The Gospel Messenger: Volume 21 (1906)

“THAT’S a doctor, an Edinburgh doctor; drives himself, with a spanking pair of little gray horses, in a light victoria, and goes at a great pace. Take stock of him; you will be sure to know him by his gray horses. Take stock of him.”

The speaker was standing on the platform of the Queen Street Station, Glasgow, and talking to a friend, the only occupant of a first-class compartment of the last train to Edinburgh, into which I had just stepped, one evening in March 189 —, after addressing a large gospel meeting. The speaker’s friend sat in the window-seat near the platform. I took my seat at the further side of the carriage, but the above words, though intended only for his friend, were uttered in such a loud stage-whisper that I heard every syllable, and immediately began to ponder what I should do under the circumstances, and whether two could not “take stock.” More conversation followed between the two, generally in relation to a well-known Edinburgh doctor of divinity whose fame is world-wide, and whose ministry, I gathered, the occupant of the carriage attended. Just then the’ starting bell was rung, the guard whistled, the engine responded, and with “A comfortable journey to you,” the platform speaker departed, and we started.

I immediately took my seat vis-a-vis to my fellow-traveler, who was a man of about five and thirty, an intelligent-looking, shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, and taking out my watch, looked intently at it.

“We are off by the tick of the clock,” said he. “It is a grand thing to be in time.”

“I quite agree with you,” I rejoined, “but —” and paused.

“But what?” interrogated he.

“May I ask you, if this were the last train for heaven, would you be in it, sir?”

“The last train for heaven,” said he, “I never had such a question as that put to me in all my life.”

“Very likely,” I replied. “Is it a bad question?” “I will not say that, but I never had such a question as that put to me before.”

“Be it so, but as you say it is not a bad question, I will put it again. If this were the last train for heaven, sir, would you be in it?”

He paused a moment, looked very serious, and then rejoined, “I go to church every Sunday.”

“So does the devil, every day the door is opened.” “The devil go to church — what does he go there for?” he excitedly asked.

“He goes there to hinder you and the like of you from believing the gospel, which you very likely hear there.”

“I never thought of his going to church.”

“If you had read your Bible carefully you would have thought of it, for the Lord Jesus, speaking of the sower who went out to sow his seed says, ‘Those by the wayside are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved’ (Luke 8:12). Satan knows the way of salvation better than most men that preach it, leave alone those who listen to it; and therefore when it is being preached he tries to take away the word, lest the hearer should believe and be saved.”

“I never thought of that, but I go to church regularly. I go to hear the great Dr. M —, you know him?”

“Oh yes, I know him personally and also by repute as a preacher. Has he been the means of your conversion yet?”

“Well, I could not just say that, but he is a grand preacher.”

“I know that, but if you have not been converted to God yet, do you not see his preaching has not been of much good to you? What you need, my friend, is the forgiveness of your sins, the pardon which the Lord alone can minister, the salvation of your soul, the sense of peace with God, and shelter from the wrath to come. Have you got these blessings yet?”

These pointed queries led to a very plain, interesting conversation much too long to relate. He asked many questions, and was evidently fully aroused to a sense of the importance of his soul’s salvation. Our journey to Edinburgh was more than half over when all of a sudden he exclaimed, “I see exactly what you are at.”

“Indeed, what am I at?”

“Oh, you want me to be a real, downright Christian, and that I cannot be.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I do want; I would like you to be a real back-bone Christian, and I do not see why you cannot be one, for I have never yet met the man that Christ could not save. Why cannot you be a Christian?”

“I am in the liquor traffic; I travel in beer, for Messrs —, and you know a man cannot be in that business and be a Christian too.”

“Well,” I replied, “I quite admit that the liquor traffic and all that is connected therewith is a very difficult business for a Christian to be in happily, if he wish to serve his masters faithfully and yet keep a good conscience.”

“Well then, you see I could not be a Christian,” said he.

“Yes, you may be,” I replied, “and a Christian this night too, before the train reaches Edinburgh.” “How?” he fervently inquired.

“You come to Christ where you are just now, a sinner in your sins; own them, judge yourself, repent before God, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ If you come to Him He will pardon your sins, and save your soul. You decide for Him, and He will deal with the liquor traffic all in due time. Just now it is the question of your soul’s salvation; get that settled, I beseech you.”

Struck by this rejoinder he fell back into his corner seat, and I, wearied with my day’s work, fell back in mine, and closed my eyes. A quarter of an hour rolled by in silence, and when I opened my eyes I saw him reaching across the carriage, preparing to speak to me. The moment my eyes were opened he said, “Do you ever preach?”

“Sometimes.”

“Where?”

“Very often in Freemasons’ Hall.”

“Freemasons’ Hall, George Street, Edinburgh?”

“The same.”

“I know it well; I was there last Thursday night at the Licensed Victuallers’ Ball.”

“That is the spot,” I replied. “The difference between you and me, however, with regard to it, is this — you go there to dance, I go there to preach.”

“When will you preach there next?”

“I expect to preach next Sunday week.”

“Would you have any objection if I were to come?” he earnestly asked.

“Not in the least; I shall be delighted to see you and your wife, and any of your friends you like to bring. We have generally got a well-filled hall, but will make room for you.”

“I will be sure to come,” was his rejoinder; and having exchanged cards, and promised to send him a notice of some special addresses on the “Night Scenes of Scripture,” which I was going to give on Sunday evenings, we parted company as the train pulled up at the Haymarket Station.

On the Sunday week I looked anxiously over my audience to see if my new friend were present, and just as the meeting commenced I saw him come in, accompanied by several friends, who, with him, took their seats at the bottom of the hall. He left immediately the meeting was over this night, as well as the two following Sundays, when I noticed that lie was present. But thereafter I did not see him, and thought his case might have been like many others, where a passing spiritual impression gets worn off by contact with the world.

Two and a half years rolled by ere I saw him again. My usual autumn rest in the Swiss mountains was over, and returning home by way of Croydon, I there held some special evangelistic meetings. Its largest public ball was packed to excess on Sunday night, and, during the course of the after-meeting, a Christian gentleman, resident there, came up to me and mid, “There is a man sitting at the top of the room who is anxious to speak with you, doctor. He says he is from Edinburgh, and was converted through you.”

Finding my way to the front bench I saw a very happy-looking man sitting, who immediately greeted me most warmly, saying, “I am so glad to see you, doctor.” A little taken aback, I made no answer for a moment, when he ejaculated, “You do not seem to remember me.”

“Well,” I replied, “your race seems familiar, and your voice, but I could not put a name on you.”

“Oh, I am the man you spoke to in the train — don’t you mind?”

“I have spoken to a good many men in the train in my time.”

“Ay, ay, but don’t you mind me? I am the man you spoke to in the train coming through to Edinburgh frae Glasca.” And by way of proving his identity he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the card which I had given him just ere we parted company at the Haymarket Station, and, pinned to it, the handbill of the meetings which I had sent him, according to promise.

“Oh, now I recognize you,” I said, “your name is B —. And are you converted?”

“Yes, thank God, I am converted, and my wife too.” “And how did that come about?”

“Oh, through what you said to me in the train — I could not shake it off — and the meetings in the Freemasons’ Hall, and the little books I got at the door coming out.”

“But I only saw you there three times.”

“Oh, but I was there a great many more times than that. Look here (pointing to the handbill), I heard you all through ‘Night Scenes of Scripture,’ except the last two.”

“And you were brought to know the Lord then?”

“Yes, blessed be His name, He opened my eyes, gave me the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, and made me the possessor of eternal life through faith in Him.”

“And what happened then?”

“Oh, I found, after I was brought to Christ, that I could not go on with the liquor traffic. I felt if I stopped where I was I should certainly be swamped, and I thought there was nothing for it but to make a clean break, so I gave up my situation and came down to a place about five miles from here, where my wife had some relations, to get clean out of the way of all my old associates.”

“And how came you here tonight?”

“Well, yesterday an old gentleman brought to my house a handbill of your meetings here, and when I saw the name I said to myself, ‘That is the man that spoke to me in the train,’ and I felt I must come in and see you.”

“I am very glad to see you, dear brother,” I replied, “and to find that you are now on the Lord’s side. But what are you doing to earn your bread now?”

“I am working on the estate of the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“And is that situation as good as the one you had in Edinburgh?”

“Oh, no; I had £3. 2 Samuel 6d. a week, besides commission, for selling beer. I have £1 a week now, but, thank God, I have a happy heart and a good conscience, and if I can just get enough to support my wife and bairns honestly, I want no more. I am a downright happy man now. I know the Lord, and I want to serve and please and follow Him.” And the joy that shone in his face was a thorough attestation of the truth of his words.

Assured of the reality of his conversion, I was only too glad to introduce him to a business gentleman in Croydon, who soon found him more congenial work, at pay approximating that which he gave up for Christ’s sake. Thus the Lord took care of the young convert, who had, through grace, been faithful to the light he had received.

Frequently have I seen B — in the south since then, and twice has he visited me in Edinburgh, as he came north annually to see his very aged parents who lived in Roxburghshire, and to whom he carried the news of the blessed Saviour he himself had found, before they passed hence — which both now have.

It has been often said that truth is stranger than fiction. The foregoing tale is a mere recital of facts, and, strange though it may read, it is the truth, and should encourage God’s children to sow the seed of His Word with liberal hand, in full assurance that fruit will be in evidence in due time. Fellow Christian, devote yourself to God in the coming year as never before.

Reader, are you a Christian in the true sense of the word? A Christian is one who knows Christ as his own blessed, personal Saviour. Say not, like B —, “I cannot be a Christian.” If you are not one, own it, acknowledge it. However dark and many your sins may have been, Jesus’ blood can wash them all away. Heed God’s word, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Turn to the Saviour whom B — found. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31) now in the opening days of 1906, and you will find that He will be to you, first of all, a Saviour, and then, no matter what your earthly occupation, a Deliverer. His Word says, “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God” (1 Cor. 7:23, 24). If your occupation is honest, and you can keep a good conscience, “therein abide with God.” If the reverse, clear out of it, and trust the Lord. “Cease to do evil; learn to do well” (Isa. 1:16, 17), and you will find He will sustain you. So found our friend B —; so also have I found; and so also will you find.

W. T. P. W.

The Boatswain's Discovery.

“I FEEL like a baby three days old.” These words were spoken by a man standing six feet, over fifty years of age, and of over two hundred pounds weight — rather notable words from such a man. He was a ship’s boatswain, had braved many ocean storms, had been at last rescued from a disabled steamer an hour before she went down, had been brought into Halifax, and thence shipped on a transatlantic steamer, on board which I met him.

There were two shipwrecked crews on board, to whom, with the “Polynesian’s” own crew, opportunity was given to me to preach the gospel. This man listened. The opening verses of John 3. were used “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.... Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

At the close of the address an invitation was given to any of the men to come at any time to the speaker’s cabin for conversation about the things of God. This man came that same evening. The question had reached his conscience, “Why had he been saved from that last shipwreck?” and it seemed to have been answered to him, “To hear the gospel that day.” “Ye must be born again” seemed to be the Word lodged in his conscience. God’s word had its own power and was doing its own work.

There were subsequent conversations. At one of these he said, “I feel like a baby three days old.” What could one do but wonder and admire and praise that divine power which had made this stalwart man to bow and own himself but as a newborn babe. It seemed a real work of grace, and an accomplishment of the new birth.

Another of the same crew came to my cabin. He was a man of twenty or so. “We all,” he said, “were gathered round the funnel — helpless, and expecting the ship to go down. But I had no fear.” “Why?” I asked. “Because two years ago at Liverpool, at a seamen’s meeting, I heard the words, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ and I came to Jesus, and I have had peace since. So I was not afraid, and I spoke a little to the other men.” Some of his words may have been seed sown in the heart of the boatswain.

Now is it not above all things important to be going on through this world, whether on shore or at sea, in the condition of soul of that younger man of that crew, as, crouched round the funnel of that steamer on that anxious day, he witnessed for Jesus? The young man was then a soul saved. The boatswain was then a soul still unsaved. But there was another opportunity given to the boatswain, and he believed. The Word of God was quick and powerful.

Now, how is it with you, reader? You may be hearing or reading frequently those solemn and momentous words which the Lord Jesus spake when down here to Nicodemus, and through Nicodemus to you, and which had power with the boatswain. The first word to Nicodemus was general and comprehensive of all men. Who is outside its range? Are you, reader? “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” This is definite and conclusive. It cannot be anything else. “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,” and to have “the mind of the flesh is death.” “And the carnal mind (or the minding of the flesh) is enmity against God: for it is not subject to God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:6-8).

Are you content to be in this condition? Do you deliberately intend to go on in it; for such is your condition — while still in your own nature as man — while still a child of Adam and not a child of God. It is death. Do you not desire life? Answer. Here, then, come in again the words of the Lord to Nicodemus — the second time spoken as more personal and pointed, if one may so say — “Ye must be born again.” You, Nicodemus, “must be born anew, born from above.” This is the new birth, the new life. The Lord went on to unfold that truth to Nicodemus. He did so to the boatswain. He will do so to you, reader, if you be docile and submissive.

Read the whole of the Lord’s instruction to Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). Nicodemus received it, so did the boatswain. So may you, reader, if you will. Nicodemus was saved (see John 19:38-42). I believe the boatswain was saved. The word of Jesus had power in both instances. Who can number like instances? They are being added to every day. Will you receive this word and let it have its own power that, like Nicodemus and the boatswain, you too may be saved and know Jesus as your life? “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life.”

Read John 5:24, “But is passed from death unto life.” Yes, passed from death to life! As real a thing that is as one saying, “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see”; or one saying, “I was in New York yesterday, I am in Philadelphia today.” Reader realize it.

T. M. T.

"God Chose to Send Jesus."

AT the conclusion of one of the late Brownlow North’s addresses in Edinburgh, a young man came into the room where he was receiving persons anxious for private conversation, and said to him, “I have heard you preach three times, sir, and I neither care for you nor your preaching, unless you can tell me, Why did God permit sin?” “I will do that with pleasure,” was the immediate reply: “Because He chose it.”

The young man, apparently taken by surprise, stood speechless; and Mr. North again replied, “Because He chose it; and,” added he, “if you continue to question and cavil at God’s dealings, and, vainly puffed up by your carnal mind, strive to be wise above what is written, I will tell you something more that God will do; He will someday put you into hell-fire. It is vain for you to strive with your Maker — you cannot resist Him; and neither your opinion of His dealings, nor your blasphemous expression of them, will in the least lessen the pain of your everlasting damnation, which I again tell you will most certainly be your portion, if you go on in your present spirit. There were such questioners as you in St Paul’s time, and how did the apostle answer them? ‘Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?’”

The young man here interrupted Mr. North, and said, “Is there such a text as that in the Bible?” “Yes, there is,” was the reply, “in the ninth chapter of the Romans; and I recommend you to go home, read that chapter, and see there how God claims for Himself the right to do whatever He chooses, without permitting the thing formed to say to Him that formed it, ‘Why hast Thou made me thus?’ Remember, that besides permitting sin, there is another thing God has chosen to do — God chose to send Jesus. Of His own free and sovereign grace, God gave His only begotten Son to die for sinners in their stead, in their place; so that, though they are sinners, and have done things worthy of death, not one of them shall ever be cast into hell for his sins who will accept Jesus as his only Saviour, and believe in Him, and rest in His word. I have no time to say more to you now; others are waiting to see me. Go home, attend to what I have told you, and may God the Holy Spirit bless it, for Jesus Christ’s sake.”

This conversation took place on Sunday evening. On the following Friday, Mr. North was sitting in a friend’s drawing-room, when the servant announced that a young man wanted to speak to him. On being shown upstairs, he said, “Do you remember me?” “No.” “Do you not remember the young man who on Sunday night asked you to tell him ‘Why did God permit sin?’” “Yes, perfectly.” “Well, sir, I am that young man; and you said that God permitted sin because He chose it, and you told me to go home and read the ninth chapter of Romans; and also that God chose to send Jesus to die for such sinners as I am. I did, sir, what you told me, and afterward I fell down before God, and asked Him to forgive my sins, because Jesus died for me, and He did, and now I am happy — oh! so happy, sir; and though the devil still comes sometimes to tempt me with my old thoughts, and to ask me what reason I have to think God has forgiven me, I have always managed to get him away by telling him that I do not want to judge things by my own reason, but by God’s Word, and that the only reason why I know I am forgiven, is that for Christ’s sake, God chooses to pardon me.”

The changed expression of the young man’s countenance was quite sufficient to account for Mr. North’s not knowing him again. It was radiant with joy and peace.

Dear reader, the first lesson a poor sinner has to learn, is to trust in the Lord with all his heart, and not to his own understanding; to trust God not only for what he does understand, and for what is explained, but for what he does not understand, and for what is not explained. This is faith — and such faith honors God, and saves the soul. This is receiving the kingdom of God as a little child, who always believes that things must be right if father says them and father does them; and let us ever remember that it is written (and the Scripture cannot be broken), that unless “ye receive the kingdom of God as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter therein.”

ANON.

The Unsaved Clergyman.

I WAS traveling some years ago from Rochester to Buffalo. There were about sixty passengers in the same car with me. We were all, I thought, just then travelers in a double sense; not only were we fellow-travelers on a passenger train, but also, fellow-travelers on the train of time speeding on to an endless eternity. Oh, what a solemn thought is this!

Reader, where art thou going to spend the eternity that lies before thee? Thou art going there as fast as time can carry thee, and thou knowest not how soon thy journey will terminate, for it is written, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).

I had with me at that time, as is always my custom, a package of assorted gospel tracts. With a short earnest prayer to the Lord that He would own and bless the tracts, I commenced to distribute them around, giving one to each passenger. When I came to the last two passengers I observed that one of them was dressed in the garb of a clergyman. I presented him with one of my tracts, entitled “Are you ready to meet God?” Friend, how is it with thee? Art thou ready to meet God?

As I presented the tract to the clergyman his eye glanced at the title, and at once very sarcastically and emphatically he exclaimed, “No, I’m not! Are you?”

In answer to his question “Are you?” I replied, “Through the grace of God, I am ready to meet Him. God has saved me by His grace, and the blood of Jesus, His beloved Son, has satisfied all God’s claims against me as a sinner.” How is it with thee, my reader? Canst thou give such an answer, or art thou still in thy sins and afraid to meet God?

My saying I was ready to meet God seemed to astonish him greatly, for he said at once, “I consider you are awfully presumptuous to say you are ready to meet God.” “Surely,” I rejoined, “it is not presumption to believe God’s Word, but it must be the height of presumption and folly to call in question, and refuse to bow to what God has declared in the Scriptures.”

Clergyman though he was, I felt I must be faithful to God and His truth. So I asked him, “How do you expect to get ready to meet God?” He replied, “By doing all the good I can, and living a holy life.” “What authority have you for that way of getting ready for God’s holy presence?” “Oh,” said he, “I could give you plenty of verses from the Bible which teach us that.” I asked him to give me one. This he did not because he could not.

“No,” I said, “God’s Word declares, ‘It is not of works, lest any man should boast’ (Eph. 2:9); also, ‘By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight’” (Rom. 3:20). I continued: “You have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23), and all your righteousness, holy living, and good works in the sight of God are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6).”

He now became very angry at me for speaking so personally and pointedly to him, and indignantly retorted, “Why do you trouble people, and who are you to presume to give a tract to me — a clergyman?” I replied, “Clergyman though you are, you need salvation, and if you do not repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and get your sins forgiven, you will be eternally damned” (Mark 16:16). With these words I left him, trusting the Lord would bless my conversation to him and to those who were listening.

And now, dear reader, you, likewise, may be in the place of a teacher, may be a Sunday-school teacher, or an active member of some religious body, and be yet unsaved — not ready to meet God. It may be thou art saying to thyself, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). If thou art trusting to anything in thyself — any good thou cant do — then surely thy peace is a false peace. Be warned in time, give up thine own doings, and flee to the Lord Jesus Christ for true peace, “for he has made peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).

The clergyman’s plan of salvation was, “Do the best you can, and try and live a holy life.” It was his own plan — the devil’s plan — and many thousands today are trusting it. Satan has succeeded marvelously in preaching this plan of salvation; it is his plan, and leads to the lake of fire. It is the way of Cain, who offered to God the fruit of his own toil. Scripture pronounces “woe” to all such (Jude 11).

Dear friend, what art thou trusting to for salvation?

Listen to God’s plan: He first declares, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10); “none that doeth good” (vs. 12). To all who acknowledge this, and bow to God’s verdict of “guilty,” God declares the good news, “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” How precious is this truth, dear unsaved reader; it is for the ungodly, and for him who works not, but believes. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

D. C. P.

John Owen's Conversion.

SOME years ago I went to a town in Victoria named B —to hold evangelistic services. It was in the cool of the evening. A full orbed sun had ceased to shine in dazzling splendor, and had sunk in the far west horizon, leaving traces which indicated another hot day on the morrow. Here and there were groups of cottagers, seated under verandahs and in the doorways, whilst others were lounging on the grass, discussing the oppressive heat which all had much felt that day.

The queen of the night was rising slowly above the hill which overlooked the town, her borrowed light illumining its brow, which made the scene strikingly picturesque. At the foot of this hill lived old John Owen, and among those who enjoyed the cool of the evening and chatted freely were John and his wife. Possessing a clear stentorian voice, he could be heard clearly in the distance.

I was seated under the verandah of the house I was staying at, when suddenly the thought passed across my mind that I ought to go across and speak to John about his soul. Immediately I obeyed the impulse, and was soon by his side.

“Good evening, Mr. Owen.” “Good evening, Mr. H —,” he replied, and then added, “Wife, bring out a chair. Take a seat.” I did so, and after a few casual remarks about the heat of the day, a suitable opportunity was afforded to speak on a subject of greater importance.

“You are getting up in years, Mr. Owen.”

“Please call me John. Old John Owen is what every one calls me. Getting up in years? Yes, seventy-six next birthday.”

“Is your soul saved?”

“No, but I have been trying all my life to get that matter settled, and it is getting late now, my time is short here.”

I replied, “It is finished.”

“Yes, man, I believe that, but mustn’t I do something?”

Again I said, “It is finished,” and bade him adieu, praying that God would bless the word spoken.

The next morning at an early hour I heard John hammering away in his shop (for he was a wheelwright by craft). I walked across, with a cheery “Good morning, John!”

“Good morning, sir.”

“Did you think over the scripture I left with you last nigh?”

“That I did, and this morning too, but truly, mustn’t I do something? “Near the bench stood a wheel finished in a workman-like manner, I took up a draw-knife and commenced to shave one of the spokes, whereupon the hot-headed old Welshman exclaimed, “Man alive, don’t do that.”

“Why, John?”

“Because it is finished.”

“But mustn’t I do something?”

The old man saw the point and remarked: “That’s a good one, I’m done after that.” At this junction I left him to think, and I went to pray.

Later on I visited him again, “Well, John, do you see through it yet?”

“Hardly, but you have silenced me on the doing score. But must not I feel it first?”

“So the devil has got you on another line (and, oh, how many thousands the devil has blocked on the line called ‘feeling’),” I replied. “You must get it first and feel it after,” and again I left him.

The next day I was returning from visiting some persons who were attending the meetings, when I observed John coming out of an hotel with a large bottle of beer under his arm. I thought, he has got it all right but he doesn’t feel it yet. The same afternoon I called on him again, “Well, John, have you got it yet.”

“No, man, I wish I could feel it first, I do want it.”

Whereupon I told him the story of the man I saw come out of the hotel with a bottle of beer under his arm, pointing out that he had got it some time before he felt it, and assuring him it was the same in refence to salvation. This arrested John’s attention and very much impressed him. He then remarked, “That’s true about the beer. I am the man who had it, and I got it before I felt it. Better perhaps if I never felt it, I would have been better off today. Well, John Owen, that shuts you up,” he continued, and, as I left, I heard him repeat, “He got the beer first, and felt it afterward. I’ll think over that.”

The next evening I gave an address on Hebrews 11:7, dwelling on some of the typical teachings of the ark. The door being in the side might point to the wound that was made in the side of God’s Ark, the Lord Jesus Christ, when a soldier with a spear pierced His side, and quoting, “I am the door; by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9). John listened attentively, and I saw him raise his spectacles and place them on his bald head. “Only one door,” I said, “either go in thereat or perish, no other; and only one window to look through, and it on the top, teaching us that there is only one direction to look if we would be happy.” I appealed to all present, “Who will go in at the door and look up through the window tonight?”

John immediately rose up, took his hat, and walked out.

At the close of the meeting a lady said to me, “I think old John went in tonight. What a blessing if he has, I have been praying for him.” I replied, “I think so too.”

The next day I went to see him.

“Well, how are you this morning, John?”

“Grand! I went in at the door last night and am looking up through the window.” His face corroborated the statement. It was quite clear such was the case. “Praise His name,” he continued, “for saving an old sinner like John Owen. Dear me, isn’t it simple?”

“Yes, John, but it wasn’t simple for Jesus; no, indeed. He felt it, and cried out too.”

“Well, well, seventy-six years of age, and never saw it till now. Thank God for sending you here, if only for old John Owen, and I might have had it sixty years ago. And how different my life would have been. But there, it was not put so that I could understand it.”

John’s life was near its close, he only lived three weeks after.

One day an old gold-digger came into his shop and offered him money to go for some beer. He refused. “If you want beer, go yourself for it, and mind you don’t bring it here to drink. I’m done with the lot of it.”

“What’s the matter?” in a surprised tone, was asked.

“It isn’t old John Owen. Now it is new John.”

Shortly after he was suddenly taken ill, and confined to his bed. I went to see him, and asked, “What is the matter, John?”

“God is going to take me home. Dear me, how good of Him to pick up an old sinner like me, and save me and take me home out of the road. It’s almost too much to bear.”

It was cheering to see that dear old man rest in God’s Ark. Go when you would he was resting, and whenever asked how it was with him he always replied, “Grand! Gone in at the door, and looking up through the window.”

I remember one morning in particular when I went to see him he said, “Glad to see you, Mr. H—. There’s a bit of a dark cloud on that window this morning.”

I replied, “The sun shines on a cloudy day when you don’t see it, as it does on a clear bright day when you can see it.” He smiled. Just then that sweet verse, the foundation verse, came into my mind, and I read it, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). He shouted out: “That will do, it’s gone, brighter than ever. Lack-a-daisy! it’s getting still brighter,” and a heavenly smile sat upon his dear old face.

I said, “You seem to be very happy today, John.” “Yes, peace, peace.”

“What do you mean by peace?”

“Peace with God.”

“Who made that peace?”

“I didn’t. Oh, no, John Owen didn’t, though he foolishly tried to.”

“Who made it?”

“My Jesus, by His blood.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Enjoying it.”

Only one taught of the Spirit could speak as he did. You could hear him occasionally, as he drew near his end, repeating to himself, “Dear me! silly J. O., what a fool I’ve been, trying all my life to make what was made eighteen hundred years ago; but there, it’s the preachers’ fault, the one-half of them don’t know it themselves, and how can they preach it?”

One day the doctor, who was John’s senior by ten years, came to see him: “Well, Owen, what’s the matter with you?”

“Bad, doctor, suffering the fruits of my bad ways.” (He was far advanced in wrong-doing, and there were few sins that he had not committed.)

“You seem to be very quiet and calm if you are going to die.”

“No wonder, doctor.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have gone in at the door, and am looking up through the window.” (He seldom took his eye off the roof.)

“What do you mean?”

“Why, I am saved, doctor; is that plain enough for you? Saved! Yes, an old sinner, like you.”

“An old sinner like me! Where were you saved?” “At Mr. H — ‘s meeting; and if you go there you may get saved too, you need to be.”

“You’re mad, Owen.”

“No, indeed, doctor; have been all my life, but am all right now.”

A professed servant of Christ, hearing of his conversion, came to see him.

“Well, John, is it true you are saved?” “True enough!” “How.” “Went in at the door, and am looking up through the window.” After a short stay he rose to go, remarking, “If you are saved it is a good thing.”

“If, if, if there is no ‘if’ about it, ifs are of the devil. God has knocked them all out of me.” This was said in a firm tone.

It was on a Tuesday morning I had my farewell interview with dear old John. “This is my last visit. I shall not see you again until we meet on that morn without a cloud.”

“Please don’t leave me till I am buried. I shall not be long now.”

“Is it still bright?”

“Yes, getting brighter and brighter.”

In the eve of the same day John passed away to be forever with his precious Saviour, and later, at John’s grave, stood many old and hardened sinners who listened to a word on the “Two Resurrections.” The fruit of that day’s sowing will be seen on the Day of the Lord.

Reader, how do you feel in the light of “the resurrection of the wicked”? If still hardened and indifferent, remember, if you do not confess Jesus as Saviour and Lord now, you will have to stand before the great white throne and do so. Let me earnestly and affectionately implore you to follow dear old John’s example. “Go in at the door, and look up through the window.” The Father is calling, the Son is inviting, the Spirit is wooing. Come by night or come by day, come as a last resource, like people to the workhouse. I don’t care when, so long as you come to Jesus. Come, as R. Hill once said:

“Come naked, come filthy,

Come ragged and poor,

Come wretched, come dirty,

Come just as you are.”

Time is short. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.”

“Time was, is past, thou can’st not it recall;

Time is, thou halt, employ the portion small;

Time future is not, and can never be —

Time present is the only time for thee.”

A. H.

Fragment.

WHAT am I living for? Can I say, “The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me?” Nothing less than this is worthy of a Christian. It is a poor miserable thing to be content with being saved, and then to go on with the world, and live for self-pleasing and self-interest — to accept salvation as the fruit of Christ’s toil and passion, and then live at a distance from Himself, caring not for the furtherance of His cause — the promotion of His glory.

C. H. M.

Professor or Possessor.

IT looked a very nice clock. The case was a valuable one, and the dial and hands all that could be desired; in fact you would not have objected to it in one of your best rooms, from an ornamental point of view.

It was resting on the seat of a railway carriage opposite to me, where a gentleman had carefully laid it.by his side. Upon looking more intently I discovered that it had no works inside. I looked at its owner and said, “You have a professor there.”

“What do you mean?” he replied.

“Why, that case has all the appearance of being a real clock, but all that would make it valuable if you wanted to catch a train or keep an appointment is lacking. It is just like some people who profess to be Christians, and make a great show, but have no inward work to correspond with their outward pression.”

“Oh!” he said, “I see what you mean.”

About a fortnight afterward I was traveling on the same line, and who should be in the carriage but the gentleman returning home with the very same clock. Looking at me, he said, “It is a possessor now.” He then told me it had been in London being fitted with new works.

Now, a true Christian and a clock are alike in several things. We will look at some Paul mentions to the Colossians, to see if you can discover by these marks whether you are a mere professor or a true possessor.

The works inside a clock must move the hands outside. If it is not right inside, it will never be right outside. So with a true Christian, he must, to start with, be a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that he had heard of their “faith in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:4)— heard that their confidence reposed in a real, though unseen, Saviour. They had tasted the “blessedness” of the man who “trusteth in the Lord.”

Now, faith is something unseen by others. It is a secret between the soul and the Lord. You remember in the Gospels, how the woman with the issue of blood “touched the Lord.” That was an act of faith known only to Himself and herself. He knew she had touched Him, she knew the virtue that had reached her.

Thus it ever is. A moment arrives in the history of all true believers when it can be said they have “faith in Christ.”

Now, wherever this is real, some outward expression will follow, so the next thing we read is of their “love to all the saints” (Col. 1:4).

By faith in Christ Jesus they had become children of God (Gal. 3:26). Now, love to Him that begat always produces love for those begotten. Faith in an unseen Saviour produces love to all He has saved.

I remember before I was converted I would have turned down another street to avoid a man who wished to speak to me about the Saviour. After I had trusted the Saviour there was no one I was better pleased to see. This is ever a sure mark of divine life. It does not say love to the particular Christians at the place you attend, or love to those who are pleasing and attractive to you, but love to all the saints.

You meet a man whom you have never seen before. You discover he loves the Lord. There is a link at once. You are drawn out in divine affection to that man more than to your natural brother who is unconverted.

Then in verse 5 Paul tells us that these Colossians had a “hope” laid up for them in heaven. Now, that does not mean they had a hope of getting to heaven, but that heaven now contained the longing object of their desire, Jesus, who is gone back to the Father, and their souls were filled with a fervent desire to see that blessed Saviour, who had loved them and died for them. Once their hope was connected with earth, their joys with this world; now their treasure was in heaven.

When your treasure is there your heart will be also. Well may the apostle, in writing to the Romans, desire that the “God of hope” might fill them with all joy and peace in believing (15:13). It is the secret of happiness, and he desires that they “may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Now, it is a fact, whether in a clock or a Christian, that if the hidden springs are right they will move the hands correspondingly outside. So the apostle tells us that the fourth thing which marked the Colossians was “fruit” in “the world” (Col. 1:6).

Only let the heart get simply and wholly occupied with “Christ the hope of glory,” and the life of a believer will be marked by fruitfulness. The fruit, the Spirit of God produces, moves in three circles, as you may see by looking at Galatians 5:22.

The first circle is love, joy, peace. That is a divine circle. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit, and as Christ is laid hold of as our “hope,” joy and peace fill the believer.

Then toward others we have to show long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. This is the practical outcome toward those who try us by their ways and words.

After this we read, “faith, meekness, temperance,” that has to do with ourselves personally.

Christ was the meek and lowly one, and we are to take His yoke and learn of Him, and temperance is to mark us; everything which might carry us away or act like an opiate on our spiritual senses, we must avoid. If the secret springs of hope and faith are inside, this will produce the outward expression of love to all the saints and fruit in the world.

Now which are you, possessor or professor? I do not ask if you teach in the Sunday school, if you are a preacher of the gospel, or if you are liberal to the poor. You may lie all this, and yet never really have had “faith in Christ.”

A friend was telling me of a lady she knew who was very much like the clock without its inward springs. She was housekeeper to the rector of the parish, and greatly respected. I suspect if you had asked any of the parishioners they would have told you she was a most exemplary Christian, and she would have agreed with them, for she had formed a very high appreciation of her personal virtues, and thought if anybody had a right to heaven she had. She was kind to the poor, faithful to her master, regular in her attendance at church, and to the best of her ability had been serving God for fifty-two years, yet with all this she had no room in her heart for Christ. She did not object to attaching His work as a makeweight to her own merits, but as the personal object of her faith and as the One who had died for her, and in His death atoned for her sins, He was a total stranger to her. At fifty-two disease laid hold of her, the doctor pronounced her case hopeless, death stared her in the face.

A Christian visited her, and knowing that in a few weeks she would be in eternity, asked her as to her spiritual prospects. She told him she was happily and peacefully anticipating the great change, and recounted the virtues of her life as the ground of her hope, and felt sure God would take her to heaven on that ground. He soon discovered she was a mere professor, just like a handsome clock case without the works, so he solemnly said to her, “If you die as you are, you will be lost forever in hell.”

“You cruel man,” she said, “how dare you tell a woman like me such a thing?”

“If you die as you are,” he solemnly repeated “you will be lost forever in hell.”

“What!” she cried, “after being a faithful servant and living the blameless life I have?”

He rose, and as he left her solemnly repeated, “If you die as you are, you will be lost forever in hell.”

As the night rolled on and the clock struck the hours, those awful words rang in her ears and effectually prevented sleep closing her eyes.

Could it be true after all that she had deceived herself and others all her life? “Peace, peace,” she said, but her fancied peace had fled. Hell with its realities, the judgment seat, and a holy God who knew all about her, aroused her to agony of soul. The Spirit of God began to work in her conscience. He lighted up the dark chambers of her heart, and she discovered that she was a mere professor, and all her fancied “righteousnesses” were but “filthy rags.” Oh, how she longed for the morning light that she might send for the man of God to tell her what would meet her need. What a different task awaited him as he sat by her bedside the next morning. She was thoroughly awake to her state. She felt that the vessel of “good works” in which she hoped to reach the harbor of heaven was foundering in mid ocean, and nothing but rotten timbers were between her soul and a lost eternity.

How gladly she now listened to the story of the atoning work of Christ, and the virtues of His precious blood. Her visitor unfolded God’s gospel to her, and told of justice satisfied, of God’s holy claims all having been met, of a risen Saviour in glory, and of “righteousness unto all and upon all them that believe,” of a free salvation for “whosoever will.”

The once self-satisfied Pharisee listened, not only listened but believed, rested simply, wholly, and only upon Christ and His finished work. Peace, rest, and joy filled her soul, and praise and adoration filled her mouth, during the remainder of her life.

Her thankfulness to God was unceasing, for tearing off her robe of self-righteousness and clothing her in the best robe, even the righteousness of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

Now, my friend, which are you — professor or possessor? Are you a “cursed man” or a “blessed man”? You ask, What do you mean? Why, just this: God says, “Blessed is the man who trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is,” “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm” (Jer. 17:5-7); and you must be one or the other; say honestly which word describes you, “blessed” or “cursed.” Possessor or professor?

H. N.

Fragment.

THE judgment of God for us is always the opposite of that of the Holy Ghost in us. If it is a question of the enemy accusing, God says, “I do not see a spot or stain.” If He is dealing with ourselves, He will pass over nothing. Blessed that it is so. J. N. D.

Refusing and Choosing.

“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.” — Hebrews 11:24-28.

THE Spirit of God in these verses summarizes the salient points of Moses’ life under three heads — (l) the moment when he turned right round to God; (2) the moment when he absolutely broke with the world; and (3) the memorable occasion when he put between himself and God the sprinkled blood, the blood of atonement, which made his own salvation a downright certainty.

I wonder if you have passed through an experience like that of Moses.

There are two striking things to be noted in verse 24: “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” How old was he when, as the Holy Ghost says here, “he was come to years”? We are told elsewhere, “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel” (Acts 7:22). He had come to the time of life when he had his head screwed on rightly. He had a real sense of what things were. Forty is the number in Scripture of probation, or perfect testing, — and, mark you! when this man turned to God, he was no novice as to the world and its unsatisfactory pleasures. When Moses turned right round to God, — when he turned his back on the world, on the idolatry of Egypt, and upon the brightest prospect that mortal man on earth ever had, — he was a man who knew exactly how to appraise things at their full and true value.

At forty years of age, what was Moses’ position? It was a very remarkable one. He was the child of Hebrew parents, and owing to the cruel injunction of the king, that all the male children should be destroyed, he should have perished in infancy by being flung into the river. This injunction his parents had disobeyed “by faith,” and the child was put by his mother in a cradle, and laid in the flags by the river’s side. Pharaoh’s daughter, as she went to bathe in the river, saw this ark or cradle, and had it brought to her. When the ark was opened, “the babe wept,” and her womanly heart was touched, and she adopted the child. Moses’ own sister then came forward, and asked Pharaoh’s daughter if she should fetch a nurse. She commanded her to do so, and Moses’ own mother was brought. “Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages,” the astonished mother hears, but from that time Pharaoh’s daughter claimed the child, “and he became her son” (Ex. 2:1-10). She raised him from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to manhood, as being her own son; and what was the result? When Moses came to be forty years of age, he was within direct touch of the throne of Egypt, and with every prospect of ascending it. Pharaoh had no son, and Pharaoh’s daughter had no children, and, in the event of her death, there was no doubt that her adopted son would have ascended the throne of Egypt, and would have been the monarch of the ruling nation in the world at that moment.

Moreover, Moses was evidently an exceedingly clever man. He was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and the Egyptians were not fools. It would puzzle our builders to do what they did — to put up the Pyramids, and rear the mighty structures that were common enough in the days of Moses. There was a great deal more wisdom in those days than we are wont to credit the world with; and “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” He was a scientific, accomplished, and intellectual man; but more than that, “he was mighty in words and in deeds.” As a speaker, an orator, who could address his fellows, — spite of his own humble estimate of himself (Ex. 4:10), — he was clearly at the top of the tree. In the forum or the fight, in the amphitheater or the battlefield, he could meet with any man who came against him. He was mighty “in deeds” as well as “in words.” He was an all-round accomplished man of the world, who had few, if any, equals — a man that men could be proud of. That man had the ball at his foot. He had the world before him. He was not only the king’s favorite, and the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, but was within touch of the throne; and as a man, he was evidently what you may call the world’s man, — a notable man among men, from whom they expected much.

All of a sudden Moses flings all up; all of a sudden he turns his back upon what had hitherto claimed him, charmed him, and allured him. What was the reason? Well, Scripture says, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” And what was this wonderful energy that wrought in his soul this change? It was faith. Faith is the principle that links the soul with God. It is that mighty principle that sees beyond the things of time, and looks right into eternity. The fact was this, — in some way or other — for the producing circumstances are not told us — the Spirit of God had wrought in that man’s heart, and he looked through time into eternity.

Oh! would to God that you too would take a deep, long look right into eternity! for although you are here today, you cannot tell how soon you will be in it. It lies before you, just as Moses knew it lay before him; and he looked right into eternity, and he measured in the balances of the sanctuary what he had for time, and what lay before him in eternity. By grace he was able to do this remarkable act, — he gave up the present, in view of the future. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” Refusing and choosing! Every man must do the same. Every one of my readers must refuse, and must choose. Either you refuse the world and choose Christ, or you refuse Christ and choose the world. I quite admit that at that moment the present realities of the gospel, in all their sweetness and fullness, had not come out as they have to us now; but Moses saw enough to make him see and say this: “There is something infinitely better than what I have just now; I will go in for it.” But what about your position, Moses? What about your place in the court and the palace? “These things are hindrances in my road, and I will cede them,” is his reply.

I have no doubt that the devil suggested to him, Why don’t you keep the place that Providence has placed you in? Undoubtedly Providence had placed him in that position. But remember Providence is one thing, and faith is another. While no doubt the Providence of God had placed him in a lofty position, he was part and parcel with those who were not God’s people. He saw that the thing of the utmost importance was to be of, and to be identified with, those who were God’s people. There are some people in this world who belong to God. Do you belong to Him? Then distinctly understand this: If a man does not belong to God, Satan claims that man. People do not like that doctrine; they think it very strange. You are not your own, man! Oh! no. “The god of this world” claims you, holds you, and binds you, if you do not belong to God. Moses felt it and knew it, and he chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” He said: “Let me be among God’s people; I had rather have affliction with God’s people, than have the favor and fawning of the world, and all that the children of the world can lay at my feet.” He was wise.

But possibly you may say to me, What did he give it up for? I grant you he gave up an earthly court and crown, and the company of earthly courtiers, but Scripture tells us “he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” I wonder if you ever thought of the company that Moses got into afterward! I do not know whether you ever thought of it, but it is worthy of notice. In the Gospels we read there was a certain occasion when the blessed Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured. Peter, James, and John saw the Lord transfigured: “And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:30, 31). Ah Moses has his recompense there. He is in the company, not only of the people of God, but of the Son of God! I want you, my friend, to follow his steps. I want you to turn to the Lord Jesus, and do, in principle, what Moses did. It comes to this, — a man has to refuse and to choose.

When I was converted to God myself, what did I do? I refused, and I chose. I was going to be a lawyer, not a doctor, and I had gone up from the south of Devon to London to go on with my legal studies, and I got one Sunday night into a meeting where a servant of God was preaching. That is forty-five years ago. It was on the 16th December 1860. The dear servant of God who was preaching that evening brought out very simply the importance and the blessedness of being a Christian. Every seat in the hall was filled, and I stood in the aisle the whole of that evening. As the preacher — who has now gone to glory — went on, I said to myself, That man is right; he is right, and I am wrong. But there was more than that, I got the sense that that man knew God, and I did not — that man was saved, and I was not — that he was going to glory, while I was going to hell — that he was going to be the companion of Christ, and I knew I was going to be the companion of the devil perfectly well. You ask, Were you a terribly gross sinner? I was exactly like you, an unconverted man — a man full of the world. I admit that at that time there was not a pleasure of the world that I had not dipped into. I tasted of “the pleasures of sin,” but they never satisfied me, and that night I was a convicted man — an awakened man. I found that I was on the wrong road altogether — that I was all wrong. I was pulled up. God pull you up, my friend. God arrested me. God arrest you!

At the close of the meeting I was introduced to a young man of about my own age, who simply asked me, “Are you a Christian” “No, sir,” I answered, “I am not a Christian.” “How is that?” “I don’t know, but I am not one.” “Don’t you want to be one?” “Yes, I should like to be one.” “Well, what have you to do to become one?” “I suppose I have only to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Yes, and do you believe in Him?” “I do; we all believe in England.” “Yes, but tell me, what do you believe? “I had been brought up in a Christian family. I had a Christian father and mother, a converted brother, and several Christian sisters, but I was not a Christian myself. I never was more puzzled than when he put that question, “What do you believe?” After a pause, I said, “I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” “And to save you?” “Well, I hope so, among the rest.” “Do you believe in Him?” “I do.” “And are you saved?” “Oh, no, I don’t feel saved; and I can’t expect to be saved until I feel I am saved.” My young friend said, “Stop, you think you really need saving? You know you are a sinner?” “I know it, and what is more, I’d give the world to be a Christian.” “But you have nothing to give, you have only to receive,” and then he put the gospel very simply to me. I was on the verge of believing the gospel, and accepting God’s way of salvation, when an old acquaintance stepped up, and whispered in my ear, “Remember you have to sing at a concert in Devonshire” (I used to sing at concerts, chiefly comic songs) “in Christmas week, and you have many other similar engagements that week. Now ‘no man can serve two masters.’ You could not be a Christian and fulfill all your worldly engagements. You had better put off being a Christian for a fortnight, and then when you come back to London you can believe the gospel and be a Christian.” On went this subtle yet damnable temptation, for it was the devil who whispered, “No man can serve two masters;” and I recollect I said at the time, “That is true, I have served you too long. You are a bad master, and I will serve you no more.” And, thank God! I made up my mind then and there. The scripture which the devil quoted to hinder me really helped me to decide for Christ. I refused the world and the devil.

“And you do believe in Jesus?” said the young man who was conversing with me. “I do believe.” “And what do you believe?” he asked again. “I believe that Christ died to save me.” “And do you think the Lord is willing to save you?” “Yes, I think He is.” “And has He saved you?” “Ah, no! am not saved yet; I don’t feel saved.” I was waiting for experience. All of a sudden he said: “I see where you are; you are just in the position of the man of whom the apostle James says, Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble’” (James 2:19). That verse pierced me through. I saw in a moment the ground I was on, and the company I was in; and I am not ashamed to confess that when I saw my company I fled. Fled! To whom? To the Saviour! I saw where I was. I saw I was practically the companion of those who, while they believe there is one God, tremble under the sense of His judgment, knowing that they are eternally lost. “The devils also believe, and tremble” pierced my conscience to the uttermost. They and I were on common ground. The young Scotchman who was speaking with me said: “There is this difference between you and them; there is no mercy for them; they are beyond it. There is mercy for you, and God grant that you may taste it.” “What must I do to be saved?” burst from my lips. “You have only to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” I thought, Can I believe that Jesus died for me? Yes, I do believe, and, thank God! I made up my mind for the Lord on that spot. I chose Jesus — found Him as my Saviour, received pardon and peace on the spot, was filled with joy, and have never for one moment repented my choice. You do the same now, I implore you.

The next thing we read about Moses is, that he “esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” I have no doubt Moses got well laughed at, when he made up his mind to come out on God’s side and identify himself with God’s people. When Moses’ mind was fully made up, I have no doubt his old comrades laughed at him, despised, and jeered at him, and said, What a fool that Moses is! Moses was no fool. Folly is in the pathway of the man who enters eternity regardless of the need of the soul. Moses might have been called all sorts of names. But it does not do a man much harm to be called names. Never mind if the men who have been your companions call you a “blue light,” a “salvationist,” or a “revivalist.” Never you mind, my friend, if you are the Lord’s man, though your comrades in the class-room, the counting house, or the workshop, make sport of you. The Christian man has got the best of it all along the line — right through time and into eternity. He has God for his Father, Christ for his Saviour, the Holy Ghost for his Comforter, the Bible for his guide, and the children of God for his companions. Happy man! blessed man! What is it he loses? He loses his sins; and the loss of being judged for your sins is not one to be mourned.

“Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt” was a fine working principle. I have no doubt Moses, ere he took that step, put into one scale-pan of the balance what he had for time in connection with the idolatry of Egypt, and into the other scale he put the reproach of Christ. He weighed the treasures of the world against “the reproach of Christ,” and was then happily found “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” He looked into the future. I pray you, look into the future. Think what eternity is. Have you ever really pondered what eternity is? It is a terrible word for an unsaved man. You cannot picture it. You cannot measure it.

There was great energy in Moses faith, for we read, “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.” What cheered him, kept him going? what carried him on? “He endured as seeing him who is invisible.” He had his eye on God. He knew God. The Christian knows God. The Christian young man knows God ‘as his Father, and the Son of God as his Saviour. He knows his sins are forgiven. “He endured as seeing him who is invisible.” Faith sees right into the future. Faith knows what is coming. I can tell you nothing about time, but as to eternity all is as clear as noonday light. The believer in Jesus has eternal life. The sinner who trusts in Jesus knows his sins are forgiven. “For to him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).

There is a third point of immense importance stated about Moses in the scripture before us. “Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them.” Do you understand that? It was the sprinkling of the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintel and two side posts of the door ere the Israelites could come, out of Egypt. Moses had made up his mind, at that time to turn his back on the king of Egypt, the prince of the world, and start for heaven and glory. But God had said that, in order to the deliverance of the people, the blood of redemption, the blood of the lamb of substitution, must be seen by Him on the lintels. The Holy Ghost records about Moses here that in order to secure his redemption, and in order to his being sheltered from the righteous judgment of God, he put between his soul and God the blood of atonement, the blood of the slain lamb. You must imitate Moses if you want salvation. You can have it now if in faith you put between your guilty soul and God the blood of Jesus. Wonderful is the truth that the Son of God — the sinless, blessed Son of man — died for you; and if you believe in Him, and rest your soul on the blessed truth of His death and resurrection, your eternal salvation is assured. “By faith Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them.”

Now, why, I should like to ask, is the sprinkling spoken of here? Because belief in the mere fact that Christ died will not save me. I must appropriate it, and must make it my own, and that is what faith does; it sprinkles the blood. There is many a man today who believes that Jesus died, but who has not got His blood applied to his own soul. That is like the man in Egypt who had slain the lamb, and put the blood in the basin, but had not put the blood on the lintel of his door. The shed blood is the fact that Jesus died; the blood sprinkled indicates that I believe He died for me; I have appropriated it for my own need. There is no real application of the truth to the soul till this point is reached. There must be a personal application of the truth. God’s salvation is individual. It goes not by families, kirks, or nations. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.” And why? Because you can only get in one at a time.

It is individual. You must have it for yourself; you must get it for yourself. Thank God, I have got it! Will you not receive Christ now? You could not do better than follow in Moses’ path — First, decide for Christ; second, turn your back on the world; and third, get under the shelter of the blood of Jesus. Faith does all three. Have you faith?

W. T. P. W.

"This Day will be Your Last Opportunity."

YES, it was a most interesting conversation we had together in a London restaurant, one day about noon. It was in reference to our deepest interests, the salvation and eternal welfare of the soul.

After I had taken my seat at a table, I turned to look at the one by my side, and having an impression both from his manners and dress that he was a Christian, I opened up a conversation, the substance of which is as follows: ―

“May I ask you if you know the Lord?”

“Yes, thank the Lord, I do.”

“How long have you known Him?”

“Two years and three quarters.”

This answer greatly struck me. Its decision and promptitude savored of assurance and reality. It had such a genuine ring about it, that I followed it up with the question―

“May I ask you to tell me the circumstances that led to your conversion, for to me there is nothing so interesting as the conversion of a soul.”

“Oh, certainly,” he replied. “I keep a boot and shoe shop in the fashionable watering-place of H― on the south coast of England. I had been living without a thought of God, and for twenty years past had not entered a place of worship, but spent my Sundays chiefly in reading the newspaper. One Sunday evening, as it drew to a close, I began to think that this was not altogether a satisfactory way of spending my time — and soon after this came a most remarkable moment in my history.

“One morning as I was dressing I suddenly heard a voice say, ‘This day will be your last opportunity.’ I looked round, but could see no one, but the voice I clearly heard, and the words uttered were unmistakable. So affected was I that I nearly fell to the ground. Breakfast time arrived, but on coming down could eat nothing. Those terrible words, ‘This day will be your last opportunity,’ kept ringing in my ears.

“My wife, seeing I looked sad, thought I was ill, and wished to send for a doctor, but this I declined, as I knew no earthly physician could do me any good. My business now became a great burden, attend to it I could not, so leaving it in charge of others, I went out and wandered about in the distress of my soul. All my sins, my wasted Sundays, my neglect of God and His Word, came overwhelmingly before me.

“Dinner-time came, but I could take nothing. Again I wandered about. Tea-time came and still no relief, in fact my anxiety increased as the hours of my day were fast passing away. Evening set in and at last bed-time came, and the day of ‘my last opportunity’ was fast drawing to its close. What could I do? Whither could I turn? I could not pray!

“At last, in the deep distress and agony of my soul, I could no longer keep the state of my mind from my dear wife, but told her all that had happened to me that day — that dread sentence ‘This day will be your last opportunity,’ and all the deep exercises it had produced, and asked her (she being a Christian) to pray for me.

“Together we kneeled down on that memorable night. She pleaded earnestly with the Lord for my forgiveness and salvation. At last my tongue was loosed, and I cried for mercy to the God I had so shamefully neglected and sinned against. And He heard! Blessed be His name! Before the clock struck twelve, ere the day had passed away, light broke into my soul, I rose from my knees a happy and forgiven man.”

Such, dear, reader, is the account of the salvation of a precious soul that God in His sovereign mercy reached and saved.

May I now put to you, dear reader of this true narrative, the plain but important question, “Are you pursuing the God-neglecting, Christ-rejecting course that this poor man for so many years pursued, whom God in so remarkable a way awakened from his death slumber and brought to Himself?”

Remember, God does not often interpose in so remarkable a manner as this, especially where the gospel is listened to Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day, which is probably your case, for God is speaking to you by His servants every time the precious message of a Saviour’s love reaches your ears. And God is lingering over you, waiting for you to turn to Him, not willing that you should perish, but turn to Him and live. Did Jesus die for sinners; and did He not die for you? Or are you the only sinner for whom He did not die? Blessed be God, that cannot be, for it is written that “he died for all.” “He gave himself a ransom for all.” “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Are you a sinner? Then let faith settle it — “Yes, I am a sinner, therefore He died for me.” E. M.

Fragment.

THANK God, there is no reason whatever why the believer should commit sin. “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.” We should not justify ourselves in a single sinful thought. It is our sweet privilege to walk in the light, as God is in the light, and, most surely, when we are walking in the light, we are not committing sin. Alas, we get out of the light and commit sin; but the normal, the true, the divine idea of a Christian is, walking in the light and not committing sin. A sinful thought is foreign to the true genius of Christianity.

C. A. M.

"What Death He Should Die."

HE knew beforehand. The cross came to our blessed Saviour as no surprise; He foresaw the thorny crown and purple robe, the mock trial, the soldiers’ ribaldry, the people’s scoff, and the priests’ blasphemy. He laid His account calmly to the immolation and anguish, the desertion of man and the forsaking of God, the curse, the wrath, and the atoning death. For “the death that he should die” involved all that. His sufferings were physical, moral, and spiritual. His cup was infinitely deep and awfully bitter. He drank the dregs of it. Gracious Redeemer! “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,” were His words in view of that death. He stated how it should occur, little as they may have understood who heard the words, “lifted up from the earth.” Weigh these five wonderful words. In John 3:14,15, he said, “The Son of man must be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life.” There it is clearly the fact of His “being made sin for us” as the antitype of the serpent on the pole.

In John 8:28 He said, “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am he.” There He views His death as martyrdom ai the hand of man. “When ye have lifted up... ye shall know,” and that, alas, to their utter confusion. They should die in their sins.

But here in John 12:32 He says, “If I be lifted up... I will draw.” It is the voluntary surrender of Himself to the full results of “the death that he should die.” It presents, in its most attractive form, His crucifixion, and that in richest grace; because “cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,” and the curse was his who deserved it not. Hence His cry, “My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me?”

Yes, reader, “why?”

“He did no sin.”

“He knew no sin.”

“No guile was found in his mouth.”

But what of you? of me? of all? Stay, can you not see the reason “why?” Pause, I pray you, until you do.

Substitution lies in the discovery!

“He took the guilty culprit’s place

And suffered in his stead.

For man, O miracle of grace!

For man, the Saviour bled.”

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). Mark, “will draw,” that is, attract and win, because the cross, when divinely understood, is the most powerful attraction in the universe. There is no compulsion, nor force, nor-driving, but there is that which draws in the power of infinite love. It is irresistible to the willing heart.

“All men,” not a nation or people, class or community, but “all.” Sinners they must be, but sin is, by itself, no hindrance for the reason that His death was on account of sin. The “all” is not the all of the universalist, but the every one of sovereign grace and mercy — like the, whosoever of John 3:16. No one is repelled nor rejected, but the cross throws salvation open to all.

“Unto me,” not merely to salvation, but to the Saviour — the lifted-up Redeemer, the Christ, the Son of God, who is now alive in glory.

Blessed result, for what would Christianity be but for such a Christ? One who loves eternally, and is to be loved likewise, and to be known, now and ever, in near and holy intimacy as an Object outside the heart, yet on which all its affections may rest, in blest and intelligent and realized enjoyment forever.

Attraction for “all” is thus found in the lifted-up Jesus — in “the death which he should die” on the cross. Christ on earth was for Israel; Christ on the tree, by “the death he should die,” is God’s center of attraction for all.

“Why ‘neath the load of your sins do ye toil?

Christ giveth rest, giveth rest.

Why be in slavery, why Satan’s spoil?

You may be blest, may be blest,

Christ now invites you sweet rest to receive;

Heavy’s your burden, but He can relieve;

If but this moment in Him you believe,

You shall have rest, shall have rest.”

J. W. S.

Eternity! Where?

A MAN, after suffering some months from that terrible disease cancer, lay dying. As he was nearing the end, his family and friends, after doing all in their power to relieve his suffering, gathered round the bedside, to watch their loved one breathe his last. Presently the tired eyelids opened, and looking round on them all he said, “You think I’m going to die, but I’m just going to live,” and so he passed away from this world of sin and sorrow, to live forever and ever with the One that died for him.

“Do you think you will get better? “was a question asked to a young man in consumption. “If I do, it will be all grace, and if not it will be all glory,” was the answer. Not many months after and it was all glory for him.

What about you, dear reader, should you leave this scene in a few months or weeks, or even less time than that? What if it should be today? It must either be like those two you have just read about — to spend eternity in the bright glory above, or to be forever lost with those in despair.

E. D. B.

Fragment.

THINK seriously of these three things! ―

1. The passing moment

2. The unknown tomorrow.

3. The eternity that awaits.

The Miser's Hoard.

MR. FOSCUE, a Frenchman living in Paris some years ago, had amassed an enormous amount of wealth. He was a miser, and his great anxiety was to securely hide his treasure so that even his friends should be ignorant of the vast fortune he possessed. For this purpose he dug a large cave in his wine-cellar, so deep that it needed a ladder to reach to the bottom. It was entered by a carefully concealed trap-door fitted with a spring lock, so that when the door was let down it would fasten of itself.

One day Mr. Foscue was missing. The whole house was searched from attic to cellar, but no trace of him could be found. He had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.

Time passed by and no more was heard of him, so his house was put up for sale and very soon found a purchaser.

After the new owner had taken possession, he one day determined to make a thorough examination of his purchase, looking into every nook and cranny. When he reached the cellar he discovered the trap door, forced it open, and descended the ladder. A ghastly spectacle met his gaze. On the floor lay the body of the miser, a candlestick beside him; around were piled the hoards of gold he had so jealously guarded. In a moment the terrible truth was revealed. The miser had been starved to death. He had entered the cave, and by some accident the trap-door had fallen to and fastened him in. He had been buried alive with his treasure, and all his wealth had been unable to rescue him from an agonizing death.

One cannot meditate upon this sad case without the feelings being deeply harrowed.

This miser in seeking to secure his wealth had lost his life. But there are many men that risk a still more terrible fate, for, to obtain earthly good, they risk the loss of the precious soul. The language of the life, if not of the lip, proclaims that with them temporal things are pre-eminent.

Yet in a few years the millionaire and the pauper are leveled by the hand of Death. But though the body lies in the tomb the soul still lives. The Christian departs to be with Christ, and has treasure laid up in heaven; but the man that has rejected the Saviour will be a pauper for eternity.

He who knew the secrets of the unseen world said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

“Tomorrow’s sun may never rise

Upon thy long-deluded sight;

This is the time, oh then be wise:

Thou would’st be saved? why not tonight?”

ANON.

A Mortal Wound.

BOTH mortal and immortal, its effects are everlasting! Forty-four years ago, to the hour, I was struck by an arrow which had been shot by the divine Archer. That arrow struck and stuck. The wound it made remains to this day. Oh, how keen its point, how well directed, how clean driven home! Now what was this wonderful arrow? Hearken, it was ten words of Scripture―

“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” That was all, but it was enough. That brief, pointed query, taken from the quiver of eternal truth, and applied by the Spirit of God in living power to my conscience, effected an inward work, made a spiritual wound which must last forever. After this fashion it struck me: ―

1. “His soul! “Its value; its existence; its indestructibility; of more importance than the body;

“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul!”

No, it referred only to the body, for the soul, breathed as it was into the nostrils of man by his Creator, was certainly not made of the dust of the ground. The body perishes. The soul is one’s proper and responsible self, which has to do with God, and God with it. Man is responsible to God.

2. “Exchange.” What equivalent can be found? If the soul be of infinite value, so must its equivalent be; but who can find infinite wealth? The gold of a millionaire, ten thousand rivers of oil, the fruit of your body — these are all too mean. The soul far outweighs the gold of the world, or a thousand of them. “Exchange” is therefore impossible.

3. “What shall a man give?” Well, what? The labor of your hands, or the strength of your body; the efforts, vows, resolutions, or good deeds of a lifetime are unavailing. Our righteousnesses are but filthy rags, and our best doings but splendid sins. Can such be given? Nay, the case is utterly hopeless. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” What?

A mighty arrow this when it has pierced the conscience. There it lodges; no power can extract it thence, nor pleasure, nor oblivion heal its awful wound; the mark remains.

But notice, the wound is God’s way of reaching the soul. Better to be wounded in time than damned in eternity — a myriad times over! And it is He who says, “I wound, and I heal” (Deut. 32:39).

The wound may be deep and painful; it may lead to bitter soul-exercise; it may show sin to be “exceeding sinful”; and it may demonstrate the lack of all power and fitness. It must cast the wounded man on the healing power of another. And, thank God, it is He who can and does heal. No matter how deep the wound, how sinful the sin, how powerless the soul, or how desperate the case, there is Balm in Gilead and a Physician there. How grand the question put by Him to the impotent man at Bethesda, “Wilt thou be made whole?” He carried health in His hand and love in His heart. The competency lay with Him. The poor cripple wished, indeed, to be healed, but saw no plan beyond the troubled waters of the pool. He told his dreary tale of blasted hopes to the tender Inquirer, and how he had “no man” to help him when the moment came. “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” fell upon his ear; and at once health and power reached him from this great Physician — he was “made whole.”

Now it is an immense comfort for the wounded soul to know that the only question is the “Wilt thou?”

All the battle is in the will; all the power is with the Healer. When the “I will” of the sinner meets the blessed “I will” of the Saviour, the case is settled. Unity of will signifies peace, pardon, health, and salvation.

The wound is given in order to break the will — the wicked, perverse will; and the will implies the sin which had to be borne and atoned for by Him who “was made sin for us,” so that, on the solid ground of atonement, and the settlement of every question of sin, the heart might be won, and its affections set upon the Healer.

“I wound!” Reader, have you been wounded? “And I heal!” Have you been healed?

“The sinner who believes is free,

Can say, ‘The Saviour died for me:’

Can point to the atoning blood,

And say, ‘This made my peace with God.’”

J.W.S.

A Story of Long Ago.

A PARTY of young men set out for a day’s holiday, many years ago, among whom was a young man eighteen years of age. The first object that attracted their attention was an old fortune-teller. They immediately engaged her to tell theirs, after having given her enough drink to intoxicate her. The young man of eighteen was told among other things that he would live to be very old and see his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren growing up around him.

Though he had helped to qualify her for the fraud by making her drunk, yet he was foolish enough to take notice of what she predicted about him.

“And so,” quoth he, when alone, “I am to live to see children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren! At that age I must be a burden to the young people. What shall I do? There is no way for an old man to render himself more agreeable to youth, than by sitting and telling them pleasant and profitable stories. I will then, during my youth, endeavor to store my mind with all kinds of knowledge, I will see and hear and note all that is rare and wonderful, that I may sit and entertain my descendants; thus shall my company be rendered Pleasant, and I shall be respected in my old age. Let me see, what can I acquire first? Oh, here is the famous Methodist preacher, George Whitfield; he is to preach, they say, tonight. I will go and hear him.”

From these strange motives he went. Mr. Whitfield preached that evening from the verse, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7).

“Mr. Whitfield,” said the young man, “described the Sadducean character; this did not touch me, I thought myself as good a Christian as any man in England. From this he went to that of the Pharisees and described their exterior decency, but observed that the poison of the viper rankled in their hearts. This rather shook me. At length, in the course of his sermon, he abruptly broke off; paused for a few moments, then burst into a flood of tears, lifted up his hands and eyes and exclaimed, ‘O my hearers, the wrath’s to come! the wrath’s to come!’ These words sank into my heart like lead in the waters. I wept, and when the sermon was ended, I retired alone.”

For days and weeks he could think of little else; those awful words, “The wrath’s to come! the wrath’s to come!” followed him wherever he went, with the result that he publicly confessed Christ, and in a little while became a very notable preacher.

Beloved reader, are you one of that happy number who can say, “God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him” (1 Thess. 5:9, 10).

M. A. D.

"Bow the Knee."

“And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck: and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.... And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.” — Gen. 41:41-44, 55-57.

WHAT Pharaoh does here for Joseph is a very striking picture of what will yet be enacted in regard to the Lord Jesus. We read that he “took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, BOW THE KNEE: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt.” I think I see the trumpeters going before Joseph, and hear them crying, “Bow the knee.” What, how the knee to Joseph, the exalted Hebrew slave? Pharaoh had said it, and bow the people must.

Reader, God now bids you bow the knee to His Son; bow your heart to Christ. Bow you must; bow you will have to. You may reply, Bow I won’t! Yes, you will — for God has said, “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isa. 45:23).

That, you may argue, refers to God in His Godhead glory. Quite true; but, when the Holy Ghost quotes it in the New Testament, I find it applied to the Lord Jesus Christ as the exalted man. Listen, “Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. WHEREFORE God also hath HIGHLY EXALTED him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, of things in heaven (angels), and things in earth (men), and things under the earth (demons); and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:6-11).

What a testimony to His Deity! That which He could claim as God shall be rendered to Him as Man — the once humbled but now triumphant Man. Angels, men, and demons — all must bow to Jesus. Mark it well! No man is exempt. Every one at the name of Jesus shall bow the knee. Angels delight to own Him. Many men today rejoice to own Him. I know a multitude who confide in, and delight to own Him. Join their ranks! Is it not a joy to confess Him? Yes, indeed, it is deep joy to confess that there is no name so sweet as the name of Jesus.

“Bow the knee” was the general order given by Pharaoh. How many a proud Egyptian noble said, “Not I. I bow to Joseph the exalted slave? Never, never!” I think I see the trumpeter as he went forth and made the proclamation, by royal command, and I see many a proud Egyptian rear his head, and say, “Bow to Joseph! Never, never as long as I live!” And you won’t bow to Jesus? You don’t mean to bow to Christ? You don’t mean to believe in Jesus? Stop a bit. The end of the chapter tells us that there were seven years of plenty, and then came seven years of famine. Let us see what took place then. “And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go UNTO JOSEPH; what he saith to you, do” (vs. 55). I think that is charming. I think I can see them all ignoring Joseph, and going straight to Pharaoh, just as men now ignore Jesus, yet think they may go to God direct. “Go TO JOSEPH,” said Pharaoh, and that is what God is saying to you from glory — “Go TO JESUS. Bow to Jesus.” You must bow. He is given a name above every name, and God has declared that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

Now if you will take the trouble to read the forty-seventh chapter of Genesis, you will there find four points, which I shall only indicate. There we read that when there was “no bread in all the land,” the people “fainted by reason of the famine,” and had to go to Joseph to buy corn. Hence, first “Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt” (vs. 14); secondly, he “fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year” (vs. 17); thirdly, he “bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh” (vs. 20); and lastly, he says, “I have bought you this day” (vs. 23). Thus you see the money fell into Joseph’s coffers, the cattle became his, the lands fell into his hand, and lastly the people themselves were acquired by Joseph for Pharaoh. There is nothing brings a man down like hunger. Neither a man’s pride nor his parentage can fill him in the day of hunger and need. The prodigal was fain to fill his belly with the husks the swine did eat, but could not do it. Nothing brings a man down like soul-hunger, and it is a great thing when the soul-hunger becomes commanding, when a man feels that he is a sinner, and has need of Christ, and must have Christ. Pharaoh sent the needy of his day to Joseph. They had to admit his importance, and from him they got what met their need, while Joseph acquired everything for his master.

Now I pray you not to forget the solemn yet blessed fact that the Lord Jesus is Lord of all. I admit He is forgotten, and that His claims are not recognized, but He will soon come again in glory, and His rights will be ceded by man, and established by God. What an awful day it will be when Christ takes the world in hand. It is better to own Him in the day of His absence than meet Him in the day of His wrath. You may know Him by faith now.

Perhaps you have said, I will never confess His name, I will not be converted, I won’t yield my heart to Him. Even that sin He will forgive, and I hope you will repent, and be converted this very day. You could not do better. Be like a young man I knew.

I was preaching in a good-sized town in Scotland many years ago. In the house where I was staying this young man lived with his parents, who were decided Christians. This youth was most resolute in the determination that he would not be converted. For long he would not come to the meetings, and would not yield his heart to Jesus. He heard of the conversion of his brother and sisters, but lie was still opposed. One night, to my surprise and joy, I saw my young friend for the first time enter the hall, and take a seat just inside the door, as if he desired that nobody should see him, and know he was there. When we got home to his father’s house he made not a single remark to me, and I made none either, only he stayed for evening prayers with the family, which before he had avoided.

I had to leave at six A.M. next day to come jute my work in Edinburgh. His sisters used to rise and give me breakfast, but teat morning, to our amazement, in walked Willie. His sisters looked surprised to see him, and more so, when, as I bade “Good bye” to the girls, Willie said, “If you will allow me, doctor, I will carry your bag to the station.” I was delighted, and thanked him. As I got into the train, and was saying “Good-bye,” I added, “I suppose the carrying of that bag means this, Willie, that from this day forth you are to be on the Lord’s side?” “That is exactly what I mean,” he replied. “I wanted to confess that I was converted to God in that meeting last night.” He did not live very long after that, and it was a good thing that he was turned to the Lord then.

I would like to meet you, my friend, tomorrow morning, and hear you make the same confession, “I am at last converted to God. I have made up my mind to become a Christian.” There was never a wiser resolution. Nothing can be more blessed, more bright, or precious than to become a Christian. Why not turn to Jesus now? Believe in Him now.

But, you may ask, in order to become a Christian, what have I to do?

You have just to come to Him as you are — a poor sinner in your sins. And what then? You will find Him full of grace. You cannot clear yourself, so you had better just confess your sins to the Lord frankly. Conscience had better be heeded ere it be too late. When man thinks about eternal things his conscience always works.

We are sinners, and we must feel our sins, and own them too. It is a grand day when a man owns his sins before God. God had found out our iniquities. He has found out your iniquity, and He has found out my iniquity, but I will tell you something more. He has pardoned mine and forgiven me. It is a grand thing to be able to say with the Psalmist, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psa. 32:1-5). The moment you draw near in the acknowledgment of your sins the Lord Himself meets you. The first word He said to an anxious soul was, “Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:48-50). Grace and love, forgiveness and blessing, are the portion of the soul that turns to Him.

As soon as the ploughshare of conviction has done its work in the conscience, God delights to relieve and discharge the sin-burdened soul. It is a great thing when a man has a deep sense of his sin, and owns it. When he thus comes into the presence of God, He forgives and blots out the sins on the ground of Christ’s finished work for the sinner. Turn to Him for pardon, forgiveness, and blessing. Do not be ashamed to own the. Lord Jesus, nor to confess Him. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9,10). God’s salvation is very simple. Just turn to the Saviour who died for you, with the acknowledgment of your sin and guilt, bow your heart to Him, and you will immediately receive blessing from Him. He says, “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). God give you grace today to receive Christ as your own blessed Saviour, and then to confess Him boldly.

W. T. P. W.

Fragment.

THERE were no circumstances in which Christ was ever found where power, love, goodness, and truth were not readily in exercise. There was no weariness, if a poor desolate sinner came. No matter what company He was in, He was always accessible to their hearts; but there was no sympathy for Him. No love and goodness met Him in going through this world; His heart was utterly a stranger in it; yet all sympathy for others. If He had to answer for Himself before the chief priests who were hunting Him to death, the moment the cock crew His eye was upon Peter — never wearied. No circumstances He was in could ever touch the spring of grace and goodness that was in Him.

J. N. D.

The General's Medal.

A FRENCH minister was once talking to an English general, who was wearing, amongst other orders, a medal of simple design, upon which the one word “Waterloo” was inscribed.

Pointing in surprise to the medal, the Frenchman said: “Surely, general, that is but a very poor order your Government has given you. It is barely worth five francs.”

“True,” replied the general, “it may not have cost my country more than five francs, but it cost yours a Napoleon.”

We would use the Englishman’s witty reply simply to enforce the fact that in deciding the value of a thing, the whole cost must be considered.

Now there are some who think that salvation, because it is to be had by man without money or other payment, must therefore be of trifling value.

Let such make no mistake. The value of salvation depends, not on what it costs man, but on what it cost God.

Written across salvation in large letters is the one word “Calvary.” It speaks to us of God sparing His Son from His side to die that shameful death. It tells us that the Lord Jesus bore the judgment due to sin and purchased salvation with His blood.

It was an infinite price that was paid for salvation, and surely the value of the gift is also infinite.

Reader, without this salvation thou art LOST. Now, if never before, accept it from God’s hand. There is danger in delay, for we read — “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

M. L. B.

"It is so Simple!"

SOME years ago, at the seaside, in conversation with a young barrister, the gospel of God’s salvation was pressed upon him for present acceptance. He had heard it preached often, and talked of too. He was the subject of a mother’s prayers. He seemed thoughtful and serious. There was conscience-work in progress, and there was burden of soul too, although he knew of the words of welcome, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He knew that he ought to believe, but he halted, and was without peace.

Three months later (I had not seen him in the interval), on going into his office, he exclaimed, “I’ve got it. It is so simple. But the very simplicity of it I stumbled over, and there halted. I felt I had something to do, but what I knew not — wanting to know and willing to do — I halted. But now I see it all, and see it all done for me. It is so simple! Just to receive it.”

Now this illustrates the case of many hearers of a preached gospel, and doubtless also many readers of the Gospel Messenger. But for those who still think there is some great thing to do, there is another illustration and example at hand. It is that of a more notable person of a former day. He was a great captain — Naaman, the Syrian — of lordly estate and dignity, but he was a leper. Many circumstances were in his favor, but there was one great characteristic circumstance against him, not of his surroundings, but of his personality, of that which was essentially himself. He was a leper, beyond remedy in himself. But he heard by means of a very simple little missionary, the little captive Israelitish maid, of the prophet of Jehovah, who had power to heal even the leper. What then? Human resources and power must be invoked. King must appeal to king, so the King of Syria sends a letter to the King of Israel to have Naaman healed. God is not in thought at all. But the King of Israel knows better, so he rent his clothes and said, “Am I God?”

Now it is well to have knowledge, but there is responsibility with it, and here we see the difference between the two kings, and also between the young barrister and the great captain. In the distress of Israel’s king the prophet of God appears. What dignity there is in conscious acting for God, and in speaking for Him. Paul and other preachers of the Word well knew this. If really acting or speaking for God, there need be no haste nor discomposure. So Elisha, the man of God, sends to the king saying, “Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go, and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean” (2 Kings 5:10). He was thus told God’s way, but he wanted his own way.

Now read 2 Kings 5:11-14. Mark how the moment God’s way is taken, there is salvation. From this and other scriptures, therefore, we preach a free, full, present, and perfect salvation to all who take God’s way of it. It is always simple and gracious to the sinner, and glorious as regards Himself. How simple it is, but the simplicity of it is seen when God’s way, not man’s way, is taken, and only then.

Now let me have a personal word with you, my reader. Are you “seeking salvation” — “seeking the Lord” as it is sometimes called. It is a great thing for such a one to get the first lesson, that the Lord is seeking you much more than you are seeking the Lord. Naaman’s case was a grand lesson of grace. Acting unaided and alone, grace bestows and need receives. God offers, and the sinner accepts. That is all, and it is that which makes it so very simple. Self is set aside as having no activity or part in the transaction. He that humbles himself in thorough self-judgment, as of sinful nature, and as without strength to do, is the one who becomes exalted. What but unjudged self is it that goes about “to establish a righteousness of its own, not submitting unto the righteousness of God”?

The publican of Luke 18 judged himself and submitted, when, with eye on the propitiatory and smiting his breast, he said, “God be merciful to me, the sinner,” and he was therefore justified. “For to him that worketh not” (the Pharisee proclaimed himself to have worked and was not justified), “but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Surely then the feet that have been busy going about, and the hands that have labored working in vain for salvation, may well stand still and see, and simply as God’s gift accept God’s salvation. Thus Naaman yielded.

Reader, do you still hold to your notion that you yourself have some “great thing” to do? How dishonoring to the grace of God that has brought His salvation to you for your acceptance. The salvation is ready at hand to be accepted, and does not need prayer nor entreaty to God for its bestowment, not any works of toil nor of merit (read Rom. 10:8-11). But on the contrary, the halting, unbelieving, unwilling sinner is besought to accept it (read 2 Corinthians 5:20, 21; Matt. 11:28-30). More than that, you are actually commanded to accept now and at once God’s salvation (see Acts 16:31; 2 Cor. 6:2). So that it is at your peril, for it is in disobedience that you refuse, or neglect, or even longer delay. Salvation is God’s proffered-gift to you Now, and you are called upon to accept the gift and rejoice in its possession. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life — the one now due, but the other now offered.

It is neither working nor praying even, but believing and accepting. Then whenever God’s salvation is once really accepted, it is known to be possessed, and is rejoiced in. And it is believed and accepted by just the same process of mind and heart that you believe any other message or accept any other offer. It will not do, nor excuse you to say, “I cannot believe,” for you are a believing creature — too credulous sometimes, even to the believing of lies (believing the old serpent’s lie rather than God’s truth — Genesis 3), believing man’s testimony and man’s messages every day; but God’s testimony about His Christ and God’s messages to you, you have not yet believed. Do you ever think of the patience and forbearance of God with you. It is a Marvelous exchange which is proposed to you — life for death. But that is God’s grace, and God’s grace cannot be otherwise than simple. The word which from God to the sinner characterizes this dispensation of grace — while grace is reigning — is “Come,” “Come now.” Trace that word in the Scriptures. The word “Depart” is not yet brought into use. “Come.”

“It is so simple.”

T. M. T.

MERELY asking for forgiveness, and the confession of sins, are two different things. Confession involves real exercise, and brings with it blessing. The mere asking for forgiveness is often only skin-deep. Confession must be individual. It is the individual who has failed, and he confesses his sin to his Father.

W. T. P. W.

A Gospel Call.

(TUNE — “Bandon,” or “Lux Benigna.”)

HARK, sinner, hark, ‘tis Jesus speaks to thee;

Of grace divine;

Of God’s great grace and power from sin to

free

Sad hearts like thine.

Resistless grace: — all Satan’s power o’er-thrown

By Him who died, now Victor on the throne.

Come unto Jesus, come, just as thou art,

So sick with sin;

The deep unspoken language of thy heart

Is known to Him.

Oh, tell Him all — though all He knows so well,

He’ll give thee rest, a rest no tongue can tell.

Look, sinner, look, see Jesus who once died

On Calv’ry’s tree,

To God’s right hand upraised and glorified, A Saviour Ile.

Oh, trust in Him, confess His blessed name,

Peace, joy, salvation — all — thy present gain.

Blest portion thine, if Jesus’ voice thou’lt hear,

And to Him come.

Look up to Him, confess Aim without fear,

Till time be done.

Jesus will welcome thee, oh matchless love!

To God’s bright home of endless joy above.

ANON.

The Converted Donkey Man.

HOW often in our shortsightedness do the ways of the Lord appear to us mysterious, but could we see behind the clouds we should not only see that every cloud has a silver lining, but that the ways of the Lord are perfect, and all His dispensations fraught with loving-kindness and mercy, and that into the warp and woof of our lives are interwoven His grace and tender mercy. This is abundantly exemplified in the Lord’s dealings with the subject of this short narrative.

It was early in the month of September 1865, during a visit to a town on the sea coast of England, that I met with a poor man named Knott, who, though much afflicted, yet greatly rejoiced in the God of his salvation.

Before his conversion, this man was one of the lowest characters in the town, and guilty of the most impure and profane language.

How he got his living in the winter it is difficult to conjecture, but during the summer he obtained a livelihood by letting out donkeys on the sands.

But the Lord who is “merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth... forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Ex. 34:6) had mercy upon him, and during the latter years of his life brought him to a knowledge of Himself in a somewhat remarkable way.

When I called to see him. I found him in a little back room on the first floor of a very poor dwelling, sitting on a chair, with very little else in the room than a bedstead, and a large old Bible, which was propped up in front of him in another chair. His hands and feet were greatly crippled, and it was with difficulty that he managed to turn over the pages of the dear old book.

It was painful to see his palsied limbs, which were constantly shaking, causing the perspiration to roll down his poor old face.

Taking a seat beside him, and expressing my sympathy with him in his great affliction, and seeking to comfort him with some suitable portions of Scripture, imagine my surprise when he broke forth in the following language: “For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal,” his face being lit up with a joy that filled his whole soul, rejoicing in Him who had called him “out of darkness into his Marvelous light.”

Let me pause, dear reader, and ask you if this is not a triumph of the grace of God that could change this poor degraded blasphemer, whose lips had been so long accustomed to oaths and curses, into a humble believer, whose delight was to utter the praises of God in the midst of his trials, which he endured so patiently, not a murmur escaping his lips. Never before or since have I witnessed such a miracle of grace. Deep was the lesson I learned that day of God’s exceeding great power and grace. Seated in front of that small bedroom window, with nothing to look upon but the chimney-stacks of adjacent houses and a tiny peep of the sky, Knott rejoiced in God.

I cannot attempt to give you the many passages of Scripture he repeated, and from which he evidently drew much comfort, shut up in his little prison-room without the slightest hope of recovery. Truly a prisoner of the Lord, as he loved to style himself, he was sustained by the “blessed hope” that at any moment the Lord Himself might descend into the air, and that he might be caught up “to meet the Lord in the air and so ever be with the Lord.”

In conversation one day I said to him, “Well, how old are you? To which he at once replied,” Sixty in Adam and five in Christ.” At this answer I was greatly struck. How clearly it demonstrated that in his mind there was no uncertainty as to the time and reality of his conversion, or the consciousness of his acceptance in Christ.

Now I feel sure, dear reader, you will be interested to know how his conversion took place, which let me give you, as nearly as I can, in the language in which he gave it to me.

“About five years ago,” he said, “while sitting in this chair I dropped off to sleep, when suddenly I was awakened by the shining of a very bright light upon me, which seemed to penetrate into my soul. Whether it was a light from heaven or no I could not tell, but being awakened I was much troubled, a deep feeling coming over me that I was in the presence of God.”

At once all his sinful life rose up before him. Convicted in his conscience and greatly distressed in spirit, he could only say, like Job, “Behold, I am vile,” or with Isaiah, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Now, my dear reader, may I ask you if you have ever passed through an experience like this? Have you at any time realized that you were in the presence of God, which made you feel how vile and sinful you were? Happy indeed if you have, and, like poor Knott, have also turned to the Lord Jesus Christ in true repentance and subjection of heart.

A dear friend of mine, who visited him about the same time or shortly after, informed me that he went to see him with the hope of helping him in the things of the Lord, but it turned out quite the opposite, for he came away feeling how very greatly he had himself been helped, and left his bedside that day full of that truth which filled the soul of the dear sufferer with such ecstasy, viz., the coming of the Lord.

During my friend’s visit, Knott’s wife entered the room, and commenced speaking of her husband as “a funny old man, who had got hold of something about the coming of some Great One, who loves him and died for him, and who has told him that He is coming for him.” And she added that the last thing at night, when the candle is put out, he insists on the blind being drawn up to the top. “Yes,” chimed in her husband, “I want to have the first peep of Him, that precious One who is my Saviour and Friend.”

My friend left that room deeply impressed with the fact that the one he had visited was not only waiting, but watching for the Lord’s return. Notwithstanding his infirmities, when apparently on the verge of eternity, he looked not for death, but the coming of One whom he esteemed as the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.

During the five years following his conversion, confined in that little gloomy back room, without any one to instruct him, yet taught by the greatest of all teachers, “the Spirit of truth,” it was astonishing what progress he had made in the knowledge of God and the precious principles of His truth. His knowledge of the Scriptures was very great, not in the letter only, but in the spirit.

Especially dear to his heart was the Lord’s coming, which ever sustained him through the wearisome days of his suffering, and filled him with a “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”

Glad indeed was he to see all who came to him, speaking to them of “the kingdom of God, and those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Thus he spent the few remaining days of his pilgrimage here, until the Lord released him from that poor, suffering body, and took him to be with Himself, “where there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

Thoughtful reader, may I be permitted to ask you, after reading this short account of the Lord’s dealings with poor Knott, are you looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. If not, why not? Let me tell you that the door of mercy by which you may enter into the blessings of forgiveness, pardon, and peace, through the precious blood of Christ, is open still. Yea, wide open; but remember, “when once the master of the house is risen up and shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying Lord, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are” (Luke 13:25), then will be uttered those dreadful words, “Take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 22:13).

E. M.

Fragment.

THE Lord, in order to get at the bottom of our hearts, may have to remove a great heap of rubbish, such as self-confidence, pride, and vanity; but He knows what His own grace has done for us, and He will find His love at the bottom of our hearts. He had to remove a great deal from Peter — a mass of fleshy confidence and forward zeal. He may have to take away from us much of that in which we have gloried; but, after all, He will bring out, “Thou knowest that I love thee”— personal affection for Himself.

J. N. D.

"Say Your Prayers in Fair Weather."

AN old Christian used to say to me, “Is anything too wonderful for Him to do whose name is ‘Wonderful’?” Cowper, bent on suicide, was prevented from doing so in such a remarkable way that he wrote —

“God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.”

Every saved soul is a miracle of grace. Some, however, are arrested in such remarkable ways that they are compelled to say, “Wonderful, that God ever had mercy on me!” Such a one was X —, a tall, robust man, who climbed on board an American trading vessel, and offered himself as a seaman. The vessel was just about to sail, and the captain very short of hands, so he gladly engaged him. They had not been long at sea before he regretted having done so. The captain himself was a most ungodly man, and was prepared to go to great lengths in sin, but this man seemed a demon incarnate. He had a most intractable disposition, a quarrelsome temper, was a drunkard, and a most awful blasphemer. He refused to give any account of his past history, and had evidently come aboard to get a passage to America. The captain soon found he was no sailor, and ignorant as a child of nautical matters. He became the bane and plague of the vessel.

After a time a violent storm arose. The vessel was in imminent danger. The captain summoned all hands on deck. All appeared except the wretched blasphemer. The captain went below to seek him. David speaks of the “stormy wind fulfilling God’s word.” That storm had raised another in the conscience of the swearer. The captain found him on his knees repeating the Lord’s prayer with wonderful rapidity over and over again. This appeared to be the only prayer he knew, and by repeated reiterations he hoped to allay the fears he felt at the prospect of eternity. The captain was so annoyed that he shook him by the shoulder, and said, “Say your prayers in fair weather.” “God grant I may ever see fair weather to say them,” he replied in a low voice. Those words never left him. “Say your prayers in fair weather” followed him everywhere. The storm abated, but not the storm in his conscience. The vessel reached its destination in safety, but there was no rest for him. He came ashore, but still no peace. At last he found it was not by praying but believing; not in his cries for mercy, but that mercy had provided a Saviour, a real living Saviour who died for his sins, and was raised again for his justification. He was saved. A great longing to tell this great salvation filled his heart. The stormy wind that had driven him to the harbor of salvation for safety had filled his soul with concern for other tempest-tossed mariners sailing on the sea of death to eternal judgment. He gave himself wholly to the Lord. He became an earnest and devoted evangelist, and was greatly blessed.

We will leave him preaching to a crowded audience, and return to the captain. Four or five years had elapsed since he told the seaman to pray in fair weather. All this time he had been going deeper and deeper down the dark paths of sin. God had given him many warnings. A falling spar did him grievous bodily harm. Twice he had been shipwrecked, but neither in fair weather nor foul had he cried to God. He had just finished a long and dangerous voyage, and having landed in New York, had determined to have his fling. He bent his steps toward a tavern where he frequently had indulged his sinful propensities. On his way he met an old friend, the boon companion of many a sinful hour. The captain was delighted to see him, and declared he must accompany him, there and then, to his tavern. With great calmness his friend replied, “I will do so on condition that you come into this place with me for a single hour, and thank God for His mercies to you on the deep.” The captain was ashamed to refuse. They entered together. The place was crowded; with great difficulty they forced their way to about five yards distance from the preacher.

There was something about the man which riveted the attention of the captain, but he could not remember where or when he had seen him. At length the preacher’s eyes fell upon the two friends. He suddenly paused, gazed upon the captain, as if to make sure that it was not an optical delusion, and then shouted out in stentorian tones, “Say your prayers in fair weather.”

The congregation were amazed. The preacher stopped overcome with emotion. After some time he recovered himself, and told his audience of the way God had first spoken to him by the storm, and the words the captain had used. He then asked them all to join in prayer with him that God would save the man who uttered those words, telling them that he was now present. God had, however, outrun their petitions. The power of the Spirit had effectually wrought, the captain was saved there and then. He left that meeting a new creature in Christ Jesus. Instead of going with his friend to the tavern, he repaired to the house of the preacher. There he stayed six weeks. When he left, it was to pursue his avocation, and carry on his profession, not now a godless profligate, but a holy and happy servant of Christ. The one from whom I got this account knew him, and says that as years advanced, he also advanced in the knowledge of the Saviour, and became more and more devoted to His interests.

Were they not both wonders of grace? Reader, are you? It may be God has not spoken in just the same way to you, but no doubt God has often spoken to you. “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.” “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Turn to that blessed Saviour. Trust Him now, and you shall join in the song which celebrates the “wonders” of redeeming love.

H. N.

The Commodore's Death.

COMMODORE — was dying. The poisoned arrow shot by the hand of a mere boy at the commodore whilst regaining his vessel after vindicating the rights of his country on a savage shore, had done its work, and slowly but certainly, the end drew nigh.

So he well knew; and he knew, too, that he might yet gaze once more on his country’s shores, and on the face of her he loved, had he steered straight for port. But in those last solemn hours, should he think of himself or of others?

The vessel carried mails — mails which those who had been months without news were eagerly awaiting, and the gallant sailor thought of them. The order was given, and the mail bags were left at one out-of-the-way port after another, as the good ship skirted the land on whose shore her commander might never more set foot.

Of others wounded on this same occasion one after another had succumbed; lock-jaw in each case supervening forty-eight hours before death; yet, strange to say, in his case this was lacking, and up to the last, Commodore — retained the power of speech.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten sight as the dying man lay on deck surrounded by all the crew, which his last order had gathered round him. They knelt closely beside him, or sat in a circle round the dying man. Others stood beyond, whilst others again climbed the rigging and manned the yards — anywhere could they but catch a glimpse of his loved face, or hear his dying message.

“The doctor tells me I must die. Is it not so, doctor?” he asked.

“Yes,” returned the ship’s doctor.

“Is it absent from the body, present with the Lord’?” whispered one who knelt close beside him.

“Yes,” came the response, and then for fully half an hour those dying lips gave one long, fervent appeal to the men he had so often guided — one last address about — what think you, my reader? Their duty to their sovereign? No; his example had taught them that. Their country’s glories, and how they had helped to swell them? Nay, not so. One theme alone filled his heart: one theme alone moved his lips.

The love of God! He spoke of that love: that love which has shown itself in sending its choicest treasure to meet the need of its worst enemy: that love which is toward the sinner, the enemy, the rebel: that love which has found a way of reconciling that enemy, reconciling him, too, in full accord with the strictest righteousness and holiness: that love which planned and carried out that great transaction of which Calvary’s cross is the center, 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.”

The love of God manifested there, when His beloved Son was made a propitiation for us, was “shed abroad” in the heart of the dying Commodore, and flowed out from his lips. Who could resist such an appeal?

Then, turning to the one mentioned above, he said, “Don’t be afraid to tell of that love whenever you have opportunity. I know you are not ashamed of it; but, whatever happens, don’t ever be.”

Good advice, Christian friend, for you and me. Loving hands carried him below, and in twenty-four hours Commodore — was with Him who loved him and gave Himself for him.

Friend, couldst thou meet death thus? Dost thou know the love of God, or art thou still in enmity against Him? After death the judgment, if thou despise the provision of that love and reject that God-given and God-appointed Saviour; but those who believe that love have the authority of the Word of God for saying, “Herein is love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” “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.”

SOME believers in Jesus are joyless, because they are so little looking to Christ. They are occupied with themselves, their circumstances, their bodies perhaps, something that is not Christ. They have too much of Christ to be able to enjoy the world, and too much of the world to enjoy Christ.

W. T. P. W.

"Are You a Christian?"

THIS question was asked of a young lady by a friend interested in her soul’s state, who feared that the fleeting attractions of the present world entirely occupied her attention.

“Certainly, I am a Christian,” she replied, “but not one of your sort exactly.”

“But,” said her friend, “the point is not, Are you a Christian according to any man’s pattern, which may be a very faulty one, but after Christ’s pattern, the only real one? Have you ever felt a sense of sin, of unfitness to meet God? Have you ever seen the fullness of the salvation He has provided by the cross of His Son? Have you gone to Jesus for pardon, and, knowing your sins forgiven, are you pointing others to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world?”

“No,” she said, “I told you I did not go by your pattern. I think if I do my duty to myself and my neighbor, nothing else can be expected of me. I go to church, say my prayers, and sometimes read my Bible. I do very well, and have no fear for my future.”

The solemnity of our Lord’s words, “Ye must be born again,” and the great truth that “without shedding of blood is no remission,” were pointed out to this lady. Whether she accepted a free salvation through Christ, or continued trying to save herself, the day will declare.

It is too much to be feared there are many, like her, quite content with themselves, leading exemplary lives, yet under condemnation. Why? Because they — as has been truly said of such — want to be Christians without Christ. They have begun at the wrong end, working for life in place of from life.

The evil is that self bulks largely. They know not the plague of their own hearts, the evil of sin, nor that they are under the curse, and so have neglected and do not feel the need of God’s appointed Saviour.

Reader, how is it with you? Are you safe under the blood, or still under the curse, seeking to save yourself?

Answer to yourself this question now, and make sure it is well with your soul. Do not delay till tomorrow, which may never come. “Now is the accepted time, now the day of salvation.”

W. S.

Changed into His Image.

THE glory of the Lord as seen in Moses’ face alarmed the people; they could not bear that glory. But we see it now with “open” unveiled “face” in Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), and yet are not in the least afraid; we find liberty, comfort, and joy in looking at it; we gaze on it, and instead of fearing, rejoice. How comes this immense difference? It is “the ministration of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8) and “of righteousness” (vs. 9). It is Christ alive in the glory that I see: not Christ down here (sweet as that was), but Christ at the right hand of God. Yet though that glory is in the heavens, I can steadfastly behold it. All that glory (and He is in the midst of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself) does not affright me, because this wonderful truth comes in, that that glory of God is in the face of a Man who has put away my sins, and who is there in proof of it (Heb. 1:3). I should have been afraid to hear His voice, and have said with the children of Israel, “Let not God speak with me” (Ex. 20:19); or, like Adam with a guilty conscience, have sought to hide myself away (Gen. 3:8). But I do not say so now. No; let me hear His voice.

I cannot see Christ in glory now without knowing that I am saved. How comes He there? He is a man who has been down here mixing with publicans and sinners — the friend of such, choosing such as His companions; He is a man who has borne my sins in His own body on the tree (I speak the language of faith). He is there as having been down here amidst the circumstances and under the imputation of sin; and yet it is in His face I see the glory of God. I see Him there consequent upon the putting away of my sin; because He has accomplished my redemption. I could not see Christ in the glory if there were one spot of sin not put away. The more I see of the glory, the more I see the perfectness of the work that Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am accepted. Every ray of that glory is seen in the face of One who has confessed my sins as His, and died for them on the cross; of One who has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. The glory that I see is the glory of redemption. Having glorified God about the sin — “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 7:4) — God has glorified Him with Himself there.

When I see Him in that glory, instead of seeing my sins, I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on the Mediator: I have seen my sins confessed on the head of the scapegoat, and they have been borne away (Lev. 16). So much has God been glorified about my sins (that is, in respect of what Christ has done on account of my sins), that this is the title of Christ to be there at the right hand of God. I am not afraid to look at Christ there. Where are my sins now? Where are they to be found, in heaven or on earth? I see Christ in the glory. Once they were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more to be found. Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with Christ alive in the glory the search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there. As a practical consequence of this, I am changed into His likeness. “We all, with open face, beholding as in the glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

It is the Holy Ghost taking of the things of Christ, and revealing them to the soul, that is the power of present practical conformity to Christ. I delight in Christ, I feast upon Christ, I love Christ. It is the very model and forming of my soul according to Christ by the Holy Ghost, this His revelation of Christ. I not only get to love the glory, it is Christ Himself that I love; Christ that I admire, Christ that I care for, Christ whose flesh I eat, and whose blood I drink; what wonder if I am like Christ. The Christian thus becomes the epistle of Christ; he speaks for Christ, owns Christ, acts for Christ. He does not want the pleasures of the world, he has pleasure at God’s right hand for evermore.

The soul at perfect liberty with God looks peacefully and happily at the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ; and because it sees that glory, and knows its expression, it walks before God in holy confidence. Instead of being happy and at liberty with Satan in Satan’s world, the Christian dreads Satan because he knows himself. At ease in the presence of God, he there drinks into the spirit of that which befits the presence of God, and becomes the “epistle of Christ” to the world, showing out to all that he has been there. Well, what a difference. May we more and more make our boast in Him, in whose face all this glory is displayed — the Lamb who has died for us, and cleansed away our sins by His own most precious blood.

J. N. D.

"You Can Let Go."

IT had been a hard struggle for life, but at last doctors and nurses were congratulating themselves that Private Fisher was on the highroad to convalescence. He had been brought to the military hospital with a severe wound in the thigh, and recovery was slow, but today he had walked round the ward for the first time.

Night was falling and silence reigned in the hospital. Suddenly a cry of pain echoed through the ward. The nurse, hurrying to Private Fisher’s bed, whence the cry had come, found a jet of blood spurting from the wound. By the nurse’s direction one present placed his finger firmly upon the tiny orifice while they waited till the surgeon should arrive.

A short examination convinced the latter that the case was hopeless, for the sharp edge of the splintered bone had pierced an artery.

The soldier was unconscious that anything serious had occurred, and they broke the news to him as gently as possible. He received it calmly and courageously, and, after begging that his mother might be told of his death, asked, “How long can I live?”

“Only as long as I keep my finger upon this artery,” was the reply.

There was a pause. At last the soldier broke the silence, “You can let go.”

The man would not let go. But after a while he suddenly fainted and the muscles of his hand relaxed. So the soldier’s end came.

Now sin, like that splintered bone, has pierced man’s soul and the life is ebbing away. It was by sin death came into the world, and “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”

Reader, one thing alone keeps the tide of life running in the channels of thy existence. It is the sustaining finger of God that rests upon thee, for in Him we live and move and have our being. For twenty, thirty, fifty, perhaps seventy years, He has kept His finger there; but it may be that He is about to say, “I will let go.” Before there is time to glance at the clock on the wall thy soul may be summoned into eternity. Oh, reader, art thou prepared?

Because of the uncertainty of life, and because of the certainty of the hell that awaits the impenitent, we would urge thee, if unconverted, to make instant decision for Christ. Only those are safe that are sheltered by the blood of Christ, and thou mayest at once have this shelter if thou wilt turn to the Lord Jesus.

Do not delay, another opportunity may never be given thee. We entreat thee to come now.

“Behold, Now is the accepted time; behold, Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

“For TOMORROW we shall die” (Isa. 22:13).

M. L. B.

Light or Darkness.

“SHALL I draw up the blind a little?” asked the nurse, and the invalid had answered, “Ah, yes, let in the light, I am going into the light,” and she lay back and slept. When, a little later, they turned to the sick bed again, they found it was even as she had said, she would waken no more to earth’s clouds and dimness—she had gone into the everlasting light.

“Very touching and beautiful,” you say, my reader. “When my time comes I should like to die like that.” But are you converted? because if not you will never die like that, It is true that you may pass away very peacefully, unconscious from weakness, or soothed by opiates; you may sleep quietly into eternity, but you will not go into the light. Do you ask, “Why not?” Because you are not a child of the light; you have never come to the light. Had you done so, your deeds would have been reproved, the burden of your sins would have pressed upon you, you would have seen your lost and ruined state, and would have fled to Jesus, who alone can save. It has not, however, been thus with you; amiable and educated, benevolent and religious, you have gone on contentedly in the darkness, loving it more than the light, and as the stone in your hand falls to the ground when you let it go, so surely must your spirit, freed from its earthly tabernacle, descend into the darkness.

But, because God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great compassion, you are not there yet; and it may be, this little paper has been brought before you that you may be awakened and concerned while there is still hope. You can never have seriously pondered the unspeakable griefs of a Christless resurrection.

Picture to yourself this—to have died unconverted, and then to waken, as it seems to you, from a short, uneasy sleep (for I do not think time is counted in the grave) to find that ages have rolled away, and that the Judge sits on the great white throne, to find again the frail tenement you left so long ago, ruined by self-indulgence, wasted by disease, or worn by old age, and which you had thought scattered to the four winds of heaven, or turned to ashes by fire, or left in the bosom of the boundless ocean, and to be clothed therein once more, its infirmities unchanged by time, and then to hear the terrible words you once read so carelessly— “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Rev. 22:11).

Oh, reader, I shudder as I write such words, horror takes hold on me. I would not choose thus to alarm you, but “knowing the terror of the Lord,” I would persuade you. This surely were terror enough, and yet it is only the first step into a lost eternity; what of the others—the blackness of darkness, the weeping and wailing, the regrets, the remorse, the unwelcome company of the devil and his angels?

You will not imperil your soul any longer? Earnestly you will ask, “How may I be saved? No labor would be too great, no penance too painful, if only I may save my soul from so terrible a doom.”

And now, when you see your need of Him, how sweet to point you to the precious Saviour, who has done all. His was the labor, His the pain, that salvation might be yours. You know well the story of the cross, only until now you have never heeded it, how the Lord Jesus went down into the darkness that He might bring you into the light, and how He has waited so patiently, so graciously until you should turn to Him in simple faith, believing that He will receive even you, and He will. Has not He said, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out”? (John 6:37). Oh, come, then, as you are; delay not one moment, and having come to Him, follow Him, and it shall be made good to you that “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

L. R.

LONG before man is to be judged for his sins, God unfolds two things: first, that forgiveness is offered to every soul that believes in His Son; and secondly, that He sends the Holy Ghost to dwell in the believer. Is not that wide enough, broad enough, to take you and me in? Is not forgiveness of sins the very thing you need and desire? That is the very thing God proclaims to you.

W. T. P. W.

What Comes After Death?

A CHRISTIAN, hoping to awaken serious thought in the mind of a young infidel, said to him, “What comes after death?” The young man sneeringly answered, “A funeral.” And his reply is often sadly true in a different sense than was intended.

When an unconverted man dies, before the body is interred a funeral, unseen by human eyes, has taken place: the unsaved soul has been buried in the depths of a lost eternity.

Incarcerated in the prison-house of Hades the impenitent await the tribunal of the Great White Throne, when the wicked dead shall, in resurrection bodies, be judged according to their deeds.

But for Christians death is robbed of its terror. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The departed saints await in the presence of Christ the resurrection morning, when, in bodies of glory, they shall shine in the image of God’s Son.

Reader, have you, as lost and guilty, fled to the Saviour? Are you trusting in the blood of Christ? Then listen to the words of the Son of God—“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 judgment; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

Jesus Dependent and Victorious.

(Read Luke 3:21-23, 4:1-13.)

IN Luke’s Gospel you will find the Lord Jesus before God in prayer seven times, and here is the first instance. You have here the sinless Man in perfect dependence on God, and to Him the Father says, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”; and I shall show you from Scripture, one witness after another testifying to the sinless perfection of this blessed Man. He Himself said, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:46).

The officers of the Pharisees when sent to take Him came back, overwhelmed by the grace and power of His words, and declared, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). Pilate, when Christ was brought into his judgment hall, said three times over, “I find no fault in him” (John 18:38, 19:4,6). The dying thief said, “This man hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:41). Paul wrote of Him that He “knew no sin,” but was “made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). Another apostle says of Him, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). And a final witness adds, “In him is no sin” (1 John 3:5). This is a unique Man. This Man stands alone in the glory of ME person, — unique in the fact that He was absolutely sinless. But Mark! he was a real man, a true man, a genuine man, a man as much as I am a man—sin alone excepted.

When God introduced the first man he was “out of the earth, made of dust”; but “the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). What a wonderful thing that into a world of sin and death there should come a Man who was the Lord from heaven He brought God to man in His life, and He brings man to God in righteousness by His death. We must not be carried away with the idea that the incarnation of this Blessed One has drawn man to God, or that because Christ became a man, man has somehow been lifted up to God. No such doctrine is in Scripture. His own words were, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24).

But, first of all, He is tried, tested, tempted, and proved, and, thank God! He comes out the victor—the conqueror of the one who conquered the first man; and when His victory over Satan was complete, and when He might have retraced His steps to heaven with perfect freedom, what did He do? He turned and went to the cross and died for us and our sins. Hence God can say to you and me, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!” And who is this Jesus? The Eternal Son of God. Jesus became man in this world in order to deliver man from the power of the enemy.

In Luke 3 we see that the Holy Ghost falls upon Him as the expression of His Father’s delight in Him. God delights in this Man on the ground of His own perfection—His own sinless perfection. In this chapter, too, observe in passing, that the genealogy of Jesus is directly traced up to God. I wish to bear strenuous testimony against the idea that man is merely developed protoplasm, or, if you like, an improved descendant of an ape. Man has sprung from God, as the book of Genesis tells us, and when Jesus appears among men His genealogy, as a true, veritable, real man, is traced by way of Hell up to God. Had man sprung from the lower animals, here would have been the place to record such a fact, and we should have had, “Seth, which was of Adam, which was of the lower animals.” Instead thereof we read, “which was of God” (Luke 3:23-38).

Jesus was the Son of God in two ways. He was the only begotten and Eternal Son—ever with the Father. But we also read, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Heb. 1:5); He was therefore Son of God as man born in time.

Then we read that “Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil” (Luke 4:1,2). Observe that His temptation was in the wilderness. Adam, on the other hand, was in Paradise—Eden if you please—the garden of delight. He had everything to his hand. Everything that could possibly minister to his happiness and joy was given him by God, yet he fell into Satan’s hand, and became the dupe and vassal of Satan from that day forth. Christ was led into the wilderness, and there was tempted forty days. He was not in Paradise, but Scripture tells us “in the wilderness, forty days, tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts” (Mark 1:13). Not only was He with the brute creation, but observe there was nothing to meet or minister to Him. Scripture tells us He fasted for forty days. It was a time of perfect privation.

He was tempted of the devil for forty days, but the great temptation was at the end of the forty days, and it was threefold, in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” It was the same threefold temptation in the garden of Eden. When Eve “saw that the tree was good for food,”— that is the lust of the flesh, — “and that it was pleasant to the eyes,”— the lust of the eyes, — “and a tree to be desired to make one wise,”— that is the pride of life, — “she took of the fruit thereof.” Satan passed before the Lord Jesus the same character of temptation. The first, “If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread,” was a personal temptation—Help yourself, use your own power. The second is a worldly temptation; Satan offers him all the kingdoms of the world, if He will give up His allegiance to God. The last temptation is of a spiritual nature. He would be an object of interest to every one—this is the pride of life.

In the first place Satan says, “Take care of yourself, think of yourself, make these stones into bread. Do better for yourself than God has done for you.” That was a personal temptation. In the second place he shows Him the whole of the kingdoms of the world in a moment, and says, “I will give you a good place in the world.” How many a man has sold his soul for a good place in the world! Alas how many! Lastly, Satan would have Him put God to the test by casting Himself from the pinnacle of the temple.

A clever man once said to me, “I don’t believe in this story of a personal devil, the devil is inside a man.” What is the devil then? You reply, The devil is the proclivity in a man’s own heart to evil. You believe that? Stop! If that be true you cannot be saved. Why? The answer is simple. If you think that the devil is the proclivity in man’s heart to evil, you have at once to admit that there were proclivities to evil in the heart of Jesus, for He was a man, and was “tempted of the devil,” and so you have lost the Saviour. The man with proclivities to evil in his heart cannot be your Saviour nor mine. No, no, my friends, God’s Word is plain and distinct. There were no proclivities to evil in Jesus, yet He was tempted of the devil. Thank God, He was a sinless Man, and we have in this passage Satan coming up and testing Him with this temptation of a threefold character.

What is His defense? He only quotes Scripture. He is a truly dependent Man, and clings to God, and God only, and how does He meet the devil? With the sword of the Spirit in His hand—the Word of God—and not merely the Word of God, but quoted as the Word of God. Jesus rebuts and defeats the devil, only by quoting Scripture as being the Word of God.

“It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God,” defeats the first assault. The second temptation is met in the same way. The devil takes Him up and shows Him the kingdoms of the world. Christ knows that they belong to Him, but He will not take the world in its sinful state. He will have the kingdoms of the world, but that will be on the ground of redemption, and He will have them from God’s hand, and not from the devil’s hand. His answer is simple again, “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” The last temptation suggested that Christ should throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple to test God, and make Himself an attraction. If you got to the top of the Scott Monument, and were perfectly certain that you could throw yourself down without injuring yourself, I venture to think that you would attempt it, just to show that you could do it, and you would be an object of interest to all. That is the pride of life.

It is well to note that Satan can quote Scripture to trap the unwary. He quotes, or rather misquotes, Scripture in this last temptation, citing from the 91St Psalm— “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” But have you observed that the devil omits four little words? God had said, “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” The devil dropped those words out. Since that day often has he misquoted Scripture to tempted souls, and has turned them into paths of sin and danger. But Jesus knew the Scriptures, clung to Him who had written them, and by dependence gained a moral victory over Satan, who then “departed from him for a season.”

Notice the book—Deuteronomy—from which Jesus quoted in each instance. Moses, we are told now-a-days, is to be regarded as a very old-fashioned, obsolete, and unreliable author. In fact, it is very boldly affirmed that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. If, therefore, you will be counted wise, and up to date, you will have to entirely disregard the Pentateuch, and cut these five books right out of your Bibles. That is what our learned religious infidels, and higher-criticism professors, are telling us now-a-days. It is a very remarkable thing, however, that in this threefold assault Jesus answers Satan from the Pentateuch, and the Pentateuch only, which, later in His life, He frequently attributes to Moses. We had better hold with Jesus than with His foes in this matter. These wiseacres, that are cutting up Scripture now-a-days, forget that the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. God’s Word is what the devil hates. He cannot abide Scripture; and the secret of the strength of the young men—in the sense in which John speaks of them, as being Christians, of course—lies in their possession of the Word of God. If you, my Christian reader, would go on growing in the knowledge and the service of the Lord, and if you are going to get the victory over the devil, you will only do so by the use of Scripture; for it, and it alone, is the sword of the Spirit.

But look again at this scene in Luke 4. It is beautiful! Satan retires beaten. The first man, Adam, was driven out from Eden. Satan was the conqueror, the victor, and man was defeated; but here I find that a Man, leaning in dependence upon God, has defeated Satan at every point. I read, “And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.” Satan retired beaten, and he is always beaten when we quote Scripture as the Word of God. Friend, study it; may it be precious to your soul; make it the man of your counsel, the man of your right hand. First of all, the Word lets you know that you are saved by faith in Jesus, and then it guides and helps you through the pathway in this scene. We must meet temptation, but I do not think the devil tempts sinners—them he governs, and impels to evil. He only tempts God’s children. His own cohorts he leads on blindfold to eternal ruin. He does not need to tempt them; they are in his power. He places temptation before the man who is out of his power. The man who is in his power he leaves alone. If Christ has not delivered you, you are still the vassal of the devil, and are under his influence, for he “deceiveth the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).

Mark now how the Lord proceeds. Having defeated the enemy, He goes out into the world to deliver man, and His pathway is one of goodness and mercy. Miracles of mercy on every hand proclaim Him to be the Son of God, and the Christ of God. When you come to the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel you find Him going up to the top of the mountain, where He is transfigured before three of His disciples; while the Father again confesses Him, saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear him.” He might have passed up into glory from the mount of transfiguration, but instead of that He turns in grace and goes down to die, that others, redeemed by His death, may be associated with Him in the glory of which He is deemed worthy as Man. As He goes down He casts out devils once more; and one of His servants—John—comes and tells Him, “We saw one casting out devils in thy name,” His name was mighty, “and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us” (Luke 9:49, 50).

Well, you say, I think I am for Him. Stop. At that moment He claimed all that were not against Him, as being for Him. If you pass on to chapter 11 The whole thing is reversed. There His opposers were beginning to say, “He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils” (vs. 15). His reply is remarkable— “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and over-cometh him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth” (vers. 21-23). You see the point. If you are not thoroughly for Him, you are against Him. That is how Christ regards you. But who is the strong man? I have no doubt it is the devil: the strong man is Satan. He is too strong for you, and too strong for me—for every man. And how is he armed? I will tell you. He is armed with what will overcome you, and with what will keep your conscience quiet.

Dear unsaved reader, there is a strong man holding you, but there is yet a stronger—Jesus. The world is Satan’s palace, and sinners are his goods; but there is a Saviour—a blessed Saviour. And how does He become a Saviour? By coming down and dying for men. The query, “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? “has its answer in Christ and His work. “Thus saith the Lord, Even the captive of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered” (Isa. 49:24,25). Christ as conqueror of the mighty is the deliverer of the captive sinner.

W. T. P. W.

WE know of few things more dangerous than intellectual familiarity with the letter of Scripture where the spirit of it does not govern the conscience, form the character, and shape the way. We want to tremble at the Word of God, to bow down in reverential submission to its holy authority in all things. A single line of Scripture ought to be sufficient for our souls on any point, even though in carrying it out, we should have to move athwart the opinions of the highest and best of men.

C. H. M.

The Power of Jesus' Name.

(Acts 4:12.)

CHARLIE P—was a fine intelligent young fellow, a little over twenty years of age. His parents were earnest Christians, and greatly longed to see their much-loved son manifestly on the Lord’s side. Until now, however, Charlie’s heart had been engrossed by the world—its pleasures, its sports, its follies—and the many prayers of the pious couple for their boy’s conversion were apparently unheeded of God. That they were not unremembered of Him was blessedly true, and although forty years have now rolled by since the answer came, the way of its coming is quite fresh before my mind.

While paying a short visit to London late in 1866, Charlie’s mother accosted me one Lord’s Day morning, as a number of the Lord’s people were departing from a meeting in a large hall in the north of London, after showing the Lord’s death in the breaking of bread. In that very hall, six years before, at the end of a gospel meeting, I had been brought to know the Lord Jesus as my own personal Saviour, through conversation with a young man, now gone to be with his Lord and Master. Charlie’s mother had witnessed, as she stood in the door-way that led from the hall to the ante-room, that, the most wondrous event in my life.

This Lord’s Day morning it had been announced that I was to preach the gospel in that hall in the evening, and coming up to me, she said, in very earnest tones, “Oh, Doctor, will you pray for my Charlie?”

“What is wrong with Charlie?” said I.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” she replied; “he is a very dear boy, but he has not been converted yet, and we are so anxious about his salvation. I remember so well how you were converted six years ago, in this hall, and I am hoping and praying that God will make you the means of my boy’s conversion. Will you pray for him?”

“Certainly, my dear friend,” I replied, “we will pray together, and count on God.”

The hall was crowded that evening to hear the somewhat young convert preach the gospel on the very spot of his own conversion. Among the auditors I noticed Charlie, sitting by the side of an elderly Christian man whom I knew well, and who took very deep interest in the lad. My theme that night was the power of the name of Jesus, as unfolded in Acts 3 and 4. There Peter, speaking to the cripple in the Beautiful gate of the temple, says, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” The effect was instantaneous, for of the cripple we read: “And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking, and praising God: and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him” (Acts 3:8-10).

The secret and the source of this wonderful cure of the lame man, Peter very distinctly affirms, as—speaking of the exalted Jesus—he says, “And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know; yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all” (vs. 16). Nor indeed was that all the testimony as to this remarkable cure, for God would have all to know the saving power of Jesus’ name, and led His servant to say: “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:10-12).

The name that healed the cripple is the name that God proclaims to heal men in their sins—men paralyzed by sin, men devil-held through sin, men bound fast in their sins. None other name but Jesus, the sweetest, choicest name that ever fell on mortal ear, for it means Jehovah the Saviour—contains healing power for such as these. And God would have men know that salvation is in no other name but that of Jesus, the once dead but now risen and glorified Saviour. As complete as was the healing of the body of the cripple through the power of that name then, so equally perfect is the healing and salvation of the soul that now believes in Him who bears that blessed name—Jesus. The cripple was told in that day to “rise up.” To my audience I again and again said, “Look up, look at Him where He now is, a living Man in glory, and salvation becomes yours immediately; for He it is who said, ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth’” (Isa. 45:22).

That Lord’s Day evening the Spirit of God was working very mightily in the meeting: many were convicted of their sins, and not a few were genuinely converted to God that night. Among those who came under deep conviction of sin was Charlie, and in the course of the meeting his tears flowed fast and thick, as he became conscious of his guilty, lost state, and yet that he was an object of the interest and of the love of God. He bowed his head; whether to escape observation or to pray was not known at the moment, but the friend who sat by him at that point whispered, “Look up, Charlie.” At the same moment, in a loud voice I also said, “Look up.” To Charlie this double testimony at one moment was a voice from God and from heaven which he could not resist, and there is no doubt from that time he began to look to the Lord for salvation, though he did not then find peace.

The meeting closed, and I asked any who were anxious to be saved to come round into the side-room, and see me. Among the seekers for salvation who desired a personal interview with me, I was deeply thankful to see Charlie. He was, however, so overcome with emotion that I took him apart into a yet smaller ante-room, where he acknowledged his guilty condition and his deep desire to be saved there and then. There was no need to press repentance or urge decision; he was deeply repentant, and longed to be decided. Finding this to be the state of his soul, I said, “Let us pray together.” We got on our knees, and I prayed to the Lord to let light shine into his darkened heart, and give peace to his troubled soul. Then arising I left him on his knees, and said, “Charlie, get it all settled with God, man, before you get off your knees,” and I went out into the after-meeting, leaving him alone with God.

Perhaps half-an-hour elapsed, and then I returned. Charlie was standing to receive me, his face beaming with joy, although tears still rolled down his cheeks, but they were tears of joy in the knowledge of God’s love; and as he gripped my hand like a vice, he said, “I have got Him, I can trust Him now; He is mine, I am saved.” Saying a few more words to him, I brought him out to the very door-way where his mother had stood and seen me converted, and where she now stood, weeping and praying as only a tender-hearted mother can do in a moment of such extreme solicitude as was hers for her son. “Here he is,” said I; “take care of him.” They fell into each other’s arms, and wept tears of joy and gratitude, she—because her prayers were answered; he—because his soul was eternally saved. It was a fine sight. Would to God one saw it more often now-a-days at the close of gospel meetings.

Mothers, go on praying for your boys, and always bring them to the gospel preaching where you know somebody will speak a plain, simple word about Jesus.

Charlie’s conversion was very bright and clear; he at once confessed Christ to all his old comrades, took a decided stand, wherever he was known, as being on the Lord’s side, was not ashamed to own Christ on every occasion, and very soon identified himself with the Lord’s people in worship and service in a very practical way. But as his soul grew in the knowledge of God, and his spiritual stature increased, I grieve to say the outward man decayed. Consumption laid its fell hand upon the dear young convert, and within two short years of the night I have spoken of; Charlie passed away to be with Jesus forever. His death was triumphant, his testimony beautifully bright and simple. He got round his bedside every young person he knew, whether related to him or not, told them how Jesus had saved him, and urged them to come to the Saviour and devote their lives to Him. The grief which naturally filled his parents’ hearts in losing him from earth was most blessedly and sweetly assuaged by the absolute knowledge that he had passed into everlasting glory, through faith in the name of Jesus. To God be the praise.

Reader, have you faith in that name? Have you found Him who bears it? Do you know Him as your own personal Saviour? Were those who love you most to stand round your grave within a week of the moment you read this, do you think they would have the deep solid conviction that you had passed to be forever, with the Lord? These are serious questions, answer them honestly, I beseech you. Time is short; eternity long. Death is at hand; the Lord is coming. Procrastinate not, for delays are dangerous, and procrastination is but the recruiting officer of hell. If you have never turned to the Lord before, turn at this very moment. Trust Him. Look up; He looks down in tender love on you. Remember, “Neither is there salvation in any other” but that name of Jesus.

W. T. P. W.

The Two Puzzled Doctors.

ABOUT thirty-seven years ago a doctor and his assistant were in attendance on an old retired tradesman. It was a case that sorely puzzled them both. They had had, for young men, a fair amount of experience, but neither of them had seen, either in hospital or private practice, a case similar to this—not that the diagnosis was particularly difficult, or, in point of fact, the prognosis either, for it was quite plain to them he could not live very long.

It was not, however, the disease, but the man himself who puzzled them so very much.

He seemed to be past their comprehension, yet there was no question about his intellect being weak. On the contrary, he appeared to be a man of some intelligence.

Again, there was nothing to complain of in the way their daily visits were received, for their patient uniformly met them with a gentle, benignant smile; yet they could not feel at home with him, for they could not make him out.

As we have said, his case was a very serious one, and as the doctor always thought it right to tell his patients, when they were in real danger, the truth as to their state, but in as guarded a manner as possible, the time had now come when he felt he must break the “sad” news of the approaching end to this patient. So, to avoid a shock, he commenced as carefully as possible to bring the “painful” subject before him, and by degrees came to the usually distressing point, saying, as near as remembered, “My dear friend, I fear your time here will not be very long.”

His countenance changed immediately. The doctor was, however, quite prepared for that, as he had seen it under similar circumstances many times before.

Was the poor old gentleman going to burst into a flood of tears? No.

Was he going to cry bitterly that he might be spared here a little longer? No.

Was he about to deplore having to leave his loved ones here? No.

Can it be possible? Yes, indeed; there can be no mistake about it; instead of anguish, a bright, radiant smile lights up his face as he calmly inquires, “And do you think, doctor, the event will take place today?”

It was now the poor doctor’s turn for intense astonishment, and his professional decorum was tried to the utmost to enable him, without showing his great surprise, to reply, “Well, no; I trust not today, but I fear it will be very soon.”

Again that bright, confident smile illuminated the face of this strange man as he said, “Ah, well, it is a good thing to be prepared!”

In the after-part of that day and subsequently, the doctors, not being able to understand their strange patient, pronounced him to be a “regular caution,” and made many jokes at his expense.

But queer as he appeared in their eyes, he was unquestionably in possession of some secret they were in entire ignorance of. Indeed, though not cowards, they would have been terribly distressed had they been in their patient’s position. What, then, was the wonderful secret which could give this man such perfect calmness when face to face with death?

As the writer, by the grace of God, has himself been in the knowledge and enjoyment of this secret for many years, permit him to try to answer this all important question, with the sincere hope and fervent prayer that the highly-prized blessing may be yowl before you lay aside this little paper.

In the first place, our old friend had, by the Hold Spirit’s teaching, become convinced that he was not right with God, and being honest enough to own his sinful and undone condition before Him, he soon became aware of the great fact that God was not against him, but for him.

Yes, “GOD IS LOVE. 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” (1 John 4:8-10).

He is a holy and a righteous God; He hates sin, but He loves the sinner. His righteousness forbids His overlooking one sin, yet in love He willeth not the death of a sinner.

“The perfect righteousness of God

Is witnessed in the Saviour’s blood;

‘Tis in the cross of Christ we trace

His righteousness, yet wondrous grace.

God could not pass the sinner by—

His sin demands that he must die;

But in the cross of Christ we see

How God can save, yet righteous be.

The sin alights on Jesus’ head;

‘Tis in His blood sin’s debt is paid.

Stern justice can demand no more,

And mercy can dispense her store.

The sinner who believes is free—

Can say, ‘The Saviour died for me’;

Can point to the atoning blood

And say, ‘This made my peace with God.”

So in all simplicity he accepted God’s word about the precious Person and work of His beloved Son, and had “peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20). “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1, 2).

Mark well, dear reader, that it was not “peace with himself,” but “peace with God,” which gave our old friend such joy at the prospect of death.

Death, did we say?

Nay, it was no “death” to him, but simply falling asleep in Jesus. He said, “It is a good thing to be prepared,” and prepared he was, through the precious blood of Jesus Christ alone.

About two years after the above event “the king of terrors” came and suddenly snatched one of these very doctors from time into eternity. God has been pleased to drop the curtain, and close from our view what his real end was; and we desire, in all affection to his memory, to leave that curtain as it fell.

At the same time, what hallelujahs—what eternal songs of praise shall be His! for, as “a brand plucked out of the fire” (Zech. 3:2), the “King of Peace” and Lord of Glory snatched the other doctor from the very brink of hell, using the sudden death of his cherished friend to thoroughly arouse him to a sense of his guilty, lost, hell-deserving condition, and eventually gave him, through that same precious blood, not only “peace with God,” but to know the “peace of God, which passeth all understanding” ( pg. 4:7).

This plucked “brand” is the writer of this paper, who for over thirty years has himself been enjoying that wonderful secret, the effects of which so greatly astonished him and his friend in their old patient of thirty-seven years ago.

His most earnest desire and prayer now is that each unsaved reader may, without another moment’s delay, be honest with God and his own never-dying soul, and take his true place as a guilty, lost sinner before Him, and claim Jesus—the One who died for sinners—as his individual Saviour. Each will then, with an adoring heart, be able to say, “Who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). He will thus be brought into the wonderful secret which gives calmness, comfort, and confidence when face to face with what is usually called death.

C. P. W. N.

GOD’S Book is a book of facts, there are no uncertainties in it. It is a fact that you are a sinner, God has said it (Rom. 3:23), and it is true, whether you believe or disbelieve it. “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6) is a fact, and on the ground of His atoning death, God proclaims the “forgiveness of sins” to every sinner on earth (Acts 13:38), whether they receive or reject that forgiveness. And all that believe “are justified from all things” (Acts 13:39) and at “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1).

ANON.

Heart Deception.

I HAVE heard the heart of the wicked described as “a sin-creating machine,” and I cannot but think that the simile is very apt. It is a sin-factory; a cesspool of inequity; a fountain of deceit and treachery so deep and profound that it may well be asked, “Who can know it?” It is indeed “deceitful above all things and desperately (that is incurably) wicked.” And yet out of the heart are the issues of life. When it is wrong all must be wrong.

I was greatly struck this morning in reading Psalms 10 by seeing therein the workings of the heart of the wicked. Kindly bear with me while we together examine these evil workings as shown in that psalm.

We read in verse 4 that “the wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts,” or, as in another version, “All his thoughts are, There is no God.”

Let us start with that. He thinks there is no God; but it may be safely affirmed that the wish is father to the thought. He wishes that no such Being as God existed, and therefore he tries to persuade himself that He does not. The fact is the sinner has an inherent dread of God—like Adam after the fall. A guilty conscience makes him a coward. He feels somehow that sin and retributive justice are correlative; and, seeing that he has sinned (all have done so), he has a fearful intuition of judgment to come. He can regard God in no other light than that of a Judge. He has no idea of grace, or mercy, or divine compassion; no glimmering of the work of the cross, or the atoning blood of the Son of God. All he feels is that he deserves punishment for sins committed. This punishment he attributes to God; and, as the thought is intolerable, he banishes it (if he can) from his mind and says, “There is no God!”

But to erase God from your mind is not to erase Him from His own creation; nor can it absolve the sinner from his responsibility. The ostrich may bury her head in the sand, and dream that she is safe, but her pursuer is not thus to be baulked. You cannot hide from God.

Well then, what about the heart of the wicked? What are its devices? First, verse 11, “He saith in his heart, I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.” “Never” is a long time! However, suppose that you escape adversity this year, and can say to your soul, “Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry,” and the year slips peacefully away, and the next, and the next, and you live to sixty or seventy, ah! then at last you begin to hear the roll of Jordan, and to feel the harbingers of death! Adversity knocks at your door, gently but persistently, and you begin to be moved after all—to tremble, to find that your ease is broken up, and your long period of prosperity has come to an end. Your boast that you should not be moved was vain, and you are in adversity now. Alas, your wicked heart deceived you as to all this.

But, second, in verse 11, “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.”

Never? never see it? Be not so sure. Tell me of one thing, good, bad, or indifferent, in His wide universe which God does not see. “All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do,” and you may depend upon it that the sins you wish to cover up are seen by God.

“He hideth his face.” No doubt you think so, but how can you prove it? “God hath forgotten,” that is a mere ipse dixit, a groundless and utterly false idea. God forgets nothing. He may, in wondrous mercy, forgive the poor penitent, may justify him, and remember his sins no more; but to say that God forgets is wholly wrong. You would like God to forget, just as you yourself like to forget; but again the wish is the source of the thought. The heart is at work again in deceiving.

Lastly (vs. 13), “He saith in his heart, God will not require it.” Are you sure? We read the opposite, viz., “God requireth that which is past” (Eccl. 3:15). Again the heart is sorely in error.

But what will God require? Ah! the day of adversity has come, and the guilty soul is deeply moved at last; God has not forgotten, nor did He hide His face; He saw it all, and now God requires it at your hand. Escape is impossible. Mark (ver. 14), “Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand.”

God had seen and beheld it all along, and now His hand must requite the evil—the life-long evil of your heart and ways. How true it is that “he who trusteth his own heart is a fool.” You have not a worse counselor on earth than your own heart. It is deceitful above all things—mark that! above all things! and desperately wicked! Saul of Tarsus trusted his, and discovered his abject folly in time. Then he saw that in him, that is in his flesh, there dwelt no good thing. He fled to Christ for righteousness and received it by faith in Him; and thereafter lived a life of dependence on and obedience to God, — a holy life, a happy life, a useful life—one of suffering for Christ’s sake, but one which was pleasing to God, and therefore truly fruitful.

Dear reader, place yourself before the eye of God. That is the first step in the right direction. Fear not to do so. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He made the poor penitent prodigal never so welcome; and, mark, if your sins do not bring you to God they will force you into hell. Turn, I pray you, to God, and turn now.

J. W. S.

LONG before man is to be judged for his sins, God unfolds two things—first, that forgiveness is offered to every soul that believes in His Son, and secondly, that He sends the Holy Ghost to dwell in the believer. Is not that wide enough, broad enough, to take you and me in? W. T. P. W.

"God Took Him."

Sudden Death in a Fishing Boat.

“Yesterday afternoon, on the arrival at C—of the half-lin boats, in which the short line fishing in the Firth is prosecuted, one of them, owned and skippered by Mr. Robert D—, was lying at the pier. Mr. D—was in the act of shoving it off, when he suddenly fell back into the boat and expired.”

SUCH was the brief announcement contained in the daily newspaper on Wednesday, 3rd January 1906. By the vast majority it would, doubtless, be read in a matter-of-fact fashion, but to the writer, as to many more, the intimation came with startling suddenness.

On Monday, 1St January, there were meetings in at which the dear children of God, to the number of about seven hundred, gathered together for prayer and the ministry of the Word. They came from various parts of the country and as during an interval they exchanged greetings, it was felt that scarcely less precious than the heavenly food, so liberally bestowed by our gracious God, was the fellowship so heartily enjoyed. Some remarked, “If it is so good here, what will it be when we reach the glory-land?”

Amongst this large company it was not difficult to identify the subject of the paragraph which heads this paper. To see him passing up and down the hall, to watch his sunny face, and to receive his cordial hand-shake, was indeed refreshing. We had the privilege of a short conversation with him, and expressed the hope that we should see him soon in his own loved village. Little did we think that our next meeting should be “at Jesus’ feet.” That was on Monday. As our readers have already learned, on Tuesday he got his home-call. He looked forward with great pleasure to another gathering on the Saturday following; but ere then he had gone to that great and glorious meeting which shall never, never end. He was truly “absent from the body, but present with the Lord.”

Long he had known and loved his precious Saviour, faithfully and consistently he had borne testimony to Him in walk and conversation, and dearly he loved all those who love the Lord. We feel the most fitting epitaph that could be written is, “He walked with God, and he was not; for

GOD TOOK HIM.”

We write thus, not to make much of dear Robert D— (none would object more strongly to this than he), but we feel assured that in this event God has something to say to every reader of the Gospel Messenger. In the first place, dear fellow Christians, we may learn a lesson from this. As a beloved brother remarked, the word for us is to be “REDEEMING THE TIME.”

Are we buying up our opportunities? Are we living day by day with the sense that at any moment we may be called home? and are we morally ready for that call?

This should exercise us—not the extent of our intelligence about divine truth, but the extent by which the truth has formed us, and the extent also that it can be said of us, “He walked with God.” Such was the pathway of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. To “follow in His steps” is our great privilege while down here, but it will cease when we are actually with Him.

Then, further, how this should stir us up to increased earnestness in the service of Christ. If an opportunity presents itself of cheering a weary saint, or of telling dying sinners of a living Saviour, how we should seize it; feeling that our sojourn here is momentary, and that such an opportunity may never occur again. The other day I heard this remark, “You have but one life to live—live it for Christ.”

But what of the unsaved? Dear friend, let us address you lovingly yet faithfully. Robert D— ‘s case is by no means a solitary one. Men and women in all parts of the world die suddenly. You MAY GO NEXT. We can imagine some person remarking, “You religious folk always make the most of these things.” Stay I do not fling down this paper yet: consider, dear unsaved reader!

DIE YOU MUST, if out of Christ.

WHEN WILL YOU DIE? Perhaps today.

How WILL YOU DIE? In your sins? Note, the Son of God has said, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). What then? You will pass on to judgment, for the Holy Scriptures declare that “it is appointed unto men once to die; but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). And what then? The lake of fire; for the Scriptures further declare that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15). Reader! these are incontestable facts, they concern your eternal welfare; we beseech you, face them now. We need not remind you that DEATH IS DECIDEDLY UNCONVENTIONAL.

He overrides all form and ceremony. He studies not his victim’s convenience, he considers not his wishes. In a moment he sweeps down upon him without warning, he seizes him with relentless grip, and conducts him across “that bourne whence no traveler returns.” Have you thought of this? If not, we pray you consider the matter Now. Ere we close, permit us to tell you yet again the glad tidings of God who loves you; of Jesus who died for you; and of the Holy Spirit who waits to lead you into the present possession and enjoyment of salvation.

Observe then, you can be SAVED ON THE SPOT from your sins, and they are many; from the power of sin, and it is great; from death, and, at present, it is certain; from judgment, and, as you are, it is inevitable; and from the lake of fire which is the everlasting destiny of every unsaved person. You know how all this can be effected. The blessed Lord Jesus Christ has, on the cross at Calvary, shed His precious blood, which once and forever blots out every stain of sin; He has, in His death, removed from before the eye of God the man who committed the sins; He has annulled death; He has exhausted the judgment; He has closed the gates of hell against, and opened wide the door of heaven for everyone who simply trusts in Him. What is the secret of it all? God loves you. In His own beloved Son He found one whose heart beat in unison with His own heart. At Calvary we see divine love manifested in all its Fullness. At the right hand of God we see the One who expressed that love, and we learn that God has been glorified, and that now He is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). But we urge this upon your attention, not alone in view of the uncertainty of life, nor yet simply because of that from which you will be delivered, but in order that you may live right down here in this world in the love of God.

For dear Robert D—heaven commenced long years ago, and he but passed to the place with the atmosphere of which he was very familiar, and to be with the One he already knew and loved so well.

We want you to know God and to “joy in God.” We want you to know that you are saved, and that God has saved you in order that, in association with His own beloved Son, He might bring you into relationship with Himself, and by His Holy Spirit—whom He gives to all who believe—lead you into the present enjoyment of the vast wealth of blessing laid up for all who love Him.

Dear reader, young or old, rich or poor, whoever and wherever you be, take a lesson, we pray you—as we desire to do—from the unexpected summons received by our departed brother.

“GET RIGHT WITH GOD! “

Come, here and now, as a needy lost sinner, to Jesus, the sinner’s Saviour. Trust in His peerless name, rest on His finished work, fix your eye upon Him in yonder glory, and LrvE in the conscious sense of His love and in His glorious service. Then soon, together, changed into His likeness, we shall live forever with Him where He is.

“Oh, that will be glory for me,

Glory for me, glory for me,

When by His grace, I shall look on His face,

That will be glory, be glory for me.”

W. B. D.

The Clergyman's Discovery.

A CLERGYMAN sat in his quiet study in a Yorkshire village. He was an earnest man, throwing the whole of his energy into the work he had undertaken, so that for years he preached two or three times every day in one or other of the scattered hamlets which composed his parish.

His conduct too was irreproachable; and, as he preached the law, and urged his people to keep it, inculcating morality with much diligence, it is not surprising that a change became evident among them, and outward and gross sins far less frequent.

If he was not well pleased with himself, others were well pleased with him; he was spoken of in the religious literature of the day as “the most perfect example of a parish priest which the nation had produced.”

And now this exemplary man sits studying his Greek Testament. He is deep in the third chapter of the Ephesians, and has come to verse 8, when a long word arrests him— “The unsearchable (unexplorable) riches of Christ.”

“The apostle uses remarkable expressions,” he thought; “he speaks of heights, depths, lengths, breadths, and unsearchables, where I seem to find everything plain, easy, and rational. Surely though I use the words ‘gospel,’ ‘faith,’ and ‘grace’ with him, my ideas of them must be different from his.”

So he determined to find out what the apostle Paul’s “ideas” really were, and with this in view studied anew all his epistles; and oh, the discovery he made! The Holy Spirit who indited them used these marvelous scriptures to clergyman that he himself was nothing else than a guilty, lost, and undone sinner.

He had assented to the truths of the gospel before; he had believed them in his head, but he had never bowed to them with his heart, never accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Saviour, and believing on Him found life through His name. It was only as so much dry history that he had hitherto believed in His birth and death, His blood-shedding and resurrection; now he saw that they were vital facts on which his own eternal salvation depended; and as a lost and helpless sinner he laid hold on the hope set before him; he fled for refuge to a God-given Saviour; and he exclaimed with the apostle Paul, “The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Ah, then he understood the apostle’s glowing expressions. Oh, what lengths and breadths and depths and heights he now saw in the glories of Him who had gone down to death, even the death of the cross, for his sake! Oh, how unsearchable, how past finding out, the wisdom and the grace that had formed such a plan, and formed it in order to save him!

And what a change came over his preaching, too! He felt himself that there was no hope for a sinner except in the blood of Jesus; and no possibility of doing anything acceptable to God, except as first made “accepted in the Beloved.” He told his hearers they were lost, and needed a Saviour; that a Saviour had been provided for them by God Himself, and that they were welcome to come to Him just as they were.

It was not reformation he now preached, but Christ—Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ glorified—and God honored his testimony. Instead of outward morality, there was an inward change, even “from darkness to light,” from “death unto life,” in very many of his hearers; and from these little Yorkshire hamlets was many a jewel taken to shine in the Saviour’s crown forever.

The voice that proclaimed to them their need and God’s great provision for it is silent now; he is resting from his labors until the resurrection morning; but the truth he learned and then taught is sounding in your ears today: are you giving a merely rational assent to it, or is the Christ of God the one living object of your heart? have you believed on the Son, and believing, obtained life through His name?

Worship.

(Read Gen. 22)

WORSHIP always supposes the will broken. In the preceding chapters we have seen Abraham in Egypt, and we have remarked, that so long as he was there he built no altar; but he came out of it, and then, having abandoned Egypt, he could build an altar to the Lord.

David sees the child sick who is dear to him; then he fasts and prays, but he wrestles with God: his will was not submissive. When the child was dead, David changed his apparel, ate, drank, and could come to worship before the Lord, because the struggle that existed in his heart had ceased, and his will was broken.

Job, after those heavy afflictions, which are set before us in the first chapter—the loss of his substance and of his family—rends his mantle, it is true (ch. 1:20); he did not sin in that, the word tells us.

His grief was lawful, he was permitted to grieve for the loss of his children; but he arises and worships before God. He can worship Him, because his will is broken, and he can say, “Jehovah gave and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah.”

But in the chapter we have just read, we find something far above what we have in Job and David. They acquiesced in God’s will, but their submission was passive; it required of them no act. Not so in Genesis 22. Not only most Abraham accept God’s will, but, moreover, he must act against himself; he must, so to speak, sacrifice himself, for the sacrifice of his son was nothing short of that. God says to him, “Offer up to me thy son, thine only son.” The name of an individual contains in it for us all that concerns him and all our relations with him. “Thy son”— this word kindled in Abraham the tenderest of feelings, and he had to sacrifice that son. Nay, more, this name recalled to him the promises of God, and it was in this son they were to be fulfilled; for God had positively told him, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

But he whose will is subjected to God is satisfied of these two things. God will provide for it, and, I am with God. Every look to, the flesh in the way of expectation for the fulfillment of the promises must be turned away, and God alone remain as the source of the life, the blessings, and the promise; as the One who never comes to the end of His resources, even in the very failure of all the means He Himself might have pointed out for the accomplishment of His promises.

God thus proves the heart, that all confidence in the flesh may be destroyed; but, at the same time, knowing that the heart needs to be sustained under the trial, he sustains it by a new revelation, which enables it to triumph. Thus, we see in Hebrews 11:19 that Abraham, on the occasion of the sacrifice required of him, had a revelation concerning the resurrection, then so little known. It is thus that God, in His infinite mercy, causes us to gain in Himself what we lose in the flesh.

Far from those that accompanied him (that is, alone with Isaac and with God), Abraham received this revelation, and could offer the ram on the altar in the stead of his son, according as he had said, “God will provide himself a burnt-offering.” It is thus that, in the secret of communion with God, we learn much of Him.

In Jesus, the true worshipper of the Father, the will was always broken. The cup was full of bitterness, as we know; but in His desire to fulfill the will of God, He forgets, so to speak, this bitterness, and cries out, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”

“And stayed by joy divine,

As hireling fills his day,

Through scene of strife and desert life

We tread peace our way.”

J. N. D.