OUR eight-day kitchen timepiece was out of order, so I gave it in charge of the carrier, to take to a man in our nearest town who understood its mechanism. On its return, I noticed the minute hand was not secure; however, I fitted it as tightly as I could with my fingers. The clock hung again in its place, and told out the minutes and hours as before. Some time elapsed, when one day in passing I noticed that there was only one hand; I opened the case, and discovered the missing one below, lying useless and idle. I replaced it as best I could, but after this, was occasionally deceived in the time by the loosely fitting hand; still I bore with its uncertainty, without seeking the cause.
One day a young friend called. The hand of the clock this time was stationary, and I remarked to him that it occasionally disappeared.
He exclaimed immediately, “The pin which should hold it is missing."
“Of course the pin should hold it," I said, wondering at my own want of thought. “I remember now the pin was missing when the carrier brought it home. Oh! it is the pin that is needful to make it work complete and dependable." In this is there not a little parable to ourselves? Is it not so, that when Jesus holds us, we can work for Him; but apart from Him, all is untrue, unreal, unsafe, unsatisfactory.
Dear reader, this is a simple parable. How often we forget that it is the Lord who must hold us. “Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe," pleads David in Psalm 119:117117Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually. (Psalm 119:117); adding, “And I will have respect unto Thy statutes continually." Nothing else will keep us safely; nothing will so much make us "have respect unto His statutes continually," save His holding us safely. M. A. W,
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In the Light of Eternity
A GERMAN scholar lay dying. He had worked hard, and was leaving as a legacy to coming generations, a book in which he supposed that he had proved, beyond doubt or question, that there is no life beyond the grave. Suddenly a "horror of great darkness" came upon him, and springing up in bed, he shouted—" There is another world," and falling back upon his pillow he expired. F. H. F.