The Gospel Messenger: Volume 32 (1917)

ONE Monday morning, some years ago, there was a telegraphist at work in the west of England. The young man was in deep anxiety about his soul’s salvation. He had been awakened by God’s Spirit, and he was an anxious, troubled man. He knew he was not right. He longed to know Christ as his Saviour.

On the Sunday previous he had gone to three separate places of worship in deep desire that he might hear something to set his anxiety at rest. He got nothing. Monday morning came, after a sleepless night caused by soul-anxiety, and he went to his duties.

Feeling that he would. go mad if he did. not get relief and forgiveness, he was in the act of prayer to God when he heard the peculiar tick-tick that let him know his station was called for.

He went to his instrument, took out his pencil and wrote down the name and address of the sender of the message, and then the name and address of the addressee. Then came the message:—

“Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).

Repeating the message, he cried, “Thank God, I am saved: I have got it: I see it!”

Telling a friend afterwards, he said, “That ‘LAMB OF GOD,’ that ‘REDEMPTION,’ that ‘BLOOD,’ that ‘RICHES OF HIS GRACE,’ went right down into my poor heart, and no one in the whole world could have had greater joy than I had that Monday morning.”

God caused that telegram to be the means of bringing peace to that young man. What did he do then? He wanted to see to whom the telegram was sent; so, instead of giving it to the telegraph boy to deliver, he went himself with it, so that he might see who was the recipient of the message.

He carried the telegram to a house not far off, and to the young girl who opened the door he said he had a telegram for So-and-so. “Ah! that’s for me,” said the girl. She read it, and found peace also.

Asked the meaning of the telegram, she said she had been anxious about her soul for a fortnight. Her master was not a Christian, but his brother, who was a decided Christian, had been staying at the house for some time. Through his reading of the Scriptures with the family in the mornings and evenings the servant girl had become quite anxious.

In her distress of soul on Sunday afternoon, she made bold to write to her master’s brother, telling him that she was very anxious about her soul, and begging him to kindly write, and tell her what to do to be saved. The Christian man sent the telegram instead of writing. Why? Because God wanted to give the young man peace. God is good. “God is love.” “God is light.” God loves to bless.

And why, think you, is this copy of The Gospel Messenger placed in your hands? Why is it that your eyes are scanning these lines? Because God wants to bless you. Let Him have His blessed way with you here and now.

W. T. P. W.

Where Is True Happiness to Be Found?

NOT in money. A gentleman approached Baron Ai Rothschild, and said to him, “I would like to enter into partnership with you.” The rich man replied, “Would you? I very much doubt it. How would you like to sleep with half a dozen pistols under your pillow every night?”

A man in New York, worth £2,000,000, threw himself before a railway train in order to end his misery. No wonder that the word “miser” was chosen to describe a man who seeks to make money his joy and happiness, but instead finds misery. You only have to add the letter “y” to “miser,” and you learn cause and effect.

Not in fame. Horace Walpole made fame his object, and acquired it as a politician; but at a comparatively early age he was worn out physically and mentally, disgusted with politics, social prominence, and the like. His example could be multiplied many times.

Who has not read the dying wail of Cardinal Wolsey—"If I had served my God as faithfully as I have served my king, He would not have forsaken me in my old age.”

Or, the death of the great Napoleon? The man, who once was the greatest conqueror of his day, died a miserable captive on a lonely rock in the South Atlantic Ocean of a painful disease. No, the answer, impartial history will give you, is that happiness emphatically is not to be found in fame.

Not in pleasure. Hear the testimony of Madame Pompadour, the daughter of a butcher, distinguished by the beauty of her person, the brilliancy of her accomplishments, and the fascination of her manners —the notorious mistress of that most profligate King of France, Louis XV. Loaded with the curses of the nation, at the early age of forty-two she died. Her confession is as follows: “I am perfectly wretched. I have furnished my house in Belle Vue from top to bottom in the most elegant style. It gave me a little pleasure two or three days, and then I was tired of it. The king is very fond of me, and the courtiers are very deferential to me, but nothing makes me happy. The fact is, I am dead before my time.”

What need to go further? It would only be to run the gamut of human fever and disappointment and misery. Man can find no lasting satisfaction in anything this world can offer. He has fallen. He is a sinner. He has a future—an eternal future.

Where, then, can true happiness be found? Only in the true knowledge of God. But God is only made known by and in Christ.

We are reminded here of Herschel, the Hanoverian musician and astronomer. He was received into favour by George III., but on making his acquaintance the king said a little matter must first be settled between them. It appears that Herschel had been a deserter from the Hanoverian army, of which George III. as King of Hanover was head. The king handed Herschel a pardon, and thus the way was cleared for the king to speak freely and kindly to Herschel, take him under his patronage, and show him favours.

So before the sinner can be received into favour by God, where alone true happiness can be found, he must receive a pardon.

Thank God, He can give this to the repentant sinner righteously, for the Lord Jesus has died for sinners on the cross. God can now “be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

Friend, will you not apply for the pardon?

“Through His [Christ’s] name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). True happiness lies only that way.

When E. Payson Hammond, an earnest Christian preacher, lay dying, the doctor testified that his excessive joy in the prospect of soon seeing his Saviour would have to abate before it could be realised. His very joy sustained him in life. Where can you find such a testimony in regard to an unbeliever?

“I sighed for rest and happiness,

I yearned for them, not Thee;

But, while I passed my Saviour by,

His love laid hold of me.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,

None other Name for me

There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,

Lord Jesus, found in Thee.”

May God lead the reader to a true knowledge of Himself through faith in Christ Jesus. A. J. P.

Suddenly Cut Off

IT was the workshop of a Christian workman. There lay the Bible upon a seat handy for a read now and again, as opportunity permitted. On the walls were scripture texts.

The workman fell ill, and an ex-soldier was appointed to do his work. He had been through the Boer War, and had seen some severe engagements, and, alas! was hardened in sin.

On entering the workshop, he saw the Bible lying in a prominent position, took it up, and threw it out of sight.

It was replaced, and again the ex-soldier threw it aside, saying, there was no reason why a man should have religion thrust into his face like that. He was angry, and threatened to tear the texts off the wall, and expressed a wish that old Jimmy, the Christian workman, who placed them there, should “turn up his toes,” that is die.

Little did he dream that that was the last day he should be in the workshop, and that never again should the sight of the texts on the wall annoy him.

He was ordinarily a healthy man, and only a few days before it was remarked, when in the village inn, how well he was looking. But the day after he threw the Bible away he fell ill, and died within a week.

His death struck terror into the hearts of his fellow-workmen, for they were all aware of what he had done with the Bible, and of the unholy wish he had expressed. The manages of the shop had said, “Take care the wish does not fall upon the old soldier himself,” and so it did. The men looked at it as a judgment from God.

The Bible was again placed upon the seat for daily use, and no one seemed to care to remove it.

How true are the words of Holy Writ, “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1).

Is this true incident not a warning to every one, who is not prepared to meet God? And meet God everyone must, either now in grace and mercy, or at the great white throne in judgment.

Thank God, the great sin-question has been met at the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ for every poor, vile sinner, who will come to Him. Will you not, my reader, trust in Him? Remember, now is your chance. Miss it, and you may be lost for ever. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7, 8).

Be warned. Be wise. Be in earnest. Tura to the Lord, and trust Him. He is ready and waiting to save.

J. A. D.

How Can Man Be Just With God?

“CHRISTIANITY,” says Dr Newman Hall, “itself is unquestionably, a great fact in the history of the human race. Minds of the highest cultivation have bowed before it, and the mightiest intellects have done it homage The poor have professed that it has made them wealthier than if all the riches in the universe were in their possession; while the broken-hearted have declared that it has afforded them consolation when all other sources of comfort were dried up.

“In connection with a cordial reception of it, the most extraordinary transformations of character have taken place; and savage tribes, beneath its potent influence, have with marvelous rapidity lost their ferocity and manifested an advanced civilization. Christianity, therefore, is a great fact, and, as such, unquestionably demands from every thoughtful mind a candid examination of its claims.”

Christianity in its purity fully answers the question, “How can man be just with God?” How can the breakers of God’s perfect laws, upon equitable principle, be treated as if they were not lawbreakers? Can obedience to some of the divine law make up for disobedience of the rest? Certainly not.

And yet, upon equitable principle, by the provision and gift to us of A COMPETENT SUBSTITUTE, God can “be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19).

“What a blessed and easy salvation is this!” said the eminent physician, Dr James Hope. “Your righteousness is but filthy rags, and if you have nothing else to depend upon, you are lost for ever. Take refuge in the Saviour; believe in Him cordially with your heart. You will then receive Him fully, and acknowledge Him as your Lord and your God. This constitutes what is called ‘Faith in Christ,’ which when once you really possess, you are from that moment justified before God by divine righteousness being imputed to you. Your sins are expunged, and you are already—in this world—a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. We become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

But this wondrous plan of God’s saving mercy must be believed, and the Saviour whom it reveals must be received before the soul can enjoy salvation. The blessed Christ holds a pardon in His hands for the guiltiest and most unworthy. It is a pardon He has purchased by His precious blood. Now He says, “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Will you not accept this Saviour, this salvation? Delay not, but come.

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

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). T. R. P.

"There's Naught Here."

ALEXANDER B — was dying of consumption, only nineteen years of age, but alas! unsaved. I did not then know his name, but was led to send him a well-known gospel booklet, entitled “The Two Alexanders.” This led, some three or four weeks later, to a visit. One glance convinced me that his earthly days were numbered, and that the sands of his life were nearly run out.

After some remarks about his health, etc., confidence was gained, and I soon began to speak of eternal things. How important they are in view of death. I showed him how the Lord Jesus at the cross had accomplished the mighty work of redemption, and how all that was needed for the sinner’s salvation was there effected.

I visited him again and again, always putting before him Christ as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.

One night his father, came for me, as he thought his son was dying. I was quickly at his bedside, and was greatly cheered by hearing him confess that he was trusting in the Lord as his Saviour.

Once in reading to him the well-known story of the Good Shepherd in Luke 15, I said, “Alec, whose joy do you think would be the greater? The Shepherd’s in finding the sheep, or the sheep’s at being found?”

He replied, “Oh! the Shepherd’s.”

Happy it is that the Lord’s joy is deeper in blessing than the sinner’s is in being blest. What a welcome He gives. No wonder He says, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Another time, by way of testing him, I said, “Now, Alec, suppose you had your choice: either to get better and go about amongst us again, or to be taken home to be with the Lord, which would you choose?”

He paused for a few moments, and then said, “I would rather be taken home, for there’s naught here.”

He asked me if I had sent him the book, “The Two Alexanders,” adding, “I was just thinking I shall make Alexander the Third.” Happy for him that he trusted the Lord, whatever his name was.

The end came—I was sent for, and sitting down by his bedside I took his hand in mine. He was then almost unconscious, and I don’t think he recognized me. In ten minutes he was gone, a trophy of redeeming grace. His desire was granted. He had reached HOME:—

“Far from a world of grief and sin,

With God eternally shut in.”

Friend, you will come to a moment in your history when you will realize “There’s naught here.” Will you not turn to the Lord in repentance and faith, and trust Him as your own Saviour, and be blessed as dear Alec B— was? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

J. W. D.

The Story of My Conversion

EARLY religious impressions were the portion of the subject of this paper from his youth, the desire to be “good” from time to time exercising the heart amid much that was far from it.

This, with an ardent temperament, and strong natural desires for. that which would satisfy it, led to alternations of allowance of evil propensities, and the seeking after better things. The evil was very really enjoyed, and the good very earnestly longed for—a state of things which gradually developed into the preponderance of the evil, and thus the exposure to himself of the fallen heart within, a heart which Scripture says is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).

A physical disability, contracted under God’s hand in the first year of his life, was a great restraint in some ways, though it led, on the other hand, to many indulgences on the part of his parents. Sea-bathing being recommended, he was often and long at the seaside, and much with a family where in all simplicity God was recognized, and the Lord Jesus known as the Saviour of some of the members of it. Here, after a lecture on temperance at the chapel, the pledge of total abstinence was signed at twelve years of age. This was maintained for some years, yet it did not bring with it any consciousness of improvement; but weekly readings just then enjoyed with a Christian aunt and fellow-sufferer kept alive the desire in the mind that the affliction from which he suffered might be the means of his becoming what he knew he was not. This at last, after reading a book in which the heroine, as the result of being deprived of her sight through an accident, was converted to God, became a fixed desire on his part.

During this period, a steady interest in a Sunday school led the superintendent to appoint him teacher of the infant class. But two Sundays were enough to prove to him that he himself wanted teaching in the things of God, and could not presume to teach others, even the youngest. As a result of this the Sunday school was abandoned.

At eighteen years old, under the influence of disappointment, restraint was broken through, the total abstinence pledge was set aside, and some excesses in this way manifested more fully to himself what the heart is, and how little it can be trusted, yet by mercy even then, when broken and contrite, a heart that fears and trembles God can look upon with compassion.

At the age of twenty-one conviction of sin reached its climax. A visit was paid to one, who, having been known for some time, was now suddenly laid low in rapid consumption. She had found peace with God in the beginning of this illness through a mutual friend, who had been many years a believer, and who loved to speak well of his Master. Excruciating pain and transports of joy were now the portion of this dear one during the short remaining period of her sojourn here; and this was accompanied by a rapid growth in things divine, which were received with avidity and heavenly ecstasy. At its close she entered upon the enjoyment of the fulness of her new life in Christ’s own blessed presence.

Her mother commiserating her on the emaciated condition of her arm on one occasion, she exclaimed, lifting it up with difficulty, “You call that a poor arm! That will be a glorified arm shortly.”

Such a scene as this—the joy and exultation of this dying saint, amid that which evidently indicated a rapidly approaching dissolution of the body— necessarily laid hold of one in an exercised state as above described, greatly impressing him and fixing itself upon a mind already softened and prepared for it; and that night, when in bed, it took complete possession of him, ploughing up the heart and driving away every thought natural to it.

The Spirit of God having now taken charge of affairs, thoughts, evidently suggested by Him, coursed through the mind as rapidly as on such occasions they are wont to do, as when on a like occasion one said—He “told me all things that I ever did.” (John 4:29). Things were brought together, and connected and applied to himself in a way not hitherto seen.

In a room beneath him lay an aged relative, whose days also were fast ebbing out. Here, alas! anything but the same state of mind as that of the one spoken of above was the portion of the sufferer. Some little earthly possessions occupied her mind, but the future was then dark, an unknown problem to her soul.

Now these two cases were thrown into contrast; yet only in order to a much more vital contrast to the thinker. If, thought he, the first were to die, all that I have learned being true, she would go to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus, who has loved her, and given her such a vivid foretaste of what it will be to be for ever with Himself. If the second were to die, what would be the end?

Without waiting to follow this out the Spirit said, “And you, if you were to die, and you may go before Either of them, even tonight, Where would you go?” To this he replied unhesitatingly and aloud, “I should certainly go to hell!”

The Spirit of God had now accomplished in the soul that for which He had been working and patiently waiting for twenty-one years. Conviction of sin, and the acknowledgment of a just doom had come at last. The whole thing was out! “I perish!” was wrung from the despondent heart. There will be no surprise that sleep for that night had fled, while despair had almost seized its victim and possessed it the next day and the next night also.

The following day, being unable to bear it any longer, the usual restraint was broken through, the room of the second in command at the office was invaded unbidden, and the case laid before him as a known Christian, the one, indeed, who had been used of the Lord to speak peace to the happy soul above referred to. He listened patiently to all that was said, and apparently not without some idea of what had been going on, while at the same time proceeding with the drawing that lay upon the board before him. Then he lifted himself up, saying, “These are the words of the Lord Jesus, 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 condemnation; but is
passed from death unto life’” (John 5:24),

adding very quietly, “Now, if any one were to ask you if you had everlasting life, what would you say?”

This question arrested him, and not having any conception of such a means of getting rid of the terrible burden that was pressing him down, and his fears of its termination, he stood in blank astonishment, and said nothing.

Meanwhile, his chief again bowed himself over the drawing board, and resumed his work. Then, after a minute or two of silence, he lifted himself up. again, and looking at the one who stood trembling by him, said “Well, what would you say?”

Constrained at last to speak, he broke the tense silence, saying, “Well, if what you say is true, then I have everlasting life.”

Conditional as this acceptance of the Lord’s words, seemed to be, there passed through the whole being of that trembling soul such a thrill of joy that to this day—after fifty-six years—he has never forgotten it, nor will through eternity!

The great transition had taken place. A soul had passed out of a state of death into a state of life. Eternal life, to which no judgment can, by any possibility, be attached, was his. Blessed be the name of the Lord, he was, therefore, converted and saved. Hell had lost its prey. He had tasted the joy of heaven. Never, but for one brief moment, some three weeks after that date, under an assault of the devil to recover his lawful captive, has he lost the assurance of this. But confession to God made on his knees brought that assurance back to him, never to be lost again through doubt or fear of any kind.

Now the wearied frame might have taken its rest in sleep, but a new impulse forbade this. Not fear now, but joy. Transcendent joy, such as never before had been experienced, nor hoped for, now filled the spirit. He could have sung the night that followed through without further physical distress. But a brother next in years below him lay in another bed on the opposite side of the room enjoying the sweet sleep of the labouring man. Yet, if this circumstance arrested the singing, it at once aroused interest in that brother’s spiritual welfare, and without waiting to consider, he arose, crossed the room, and laying his hand upon his brother’s shoulder, calling him by name, said, “If you died tonight, where would you go?” A moment’s pause as the suddenly aroused mind tried to grasp the proposition presented to it, and he then threw off the hand upon his shoulder, and turning himself over, said, “Oh go to sleep, and don’t be a fool.”

The joy of knowing that that brother has gone home to heaven in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, with many others also of the same family, has since been the reward for this. But for such a result of the above unconsidered act it might have been thought unwarrantable. But faith and love do not reason. Why should not this brother participate in the newly-found joy of his soul? was the only reasoning he knew.

That precious verse (John 5:24) is a choice and suited instrument in the Lord’s hand for communicating life, and the knowledge of it to exercised souls. It occurs in a chapter where it is shown that every living member of Adam’s race must receive at the hands of the Son of the Father, either life or judgment. This verse shows how life is received. Doubly true is it that he who hears the voice of the Son of the Father in the innermost recesses of his spirit, bringing him consciously into the presence of that Son, and who as a result of this believes in the Father who sent the Son, HATH eternal life, and the Lord says, “I will raise him up again at the last day” (John 6:40). The voice of the Son of the Father brings life to the dead soul, and the power to hear; as it shall presently give life to all dead bodies that are in the graves (John 5:28, 29).

Let it be noted that the word is “judgment” here, not condemnation, for it is not a question merely of condemnation, but of judgment, though judgment would surely lead to condemnation. David says: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Ps. 143:2). But the believer here does not come into judgment, even to see if he shall be condemned or not; but has already—now—eternal life.

It is well also to see why the one who thus hears and believes shall not come into judgment. It is because He, whose voice he has beard, has Himself borne the judgment at the cross of Calvary for him, and has satisfied to the full all the claims of divine justice against him, a sinner, dead in trespasses and sins as he was. This at once arrays the very righteousness of God on his behalf, for—

“God will not payment twice demand;

Once at my bleeding Surety’s hand,

And then again at mine.”

Nor is it a question of perpetuity of existence merely; this is the least characteristic of eternal life. That which is communicated is an entirely new status of being; a life which unfallen Adam had not, nor have angels, nor any other created being. It has its own nature, laws, environment, and food, with its own object, even Him who gave it, the Son of the Father, in whom it was for men from the beginning.

But if this voice of the Son be refused, there is but one alternative for each person thus exercising his own will; he must receive judgment at the hands of that Son; for “the Father . . . hath committed all judgment unto the Son . . . and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man” (John 5:22 and 27). Then when His voice, which now speaks life, says “Depart, ye cursed!” the human will has no power to refuse this omnipotent relegation of the whole being to its final doom and condemnation. May the reader be saved from this. The way of life stands open for mon now. Take it, I entreat you.

“Yes there is room I still open stands the gate,

The gate of love; it is not yet too late:

Room, room, still room! oh! enter, enter now.”

"A Song of My Native Land."

I RECOLLECT perfectly well one Saturday evening coming from the country in the train. I was in a long third-class carriage.

About the middle of the carriage there were nine or ten people who had evidently been spending the day together, and they had got what you would call jolly, and had no doubt imbibed a good deal of spirituous liquor. They were musical, and sang fairly well a lot of Scotch songs. The carriage was full, and everybody listened.

At a certain station they all got out, and the compartment was filled with strangers. As the train moved off, I rose and said, “My friends, I have listened with great interest to these songs, but I am not a Scotchman, and I would like to tell you of a song of my native land.”

They looked at me, curious to know where I came from. “Well,” I said, “the song is this— I cannot give you the tune, but I can give you the words— ‘And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth’” (Rev. 5:9, 10).

Then I went on, and very simply preached the gospel till the rattle of the train became so loud that my voice could not be heard. At that moment a distant signal being at “danger,” the train was brought to a stop.

There was a dead silence in the carriage, broken at length by a voice from the other end saying, “Is he drunk?”

Now the fact was the people who had gone out were, I will not say drunk, but on the high road to it. A second voice said, “He is not drunk.” A third added, “I think he is a good man.” A fourth rejoined, “But he is not a wise man.” “Why?” asked a fifth. “Because he does not know the time or the place,” replied the other.

Thus was my preaching of God’s good news to perishing men received. Will you tell me when the world wants to hear about the Saviour, and I will be your man, and be there? The fact is, this world does not want Jesus. Do YOU want Him?

If a man does not believe the gospel, what is the reason? God tells us, “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are LOST, in whom the god of this world [the devil] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4). That witness is very solemn, and should awaken every careless, unsaved man to bethink him of his awful condition.

Remember, the man who now passes into eternity in an unsaved, unconverted, unforgiven, unbelieving state, goes into it with his eyes open, for God has spoken plainly.

May this never be your experience. Turn to the Lord now. Now is the time, and here is the place, believe me, when you should turn to the Lord.

“Behold, NOW is the accepted time; BEHOLD, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

W. T. P. W.

How Wellington Came From Waterloo

YEARS after the battle a lady greeted the old Duke with praise of his great victory. He replied:—

“Madam, there is nothing so dreadful as a great victory—except a great defeat.”

This was the feeling he maintained throughout. Fresh from the battle, a lady in Brussels heaped compliments on him.

“Oh! don’t congratulate me!” he exclaimed in real distress. “I’ve lost all my dearest friends.”

In his dispatch to the Government the same thought was uppermost. He wrote not in terms of glowing triumph and pardonable pride, but with sadness. He said:—

“Nothing but a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”

It was the first and last time that Napoleon and Wellington had met on the field of battle. Napoleon’s day was ended on that fatal field. But not only the conquered was in tears that night, as his heart was filled with anguish and raging with disappointed pride, but also the conqueror, as he beheld the flower of his army stretched stark and cold on the bloody field. With tears running down his cheeks, he exclaimed to his staff, “Another such victory would mean defeat,” meaning that its cost was too great to allow of its being duplicated.

Personally he had escaped in a marvelous way. Men had fallen around him as thick as leaves falling on a gusty autumn day. A bullet had struck a tree but a few inches from his head. Three times he had been surrounded by charging French cavalry, and had narrowly escaped capture.

No wonder that he lifted up his hands in the attitude of prayer, and exclaimed: “Truly the hand of God has been over me today.”

And doubtless General Joffre, Sir Douglas Haig, and General Cadorna can testify to what Wellington felt at Waterloo, as they reflect on Verdun, the Battle of the Somme, the fighting in the Carso. No mind is great enough, no heart sympathetic enough to realize the horrors of victory.

But there is one victory that is the exception. Judged from every standpoint it is so. When we think of the powers involved and the consequences issuing therefrom, this victory is comparable with none other.

Here death was conquered by yielding to its embrace, and victory was gained by apparent defeat.

We refer to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not by the death of multitudes, but by His own death this victory was accomplished. “For the joy that was set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

He is the Conqueror over sin, Satan, hell, and death. He has glorified God, and covered the eternal throne with a fresh glory—the glory of a finished redemption.

The consequences of His victory are eternal. Its fruits will be seen in the ransomed myriads that shall fill the courts of light forever; its plaudits will never cease throughout eternity as praise issues from every ransomed lip.

The ransomed can sing:

“Alone He bare the cross,

Alone its grief sustained,

His was the shame and loss,

And He the victory gained.

The mighty work was all His own,

Though we shall share His glorious throne.”

There the battle of the ages was fought, and the victory won for God and man. Hallelujah!

Reader, have you entered into the benefits of that wondrous victory? Have your sins been forgiven? Is your soul saved? Is your joyful eternity assured? These blessings can only be secured in one way, and that is by faith in the Lord Jesus. The glory of victory is all the Lord’s; the fruits of it He shares with all who put their trust in Him.

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). “To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). “By Him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:39). “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Trust the Lord Jesus as your own Saviour in this the day of God’s grace, or else judgment must fall, upon you as His enemy.

A. J. P.

The Two Packages

TWO packages have been brought to me by this morning’s mail. Opening the one, I find it to be a magazine published at Bogota, South America. On one of its pages it reproduces a photograph of the interior of a church, that of the ancient Church of the Jesuits, in the city of Cuzco, Peru, in the center of the richly carved section of wall shown in the photograph there appears a tablet, on which are engraved (in Spanish) the following words:—

“Come unto Mary all ye who are burdened
with labour and oppressed beneath the
weight of your sins, and She will give you
rest.”

The other package came from Florida, in the United States. Amongst its contents was the photograph of a new ball, built by sonic Christian friends in the town of Zephvrhills for the preaching of the gospel. Inset in the photo is a white space occupied by the following words of our Lord Jesus Christ:—

“Come unto Me all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Is it not remarkable that by the same postal delivery such very diverse versions of the gospel message should reach me? First, Rome’s gospel, displayed amid the florid architecture of a pretentious ecclesiastical building. Second, the gospel according to the Son of God Himself, exhibited in connection with a plain, commodious building, erected for the purpose of preaching that gospel.

Which invitation, reader, appeals with greater force to you? Mary, though so highly favored, and so richly blessed, is dead. Jesus, though He died upon the cross for our sakes, is risen from among the dead. Mary, being herself a sinner, needed a Saviour, and rejoiced in having found one in a Saviour God. Jesus, being altogether without sin, could in His matchless grace become the Sin-bearer for others, and by this means, a Saviour.

To Him, and not to Mary, every trustworthy witness bears testimony—the Lord Jesus Himself telling us of four such (sec John 5:33-39).

John the forerunner bore witness to Him, as he cried: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The wonderful works that the Lord Jesus performed all proclaimed Him as the one to be trusted. The leper cleansed, the cripple healed, the blind restored to sight, the dumb enabled to speak, the hungry fed. the poor comforted, the dead raised to life—all these with clarion voice declared that He is the One, the only One, in whom sinners can find forgiveness and blessing.

God the Father, too, bore testimony, opening the very heavens, and saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him” (Matt. 17:5).

The Scriptures, too, enshrining many a golden promise and glowing prophecy of which He is the theme, bear consistent testimony to Him. All the great line of prophets from Abel onwards give “witness that through His name, whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).

In the face of all this testimony, there were yet some who would not come to Him that they might have life. And in the face of this same testimony, ringing down through the centuries, there are yet multitudes who betake themselves to Mary, to some saint dead and gone (if indeed he ever existed), to a priest or parson, or to some other person, thing, method, system, creed, line of conduct, profession, expectation, hope, rather than to Christ.

“Well, my lad,” said a Christian gentleman at the close of a gospel meeting, “what are you remaining behind for?”

The boy was only ten years old, but he replied at once.

“Please, sir, I want to know what it is to be saved,”

“That’s right, my lad; then you think, by coming to me, that I can forgive your sins?”

“No, sir.”

“But I am a preacher: surely one like myself can do this?”

“No,” said the little fellow, not a bit baffled.

“Then, why can Jesus do this and not anyone else?”

“Please, sir,” was the bright and happy reply, “because He’s the Son of God.”

Reader, have you the faith of this dear boy? Do you find in the Lord Jesus Christ an all-sufficient Saviour? He is God’s Son: this proves His POWER to save. He became a man, and shed His blood upon the cross in love to sinners: this proves His WILLINGNESS to save. No one has so tender a heart, and no one so mighty an arm as He.

Oh! that with the psalmist you may say from your heart: “In HIM will I trust.” What will be the result? The next verse tells us: “Surely He shall deliver thee” (Ps. 91:3).

H. P. B.

In the Dark

THERE are more kinds of darkness than one. There is the darkness that broods in heathen lands. Have you ever thanked God that you were not born where the true God is unknown, and people spend their lives oppressed by the dread of evil spirits, who, they imagine, are always bent upon their damage and destruction?

The darkness that fills lands that are under the blighting influence of Romanism is bad enough. They profess to worship the true God and Jesus Christ, yet their minds are darkened by clouds of superstition, springing from the fact that to them the Bible is a sealed, and ofttimes an unknown book.

Buenos Ayres is the largest city in the southern hemisphere, and the second largest Latin city in the world. A Christian worker who lives there reports as follows:

“The other day, I asked a brother if he would go out into the street, speak to the first twenty men he met, and see what they knew of the Bible. He did so, and the result is most instructive. These twenty men represented six different nationalities—Spanish, Italian, Serbian, Uruguayan, Portuguese, and Rumanian. The Uruguayan said he had read portions of the Bible. One Spaniard knew something about the Bible, but he had never read it. A Portuguese said he had read the Bible. An Italian had read the Bible, and seemed to have faith in the Lord Jesus. Another Spaniard Said he had studied at a Jesuit college in Spain, but he had never had a Bible in his hands. And what about the other fifteen? None of them had ever seen a Bible, and by their replies they knew nothing about it.”

Is it surprising then that though Buenos Ayres is a palatial city and full of luxury, it is a place where morality is almost unknown?

To us, however, the Bible is not unknown in this fashion: we learned at least something of its contents in the course of our education, and if cross-questioned we could prove that we had a good deal of knowledge about God.

So far so good, yet it is quite possible with all this to be very much in the dark. It is possible to know a great deal about the Bible without it ever having shed a ray of light into the heart; possible to know much about God without really knowing Him, and having been called by Him “out of darkness into His marvellous light.”

When Jesus was upon earth, He met with people of that kind in the person of the Pharisees. They were uncommonly well versed in the Scriptures, and yet they hated Christ of whom the Scriptures spoke. They searched the Scriptures, and yet they would not come to Christ that they might have life. (Sec John 5:39-40.)

How is it with you? Perhaps for many years the Bible has often been in your hands, and you are familiar with its message. Has it ever been the means of letting the light of the gospel into your heart? or do you still remain in the dark?

You may have frequently read it with interest you may have appreciated the stories of God’s grace to sinners, working salvation in human hearts and lives, but has it led you to the Saviour, and do you believe on Him?

Without this all will be in vain. Everything depends upon whether or no you, believe on the Son of God.

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not
see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”
(John 3:36).

F. B. H.

What Will You Do?

WHAT will you do as the days go by,

Without the love of God?

What will you do with your load of sin,

Without the Saviour’s blood?

What will you do when sickness shall come,

When you are racked with pain?

What will you do if your soul be lost,

Though all the world you gain?

What will you do when the Lord shall come

To take His loved ones home?

What will you do when the earth shall shake

With Judgments yet to come?

What will you do when you come to die,

If you are unforgiven?

What will you do when you really know

You cannot enter Heaven?

What will you do when at last you stand

Before the Great White Throne

What will you do when the Books are brought,

Opened, and all is known?

What will you do in this Day of Grace,

With mercy full and free?

What will you do?—for HERE you must know

WHERE you’ll spend Eternity.

"Ho! Every One That Thirsteth."

I WAS told a very interesting story by a young I officer of an event which took place in his life, while he was quartered in India.

He had passed scatheless through the great mutiny there in 1857-8, and was, when things had settled down, being carried in a palanquin by four of his native servants through a jungle.

It was night, and he had fallen asleep. He suddenly felt himself thrown on the ground, and his light carriage torn up by some robbers, who had been on the outlook for a quarry of this kind. They endeavoured to seize anything valuable and take possession of it.

He defended himself as best he could, but it was a matter of half-a-dozen to one; so, being sorely wounded, he gave up the unequal fight, and lay down on the side of the track.

The robbers soon cleared off, not much richer than they had been. The servants, too, had fled; but he heard their cry of distress as they called for help. “It was,” he said, “very weird.” They prefaced their call by the word “Ho!” protracting it very long. It had a penetrating, far-reaching effect. He was greatly struck by the sound.

Well, he was rescued, taken back to the station, then to hospital, where he quickly recovered of his wounds and returned to duty. But he told me that, while he lay in hospital, he pondered over that monosyllable which had rung out so clear and shrill as he lay bleeding by the side of his pilfered palanquin.

What could it mean? It was not the same as our Western ejaculation, “Oh!” This is brief, quick, summary; that was continuous and significant. He was at the time just what every soldier and sailor should be—aye, and every civilian too—a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and a child of God through faith in Him.

He loved and knew his Bible. He recalled in his meditation a verse in the exquisite book of the prophet Isaiah, which began with the same striking monosyllable, and at once discovered its meaning in the language of the East, and saw why his servants had used it.

That verse is: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (chap 55:1). He reasoned thus: If my servants used the word “Ho” to indicate their importunity and their deep desire for attention, in order that a response might be given, so does God call earnestly and long to “every one that thirsteth,” in order that the salvation, which He alpine can give, may be theirs. He bids them come to the waters and drink, to buy (strange to say) without money or price. The intense earnestness of God for the blessing of man—poor, helpless, undone, but needy man—is graciously expressed in that long-protracted “Ho.”

And so it is. In the New Testament the language is similar. “As though God,” we read, “did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Wonderful! think of it, “as though God did beseech.” God, the holy, the omnipotent, the only wise God, as it were beseeching the poor, needy, thirsting, guilty souls of men to come and drink—to believe and live.

The only condition is what is called “thirst”; neither money nor price is wanted. Only the man himself and just as he is, prodigal and all.

Oh! but on what ground? On that of the death and resurrection of Christ, the sinner’s Substitute; that suffices. The thrice-holy throne is met. The wide door of mercy is flung open. The word for the day is “Come.”

What an eventful episode in the life of that young officer! What a fruitful theme of meditation in that military hospital! What a flood of light was cast upon his soul by the lovely verse in Isaiah, which begins with God’s long and earnest call to the thirsty, the weary and heavy laden.

He has passed away to his eternal home, and I pass on to you, dear reader, the story as I received it from him. These two divine monosyllables “Ho,” “Come,” are the purest gold. Hearken to their music and prove their value. “Behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

J. W. S.

How an Address Was Given to Two Cows and Some Hay

SOME years ago a preacher of the gospel found himself in a village where a band of bright earnest Christians was overjoyed to welcome him, and delighted at the prospect of hearing him.

But the hopes of these Christians were dashed to the ground when the preacher announced that he felt guided of God to go to another village to preach.

It seemed strange. The other village was unresponsive to God’s things, dead and dark spiritually, whilst their village was just the reverse, filled with those who prized God’s Word, and who delighted to encourage His servants. It seemed puzzling, but the preacher felt he had got his marching orders from headquarters, and that he must obey.

In due time he found himself in that other village, a tiny place that boasted neither church, chapel, nor meeting house. A stranger he walked through the place; he knew no one in it, and no one knew him. He wondered what he should do. He retraced his steps. On the outskirts of the village was a barn in a field. The Spirit of God seemed to fell him that this was, the place where he had to preach.

Impelled by the influence he entered the barn. In it were two cows and some hay. The Spirit of God bade him preach. He hung back. It seemed the height of absurdity for him to speak under such circumstances.

But a voice seemed to say to him, “Are you My servant, or your own master?” He replied, “Thy servant, Lord.” “Then do what I bid thee,” came the unmistakable answer.

He opened his Bible, read a portion, preached a good gospel sermon, prayed and retired. The whole affair seemed so foolish that he determined that he would not divulge the evening’s proceedings to a living soul.

Years rolled by. The circumstance had almost passed out of mind, at any rate actively. One day he was preaching in London. At the close of the service a stranger came up, and asked him, “Were you ever in such and such a county?”

“Certainly,” was the reply.

“Did you ever preach in such and such a village?” was the next inquiry.

The preacher, by his manner and hesitation, showed that the question was unpalatable. The questioner urged his question, telling him he had a good reason for asking. The preacher replied to the question most reluctantly in the affirmative.

A third question was asked. “Did you ever preach to two cows and some hay in a barn just outside the village?”

The preacher was fairly nettled, and was inclined to lose his patience, but being pressed on the point, again answered in the affirmative.

Then the questioner grasped the preacher by the

hand, saying heartily, “I thought I recognized your voice again. I thought I was not mistaken. All those years ago I was disturbed whilst poaching, and hid myself for safety in that barn, under the hay. I fell asleep, and must have slept for hours. I was awakened by hearing your voice. I made sure that God must have meant the address for me. You thought the address was given to two cows and some hay, but in reality it was meant for me and for me alone, and God used it to my salvation.”

In this striking way did God bring the preacher and the hearer together.

Reader, does not God mean to speak to YOU, and that by this printed page? Has this great matter of your soul’s salvation not occupied YOUR attention as yet? God grant that it may from this hour.

God’s way of salvation is plain in His holy Word. It says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). This one verse is enough for the earnest seeker. May God bless it to YOU.

A. J. P.

What Happened at a Midnight Service

IT was twelve o’clock on a Saturday night, and a meeting was being held in a Methodist chapel, with the object of catching some who would never think of going to a gospel service at ordinary times.

Two drunken men stumbled in. One of them began to interrupt the preacher, making it difficult for him to proceed. So he gave out the hymn beginning,

“Where is my wandering boy tonight,

The boy of my tend’rest care?”

This so affected the disturber that he was quite broken down. The arrow of conviction pierced his conscience, not for the first time, for he was a child of many prayers, and the Holy Spirit had often shown him the evil of his ways. Let him tell it in his own words.

“As they sang that hymn I thought of the love and care of my parents. I thought how I had sinned against God. Was it possible for me to be saved, when I had spurned the gospel so many times? I fell on my knees crying for mercy in deep conviction of sin.

“Some of the Christians spoke to me, and led me home, staying until two or three in the morning. I continued in deep distress for several days. Satan was not going to let his captive go without a struggle, for as the Holy Spirit showed me what a sinner I had been, he tried to make me believe I was too bad to be saved.

“At last I was brought to despair, and went on my knees, asking God to show me how I could be saved. A short time before, at my father’s funeral, this text had been spoken from, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness’ (Rom. 4:3). The words now came in living power to my soul, and I saw that all I had to believe was that god had delivered His own Son to die on the Cross for my sins, and had raised Him again for my justification, and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Saviour. What a happy day that was for me. I saw that God had not passed over my sins, but had executed His righteous judgment upon them in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“This brought peace to my heart, my guilty conscience was cleared, and I could sing for joy.

“Two weeks afterwards my wife accepted Christ as her own personal Saviour. Her life had been a very different one to mine, good and moral, and she had been confirmed in church by the bishop, yet she needed to be born again.

“Three or four years have passed since then, and I have proved that the Lord not only saves, but keeps and cares for me. I have passed through much affliction, but His grace has been sufficient, never leaving nor forsaking me.

“Nine months after my conversion I began to be exercised about money, which I had stolen from and owed to public-houses. After prayer for guidance I went round the various places where so much of my time had been spent in drinking, and paid off all that was owing.

“I was not doing this in order to get saved, but because the Lord had done so much for me, and I knew it to be His will that I should walk honestly through this world. It was no hard struggle to please Him. When any difficulty came, I just went into my own room and asked the Lord for grace and strength to do His will, and according to His promise it was given.”

Dear friend, if you do not know this blessed Saviour, let me direct you to Him. None are too good not to need salvation, for God says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22); and none are too bad. Hear the words of our blessed Lord, “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

B. J. B.

"Forgiven."

“JUST as we were leaving Oxford a gentleman whom I had met before, got into the same compartment.

“We had previously conversed on eternal realities, but the only effect produced upon him was a determination to resist the truth, and not to allow such subjects to disturb his mind.

“I longed to embrace this opportunity of again presenting to him the grand truths of pardon, peace and eternal life through and in Christ.

“Whilst we were conversing together, he showed me a letter he had received from his son in America. In order that I might understand its meaning, he explained that his son, when quite a lad, had been discovered robbing a shopkeeper’s till.

“The owner was apprised of the theft, and, upon examination, it came out that the boy had stolen a sovereign.

“In terror as to the consequences of his act, he immediately left home and friends, and fled the country.

“Years rolled by, and the prodigal was still a wanderer from his father’s house.

“One morning the postman brought the letter I now held in my hand. It told of the deep sorrow of the young man for his past act, and was full of contrition. The letter concluded with subscribing himself ‘Your repenting son.’

“The father wept at the acknowledgment of his son’s guilt, and, with the impulse of a love he had ever borne to the boy, hastened to telegraph a reply.

“The telegram contained one word only. I was asked to guess what the word was, and on my failing to do so, he told me it was the word ‘FORGIVEN.’

“‘Oh!’ said I, ‘what an illustration this affords of the way God receives a sinner.’ I there and then besought him to take the place before God which his son had taken before him, confessing his guilt, and owning his sin, assuring him that if he did so, the telegram from heaven would be FORGIVEN.”

~~~

The above is an extract from a letter just to hand. Whether the gentleman ever owned his guilt to God, as his son had to him, or not, I cannot say; but, my unsaved reader, will you not do so?

To encourage you to confess your sins to God, let me quote two scriptures from God’s own Word. One is in the Old Testament. “He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light” (Job 33:27, 28).

The other is in the New Testament: “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both” (Luke 7:41, 42).

The one scripture tells us that the only platform on which God and the creature can meet is that of confession of guilt on the sinner’s part; the other illustrates the full and free character of forgiveness awaiting the one who takes this place. “Frankly,” that is without reserve or hesitation, God forgives. But it must be through the Lord Jesus, there is no other channel, there is no Saviour beside Him.

Can YOU turn away from such a forgiveness? Will you refuse to own YOUR guilt?

H. N.

God's Way of Blessing

WE are sinners, and should feel our sins, and own them too. It is a grand day when a man owns his sins before God. He has found out your iniquity, and He has found out mine, but I will tell you something more. He has pardoned and forgiven me.

It is a blessed thing 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 clay long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged 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” (Ps. 32:1-5).

The moment the sinner draws near in the true acknowledgment of his sin the Lord meets him. The first word the Lord said to an anxious soul was: “Thy sins are forgiven . . . thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:48 and 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 the sin-burdened soul. He can forgive arid blot out sins on the ground of Christ’s finished work for the sinner.

Reader, turn to Him for pardon, forgiveness, and blessing. Do not be ashamed to own the Lord 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” (Rom. 10:9).

God gave you grace to receive Christ as your own Saviour, and then to confess Him boldly.

W. T. P. W.

A Dying Testimony

AN unconscious man cannot pose. What he says is utterly uninfluenced by those who may hear him. In such circumstances, what is deepest in the heart will be uppermost on the lips.

Let us draw near the death bed of the late beloved editor of this magazine, Dr W. T. P. Wolston, M.D. For forty-five years he has been the Editor of this gospel magazine, and for over half a century he untiringly preached the gospel to multitudes—as earnest when he spoke to a score as when he addressed a thousand; as tender and compassionate in dealing with the humble as with the noble and titled; and always eager and willing to give all the glory of his success to God’s Holy Spirit and the power of the Scriptures.

A man of many parts, of wide experience, of immense physique and striking personality, it was a pathetic sight to see the stricken giant, unconscious, paralyzed, his vacant eyes lighting up with no gleam of intelligence even when his devoted wife and lifelong companion tenderly sought with words of love to obtain a momentary recognition.

Though unconscious and lost to all earthly things save a slight recognition of his bodily condition, his mind has been clear and coherent as to divine things.

Listen to his testimony. His medical man, a Christian, sits by the death bed.

“Do you know me, doctor?” he inquires.

“No,” is his answer.

“Don’t you know W—?” (mentioning his own name), he again inquired.

“No,” is again the response.

Failing in obtaining any recognition, he asks, “Well, how are you this morning?” The answer comes at once, “Supremely happy on my way to glory.”

“What a testimony to the grace of God!” said the doctor in attendance. “It is as if he had two brains, an earthly mind and a heavenly mind, and as if the one were switched completely off, the other remaining clear and active.”

We may well inquire what made him supremely happy, and how did he know he was on his road to glory?

The answer is very simple: the late editor of The Gospel Messenger was a whole-hearted believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. With vehemence he was wont to denounce to large companies the vagaries of the Higher Criticism, and he was not ashamed to declare his simple faith in Christ, and trust in the unerring inspired word of God. A diligent student of the Bible, well versed in its truths from Genesis to Revelation, he delighted to uphold the Scriptures as inspired of God from cover to cover. New Theology he loathed with all his soul. The deity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the complete efficacy of His atoning work, the reception by faith of salvation by the believer, the heinousness of sin, the everlasting punishment of the impenitent, were ever his themes in preaching the gospel. For two long years, laid aside by the weakness of paralysis from the activity of earnest gospel work, never a murmur nor an expression of impatience crossed his lips, but on the contrary his testimony was ever to the goodness and grace of God. At last the fatal stroke fell, reducing him to unconsciousness.

Will his belief stand him in good stead when he needs it most? Listen His devoted wife bends over him, anxious to catch every syllable that may fall from his lips. He is expressing his deep joy in the knowledge of sins forgiven, and of the efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus. His wife says tenderly to him, “But, darling, you knew that over fifty years ago.”

“Yes,” responds the dying man, though failing to recognize the presence or speech of his wife, “but I have been getting a fresh taste of it.”

Infidel; higher critic, religious infidel as you are; new theologian, can you match this? Will death find you with your views “supremely happy” and getting “a fresh taste” of that which you have professed to find satisfaction in in days of activity and health? The gospel can do all this, yes, the old-fashioned gospel of the grace of God.

Reader, nothing would have delighted the late Editor of The Gospel Messenger more than to know that the occasion of his death was taken to bring the reality of the power of the gospel before our readers. He would be the last to claim any credit for his testimony, whether in strength or weakness, whether in living or in dying, but would glorify God who had used a poor earthen vessel for His blessed service.

Will you not pay heed to this dying testimony?

As we watched by the dying bed and noted the reverence with which the unconscious man took off his cap as he praised and prayed, we could not but feel that he was more in heaven than on earth. Said his brokenhearted wife, “I could not have borne his dying by inches, did I not know his prospect of being for ever with the Lord.”

Reader, what is your prospect? Death is coming. Time has wings, and oh! how swiftly it flies. Eternity draws near, vast and irrevocable. Shall it be glory or gloom for you? Shall it be heaven or hell? Shall it be song or sorrow?

Only through Christ can you be saved. He has completed the glorious work of redemption on Calvary’s cross.

Oh! reader, be in earnest. Trust the Lord. He alone can save. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). He is willing and able to save.

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE” (John 3:16).

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

What need to multiply Scriptures! It is as easy to prove that Christ saves and is willing to save as to prove that the sun sheds light and warmth.

A. J. P.

"God Says I Am Saved."

NOT long since I was asked to visit a young girl, about seventeen years of age, who had injured herself and was thought to be dying. I had known her for some time, and was aware she was very delicate, but, on calling, learned she had fallen out of bed, and received an injury to the back of her head, which would eventually prove fatal it was judged. Being under the care of another surgeon, I had nothing to do with her treatment; so, after making a few inquiries as to her bodily suffering, which was great (specially when moved by others, for she was almost completely paralyzed), I began to speak to her about the state of her soul.

“Are you quite happy?” I said.

“No, sir.”

“Why? Are you not saved?”

“I am not sure.”

“But why are you not sure? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“Yes, but I don’t feel saved.”

“Do you feel lost?”

“Yes, I do”; and she now began to weep.

“Why do you know you are lost?”

“Because I am a sinner, and God’s Word says so.”

“Then you believe His Word, do you?”

“Oh! yes, sir; indeed I do.”

“Well, then, His Word says, ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved’” (Isa. 45:22). “Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“But are you looking to Jesus?”

“Yes, sir; but I don’t feel as I should like to.”

“Granted; but does it say, ‘Look unto Me, and feel saved?’”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Be ye saved.”

“What?”

“Be ye saved.”

“When is that, today or tomorrow?”

“When I look.”

“But are you looking?”

“Yes, I am really looking to Jesus.”

“Then, are you saved?”

She paused a moment, and then firmly replied, “I don’t feel it, but God says I am saved. I see it now.”

The next moment her eye lit up, and her pallid face told the tale of a new spring of joy having been opened to her.

“Well,” I said, “if any one were to come in and ask you now if you were saved, what would you say?”

“I would say ‘Yes.’”

“And if they asked you how you knew it and were sure of it, what would you say?”

“I would say that I do believe in Jesus, and God says in His Word that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life; and though I don’t feel it, I do believe what God says.”

“Then you rest your soul on Jesus and on God’s Word?”

“Yes, sir, I do; and I could die happy now. I’d like to go at once to Jesus.”

“You have no fears?”

“No, none.”

“No doubts?”

“No; why should I? I see it all clearly. I’m only a poor sinner—and Jesus died for me—and I believe in Him—and God says I’m saved—and so I know I am.”

I had a little more conversation, and called two days after to find her truly filled with joy and peace in believing. Her face shone with the joy the knowledge of God alone can impart. Leaving town for a few weeks, I found, on my return, that she had lingered about a month, giving a constant bright testimony of Christ to all about her, and, full of quiet calm rest and joy in Christ until the end, had at length passed to be for ever with Him.

And now, dear reader, a word with you about the state of your soul. Are you saved—or lost? Which? Don’t shirk the question. It must he answered soon. The longest life has its end. Who has given you a lease of long life? A long eternity you shall have. Where will you spend it? Another day may find you in it—gone for ever from earth, where Christ died, where “He suffered for sins once, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” Gone where? With Christ? Or without Him? Would it be without Him? You tremble to say “Yes.” Stop—listen. Your future is awful. Forgotten by man—forsaken by God—for ever in hell. Oh, pause a moment in your downward course! List the voice of love speaking to you—speaking from heaven— “Come unto Me” — “Look unto Me” — “I am Jesus.” “By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”

You have nought to do but take your true place as a lost sinner now before God. Acknowledge your sin. Justify Him—He’ll justify you. It is all summed up in the sweet confession of the dying girl. May you this day be able to say like her, “I’m only a poor sinner—Jesus died for me—I believe in Him—God says I am saved, and so I know I am.”

W. T. P. W.

"He Being Dead yet Speaketh."

A SHORT SKETCH OF THE LATE EDITOR’S LIFE.

IT is with deep sorrow that we have to announce the death of the Editor of this magazine— Dr W. T. P. Wolston, M.D. A brief sketch of his career will, we are sure, be acceptable to our readers. May it be for the glory of God, stimulating to the young servants of Christ, and calculated to convince the unconverted reader of the reality of a Christian life.

He was born at Brixham, Devon, on the 6th September 1840, and departed to be with the Lord at Weston-super-Mare, on the 11th March 1917—in his 77th year.

The light of vital Christianity shone brightly in the home of his boyhood, but the saving grace of God did not reach him till he was twenty years old when a law student in London.

He has placed on record the striking story of his conversion, in a booklet entitled “No man can serve two masters,” telling of his listening to the preaching of Richard Weaver first, and then to that of Charles Stanley; and how, after deep soul-exercise, he found peace in believing, the result being a complete break with his old worldly associations, and an immediate devotion to Christ and His interests.

It was, undoubtedly, this whole-hearted surrender to the Lord, at the dawn of his spiritual life, that made his after-course one of peculiar power, joy, and blessing.

Under the impulse of a bright conversion he abandoned the study of law, and took up that of medicine, believing that a doctor’s profession offered peculiar scope for Christian testimony and usefulness. It is not too much to say that hundreds who came to him for bodily help found spiritual blessing, conversion, and salvation in his consulting rooms and as he sat by their sick beds. The day alone will declare the immense amount of work thus done for the Master.

Leaving London he went to Edinburgh in 1864, where he graduated, and was appointed House Surgeon to the Old Infirmary there. He then established himself in practice in this city, speedily obtaining a large clientele, and becoming known, very generally, as a skillful and kindly doctor.

That, however, was only part of his life. Together with this he threw his heart into the work of the Gospel. He preached in various halls to large companies; he frequently lectured to the students on subjects of spiritual interest. Nor was his pen idle. He edited a gospel magazine for forty-five years; and wrote and caused to be circulated many striking gospel booklets, which God largely used to the conversion of multitudes. He produced no fewer than nine volumes on those subjects that were nearest his heart; he travelled throughout Scotland, England, and Ireland preaching and teaching everywhere, in busy centers, and in isolated places, always carrying with him a warm heart, a breezy presence, an expectant faith, and always receiving a hearty welcome. That God was pleased to greatly bless his ministry, both oral and written, it is needless to say the day will declare.

The first tract he wrote, “God says I am Saved,” has not only had an enormous circulation, but has been sealed with wondrous results. Along with his untiring activity he always found time for prayer. Some of us have knelt beside him, often in some strange corner, ere he mounted the platform to preach at times to thousands. This was his power, and by this he was maintained in self-forgetful simplicity and freshness, as much in old age as in youth.

We need not speak of his hospitality, his open house and helping hand, his hearty counsel to those in distress, his genial succor of the widow and the orphan. It is known and remembered by those who received it.

In 1909 he gave up his practice as a doctor; and then took the opportunity of fulfilling a long-standing desire to visit Australia and New Zealand in the work of the Lord. There he was abundantly used.

He then paid two visits to Norway, both of which were largely used in conversions and the help of Christians. During the second visit, on the 5th February 1915, he had a severe seizure, with paralysis of the left side, but leaving the mind and speech unaffected. He was brought home to Weston-super-Mare, where for two years he lay helpless, but with intelligence unimpaired. Never a murmur escaped his lips. It was positively delightful to be by his side, and to witness the grace of God that shone more brightly in a vessel broken and shattered than it did even in one full of life and energy. Then a few weeks before the end another seizure followed, with unconsciousness as to everyone and everything here, but with only a greater, deeper, richer communion with the Lord, expressed with perfect lucidity and order, a beautiful instance of a vessel destitute of all power but that of the Spirit of God.

The spring of his spiritual vitality lay in a deep personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ; and this it was which kept him steady amid the distracting and deceitful influences which might have marred his Christian course. He was constrained by that love in the immense labours of a long and active life, and in weary months of debility, till the moment when he was put to sleep by Jesus.

The close was lovely, but with him, and many more precious, blood-bought saints, the separation is only “till the day break and the shadows flee away.”

J. W. S.

"I Am Going Home."

BY THE LATE DR WOLSTON.

AS I was about to finish my day’s work one Saturday, I rang the bell of a house where one had long been ill. The door was opened by a relative, whom I scarcely recognized, as it was nearly dark.

I said, “How is A—?”

“Oh! have you not heard? She is gone.”

“What! dead?”

“Yes, dead!”

Gone! she was gone from earth for ever. Was she old? No. Middle-aged? No. Young? Yes; not quite twenty-one years of age. I had seen her three days before, and I expected to have seen her again in life; but I did not.

It was a long illness; consumption, that fatal malady, had cut short her days. She knew perfectly that she could not recover, but thought some little time would elapse ere the “golden cord” would be loosed. That morning, however, as her watchful relative was giving her some needed assistance, which brought her to the bedside of the feeble girl, there happened that which had not been before. Without any warning a large blood-vessel in the lung gave way, and the lifeblood poured forth. Lifting her eyes towards heaven, she said very calmly, “Auntie, I am going home! I am going HOME!” and passed away to be with Jesus.

Reader, could you die like that? Her whole face brightened up; no fear was pictured thereon. She could say quietly, calmly, “I am going home”; and the next moment found herself there. Sinner, you could not say that. You, who are on the broad road, could you call hell a home? Describe not the eternal abode of the lost, that region of speechless woe, by such a charming, sacred name. Oh! unsaved man! unsaved woman! have salvation, have it now. Trust the Saviour as you read this. “Behold, NOW is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2), and He has said He will not cast you out if you come to Him.

Dear unsaved one, open your heart to the Lord. Do you ask how you may be saved? You have nothing to do and nothing to be, except to be and own what you are, an utterly lost sinner. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Come to Him just where you are and Christ will save you.

Always remember this, that Christ does not help sinners; He saves them. When I talk of someone helping me, I imply that I have a little strength; when I say another saved me, I mean that my own power was gone utterly, and I were lost without recovery but for the act of another. Now this is just the gospel in a nutshell. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).

Reader, may God grant you repentance unto life, faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, a daily walk that tells louder than words that your heart is Christ’s: and, should you be called to die suddenly, to be able to say, “I am going HOME.”

W. T. P. W.

The Sunken Rock; or, a Victim of Unbelief

“A VESSEL named the ‘Thetis’ was cruising in the Mediterranean in search of a shoal or bank, said to exist beneath the treacherous waters. The captain, after his efforts had failed, abandoned the enterprise, declaring that the reported danger was all ‘a dream.’ An officer on board, forming a different judgment, went out with a subsequent expedition, into the same latitude and longitude, and there discovered a reef, which he reported at the Admiralty. This reef was then inserted in the charts: the discoverer being rewarded with a high appointment.

“The intelligence came to the captain’s ears. He would not believe in the discovery; he was a shrewd, clever, practical man, but unscientific, incredulous, and obstinate. ‘The whole thing is a falsehood,’ he exclaimed; adding, ‘if ever I have the keel of the “Thetis” under me again in those waters, if I don’t carry her clean over where the chart marks a rock, call me a liar and no seaman.’

“Two years after, he was conveying, in the same vessel, the British ambassador to Naples. One windy night he and the master were examining the chart by the light of the lantern, when the latter pointed out the sunken rock on the map. ‘What!’ exclaimed the old seaman; ‘is this invention to meet me in the teeth again? No; I swore I would sail over that spot the first chance I had, and I’ll do it!’ He merrily related the story to the company in the cabin, and said: ‘Within five minutes we shall have crossed the spot.’

“There was a pause. Then, taking out his watch, he said: ‘Oh! the time is past; we have gone over that wonderful reef.’ But presently a grating touch was felt on the ship’s keel—then a sudden shock—a tremendous trash—the ship was wrecked! Through great exertions most of the crew were saved; but the captain would not survive his own mad temerity: and he was last seen standing bareheaded on the dark hull of the ‘Thetis,’ as the foam burst round her bows and stern. He perished a victim of unbelief.”

~~~

Terrible as was the fate of the captain of the “Thetis,” the fate of those who live or die in unbelief of God’s so great salvation will be infinitely more terrible.

The captain did not believe in the existence of the charted rock, and perished for his folly. Multitudes do not believe in the existence of an eternal hell, and will find themselves in its drear solitudes should they perish in their awful folly.

Oh! the folly, the madness of indifference. God has given to man His book—the Bible, and therein we are solemnly warned as to the awful character of sin and its doom, of death and judgment; we are told of God’s love in giving His well-beloved Son to die on the cross to make atonement for sin; it is plainly pointed out that “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21), and that alone, is the way of blessing for the needy sinner.

Is all this nothing to you? If you perish in a course of mad indifference your epitaph might well be:—

He perished a victim of unbelief.

May it be far otherwise with you. If ever you have an epitaph may it be—

He died in faith,

“Without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to Him must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6), is the clear testimony of Holy Scripture. If you were to eliminate faith out of the ordinary affairs of life, society would come to a standstill in an hour. And yet men and women, whose ordinary lives are governed by faith every hour of the day, approach the great eternity without faith. What folly to be right in time as to ordinary affairs, and wrong in eternity as to extraordinary affairs. See to it that you enter that vast eternity with faith—faith in the glorious person and work of the Son of God. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

A. J. P.

How I Was Converted!

WITH no thoughts beyond the round of things seen and temporal, a visit to St. George’s Rectory, Toronto, proved memorable for me. Instead of the usual pleasant hours with the young people of the rector’s family, I was asked to accompany a stranger to some points of interest he wished to see. My companion proved to be a ritualistic clergyman.

Mr. S— inquired as to my confirmation and religious observances. He received curt answers, intended to discourage further questioning. He would not, however, yield to my attempts to change the subject; but, coming to a standstill in a narrow path in which he had taken the lead, he faced me, and solemnly declared: “Young man, you are going to hell—that’s where you are going.” He quickly silenced my angry retort by repeating the same solemn statement, to which he added the mistaken advice that I should “confess my sins to an Anglican priest,” and observe the “seven sacraments,” in order to have a chance of going to heaven. I accompanied him back to the Rectory, but left him at the gate rather uncivilly, scarcely concealing my angry feelings at what he had said.

I have never seen or heard of my clerical companion since, but the Holy Spirit caused his words to pierce through my indifference, and to disturb my soul’s deadly slumber. Awakened to the awful reality of hell, I now cursed the wretched spectre, as I tried to treat it. For weeks I vainly sought to drown all thoughts of coming wrath, and to throw off the constantly recurring words, “You are going to hell—that’s where you are going.” My companion had uttered God’s truth, and my efforts to stifle it and banish its unwelcome voice from my soul proved unavailing, so that a month later my alarm drove me to face the torturing prospect of the hell to which I was indeed going. The alternative of heaven or hell for all eternity was forced upon my thoughts.

Then I was next deceived in seeking a remedy, as thousands of others, by

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF.

Vainly I sought to bring a clean thing out of an unclean. I became busily occupied in efforts at outward reformation—ordinances scrupulously observed proved Satan’s opiate to deaden my conscience. I began to be quite content with a mere profession. But the searchlight of God’s word exposed this “refuge of lies,” and so drove me from it.

A FURTHER DISCOVERY.

I learned the truth of the words, “Ye have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42). This charge I could not honestly dispute, for, spite of all the reformation to which I laid claim, I knew well that I only feared God’s righteous judgment, and could not pretend that I really loved Him.

Satan then assailed me with derisive contempt for the hypocrisy of professing any religious sentiment whatever in the face of my own admission that I DID NOT LOVE GOD. I then declared my religious profession “thrown overboard,” and “done with,” and determined to dismiss religious subjects from my mind absolutely and forever.

On the dining table lay a New Testament, which

I had no thought of consulting, but passing near it, I defiantly flipped the book with my finger, so that it opened. My eyes rested on the verse:— “I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth NO GOOD THING” (Rom. 7:18). Involuntarily I ejaculated, “Why, love for God is a good thing!” Then glancing back at the book, my eyes met the verses lower down on the same page: “The carnal mind is ENMITY against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh CANNOT please God” (Rom. 8:7, 8).

The consciousness of an unseen power at work solemnized me then and there. The verses before me shattered the settled conviction I had long entertained, that “to do right and love God” constituted the way to heaven. The Scriptures declare love for, and obedience to God impossible products of the natural mind, and in my astonishment at statements, so new and surprising to me, I actually turned again to the book to make sure that it was really a New Testament.

With the imperishable WORD or GOD in my hand, I went to my bedroom, fell on my knees, and cried for light as to the momentous matter now wholly engrossing my soul. With expectant earnestness I again turned to the New Testament, and the hand of God surely guided its opening, for the third chapter of the gospel by John was the portion that lay before me. There I learned the imperative necessity of regeneration, declared by the lips of Incarnate Truth. Not the work of man, but a DIVINE CREATION—a new birth, not a reformation of the old.

Sensible that I possessed certainly the old nature, characterized by love of self and self-interests, but devoid of any love for God, the need of being “BORN AGAIN” was clear to me, but its nature and the way to gain it, still remained incomprehensible.

In this consciousness I turned again to the New Testament, God’s blessed revelation, through which already He had spoken somewhat to my soul. Sitting on the bedside, I pondered page after page of the inspired volume, and eagerly read the entire contents of every chapter, from the third of John’s gospel to 1 Peter 1:23. A marvelous light, dispelling the darkness, flooded my soul as I closed the book after reading 1 Peter 1:23— “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever.”

My faith there and then reposed upon the Person and work of Christ, and on the sure Word of God. Through it a life new and incorruptible like its Author was begotten in me, and was now consciously known to my delighted soul. I fell down on my knees to thank God for His redeeming love. The NEW LIFE, which I had thus received, filled my soul with love to God, impelling me to adoring, grateful acknowledgments. I rose to leave that room “a new creature” in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17).

I can truly say I have no knowledge of ever hearing the truth of the gospel before that ever-to-be remembered day of my conversion. Although reared in an atmosphere and environment of religion, I positively knew nothing of my ruined and lost condition as a sinner, or of the need of being born again. Never having known of anyone confessing to being saved or knowing the present pardon of sins, I really supposed myself to be possessed of a direct revelation from God, unknown perhaps to any other in the world. So that for two whole days, this inestimable boon was of private, unspoken enjoyment.

Working in a busy banking office, my duties precluded time for lunch. But at the noon hour, while engaged writing entries, with my pen in one hand, and holding a sandwich in the other, a much older fellow-employee approached me—one with whom I had practically no previous intercourse, except to utter blasphemies in his hearing, so as to shock a “ranting dissenter,” as I regarded him. Placing his elbows on the .opposite side of the desk, with chin on his hands, he gazed for a few moments squarely into my face, and then said: “ C—, I believe you are saved,” to which I made the heartfelt answer, “Thank God, I am!” Slowly, and with solemn emphasis, he repeated: “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).

Freedom to confess Jesus my Saviour and my Lord, was the emancipation this scripture brought me. Then from the lips of this fellow-believer with whom I first had Christian intercourse, I learned the glorious truth of the blessed Lord’s promise to come a second time—not to suffer, or to die, but to receive to Himself His loved, chosen, and dearly bought people (see 1 Thess. 4:16; Phil. 3:20).

My cup of bliss then “ran over.” Before evening I visited the cricket-ground, and declared to my companions what the Lord had done for my soul, anticipating that all would immediately listen to my testimony, and accept God’s love-gift, Christ, as their personal Saviour (see John 3:16). But so deep-seated in the human breast is the sin of unbelief, that I found no one in all that company to share my joy, or even to express the least desire for the happiness I testified of. From the cricket-ground I made my way to a clergyman’s study, and there declared afresh my newfound joy, with the knowledge of peace made by the blood of the Cross (see Col. 1:20). But there, I was only to hear the crushing and awful response, that the faith I professed to own was “damnable heresy.” But such was the power and joy of God’s salvation in my soul, that I could protest he might as well tell me the sun never shone, as that light divine had not come into my soul. For, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

No earthborn cloud has yet for a moment eclipsed that Sun of my soul, the arising of which I have told in this story of my conversion. It has been peace to begin with, grace to go on with, and glory to end with (see Rom. 5:1, 2), while I have travelled heavenward toward a joyful eternity for thirty-four years since that eventful day on which I was brought to God.

Give Him the joy of receiving you today, my reader, as He received me that day long ago. You need the living water, and some day indeed you will know it. It is freely offered now (see Rev. 22:17), but may be for ever out of your reach tomorrow. Ask yourself now, Where shall I spend eternity?

“Where shall I spend eternity?

This question comes to you and me.

Tell rue, what shall your answer be?

Where will you spend eternity?

Eternity! Eternity!

Where will you spend eternity?”

E. J. C.

"If Only One Were Sure."

BY THE LATE DR WOLSTON.

MANY years ago I was driving many miles across country with some friends in the South of Scotland to attend a meeting of Christians, when a gentleman at my side said, “Do you see that house in the distance? The occupant, Mrs. M—, died very recently.”

The name was familiar to me, and on inquiry I soon ascertained that the deceased lady was one whom I had met once only in my life. “Was she a believer in the Lord? Did she live and die a Christian?” I inquired.

“Oh yes,” was the reply, “there is no doubt of that point. She had been a decided Christian for many years.”

“And do you know how she was converted?”

“No. I should like to know,” was my friend’s answer.

“Well, if you like I will tell you. It is fully more than twenty years since I met her; and it was under these circumstances. I was speaking on the Lord’s second coming in a large town many miles from here. The Christians with whom I was spending the night were relatives of Mrs. M—. A matter of business had brought her from this district to her relatives’ town; and knowing that I was to have a meeting, and not being sure as to her being a decided Christian, they had urged her to spend the night at their house, and accompany them to my meeting. She was a professing Christian, observant of all religious duties, kind to the poor, and exemplary in all her ways; but had never really confessed Christ as her own Saviour, nor given evidence of divine life in her soul. Hence her friends’ anxiety concerning her.

“A larger gathering assembled to hear the Word of the Lord; and God’s Spirit was manifestly at work, as the reason and object of Christ’s first coming to earth, and the certainty of His second coming, were unfolded. Man’s necessity as a sinner, the fact that he was utterly lost, was, demonstrated by the fact that God had ‘sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.’ And He Himself, when here, had affirmed that ‘the Son of man was come to seek and to save that which was lost.’ But if He were to save man, He must Himself take up the question of man’s sin, assume man’s responsibilities, meet the claims of God on man, and die in the room and stead of the sinner.

“The Scripture particularly pressed was this, ‘Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And AS it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was Once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation’ (Heb. 9:26-28). The perfection of Christ’s work was sought to be unfolded. The solemn question of sin in its fullest aspect had been settled to God’s entire satisfaction, propitiation and atonement having been effected. This, the wider aspect of the cross, was fully dwelt on. Then came the ‘as’ and the ‘so’ of the passage, which bring the application of the gospel to the individual in connection with the precious truth of substitution.

“The ‘as’ and the ‘so’ brought light to many a heart that evening. As death and judgment were the lot of man, being the fruit and consequence of sin, it was abundantly plain that, when dying in grace on the cross, to effect atonement, ‘so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.’ He there took the two penal consequences of sin, namely, death and judgment, and thereby delivers from these two awful penalties every soul that believes in Him. As a result, the statement, ‘Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation,’ was seen to be the natural sequence of the truth of the gospel.

“We plainly saw that when He came the first time, He took our sins away; and when He comes the next time, He will take us away. The question of death and judgment have been definitely settled already. The return of the Lord as the immediate hope of the Christian was presented and pressed; and scores of gladdened hearts afterwards sang—

“I’m waiting for Thee, Lord,

Thy beauty to see, Lord,

I’m waiting for Thee,

For Thy coming again.”

“The meeting broke up; and on our way to the house of our Christian friends, Mrs. M— and I met. She broke the ice by saying, ‘You have had a most solemn and impressive meeting, Dr Wolston.’

“‘Yes;’ I said, ‘and a very blessed one for Christians. Is it not blessed to be waiting for the return of the Lord?’

“‘If only one were sure that one was ready,’ she replied.

“‘And cannot you say that you are ready, madam?’ I rejoined. ‘You know that you are saved, do not you?’

“‘I never felt that I could say that. Oh! no. Of course I have thought of these things, but I could never take on me to say that I am saved.’

“‘Will you allow me to ask you another question?’ I rejoined. ‘Have you ever got into God’s presence and honestly owned that you were lost?’

“‘Lost,’ she exclaimed. ‘No, I never thought I was lost.’

“‘Therein lies the solution of the difficulty of your never having been able to know you were saved. No one gets saved till they know they are lost.’

“‘But I never thought I was lost. Of course I know I have not been what I ought to be, and I have failed in my effort to be what I desire to be, but I never thought I was a lost sinner.’

“‘Well, my dear lady, if you will take the simple advice of a stranger whom you never met before, and may very likely never meet again, but who, nevertheless, has a deep interest in your soul, you will not lay your head on your pillow tonight till, in the presence of God, you have owned that you are a lost sinner needing salvation. Then I believe you will get on to right ground before God, and He will give you to know what it is to be saved, and to rejoice in view of the Lord’s coming again.’

“By this time the telltale tear of deep emotion was running down her cheek; and feeling I had said enough, I held my peace and left her to walk alone. We soon reached her relatives’ house. The supper bell rang, and a large party gathered at the supper table. Mrs. M—’s chair was vacant. After waiting a few minutes our hostess said, ‘I will go and see what has detained her,’ and shortly returned, saying, ‘She will not be down tonight, and begs to be excused.’

“After the family had dispersed, and my host and his wife were left alone with me, she said, A most extraordinary thing has happened in Mrs. M—’s case. I knocked at her door, and getting no answer, I went in, and found her kneeling at a chair, with an open Bible on it, and in floods of tears. She was in too deep emotion to say anything, save that she would not come down tonight.

“From that night dates the hour when she really turned to God, and found Christ. I never saw her again after the next morning, when she confessed she had received blessing overnight; she had owned she was lost, and then learned that she was saved by simple faith in Jesus, Some time later I heard that the effect of God’s Word on her had been abiding; and now I am truly thankful to hear that she has gone home to be with Jesus. It is cheering after more than twenty years to learn of the safe homegoing of one converted through the ministry of God’s Word.”

Reader, how is it with your soul? Have you learned yet that you are lost, and got into God’s presence and owned it? If not, I would urge you to lose no time in acknowledging the truth as to your state, and turn to the Lord Jesus as a living Saviour. Remember, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Thrice over, in the last chapter of Scripture, does the Lord Jesus say, “I come quickly.” Blessed indeed are they who are ready for His coming, and know it surely. I am one of that happy company. Why should not you be one also? Decide for Christ now.

W. T. P. W.

Where Was the Hindrance?

“I THOUGHT that you would be pleased to 1 know that my heavy load of sin seemed to leave me on Sunday night at a quarter to eight.”

So wrote an old lady whom I had been visiting for many years.

When first I went to see her at the request of her Christian sister-in-law, she was a fine-looking woman, handsomely dressed, and apparently in prosperous circumstances. She said she was anxious to be saved, and was trying to be a Christian.

I assured her that she would never be saved by “trying to be a Christian,” for “Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), not to help them to save themselves.

It was evident, however, that her soul’s salvation was not a matter of life and death to her, but was only one out of many things which occupied her mind.

Doubtless trouble was needed before she would turn to God with all her heart, and so it came to pass.

First, she an her husband became bankrupt, after losing nearly all they possessed. Then he died, leaving her dependent on others.

Soon after she fell and broke her thigh bone. It was badly set, and henceforth she could only hobble about the house with the aid of a stick, or by holding on to the furniture.

After her accident a sister, looking upon it as an irksome duty, had come to live with her in her cottage home, where the only reminder of better days was some of the handsome drawing-room furniture, which crowded up the small sitting room.

“You know she does not like living with me here,” said poor Mrs. —, with the tears rolling down her face, “but they don’t know what to do with me if she leaves. I do feel it, being such a burden.”

Adversity, however, had done its needed work, and now, bankrupt in all this world could give, she turned to Him who alone could give her true happiness.

Strange to say, though her soul’s salvation was now her chief concern, it was several years before she wrote that note, saying her sins were gone.

I visited her frequently, and put the way of salvation before her as plainly as I could, that without work or merit on her part, God offered her full forgiveness on the ground of Christ’s atoning death and blood-shedding. All she had to do was to come as a sinner to Christ, who “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), and whose blood could cleanse her from all sin (see 1 John 1:7).

But on my next visit the sad words, slightly varied, always awaited me, “No, I can’t get it, and yet I do try.” Then once more I would tell her that it was not “trying” but believing—appropriating for herself what Christ had done for her by dying in her stead on Calvary’s cross.

With evident sincerity she assured me there was no hindrance in her life to the reception of the blessing. Then was she looking for some “inward feeling” first? Her answer to this was not so satisfactory, and I felt sure that here was the hindrance, as is so often with anxious souls, who wait for some “inward change” (which never comes), instead of at once taking God at His word and being saved. I pointed her to the words, “Joy and peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13), that joy and peace are the results of believing, and are not preparatory to it. To expect to feel saved, or rather to know it, before trusting Christ as Saviour, is like expecting the thirst to be quenched before the water is put to the lips!

As months went by I was beginning to wonder if she ever would be saved, when I got her note with its glad news.

“I thought I ought to let you know at once, for you have borne so long with me,” she said when I went to her.

“And how did it come about at last?” I inquired.

“Well, on Sunday night I was reading that verse, ‘The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all’ (Isa, 53:6), and as I kept thinking and thinking about it, all at once my load of sin seemed to leave me. I could almost see it rolling off me.

“I thought of the old picture in ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ where Christian with his heavy load of sins on his back comes up to the foot of the Cross, and as in his mind he sees Christ dying there in his stead, the one who ‘His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,’ his heavy burden of sins is unloosed from his back, and (as we read) tumbles down into a sepulchre, and is seen no more!”

I inquired, “And now, Mrs. —, can you tell how it was you were not saved sooner?”

“I could not give up the thought that I must have some inward feeling first, that a feeling of joy would come over me, and I have never had it yet.”

“But you felt glad when you saw that God had laid your sins on Christ?”

“Oh! yes, but it was more the feeling of relief. My sins had got to be such a terrible load on me, and oh, it was a relief when I knew they were gone! But it was all so different to what I expected.”

Yes, for she was not giving her “feelings” a thought, her mind was occupied with the words she had read— “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” She saw that the “all” included her— that her iniquities, her sins, were laid on Him, and that therefore they were gone from her for ever.

Dear anxious soul, may you in like manner turn yourself to Christ. You will never regret it.

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

F. A.

How an Old Couple Received Christ

JAMES F—, a Christian man, was sitting by his fireside one Lord’s Day afternoon meditating upon eternal things when a longing desire to pray came upon him. He at once went into his front parlor, and spent some time alone with God in prayer. Amongst other things he desired to know if God had anything He particularly desired him to do that day. We may explain that James had been resting joyfully for some time on the finished work of Christ, and had been used of God by personal effort to win others to know the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour.

Before rising from his knees he waited for a reply, and he afterwards stated that he saw as it were in a vision a street in the suburb of H—, and one house particularly appeared marked out by having a well-lighted window, so that he saw the color of the blind. He rose from his knees, understanding that God would have him visit that house.

Passing into the kitchen he remarked to his wife that he was going to H— that evening, when she called his attention to the pouring rain, and said it was not suitable weather for him to go, to which he replied that as God desired him to go He would give him a fine evening.

Towards six o’clock the weather cleared up, and James sallied forth with his Bible, and a few tracts in his pocket. Arriving at the street he had to visit, he noticed the public-house at the end was fully lighted up, and looking through the doorway saw the landlady behind the bar. At once passing in he walked up to the bar, and offering the landlady a tract. said, “Mistress, if you will accept this tract, and read it, and believe what is written therein, God will save your soul.”

She replied, “I didn’t think that was what you were coming in for. I thought you were coming in for a drink.”

“If I had come in for that,” said James, “the benefit to you would have been very little, and not lasting, but if you do as I say with this tract, the salvation God will give you is eternal.”

“Well, I think these things can be left until one’s deathbed,” was the reply. “I don’t think we need trouble about them now.”

“Ah!” said James, “you may never have a deathbed, and if you do I could not say God would save you then, but I believe He will save you now, for ‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation’” (2 Cor. 6:2). Alas, the landlady turned a deaf ear to the gospel, and James went out, and passed up the street until he came to the house which he recognized by the lighted window and the color of the blind as the one he saw in his vision. Knocking at the door, it was promptly opened by a middle-aged woman.

“Mistress,” said James, “will you please take this tract, read it, and if you believe what is written therein, God will save your soul.”

“Oh I do come in, man,” was the eager response. “I knew God would send me some one tonight. I do want to be saved. Come in and tell me how I can be saved.”

James was delighted to have such a hearty invitation, and at once went in, and with his Bible showed her in his own simple way how she and her husband —for he was present and also desired salvation— could be saved, and before James left, both husband and wife joyfully accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour.

Reader, have you been saved? Rest not till you can say that you are.

E. J. R.

The Grey Horses

By the late Dr WOLSTON.

“THAT’S a doctor, an Edinburgh doctor; drives himself, with a spanking pair of little grey horses, in a light victoria, and goes at a great pace. Take stock of him; you will be sure to know him by his grey 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 worldwide, 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-à-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 in 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 backbone 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 generally get 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 he 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 before 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 hall 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 said, “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 siting, 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 face 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 from Glasgow.” Then by way of proving his identity he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the card which I had given him just before 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 your series on the ‘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 has 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 I3. 2s. 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 future 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, just exactly as you are, 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 Voice of Jesus

ABOVE the din of this restless world there sounds a blessed voice. Above the cry of contending parties, and the noise of clashing interests, it calls. It calls to thee, O weary sinner, and would enter thine ear and thy heart, bringing with it a great peace and a priceless blessing.

It is the voice of Jesus, saying as of old: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). O tired heart, do not close thine ears to these words, let the music of them charm thee, and draw thee to His feet.

J.T.M.

Self-Deceived

THERE are some who boast that they have no religion, that they never made any profession, and that they are quite as good and perhaps better than many of the Christians they know.

And they think that they are all right because their self-examination pleases them. But they are all wrong, and I venture to say that they are dishonest when they begin to measure themselves with other Christians. I have met men of that sort before.

They choose the meanest and sourest scrub of a professor they know, and, because they are perhaps one degree less mean than he, they boast and claim that if the Christians are going to heaven so are they. Why do they not measure themselves against a truly consistent Christian, one who is out-and-out for God? Or better still, why do they not honestly come to God’s standard and measure themselves by it? Is it because in their heart they know that they have come short of that standard?

If you are one such, do not, I beseech of you, endeavor to deceive yourself any longer, for you are deceiving nobody else. God says that you are a sinner. Every truly sensible person believes what God says. If you will also believe the truth of God, there will be the end of your folly, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

J. T. M.

Just - and a Justifier

MORTAL, of days that fly,

Nearing eternity,

Meet God thou must;

Holy and righteous He,

Glorious in Majesty,

Thou—passing dust.

Naked, sin-steeped thou art,

Soul, body, mind and heart,

Lost helplessly!

God has a ransom found,

Jesus has cleared the ground,

Sinbearer He.

God thee will justify

Shouldst thou on Christ rely,

Yield and repent;

Not thine to strive to win

Pardon for life of sin,

God is content.

Just, He abounds in grace,

Christ took the sinner’s place,

Setting him free;

Conqueror of death He rose,

Victor o’er all His foes,

God-Man is He.

Life for mortality,

Fruit of His victory,

He offers thee;

Thou need’st no longer roam,

God bids thee welcome—home,

Christ is His plea.

J. L. B.

"A Leap in the Dark."

“THEN to you death will be a leap in the dark?”

“Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be.” The one who made this terrible confession was a shoemaker of middle age, slowly nearing the grave under the fell power of consumption. Worse than this, he was an infidel—a determined, avowed sceptic. I had been asked to visit him in his attic quarters by an old friend, who was himself a shoemaker, but, through grace, a Christian, and naturally most anxious about his unbelieving acquaintance. His friend obtained his permission for me to call by saying that, as a physician, perhaps I could give him some prescription which would relieve his sufferings; and, when he begged me to go, told me briefly of the sadly darkened state of the shoemaker’s mind, urging me to put Christ before him if I could.

Having carefully examined him, and thus got his confidence by the interest which I displayed in his case, he asked me, at length, if I thought his condition amenable to cure. To this I replied that I was sorry to have to tell him I did not think he could recover.

“Then, how long do you think I have got to live, Doctor?” he said.

“A few months, perhaps a year,” I replied.

He made no reply, and the stolid look of indifference on his gloomy face was in no way changed by my remark. As he said more, I continued—

“And are you ready to die, Mr. F—?”

“Of course I am; as ready as you, or anyone else.”

“And what has made you ready? Are your sins forgiven, and all washed away in the precious blood of Christ?”

“Oh! that’s all stuff. I don’t believe in any of that nonsense. I’m a freethinker.”

“So I regret to perceive; but your being a freethinker will not fit you for God’s presence?”

“I tell you I don’t believe in a God at all, so I shan’t have to meet Him!”

“Your not believing in Him will not help you to evade the solemn certainty of having to meet Him. The Scripture says, ‘So, then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God.’”

“But I don’t believe in the Bible. It’s only fit for old women who can’t reason. No reasonable man believes it in these days.”

“Well, I am not an old woman, but, I trust, a reasonable man, and yet I am free to confess that I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I believe it heartily from cover to cover.”

“And what good has it done you?”

“Untold good, thank God. It has given me the knowledge of Himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know from its blessed pages that my sins are all forgiven, that I have eternal life, and, though I am sure of nothing for a moment in this life, I am quite clear and happy as to the future were I to die, or the Lord to come.”

“Oh! that’s all a delusion. Nobody knows anything about the future. How can they? No one has come back from the dead to tell us what comes after death.”

“That is a great mistake. Why, the One who died for me is the very One who has come back from the dead, to assure me as to my future blessedness, as the fruit and consequence of His death for me.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. No one can know what will be after death.”

“Then to you death will be a leap in the dark?”

“Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be,” was his rather hesitating reply.

“Ah, my friend!” I exclaimed, “I am far better off than you, through God’s infinite grace. If I should die, death would be a leap in the light.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Because I have got the light now. Christ is my Light. He said, ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life’ (John 8:12). And He said also, ‘Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness’ (John 12:35, 36, 46). Both you and I are alike sinners before God, but the difference between us is this:—You do not believe in the Lord Jesus, are walking in darkness, and know not whither you are going, viz., to judgment, and the lake of fire; I do believe in Him, have got out of darkness by letting in the light, and know clearly where I am going, viz., ‘to be with Christ, which is far better.’ Don’t you think now that I have the best of it? All I can say is, that a man who takes a leap in the dark, when he may take a leap in the light, must be a downright fool. What say you to that?”

He paused a moment or two, and then replied, “Well, sir, I never looked at it quite in that way before. I won’t say there’s not some reason in your argument.”

With this our interview closed. I left him with my heart lifted to God that His Word might do its own work in his heart and conscience. I never saw him again. Upwards of twelve years have rolled away. Last June his friend, who had asked me to visit him, called to see me, and said, “Do you recollect, many years ago, visiting an infidel shoemaker in L— Street?”

“Perfectly; and what took place between us too. What became of him?”

“He died in the Royal Infirmary just a year after you saw him.”

“Died an infidel?”

“Oh! no, thank God, he died a happy Christian, confessing his faith in the Lord, and giving a bright testimony. He dated the beginning of the change in his heart from that morning you saw him. Something you said to him about ‘a leap in the dark’ stuck to him, and he was never happy till he found the Lord.”

“The Lord be praised,” was my rejoinder, as I heard, with deep joy, of the Lord’s grace to one who seemed so fortified in unbelief. It is, however, but another illustration of His goodness.

And now, my dear reader, let me, in penning a few concluding lines, ask you, Are you still in “darkness”; or, have you received Christ as your “light”? When you pass into eternity, will it be for you “a leap in the dark,” or “a leap in the light”?

I beseech you, most affectionately, not to put these queries from you. Answer them honestly before God. If you cannot reply, “To me death would be a leap in the light,” turn to Jesus now. Trust Him, as you read these lines, and your eternal salvation is sure. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46), may well win the confidence of your heart towards the blessed One who speaks, and who

“Suffered in the shadow

That we might see the light.”

Yes, He tasted death, that we might live; endured the darkness, that we might enjoy the light; and sustained the judgment of God, that we might be freely justified. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Again, “But now once, in the end of the world, hath He appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation” (Heb. 9:26-28).

Trust Him then, simply, my reader; and then when called hence, whether by falling asleep in Jesus, or better by His coming in the air for His own (see 1 Thess. 4:13-18), to you and to me, through infinite grace, it will be

A LEAP IN THE LIGHT.

W. T. P. W.

A Remarkable Letter by a Cambridge Professor

TO be Second Wrangler and Smith’s Prizeman, to achieve eminent success in the Senate House, to obtain a Fellowship at Trinity, and be popular as a Mathematical Lecturer stamps the writer of the following letter, which we venture to reproduce in part, as a Than of remarkable intellect and personality.

Let him now speak for himself. He writes:—

“I remember when I first began to read the Bible, and though I was sincerely seeking the truth, I was miserable because I could not believe it. I dare not reject any statement I found there, but I could not fully believe it was true.

“My history was just this: I had read and studied deeply in mathematics, had mastered every fresh subject I entered upon with ease and delight, had become accustomed (as every exact mathematician must do) to investigate and discover fundamental differences between things which seem, to the uninitiated, one and the same; had seen my way into physical astronomy and the higher parts of Newton’s immortal Principia; and had been frequently lost in admiration of his genius till St. Mary’s clock warned me that midnight was passed three hours ago. I had, in fact, as we say, made myself master of dynamics, and become gradually more and more a believer in the unlimited capabilities of my own mind.

“This self-conceited idea was only flattered and fostered by eminent success in the Senate House, and by subsequently obtaining a Fellowship at Trinity, and enjoying very considerable popularity as a mathematical lecturer.

“It would have spared me many an hour of misery in after days had I really felt what I so often said, viz., that the deeper a man went into science the humbler he ought to be, and the more cautious in pronouncing an independent opinion on a subject be had not investigated, or could not thoroughly sift. But, though all this was true, I had yet to learn that this humility in spiritual things is never found in a natural man.

“I took orders, and began to preach; and then, I found out the grand deficit in my theology. I had not the Spirit’s teaching myself, and how could I without it speak ‘in demonstration of the Spirit and of power’?

“In vain did I read Chalmers, Paley, Butler, Gaussen, &c., and determine that, as I had mastered all the other subjects I had grappled with, so I would the Bible, and that I would make myself a believer. I found a poor ignorant old woman in my parish more than a match for me in divine things. I was distressed to find that she was often happy in the evident mercy of the Lord to her, and that she found prayer answered, and that all this was proved sincere by her blameless and harmless walk amongst her neighbors, whilst I, with all my science and investigation, was barren, and unprofitable, and miserable, au unbeliever in heart, and yet not daring to avow it, partly from the fear of man, but more from a certain inward conviction that all my skeptical difficulties would be crushed and leaped over by the experience of the most illiterate Christian.

“I was perfectly ashamed to feel in my mind like Voltaire, Volney or Tom Paine. I could claim no originality for my views, and I found they were no comfort, but a constant source of misery to me.

“It may now be asked how I came ever to view divine truth differently. I desire to ascribe all praise to Him to whom power belongeth; I desire to put my own mouth in the dust, and be ashamed and never open my mouth any more, because of my former unbelief.

“I cannot describe all I passed through, but I desire with humility and gratitude to say, I was made willing in a day of Christ’s power. He melted down my proud heart with His love; He shut my mouth for ever from caviling at any difficulties in the written Word; and one of the first things in which the great change appeared was, that whereas before preaching had been a misery, now it became my delight to be able to say, without a host of skeptical or infidel doubts rushing into my mind— ‘Thus saith the Lord.’

“I am quite certain no natural man can see the things of God, and I am equally certain that he cannot make himself do so. ‘It was the Lord that exalted Moses and Aaron,’ said Samuel; and, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am,’ said the Apostle Paul; and so in a modified and humble sense, I can truly say.

“It used to be a terrible stumbling-block to me to find so many learned men, so many acute men, so many scientific men—infidels. It is not so now; I see that God has said, ‘Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble’ (1 Cor. 1:26).

“I see, as plainly as it is possible for me to see anything, that no natural man can receive the things of the Spirit of God. Hence I expect to find men of this stamp of intellect coming out boldly with their avowals of unbelief in the written Word of God.

“The only answer I can give to them is this: ‘God has in mercy taught me better’; and never do I sing those beautiful words in the well-known hymn, but I feel my eyes filling with tears of gratitude to the God of all compassion:—

“‘Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wandering from the fold of God.’

“So it is with me; so it must be with anyone of them, if ever they are to know the truth in its power, or to receive the love of the truth that they may be saved.

“I feel very much for the young of this generation, remembering the conflicts I passed through in consequence of the errors of men of ability.

“A FORMER FELLOW OF TRINITY

COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.”

~~~

Does not the foregoing letter illustrate, as by this Professor’s personal experience, the following text?—

“For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).

It shows that no unregenerate intellect, however profound, is a safe guide to follow. It explains how men of fine intellect and moral rectitude are more than often found in the ranks of the infidel.

May God use this letter to strike some intellectually infidel mind, and lead him to the study of the Scriptures. The cure for much is the study of the Word of God itself.

A young infidel of the shallow type once asked a minister in a condescending way if he could recommend him what books to read that would convince him of the truth of the Bible.

The minister quietly answered, “The Bible.”

“Oh! but you don’t understand,” replied the young man. “I asked you to tell me what book you would recommend me to read to prove the truth of the Bible.”

“I quite understand your question,” said the minister, and my reply is, “The Bible.” Wise answer.

We are told that “the holy Scriptures . . . are able to make . . . wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15); and that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10).

Would it be better to be the Astronomer Royal, to know the distance the sun is from the earth, to be able to map out the heavens, explain the orbits of the planets and a thousand abstruse things, and —die UNSAVED, or to be that illiterate old toothless woman in the workhouse, knowing the Lord as her Saviour, rejoicing in God’s great salvation, and die —SAVED? We would not undervalue true science and knowledge, but oh! to value aright the Word of God, to receive its message, to believe its story of God’s love and Christ’s work. This is, indeed, true wisdom.

Reader, have you believed these things yet?

A. J. P.

Procrastination

WHILE travelling with a friend in Jamaica, who was a native of the island, we happened to see growing near to the roadside a curious little bush. He pointed it out to me, and suggested that I should let my clothes touch it. I did so, and at once found myself caught by a hooked thorn not unlike a fishhook. While releasing myself from it I was caught by another, and then again by still another, and it was only with much care and patience that I got clear of it at last. “Wait-a-bit” is the name given to the bush by the natives of the island, and an exceptionally good name I thought it.

Has not the devil got many such bushes growing alongside the road which leads to blessing? Indeed he has. You wake up to the fact that it is time you thought of eternity, and immediately you are caught by some pleasure, or pursuit, or sin, which holds and detains you, saying, “Wait a bit,” and many are thus detained until it is too late for ever.

You mean to be saved, to have the Lord Jesus for your Saviour some day. Do it now; do not tread the road of By-and-By, for it leads eventually to the town of “Never.”

“The road called By-and-By is smooth,

And over the hills it windeth,

But he who starts in its crooked way

Much cause for trouble findeth.

That winding way seems bright today,

But darkness will fall for ever,

For over the hills of By-and-By

Is built the house of ‘Never.’”

J. T. M.

How I Became a Soldier

AT the age of fifteen I had a great desire to become a soldier.; but on trying to enlist in the 4th/60th Rifles at Dublin was told that being under age special permission from the Horse Guards was necessary, and that before it could be applied for I must first obtain my parents’ consent in writing, produce a good character, and pass the doctor.

Having satisfied the regimental authorities on these points the necessary permission was at once applied for; but as it had not arrived within a week’s time, and the regiment was under orders to proceed to Fermoy, it was decided at the last moment to smuggle me there in soldier’s clothes. So I borrowed a bugler boy’s suit, and in a few minutes was dressed in it, looking “every inch a soldier.” But I was not a soldier—wearing soldier’s clothes did not make a soldier of me.

As we marched from Ship Street Barracks to King’s Bridge Station that morning, I did my best to look and feel like a soldier. But trying to look and feel like a soldier did not make a soldier of me. In fact the more I looked like a soldier the more I deceived others, and the more I felt like a soldier the more I deceived myself; and the amount of confidence I had in my looks and feelings can be judged by the fact that at the station I trembled lest the railway officials should count the men and find me out. However, to my great relief, the train soon moved off, and in a few hours we reached Fermoy, where the Sergeant-Major at once told me to take off my “borrowed feathers,” so that I was no longer able to deceive myself or others.

Several days passed at Fermoy without the arrival of the longed-for permission, and I began to fear that it would not be granted; but at last one morning the Sergeant-Major met me on the barrack square and said, “Well, lad, we have permission to enlist you at last. Are you still willing to enlist?”

On assuring him that I was, he took a shilling out of his pocket, and held it towards me; but I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the event that I stood looking at the shilling for a few moments, but was soon brought to my senses by hearing him shout, “Take it lad; if you want it.”

Immediately I stretched forth my hand and took the shilling, and the next moment he said, “Now, lad, you are as much a soldier as I am.”

Never shall I forget the joy with which I walked across the barrack square that morning. I was a soldier and knew it. How did I become a soldier? Not by obtaining my parents’ consent, producing a good character, passing the doctor, or even by obtaining special permission, but by “TAKING THE SHILLING.” That was how I became a soldier. And how did I know that I was a soldier? I had the testimony of the Sergeant-Major (the best authority in the regiment) that I was as much a soldier as he. TAKING the shilling made me a soldier. BELIEVING the Sergeant-Major made me know that I was a soldier.

A few years later I had a desire to join another army. I longed to become a soldier of JESUS CHRIST. This time I was not asked to obtain my parents’ consent, or it would have been willingly given. Nor was I asked to produce a good character, or it could not have been produced (read Rom. 3:10). Nor was I required to pass the doctor; for if, like the dying thief, I had come to Jesus with the fag-end of a misspent life, I should still have been welcome (read Luke 23:39-43). Nor yet was special permission necessary, for God “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). And as to keeping a poor anxious sinner waiting, I have learned that God is more eager to save the poor sinner than the sinner is to be saved. God says, “Come Now” (Isa. 1:18).

But, like many others, while believing that the sinner was saved by grace, yet I had a lurking thought that the sinner had to supplement that grace by his own works in order to obtain that salvation. In other words, I thought that the sinner had to assist in making a Christian of himself, therefore just as I put off my civilian clothes and put on soldier’s uniform before I was a soldier, so I divested myself of my worldly attire and invested myself with Christian garments before I was a Christian. First of all I renounced everything I thought to be inconsistent with Christianity, and adopted everything I thought had any semblance of Christianity about it. I joined various temperance and purity associations; I attended church regularly, and partook of Holy Communion on every possible occasion, and never missed a Bible reading or prayer meeting if I could help it. My voice was no longer heard in the canteen or on the stage, singing songs, but in the church choir singing praises to God. And last, but by no means least, for this was the severest test of all, I joined the little band of Christians in the regiment, and from thenceforth became known as a despised “Blue-light.”

And all this time I was not a Christian, I was trying to be one, and at times I really felt and believed that I was one. But all this did not make a Christian of me. In fact, the more I looked like a Christian the more I deceived others, and the more I felt that I was one the more I deceived myself. Not that I was a hypocrite—God knew that. No hypocrite could stand for long what the Christian was called to stand in the British Army in those days. But at times I felt hopelessly lost, and these feelings of depression became more frequent and more pronounced as time went on.

But the darkest hour is the one before the dawn. God, in His great mercy, was only leading me to value that “great salvation” which He was about to show me, by leading me “out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Pet. 2:9) in a very simple but remarkable way.

In 1885 I was on detachment duty at Chirat, a small hill station in the north of India. One evening a number of Christians met in the Church tent for prayer. That day I had been terribly tried, and had almost decided not to go to the meetings anymore; but as I thought of the effect my “giving up” would probably have on the weaker (?) ones, who looked up to me as a kind of leader (?), I determined to make one more try for their sakes, for I was really much attached to them.

Two or three Christians had already prayed when I suddenly burst out into an agony of prayer, in which I pleaded with God to save me, and give me the assurance of salvation, of which I had heard others speak with such joy. Suddenly I found myself repeating those beautiful lines,

“Then take with rejoicing from Jesus at once,

The life everlasting He gives;

And know with assurance, thou never canst die,

Since JESUS thy righteousness lives.”

In a moment I could see where I had been wrong for years; that just as I had stood looking at the shilling in the Sergeant-Major’s hand, so I had been looking at and working for the salvation which God was offering me as a free gift, and that in that verse which I had just quoted He was saying just what the Sergeant-Major had said to me,

“TAKE IT, LAD, IF YOU WANT IT.”

Immediately I stretched forth the hand of faith, and said, “Lord Jesus! I take at once as a free gift the life everlasting that Thou art offering me; and I know with assurance that I shall never die as long as Thou dost live.” The next moment I rose from my knees, the conscious possessor of God’s full, free, and everlasting salvation; and though over thirty years have since elapsed I have never for one moment lost the assurance of it.

Never shall I forget the joy with which I walked across the camp square that night. I was saved and knew it. How did I get saved? “Not by works of righteousness which I had done” (Titus 3:5). Not by giving up everything that was bad, and by going in for everything that was good, though all this proved that I was in earnest, but by TAKING eternal life as a free gift from God. And how did I know that I was saved? By BELIEVING the word of God (the only authority on the subject) that “He that believeth on the Son HATH everlasting life” (John 3:36). Further, I may add that at that time I got this text from the Lord Jesus, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). If the Sergeant-Major could say to me when I had taken the shilling, “Now, lad, you are as much a soldier as I am,” Jesus can tell me that the moment I believe in Him I HAVE eternal life, and that I shall NEVER perish (John 10:28).

As to “works” I can now say—

“I would not work my soul to save,

That work my Lord path done,

But I would work like any slave,

From love to God’s dear Son.”

~~~

And now it may be the reader is a soldier of King George the Fifth, having responded to the call of his King and Country to “do his bit” in this “Great War.” You may have given up a good berth, or loved ones, and gone to the front to drive that cruel foe out of those countries which he has so treacherously invaded in breach of his agreements; for you know that the brutalities perpetrated by him in those places would be as nothing compared with the excesses he would commit if ever he set foot in this country. For these sacrifices the country thanks you, and assures you that should you be called upon to make the “supreme sacrifice” it will see that adequate provision is made for those dependent on you.

But, let me ask you, “Have you made any provision for your own future” “No,” you reply, “we are told that it is not necessary to do so; that all those who die in battle, fighting for their King and Country, are sure to go to heaven and there join the army of the King of kings.”

Let me tell you that there is not a shred of authority in Scripture for any such statement. Listen to what JESUS has to say on that point: “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:29). “And whither I go ye cannot come” (John 8:34). No! if ever you are to join the army of Christ in heaven you must first join it on earth. No enlisting in heaven. “In the place where the tree falls, there it shall be” (Eccles. 11:3).

Comrade! Do not trust your soul to such a rotten plank as your own death to save your own soul. Trust the death of CHRIST, and the death of Christ ALONE. Enlist under the banner of JESUS now, and make sure that you are in His army now, and then you will be in it for time and eternity.

God says, “I WILL GIVE unto him that is athirst of the water of life FREELY” (Rev. 21:6).

Again God says, “Whosoever will, LET HIM TAKE the water of life FREELY” (Rev. 22:17).

What have you got to do?

“TAKE IT, LAD, IF YOU WANT IT.”

Just say, “I WILL TAKE the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:13). Then you can add—

“‘Tis done, the great transaction’s done;

I am my Lord’s and He is mine.

He drew me, and I followed on,

Charmed to confess the voice divine.

Happy day! Happy day!

When Jesus washed my sins away.”

T. C. M.

A Letter From a Retired Army Officer

DEAR EDITOR,—As your Magazine is widely circulated amongst the gallant sailors and soldiers who are laying down their lives, so freely and nobly, for the sake of their country in this terrible war, may I ask you to insist continually, and to combat with all your energy, the gross delusion of “saving merit by death through battle” for that country?

I know that this fatal error has been, again and again, exposed and refuted; but, inasmuch as it is being spread, heedless of such refutation, it becomes those who know its Satanic deception to do all they can to open the eyes of these brave, devoted men to their danger. True it is that the sacrifice they make is the very greatest that could be made. It is magnificent; but have we the slightest warrant for thinking that it, in itself, is an atonement for sin against God? That is the real question. What about the claims of the throne of God and His condign and necessary judgment of sin?

It is truly written that “God is love”; and that love has been richly proved by the gift of His Son; but the sacrificial death of our blessed Lord, whilst making perfect atonement, effects nothing for the sinner apart from repentance for his sins and faith in the Saviour.

It is this condition that is wholly ignored by the teachers of this error, and herein lies the cruel delusion.

Repentance before God is incumbent on every soul of man, everywhere; and so we read in the words of our Lord:— “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). That is conclusive.

When I truly repent and judge myself before God—the more deeply the better—and, like the Prodigal of Luke 15, I go to the Father making a clean breast of my miserable sins, receive at once from His gracious hand forgiveness and welcome to His house; but not otherwise. That house was not flung open to the Prodigal one moment before he cried:— “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” But that was enough! In fact we read that he had intended to do something meritorious—to become a “hired servant” in order to enter the house. Such an idea was never allowed; he was kissed and clad and welcomed on the sole but necessary ground of repentance. Need that word be explained? It is not penance, nor payment, nor personal merit, nor sacrifice great or small; but it is simply confessing to the gracious ear of God the Father the dread story of a life of guilt, and sin, and failure, and casting yourself fully on His saving grace.

Thus love and holiness are established. If God be “love,” remember that God is also “light,” and that it is quite as essential that “light” should be displayed, as that “love” should be shown.

The error in question hides the light, deceives the seeker, and puts the love in a wrong aspect.

We read of a “Padre” at the front who, just as the men were about to “go over the top,” passed down the word:— “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and there he stopped. He omitted what follows — the omission is fatal. He “went over the top” with the men, and made the “greatest sacrifice” —nobly—but infinitely more so had he added the saving clause to the part of that verse, viz.: — “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Believing in Him is the twin of repenting towards God.

And believe me, sir, the need of calling aloud for repentance before God is, today, and on all hands, profoundly necessary.

“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). This, too, is conclusive.—I am, yours, &c.

J. W. S.

Do You Really Want to Be Saved?

THERE are some who are actively opposed to the gospel. They are like drowning men who push away the lifebelt; like wounded men who tear off their bandages. They trample under foot their own salvation; they despise their only hope; they deliberately murder their own souls.

There are others whose creed might be summed up in the words, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” They have opinions on the gospel, but no convictions. They lay emphasis on material things, and neglect the real. They imagine they can live without God, and go on as they please, and yet prosper. They dream they can take or leave God’s message of life or death, and it will make no difference. They prefer to maintain the “don’t know” and the “we can’t be sure” attitude, because they find it very convenient to doubt.

But besides the soul-suicides and the “don’t cares” there is a third class. These are convinced that the gospel comes from God, and demands their obedience. They have seen its transforming power over the lives of some known to them. They have many a time been impressed by its truths. They have said to themselves that they ought to decide for the Saviour. They have resolved, and resolved, but nothing has come of it.

Others have pushed on, and opened their hearts to Christ, but they are still where they were years ago. They want to be saved, after a fashion, and yet they remain unsaved.

Why is this? It is simply because the wish to be saved is not the foremost desire in their heart. They do not long for it above all things else. They want to be saved, but they want to keep some of their sins too. They want to be saved, but they are not prepared to be saved in God’s way, and on God’s terms. They want to be saved, but they do not want to be saved in God’s time, which is now.

Reader, you will be saved as soon as you ma desire salvation above all other things. As soon as you are really willing, all obstacles to your salvation will be removed. There is no obstacle on God’s side. The obstacle is all on your side. Do you really want to be saved?

E. A.

"Milk Without Money,"

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.”—Isa. 55:1.

I WAS on an evangelistic tour through the North of Ireland, accompanied by a beloved fellow-labourer in the gospel. Being announced to preach at the town of L—, two routes to our destination lay open to us,—a long detour by rail, or a direct drive of about twenty miles on an outside jaunting-car over some verdant mountains. Taking the wise advice of our host of the previous night, we chose the latter, and being well furnished with little gospel books for the journey, we started.

My friend sat one side of the car and I the other, and all along our journey we scattered our precious gospel seeds, giving them to walkers, jerking them to riders in vehicles, and now and then jumping off, as our stout nag toiled up the hills, and handing them to rustic cottagers, and sunburned reapers in the fields of golden grain which, on all hands, waved under the balmy zephyr breezes of the loveliest day I ever saw in Erin’s isle.

Our tracts were welcomed on all hands; and one feels sure the fruit of this happy service will show up, in the day of the Lord, in the persons of some precious souls blessed through these little silent messengers.

The sun began to get very hot, and quite naturally, after two or three hours of this sort of work, we became rather thirsty. We had come on no very drinkable water, so, spying a little house where I knew there would be a cow or two, I asked our driver if he thought I could get some milk there. Receiving an affirmative answer, I ran to the door, which was open, and knocked. This brought out from the innermost apartment a sedate but pleasant-looking woman, evidently, I should judge, the mistress of the primitive establishment. Looking at me, as much as to say, What do you want? but not speaking, I courteously said, “Will you be good enough to sell me some milk?”

She paused a moment, and then very firmly replied “No!” following up this decided negative with a pleasant smile, and adding, “but I will give you some,” putting as strong an emphasis on the “give” as she had placed on the “no.”

So saying, she turned back to her little dairy, while I turned to my friend, who had come to my side, saying, “Now, that’s the gospel, is it not? God gives, but He will not sell, salvation.” We had a most delicious draught of cold sweet milk, for which we most truly gave her thanks, accompanied by some little gospel books, and a few words about God’s blessed Son and His great salvation, which was as free to her, by faith, as she had made her milk to us, and then resumed our journey.

Then, and many a time since, I have pondered over this scene as a lovely illustration of God’s way of dealing with souls who really want salvation. We did not know, and therefore did not count, on the bounty of the one we appealed to. And so it is with man. Not knowing God, he knows not the grace and love of His heart; and, though needy, and owning it too, fancies he must bring an equivalent to God ere he can get from Him that which he needs. If you, my reader, are of this mistaken class, may God open your eyes to see His way of salvation. His grace provides it, and not your works of any kind. There are two good reasons for this. First, God is too rich to sell salvation; and second, man is too poor to buy it. Hence you must get it as a gift, if you are to get it at all.

The quotation I have made at the head of this paper shows this truth very simply. The “thirsty” are invited. And are not you among this number? You certainly are, if you have not yet found Jesus, for “your labour,” whatever its nature, “satisfieth not.” Thirst is a craving which the suited fluid alone can satisfy. Now the thirst of an anxious soul is really for God and His Christ, though very likely it could not put it in so many words; but the Lord Jesus, who knows the heart well, says, “Whosoever drinketh of this water [the well of this world], shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:13, 14). Again He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink” (John 7:37); giving also this sweet assurance, “He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst; . . . and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out “ (John 6:35, 37).

Now, dear anxious reader, are not you invited? Do not these glorious words of the Saviour encourage you to come to Him? They ought to, if they do not. Listen again, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” “But,” you say, “how can I be sure it means me? Perhaps I am not thirsty enough, not anxious enough, for salvation.” Very likely; no one ever was as anxious as he should have been, considering God’s view of sin, and the awful danger of the unsaved sinner. But the point is not the measure of your anxiety, but the fact of your being “thirsty” or willing at all. If so, hear the word of the Lord: “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. . . Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 21:6; 22:17). What charming words! “I will give . . . freely.” That is God’s side. “Let him take . . . freely.” That is your side. God gives; all you have to do is to take what He gives.

What earnestness is with God, when thrice in this one verse He says “Come!” I cannot refrain from quoting it again, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, COME ye to the waters, and he that hath no money COME ye, buy and eat; yea, COME, buy wine and mill without money, and without price.” How blessedly falls that heaven-born word on the ear—come; come! COME! Who could refuse such grace? Come as you are; come in your sins; come in your guilt! Come in your distress; come in your sorrow, your helplessness, your poverty, your hardness of heart— yea, exactly as you are, as you read these lines! Only come, come to Jesus, and you will be received blessed, forgiven, cleansed, and saved on the very spot.

W. T. P. W.

Only Two Religions

“There are only two religions in the world:

The TRUE and the FALSE.

All phases of false religion are alike.

They all alike say: ‘SOMETHING in my hand I bring.’

The only difference between them being as to what that ‘something’ is.

The TRUE religion says: NOTHING in my hand I bring.”

LINES well worth pondering are these, reader, and we beg you to consider them.

You are, we will suppose, a religious person. Most people are. “Man,” said an ancient philosopher, “is a religious animal.”

You may have your particular ideas about religious questions; but are yours the true or the false?

Recently, while presenting the gospel on the streets of a Californian city, we were often interrupted. “Look here, sir! There are hundreds of religions in this country, and the followers of each sect think theirs the only right one. How can poor, plain men like us find out what really is the truth?” was substantially the question we were generally asked.

We replied something like this: “Hundreds of religions, you say? That’s strange; I’ve heard of only two.”

“Oh, but you surely know there are more than that!”

“Not at all, sir. I find, I quite admit, many shades of difference in the opinions of those comprising the two great schools; but after all there are but the two. The one covers all who expect salvation by DOING; the other, all who have been saved by something DONE. So you see the whole question is very simple. Can you save yourself, or have you to be saved by another? If you can be your own saviour, you do not need my message. If you cannot, you may well listen to it.”

This we would press also upon you, reader, and for a few moments ask your attention to a picture drawn by Christ Himself of the only two religions. A word picture it is, and a graphic one. You will find it in Luke 18:9-14. It is the well-known parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The first is the DOER, the man with “something” in his hand, which he offers God, hoping to buy a seat in heaven. Note his prayer: “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”

He is, surely, a representative man in the great Church of the Doers. What a handful he brings! his character, his fasts, and his tithes. A Pharisee he is called, but he will be found under a score of other names. We have beheld him in the garb of Papist and Jew, Churchman and Dissenter, Unitarian and Evangelical, Theosophist and Spiritist, Buddhist and Brahmin, Mormon and Mohammedan, Christian Scientist and Confucian, Jezreelite and— what not His robes are various; his prayers— the pith of them—are ever the same. Sometimes he quotes Scripture. Sometimes he rejects it.

We heard him once in the village church, telling how, by living an exemplary life, attending to religious duties, and keeping the commandments, he expected to go to heaven after death. His manner was earnest, his words were fervent. He dwelt much on reformation, lauded creature-righteousness, and had apparently forgotten that Christ had ever died, though he quoted the verse that says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” omitting to emphasize the fact that salvation must first be your own, and that this verse was written to those who were saved already.

Not long after we listened to the Pharisee again in the person of a Mormon elder, telling how his faith, his repentance, his baptism, the fact that hands had been laid on his head, and his good deeds, assured him, if he kept on to the end, of an exalted place after death; but not a word did he utter about the Lord Jesus—His cross, His death, His blood, His resurrection, or His Priesthood; and although he dwelt much on the doctrine of “justification by works,” he neglected to tell his hearers that such justification was before man— not before God. What need of Christ, if he could do so much himself?

We met this Pharisee also one day as a Spiritist medium, and asked him his ground of hope. He told us of his benevolence and righteousness, and vaunted loudly his earnest desire to “help the world,” and better his “ fellow-man,” but not a syllable did he utter of Him whom God hath made “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” to poor sinners who have received Him.

A few months since, also, we questioned a Chinese merchant as to whether he had peace in view of death. He said, in fairly plain English, that he tried to be a good man: he neither smoked opium nor gambled in the lottery (the two great sins of the Americanized “celestial”); besides, he worked hard and attended to the precepts of Kung Fu Tze (Confucius); so he saw no reason to fear. A Pharisee, though he wore a queue!

Different men were all these, and widely differing many of their views; but on one point they all agreed: salvation could be won by effort—no need for the Christ of God!

The publican in our chapter—how different was his case! Righteousness he had none to plead. Character he is almost ashamed to mention. Fasting and tithes he cannot tell of. Empty-handed he appears before God, his only hope that divine love may find a way whereby divine holiness may remain untarnished and divine righteousness be fully vindicated, yet he, a guilty wretch, be saved instead of damned.

The latter he deserves. His true condition he does not try to hide. Has God, then, grace for such as he? and can He, without compromising the dignity of His throne, let the poor sinner go free—nay, more, justify him before that throne, and bless him eternally?

He can. An apostle, once a Pharisee himself, but emptied at last of all his fancied goodness, tells us how, and in what name, it can be done. “Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38, 39). Here, then, is that on which even the publican can rest. Here is the religion for the lost and helpless. Every phase of the false one says “do”; but alas, he cannot do even what the law of Moses demands.

Blessed the message, then, that “true religion” brings. It tells that:

“Christ, in death, has wrought salvation,

God has raised Him from the tomb.”

Is this your ground of peace, dear reader; or do you belong to that great church started by Cain, who hoped, by his own efforts, to satisfy the claims of a holy God against sin, instead of, like Abel, resting on the blood of the sacrifice?

Only the two religions, then—only two today. Which is yours? Do you trust in self, or Christ? There is no third party on whom to rest. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

H. A. I.

A Blue-Jacket's Conversion

I HAD the inestimable blessing of a Christian mother, who continually prayed for me, and besought me to accept God’s offer of salvation in Christ.

When fifteen or sixteen years old I was under deep conviction, but the Devil got the victory by persuading me that it was impossible for me to live the Christian life in the place where I was apprenticed. I then made up my mind to wait till my apprenticeship was over, when I would obtain work in another part of the country, and there begin an entirely new and religious life.

Alas! I was no longer troubled. God left me to myself for several years, and I went on quite happy, doing my own will on the broad road that leads to destruction. In 1894 I joined the Royal Navy, with the settled conviction that it was impossible to be a Christian there, but have found out since that there is nothing impossible with God.

In 1896 I was drafted to a commission in H.M.S. “Polyphemus,” and commenced to make my own plans for life. But God’s eye was upon me in tender mercy; my dear mother had not ceased to pray on my behalf. Never did I get a letter from her without the enclosure of a tract, or a written reminder of my lost, sinful condition, and beseeching my acceptance of Christ.

God began to work afresh with me, and I was troubled about the future. I set myself a high moral standard. I would go to church and chapel regularly at Gibraltar. I became a teetotaler. I tried to give up cursing and swearing. Alas! alas! no sooner were resolutions made than they were doomed to failure. Thus three or four years passed over my head.

God at this time was watching over me, and at a time when I least expected it His loving hand came upon me. I was engaged to be married, when God took away the object of my affections. All my castles in the air came to naught; I knew God had spoken.

I was utterly broken down, and cried to God for mercy. I yielded to Christ. Oh! the relief and joy of that moment. I sat down and wrote to my dear mother that God had answered her prayers. Only those who have prayed for their loved ones can know the deep joy the news must have been to her.

God has kept me these fifteen years. I can truly say I never knew what true happiness was till I knew Christ as my Saviour. Like the Apostle Paul, in my feeble measure I can say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom. 1:16).

Reader, have you repented? Have you yielded? Have you believed? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

J. J. A.

"Jesus."

“Thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins.”—Matt. 1:21.

Tune.— “Pilgrims of the Night.”

OH! Matchless Name, all other names excelling,

‘Twas given from heaven at Thy lowly birth;

The greatness of the Father’s love revealing

The fulness of Thine own intrinsic worth.

Jesus, Lord Jesus! Ever the same,

Crowned now with glory, we triumph in Thy name.

Oh! Matchless Name, all other names excelling,

‘Twas written by Thy foes upon the Cross;

To all the world, the love of God forthtelling,

Proved by Thy sorrow, suffering, shame, and loss.

Jesus, Lord Jesus! Ever the same,

Crowned now with glory, we triumph in Thy name.

Oh! Matchless Name, by God the Father given

To Thee, now seated on th’ Eternal Throne;

The name through which lost sinners are forgiven,

Who rest upon the Work that Thou halt done.

Jesus, Lord Jesus! Ever the same,

Crowned now with glory, we triumph in Thy name.

Oh! Matchless Name, all other names excelling,

Name at which every knee so soon shall bow,

Lord Jesus Christ! our hearts with rapture swelling,

We own Thee; love Thee, praise Thee even now.

Jesus, Lord Jesus! Ever the same,

Crowned now with glory, we triumph in Thy name.

W. B. D.

"Get That Book!" or, the Major's Account of His Conversion

SAMUEL HEBICH was a well-known missionary from Switzerland, whose labors were greatly blest among the white and colored people of India, many of the British soldiers and officers being brought to the Lord through his ministry. He fell asleep in Jesus in the year 1868.

The manner in which I became acquainted with him is as peculiar as the man himself was.

My battalion was stationed in the province of Madras during one of the seasons of the hottest weather that I can remember. On account of the oppressive heat, there was a death-like stillness during the daytime as it was not advisable for a European to be outside till after sunset and before sunrise. Thus were we forced to idleness, which by no means was agreeable to us.

Just at this time there came the news, “Hebich is coming!”

At the officers’ club they spoke of nothing else all evening. Some had made his acquaintance in former years, but most of them, like myself, had only heard of him. One of the officers said, “We will each of us make his acquaintance soon enough, and without being introduced to him, for Hebich speaks to whom he pleases and asks no permission.”

I listened with astonishment and, at last, asked, “Who is this Hebich that moves about so freely?”

The peculiar tone of my question, which betrayed my annoyance, made some of them laugh, while one of my friends responded, “You will be one of the first he will attack, for they will soon tell him what a hardened sinner you are. Hebich came to India to work among the colored race, but he thinks the white heathen (for so he calls us) are in still greater need of the gospel than they; so he spends much of his time in visiting the garrisons, and many Europeans have been converted from their heathenism (?).”

This stirred up my indignation in no small degree, and I did not hesitate to express myself about Hebich and his “shameful boldness,” and said in conclusion, “If he should ever enter my quarters he would soon land outside again.”

A few days passed, and I had nearly forgotten about Hebich, when, one day, during the hottest part of the day, when every place looked deserted— even the colored people were forced to seek shelter inside—I was lying in my room, listlessly dreaming, when suddenly I heard footsteps outside.

My door and window were wide open, for a visitor could hardly be expected during these hot hours. The sound came nearer, and in walked Hebich. Yes, it must be he, it could be no one else. He was a tall, haggard-looking man, with a long, loose hanging coat. In his bony hand he held a large hat, and under his arm he carried a huge umbrella; indeed, he was a sight to make one laugh, but for the venerable face and the penetrating look in his eyes. Yet it was not a harsh look, but rather of tenderness, kindness, and sympathy, which it was not easy to resist, yea, which one would feel ashamed not to follow. One’s own heart seemed to feel, “This man knows better than I do what I need.”

Hebich came nearer and made a low bow. I arose and went to meet him. He extended his right hand to me kindly, and bade me “good day.” Where was now my intention to put the man out of my quarters? I felt like a school boy, whom the principal had come to see. But Hebich seemed to feel as much at home and as comfortable as I felt strange and embarrassed in my own dwelling. He asked me politely to take a seat, helping himself to a chair which he brought near to my own and sat down.

After a short silence, he said, “GET THAT BOOK!” Without objecting, I went to my bookcase. While I stood before my books, I had no need to ask which book my visitor wanted. There were works of human imagination—poetry—but none of these he wanted. The man who had just come in wanted reality—truth—not imagination. There were also important works on war, but Hebich did not want any of these; he was a messenger of peace. Yes, there in the corner stood a neglected book, which was now wanted—the Holy Scriptures, God’s word. It belongs to the outfit of every officer of the British army, and for that reason it was not missing in my own library, but I had never opened it, I now found it quickly and laid it on the table before us.

“Open the book at the first chapter of Genesis, and read the first two verses.”

I obeyed and read like an attentive pupil, loud and distinct: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

“That will do! Now close the book and we will pray.” With these words the man kneeled down to pray and I followed. What he prayed I do not know. I was not able to keep two thoughts in their connection. Where would all this lead me to? I did not know what to think, say or do.

Hebich finished his prayer and rose, and I followed his example. He shook my hand in solemn earnestness, made a bow, which I mechanically returned, and he left my dwelling as he had come.

That night I did not go to the officers’ club, partly because I was afraid, though no man had ever called me a coward; and partly because I felt unable to converse with anyone. It was difficult for me to do the regular routine work.

The following day I was lounging in my large armchair, unoccupied as the day before, but I felt very strange. In my heart raged a great battle, and I was shrinking in fear from that which might still come, and yet having a desire for something better and higher than I had ever known. All at once I heard footsteps, the same as the day before; now in the yard, now on the porch, now at the door, and there stood Hebich again.

Again I rose to bid him “Good day,” but again I was embarrassed. Again he begged me politely to take a seat, and seated himself on a chair near me, then after the same solemn pause came the request, “GET THAT BOOK!”

Just as the day before, without any objection, I went to my bookcase and got the Bible.

“Turn to the first chapter of Genesis and read the first two verses.”

I read, loud and distinct, as before: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

“That will do! Close the book and we will pray.” This time I listened to his prayer. Oh! what a prayer! It was like as a man talks with his friend. Never before had I heard a prayer from the heart. He told His God and Father all about me. He implored Him to show me what I was, that I might know myself and flee into the open arms of the Redeemer — Jesus — to find salvation. Again he took leave in the same solemn and earnest way as the day before. The Bible still lay open on the table. I dared not close the book and put it away. I felt drawn to read once more for myself those wonderful verses which began to have such a power over me. Like a pupil who had been sent back to his lesson, I sat down before the Bible, and again and again read those verses till they burned in my very soul.

I needed no interpreter; the words interpreted themselves; they pictured myself. Yes, I was void and without form; sin had made me so, and the darkness of indifference and unbelief hid from my own view, like a thick fog, my utter ruin, and God’s love, His heart and His face. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Had this strange man brought me, by these words and his prayer, in touch with the living God? Was this wonderful power which I felt come over me perhaps the moving of the Spirit of God upon me? If ever a man was bowed and humbled; if ever a heart was convinced of its sinfulness and corruption, as well as the need of redemption through our Lord and Saviour, it was I. All pride and prejudice fell like thick scales from my eyes.

How I spent the time till the next day I do not know. I thought no more about the heat; something of greater importance occupied my mind. It was the first pulse-beats of a new life, the dawning of a new sunrise in my soul.

The same footsteps of yesterday and the day before could at last be heard, and at the same hour. My Bible lay before me open; I was just waiting for the teacher. My heart was full. I rose to meet Hebich, and took his hand.

“Oh! Hebich,” I said, “it is all clear to me now. What must I do?”

He looked at me with the pity of true love, and said, “My son” (for by faith he considered me won by the gospel), “we hear that God said, ‘Let there be light.’ ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved’” (Acts 16:31).

He directed me to the Cross of Calvary, where Jesus bore my sins, where He shed His precious blood for me; then he pointed me upward to the throne, where Christ is now sitting, glorified, at the right hand of God, as my peace, my life, and my righteousness before God.

Finally we knelt down for prayer and praise, and this day I prayed for the first time without a book, from the heart. I had found life and peace, and I thanked God my Father for His great salvation— eternal life, which He had given me through faith in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.

I could sing,

“‘Tis done, the great transaction’s done;

I am my Lord’s and He is mine.

He drew me and I followed on,

Charmed to confess the voice divine.

Happy day! Happy day!

When Jesus washed my sins away.”

My dear reader, has God, who has caused the light to shine out of darkness, brought light into your heart to show how unclean and corrupt you are before Him?

Do you know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour and your Friend? Why not?

MAJOR —

"Peace Upon Earth."

GONE from the earth is the peace that we covet!

So said the sage, as the war tide swept on:

Where is the word of the heavenly prophet?

Peace upon earth? There is none! There is none!

What of the story that Bethlehem’s manger

Cradled the One who should stablish its sway?

Two thousand years gone, and still ‘tis a stranger,

Peace upon earth! Who can find it today?

Ah! ‘tis a fable, said he, to deceive us,

Told long ago by some crafty old priest:

True, there is something sublime about JESUS;

But “on the earth peace,” it does not exist.

Hark to the crash of the guns they are plying!

Hark to the shriek of shot, shrapnel and shell!

HUSH! . . . there’s a voice! . . . midst the wounded and dying,

“Peace, perfect peace! With my soul it is well.”

[NOTE—The incident of the soldier on the battlefield is based on fact. What else can give “peace with God” save the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ? The false teaching of some, who seek to produce unreal courage in the soldiers by saying that their own death for their country will save them, neither gives peace with a holy God, nor assurance in His presence. Its deception may produce a sort of fanaticism, but the experience of most is, that few soldiers believe it, and that most of them despise it. Peace with God and eternal salvation result ALONE from the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.]

Took he his pencil and wrote to his “brother,”

Straight from the blast of the battlefield’s flood:

“I have been hit, but like many another,

Oh! I have peace, through my Saviour’s shed blood.”

Peace upon earth? Yes, and peace in the battle;

Peace with the God against whom was my sin;

Peace in the soul; nor the roar and the rattle

Raging without me can change it within.

Only the One who was sinless and holy

Giveth to God the full price of our guilt:

‘Tis not my death, but the death of Christ solely,

Saveth the soul, saveth thee, if thou wilt.

Nor did the stable of Bethlehem receive Him

Only to bring peace on earth to the soul;

Hastens a day when the world shall believe Him;

Backward the war clouds of nations He’ll roll.

Yes; for He cometh to rule,—spread the story!

E’en as He first came to suffer for sin;

Coming to sway the strong scepter of glory;

Coming with peace which He first died to win.

Coming to calm the cruel storms of the nations,

Gladness and rest to all people He brings!

Joyful they yield Him their richest oblations,

Blessing and praising the true KING OF KINGS.

Flourish the palm and the beautiful olive!

Tell ye the sage that the dove’s rest has come!

True was the word of the angels’ sweet missive,

Peace for the earth, for the heart, and the home.

H. J. V.

Where Will You Be Tomorrow?

SEVERAL years ago I stayed at Scarborough. The daughter of our landlady became suddenly ill, and, after a very brief illness, died. It seemed so strange. Everyone around bent on pleasure, while in the midst of it all was death.

I walked out of the darkened house along the promenade. Two girls were just leaving one another, and arranging about meeting the next day. As they parted the one shouted to the other: “Where will you be tomorrow?”

The question haunted me. “Where will you be tomorrow?” Aye, where? I thought of the hundreds of pleasure seekers round me, and wondered what answer they would give to the question were it put to them.

Now, dear reader, what about you? “Where will YOU be tomorrow?” Ponder the question, my friend. Don’t trifle with it. Don’t take the risk you undergo by thinking, “I shall be all right tomorrow.”

God’s word says, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (Jas. 4:14).

A certain man thought he had MUCH goods laid up for MANY years, but God said to him, “Thou fool! THIS NIGHT thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:20).

My friend, suppose God said to you, “THIS NIGHT,” where would you be tomorrow? Would you be able to say, like the apostle Paul, “With Christ, which is far better”? Or would it be said of you, as it was of that rich man who died, “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments”? (Luke 17:23).

Friend, you may escape such a fearful doom. “TO-DAY, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart” (Heb. 4:7). “God NOW commandeth ALL men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). “Behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). You may have salvation NOW. “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

A friend of mine often spoke to a man regarding his soul’s salvation, but he put the matter off, intending, when he had more time, to give the matter his earnest consideration. One evening my friend called to see him, and found him busily engaged gathering apples. In response to an earnest entreaty as to salvation, he said, “I will settle the matter tonight.” Poor fellow, he never had the opportunity, for he fell down the ladder, and broke his neck. He had scores of opportunities, but missed them.

My friend, “Where will you be tomorrow?”

J. W. B.

"No God!"

A MAN was telling a fellow-traveler in a tram. car how he had been working in the Cleveland ironstone mines with an infidel, who was always holding forth his views—his chief point being that there is no God! He said:

“One day, however, some lumps of ironstone from the top fell on him, hurting him badly, and then the first words I heard were, ‘Oh! God have mercy on me.’

“‘Why, I thought you said there was no God?’ I said to him when I had got him out.”

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. 14:1), but Scripture never says, the fool believes in his heart there is no God!

No, whatever a man may say to the contrary, in the depths of his heart he knows there is God, and that He is the God “with whom we have to do.” He has but to be brought face to face with death to be made to acknowledge Him.

The solemn testimony of Scripture is, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

But, thank God, it does not stop there, for the next verse says, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

Will you not trust the Lord Jesus, who has revealed God as Saviour? To do so means eternal blessing. Do it now.

F. A.

An Interview With a Mohammedan

IT was in the month of March 1894 that I sat in the bungalow of a noted godly missionary in the neighborhood of the city of Hyderabad, in the Deccan, India. The thermometer stood at 93 degrees, and was not much lower at night, so that sleep was unrefreshing, and it would soon be time to think of moving to a cooler climate ere the heavy rains should burst.

We had had many long talks over the state of the Mohammedans, and the awful hatred to the name of Christ and the way of salvation.

One morning a tall, handsome young man called for an interview.

I was introduced to him. He was a fine-looking native, very dark-skinned, who had had an excellent education in one of the colleges in India, and spoke English perfectly—a Mohammedan by religion, and a devout one. After a little general talk, I said:

“May I, sir, ask a great favour of you? I am an Englishman on a short visit to India, and I have had no opportunity of hearing direct from a Mohammedan what is the central fact or hope in his religion. Could you put it before me simply, tersely, and in a way that I might easily understand?”

“Certainly, and with the greatest pleasure. We believe in Mohammed as the last and the greatest of the Prophets.”

“Who came before him?”

“Well, there was a succession of holy, good men, teachers and prophets, such as Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Samuel, Daniel, Christ, and others, and, last all, came the greatest of them all—Mohammed.”

“Do you ever pray to him?”

“Of course not. He has been dead these hundreds of years.”

“Then what can he do for you?”

“Nothing at all. How can a dead man help anyone? What an idea! He can hear nothing, see nothing, do nothing.”

“Then I don’t quite see what good he is, or why you venerate him so.”

“Well, he is God’s great revelation, and his words abide as written in our holy book, The Koran.”

“And what is the truth about God?”

“We believe, first, that there is only One True God.”

“So do we.”

“Then, that this One True God is Almighty.”

“So do we.”

“Then, that this One True God is also All-Merciful.”

“So do we.”

“Therefore at the close of each day at sunset, every true Mohammedan kneels down with his face toward the sun, and says his prayers, asking God to forgive his sins, and God does so.”

“How do you know that?”

“It can’t be otherwise. God is Almighty and All-merciful. He cannot but forgive sins when asked in the right way.”

“But how do you know it, sir? Has He told you so?”

“Don’t you see there is no alternative—He must. Being Almighty and All merciful He cannot do otherwise.”

“But then, you want some proof. Now, if I am not thought rude, may I ask, how do You personally know that God has forgiven you your sins?”

“I think I kind of feel it every evening.”

“Then you have no other evidence of it?”

“No; but that’s enough.”

“Do you ever go to bed, sir?”

“Of course I do, and to sleep too.”

“And then, what happens to your feelings? They go, too, do they not? And if the feelings of pardon go, does not the pardon go along with them? I should think it was a most risky thing to go to sleep and lose the feeling of being forgiven. Suppose you die in your sleep, would it not be most serious?”

“Well, now, really, I never thought of that before. Yes, I’m afraid it is much more serious than I had imagined. I hardly know what to think about it. But tell me, what do you know more than we?”

“Well, sir, a good deal; and, first of all, will you allow me to say that you have omitted a very important fact from your definition of God? You have said that He is Almighty and All-merciful, but you have left out that He is All-righteous, and that is as important as the other two. Being All-righteous He cannot possibly give to anyone an illegal pardon. If He pardons any sin, He must do so in a way that can never be challenged or called in question by anyone at any time, and I doubt if you have thought of that carefully. It is a most important factor in the whole question.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, I can’t see any sense in it. God being Almighty can do anything.”

“No, sir, you are not quite correct there. He cannot do a wrong thing, an unjust thing, an illegal thing. He dare not. Righteousness is as essential a quality of His nature as power and love.”

“I declare I can’t see any sense in your remarks.”

“Then allow me to try and make it plain by an illustration. Supposing you had committed some crime, which was a breach of the laws of your country, that you had been arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude quite justly; and then suppose your friends had gone to your Nizam with an earnest petition for your forgiveness and release, and he had been pleased of his goodness to pardon you and send down word for your immediate release, having the power thus to pardon any whom he choose, would such an act have been merciful?”

“Certainly it would.”

“But would it have been right?”

“No, indeed, it would not. It would not have been fair to the rest of the community.”

“Exactly so; and now I can use your own words to prove my point on the greater matter. God cannot pardon you, or anyone else, simply on the ground of mercy. Wrong has been done, injury has been done. Sin is a destructive force, and it would not be fair to the rest of the community.”

“But what is the community in this case?”

“A great unknown, unnumbered host of unfallen holy ones surround the throne of God. These are the angelic hosts who have been spoken of as ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; and others besides. If any such went to heaven, he would be amongst this community, and they would intensely resent such pardoned sinners being admitted into their company. If it would be unfair and wrong here, it would be a thousand times more so there. In fact, the thing is an impossibility. The throne of God is established in righteousness, and nothing can possibly be allowed to happen to undermine or question that righteousness. Forgiveness, as you imagine and suggest, would be that very thing. The law has claims that have first to be met and settled, and until they are, nothing more can be done in the way of divine pardon.”

“Then, what have you more than we to meet this?”

“A great deal, and it is most important.”

“Would you mind telling me?”

“Not at all, if you would like to know. It is this: I personally have a Friend, whom I have known now for some time, a very remarkable and wonderful Person. Some long time ago He very kindly looked most carefully and fully into this whole question for me, and undertook to settle Himself in the full and proper way all the claims that the Law of God had against me in the matter of sin. He was in a position to know the whole thing in a way I did not, and could not, and He has undertaken the same thing for many others beside me.”

“How extremely interesting. I never heard of such a thing. Who is He? Where does He live? When did you see Him last? He must be an extraordinary Person!”

“Yes, that is just the fact. Let me tell you a little more. Not only has He undertaken the whole thing, but has Himself become responsible for all contingencies, bearing all losses, and submitting to all the penalties that were legally due, and had to be enforced for all sin against God’s law.”

“How very extraordinary! I don’t think you mentioned His Name, did you?”

“All of us who know Him personally are profoundly thankful to Him, because it has taken away the great difficulty between us and God. There is no further question of right in the matter. It is right and just for the All-merciful and All-righteous God thus to forgive any that accept what this Friend has done in satisfying all legal liabilities.”

“Do tell me His Name, and where He lives.”

“Well, sir, this Friend’s name is the Lord Jesus Christ, who long ago visited this earth, and on the Cross bore all our sins and their penalty, and has now ascended, and is alive and in the presence of God for us, able and willing to administer the results of His own wonderful Sacrifice on the Cross. He can hear and answer prayer too, being alive from the dead.”

The mention of that Name produced the most extraordinary sudden change in my Mohammedan friend. His eyes flashed fury and wrath. He sprang from his chair, and looked as though he would have drawn his dagger from his belt and stabbed me on the spot. Fortunately, a big table was between us. I bade him be seated, and behave himself, and listen while I told him again what were the grounds on which alone divine pardon could be given to any sinner.

But the mention of that Name, that blessed Name, was the signal for such an outburst of hate and scorn, in the midst of which he rushed out of the bungalow, and I saw him no more.

Mohammedan hatred to Christ is strong, bitter, and relentless, awfully sad and hopeless. But what about the hostility to Christ in human hearts in the English-speaking world, that know better how to conceal it, but who are practically possessed by it? “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), and it is a small matter as to what phase of manifestation it takes on.

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you!” saith the Lord (John 15:18).

Are you a lover or a hater? Neither, perhaps you would say. He says, “He that is not with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12:30). There is no such thing as neutrality. If not committed to Christ definitely, authoritatively, then you are reckoned an enemy, a foe of God, not of the Mohammedan type possibly, which is bitter and bloodthirsty, but none the less under the control of the great foe, the Prince of Darkness.

The cry goes out again from this little paper, “Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20), and through the appointed way, the

Death of His Son.

G. S.

The General and the Evangelist

A YOUNG Christian soldier, who was dying in a hospital in France with enteric fever, wrote home: “It is terrible to hear dying men being told that a crown of glory awaits them, because they are laying down their lives for their country. It makes my blood boil to hear dying men so deceived. Why don’t they send out men who can tell them how they can be saved?”

A general told an evangelist that hg must preach this to the men. “I take my orders from the King of Kings,” replied the evangelist, “and He bids me preach salvation for the lost through the atoning death and blood-shedding of Christ alone, and that there is salvation in nothing else?”

“Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

F. A.

The Gospel Messenger: Volume 32 (1917)

Table of Contents

How God Used a Telegram

Where Is True Happiness to Be Found?

Suddenly Cut Off

How Can Man Be Just With God?

"There's Naught Here."

The Story of My Conversion

"A Song of My Native Land."

How Wellington Came From Waterloo

The Two Packages

In the Dark

What Will You Do?

"Ho! Every One That Thirsteth."

How an Address Was Given to Two Cows and Some Hay

What Happened at a Midnight Service

"Forgiven."

God's Way of Blessing

A Dying Testimony

"God Says I Am Saved."

"He Being Dead yet Speaketh."

"I Am Going Home."

The Sunken Rock; or, a Victim of Unbelief

How I Was Converted!

"If Only One Were Sure."

Where Was the Hindrance?

How an Old Couple Received Christ

The Grey Horses

The Voice of Jesus

Self-Deceived

Just - and a Justifier

"A Leap in the Dark."

A Remarkable Letter by a Cambridge Professor

Procrastination

How I Became a Soldier

A Letter From a Retired Army Officer

Do You Really Want to Be Saved?

"Milk Without Money,"

Only Two Religions

A Blue-Jacket's Conversion

"Jesus."

"Get That Book!" or, the Major's Account of His Conversion

"Peace Upon Earth."

Where Will You Be Tomorrow?

"No God!"

An Interview With a Mohammedan

The General and the Evangelist