preaching—Travailing in.
“In my preaching, I have really been in pain, and have, as it were, travailed to bring forth children to God. If I were fruitless, it mattered not who commended me; if I were fruitful, I cared not who did condemn.”
JOHN BUNYAN
Procrastination.
On the afternoon of the day when King Alexander of Serbia was assassinated, the. Minister of War received a letter giving details of the plot. He was about to open it when the king sent for him. He put it in his pocket and forget all about it. He, too, was murdered, and the letter was found in his pocket by the conspirators, still unopened. No business, no engagement, no pursuit can be of sufficient importance to serve as a reason for putting off decision for Christ.
Procrastination.
On the night of the great Holmfirth flood, which caused such disaster some years ago, a man on the bank of the reservoir saw the water rise to a dangerous height. He paced up and down for twenty minutes watching, hesitating, and asking himself the question, “Shall I give the alarm?” The fatal moment came; the warning had not been given. The waters rushed over the banks and spread destruction on every hand. Decision twenty minutes before would have saved many lives and thousands of pounds worth of property.
Procrastination.
Señor Canalejas, a Spanish Prime Minister, who was shot in the streets of Madrid, is said to have been sorely tried by the habit of procrastination, so common to the people of that country. “Tomorrow, tomorrow,” he once exclaimed, “tomorrow will be the ruin of the country.”
Prodigal Son.
In one of Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman’s meetings a man rose and gave the following testimony: “I got off the train at the Pennsylvania depot one day as a tramp, and for a year I begged in the streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder, and said: ‘Mister, please give me a dime.’ As soon as I saw his face I recognized my old father. ‘Father, don’t you know me?’ I asked. Throwing his arms around me, he cried: ‘I have found you! I have found you! All I have is yours!’ Men, think of it, that I, a tramp, stood begging my father for ten cents, when for eighteen years he had been looking for me, to give me all he was worth!”
Profession—the Pity of Christian.
A Danish fable explains the origin of the bat. There was a war between the birds and mice. One bird would not take a stand with its fellows, but wanted to be on both sides. When peace was made, it was despised by both sides, and condemned to be half bird, half mouse, forever. The fable adds that it is now so ashamed of itself that it never ventures out except after dark. Few things are more pitiful than the professing Christian, who would fain keep company with those who “mount up with wings,” but cannot forego the pleasures of those who are “of the earth, earthy.”
A. GOOK
Profit—What shall it.
A young student distinguished for his mathematical attainments was fond of challenging his fellow students to a trial of skill in solving difficult problems. One day one of them came to his study with a folded paper, and said: “Here is a problem I wish you could help me solve.”
The paper was eagerly unfolded, and there instead of a question in mathematics, were traced the lines: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
With a gesture of impatience, he tore the paper into atoms, and turned again to his books. But he tried in vain to shake off the impression the solemn words had left, and he found no peace till he found it in believing in Jesus. In after days he became a preacher of the Gospel, and often based his faithful appeals upon these words, which had been so eminently blessed to his own soul.
Profit—What shall it?
What shall it profit a man if he passes his university examination with honors; yet fails to pass from death unto life? What shall it profit a woman if she be arrayed in costly raiment, cut in the very latest Paris fashion, if she does not possess the robe that will make her fit for the presence of God?
Promises of God.
A postage stamp can only be used once for postal purposes, whereas a banknote retains its original value, no matter how many times it passes through other hands.
It is infinitely more so with God’s promises than with a Bank of England note. Take, for example, the Lord’s promise: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Countless believers have brought it before the Throne of Grace, yet the promise is there for you and for me, as if it had never before been used, or were perfectly new.
Provision—too late!
A young man lay very ill in India. Some years before he had gone from his home and had wasted his life. Finding himself at length reduced to abject misery he wrote home and begged his father to send money. In due course he received a letter from his father. Eagerly he opened it to see if it contained check or money order. Finding none, he threw it aside without reading it. Becoming much worse, and realizing that he was dying, he asked someone in the house to try and find the letter and read it to him. The letter expressed his father’s longing desire for his return home and said that he had arranged for a Bank in the place where the young man was to supply him with all the money he needed for the journey. All he had to do was to apply for it. But it was now too late.
Psalms 23.
An actor at a drawing-room function was asked to recite.
“What shall I recite?” he asked.
“The 23rd Psalm,” said an aged Christian who was present. “Yes. I’ll do that if, when I have finished, you also will recite it.”
“I? But I am no elocutionist. However, if you wish it, I will.”
The actor began; his intonation was perfect. The audience was spellbound and burst into applause.
Then the old Christian rose; his voice and intonation were very ordinary. When he had finished there was no applause. But there was not a dry eye, and many heads were bowed.
The actor rose again and said: “The difference between him and me is that, while I know the psalm, he knows the Shepherd.”
Publican—Character of a.
Publicans were hated by the Jews as traitors to their race. Their money was tainted and would not be accepted in the synagogue. Their oath was absolutely worthless; they could not be witnesses in any court of law. If a man promised to do a thing for a publican under oath, he was not bound to keep his pledge.
Purity.
An artist went to see a young friend at Oxford. He was grieved to find, from the kind of pictures on the wall of his room that he had wandered far from the paths of purity. He made no remark, but when he got home he packed up one of his pictures and sent it as a present. When the student put it up, this beautiful picture made short work of the theatrical and sporting prints. It seemed at once that there was something incongruous between the two kinds of pictures; those lewd ones and the pure loveliness portrayed by the artist. The former came down.