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A-TOPICS TOPIC: Absorbers SUBTOPIC: Who Never Give Out TITLE: The Self-Centeredness Of Coal Some persons receive and absorb all the good that comes within their reach.

A piece of coal does not reflect any light; all the light that falls on it is swallowed up and kept to itself. This is what makes it look so black, so dark, so disagreeable. Selfish, miserly people are like coal in this respect.

They don’t reflect or scatter about them anything they receive. Whatever God gives them they swallow up and keep to themselves. And the sparkling diamond and the dull, ugly-looking piece of coal are not more different from each other than liberal, generous-hearted Christians like Lady Huntingdon and John Wesley, are different from such miserly people as most of us know, I dare say. — Revelation Richard Newton, D.D.

TOPIC: Activity SUBTOPIC: Christian TITLE: Christian Activity I said to a French soldier on the streets of Paris, who was showing his wounds, an old Crimean veteran, “What about the Alma? What about Malakoff?” He said: “We took it with a rush.” So God’s messengers everywhere take things with a rush. Jehu drives furiously because he has got a commission of God, he puts all his strength into it. His horses’ feet seem barely to touch the ground; more like with wings does that steed make his way across the plain. The king’s business requireth haste.

TOPIC: Acts SUBTOPIC: Can Not Be Undone TITLE: Acts Done Cannot Be Undone I was in a museum and saw some slabs there which had existed ages before the creation of man. I could see in that sandstone block the three-webbed feet of a bird. Once the stone had been a slimy, sandy beach, and that bird walked in its solitariness across it. God’s law laid hold of it, and the indent of that bird’s feet is made in the rock, and you cannot jostle it out. Oh, dear young fellow, our deeds become granite and cannot be undone. Many a deed is lying on a burdened conscience. Many a deed done long ago is bringing the tears to a Christian’s eyes — deeds forgotten by God, but deeds never forgotten by himself. There will be a minor tone of pathos in that man’s heart throughout eternity. You cannot recall the past. And Esau for years regrets his bargain. He sought his birthright with tears. He came before his father and the big, manly heart of him said: “Oh, my father, hast thou but one blessing? Bless me, even me, O my father!” But Jacob has got it. And Esau, stunned, went away — John Robertson .

TOPIC: Advice SUBTOPIC: Bad, Ignored TITLE: A Merry Beginning A member of a college class, soon after graduation, was admitted to the practice of his chosen profession, the bar. Leaving the court house, he was met by a brilliant young man, who took him by the hand, saying: “Now you have been admitted to the bar, let me give you a little advice. Have your name taken from the church roll, burn your Bible, and you will make your mark.” It was a moment of supreme temptation. Turning from him, the young lawyer walked straight to the depository and invested almost his last half-dollar in a pocket Bible. A quarter of a century passed, and this lawyer met, on the same spot, the wreck of this same brilliant young man. With bloodshot eye and matted hair and beard — extending the same hand, he said, “Colonel, for God’s sake, give me half a dollar, and let me get out of this town to get off this spree.” As he drew from his pocket the coveted coin, he thought of his former investment.

TOPIC: Age SUBTOPIC: Need Not Hinder Achievement TITLE: Not Too Old George Washington was 43 when he drew his sword under the historic elm at Cambridge as “captain general and commander-in-chief” of the Colonial forces. He was just the age of Julius Caesar when he took command of the army in Gaul, of Napoleon when he made the mistake of his life and started in to conquer Russia, and he was ten years older than Alexander was when he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer.

Charlemagne was just his age when he overcame Wittikind, the Saxon chief, and made all Germany Christian, and the “captain general of the Continentals” was just as old as was Constantine when he determined to make himself master of the world. He was as old as Sesostris, the Pharaoh, when he conquered the Hittites and persecuted the children of Israel; as Hannibal when he gave up the hope of conquering Rome and left Italy to defend Carthage against Scipio.

TOPIC: Aim SUBTOPIC: Taking TITLE: Taking Aim Did you ever see a company of soldiers going through their exercises?

Well, if you have, you will remember that, after their muskets are loaded, the officer who is exercising them calls out, “Make ready — take aim — fire.”

The aim of each soldier is the thing which he tries to hit when he fires his gun.

When soldiers are engaged in what is called target-shooting, or firing at a mark, they have a large board set up, at some distance from them. The surface of this board is painted all over in black and white rings or circles.

In the center of the board is a small black circle, sometimes called the bull’s-eye. Every soldier, as he takes aim, tries to hit the bull’s-eye, or black circle, in the center of the board. The aim of the soldier is that which he tries to hit with his gun.

And in the same way we use the word aim as referring to anything a person undertakes to do. If a new scholar enters your class in school, and says to himself, as he enters, “Now I am going to be the head of this class,” and if he begins to study his lessons with great diligence and care, so as to get above the others, then you may say the aim of that scholar is to be the head of the class. The aim of Christopher Columbus was to discover a shorter way to India. The aim of Sir John Franklin and his companions, who perished in the Arctic regions, was to find out a passage by sea from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The aim of Dr. Kane, in his voyage to the north, was to find out what had become of Sir John Franklin. The aim of Dr. Livingstone, in his long journey through Africa, was to find out the best way of carrying the gospel into the interior of that vast country.

There are a great many aims that people set before them in this world.

Some aim to get great riches others to get a great name; and others to enjoy great pleasure. But St. Paul tells us of an aim that is much better than all these. He says, Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” — Richard Newton.

TOPIC: Anchored In A Safe Harbor SUBTOPIC: Through Faith In God’s Word TITLE: The Spirit’s Work In Regeneration I was in the Soldiers’ Home at Eric, Pa. I had spoken to the old soldiers in the chapel. As I came down from the platform, the gentleman said to me: “There is one room I want not to visit. We have had in this institution the captain of the old Merrimac. He came into this institution an atheist. He never would come into the services, and when he was asked to read the Bible, he just scorned the thought of it. When he was in his room here, before he died, I brought in a Bible and said, ‘Captain, would you like to read this Bible?’ and he scorned the proposition; it looked as though it was useless to say anything more to him. But I said: ‘Suppose you read the Bible and see whether there is anything in it that you could believe, and if there is not, you tell me so. But as you read, whenever you find anything that you think you might receive, suppose you mark it with red ink.’ He thought that was a good way to prove there was nothing in the Bible for him. I had him begin with the Gospel of John. He read two chapters without marking anything. He began on the third chapter and read fifteen verses without being moved. He began on the sixteenth verse, and then the old captain marked the verse red. He could receive a text like that.”

By this time we had reached the room where the old captain had died a few weeks before and there was the pasteboard anchor the old man had cut out for himself, and the words were his own, printed in red ink, “I have cast anchor in a safe harbor.” The very floor seemed to be like holy ground. They sent his Bible home, but they tell me you would have a hard time to find a page without red on it. He had come to receive the whole book. That is the work of the spirit. His work was just that. The old captain would have nothing to do with a minister, and he would have nothing to do with a person who spoke of Jesus Christ; he didn’t want to have anything to do with Christ. It was the work of the Holy Ghost.

TOPIC: Anxiety SUBTOPIC: Hurtful TITLE: Anxiety Hurtful And what does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow, brother, of its sorrow; but, ah! it empties today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil, it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes. It does not bless tomorrow, and it robs today. For every day has its own burden.

God gives us power to bear all the arrows of his making; but he does not give us the power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is. — Ian Maclaren.

B-TOPICS TOPIC: Back Not Turned In The Battle SUBTOPIC: By Faithful Christian Soldiers TITLE: Not A Coward “Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.” 1 Samuel 17:45.

In the battle of Bull Run a lad had been dreadfully wounded, but he was borne to the hospital, where his father visited him. The surgeon was there probing for the bullet that had done its fatal work, and the father, as he seated himself by the bedside, said, “My poor boy you are terribly hurt, I see, in the back.” “No, father, I am wounded in the breast. The bullet went in here,” and he laid his hand on his breast, “not at the back.” The bullet was not received in the back, though it was being searched for there. He showed the bleeding wound to his father, and it was in the breast. So with David. Whatever the issue be today, whether he kills Goliath or Goliath kills him, I know that his wounds will be in the breast. If you be slain before the foe, let your dead corpse tell that you died facing the enemy.

Fronting the foe is a stiff position for the shepherd lad to take up.

Whatever the issue, the fight will be a fair and square one; there will be no wounding in the back. David has committed his cause t o God, and that is better than committing it to man. Is David alone when He stands there before that giant? And, the living God, is with him, and he is all right. If your have God, what does it matter whether you have man or not. If you have Jesus Christ with you, let others applaud or hiss; it is all the same to you, you will go forward. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Base Things SUBTOPIC: Used To Confound The Mighty TITLE: Christ, A Vision There was a man in the streets of Chicago who was next to an imbecile, but he was regenerated, and the power of God came upon him. He could not do what many others are capable of doing, but he went up and down the streets begging money, and gave it for the furtherance of the gospel.

And reading the Bible, he wore out two Bibles. He became a marvel; so much so that one of the prominent Presbyterian editors went to interview him. He heard him read the third of John, and as the poor man read, the power of God seemed to fall upon him as on the early disciples in the beginning. After he finished, the editor said, “Would you tell me the secret of this? I want to write it in my paper. And all the answer he could get to his question was, “I have seen Jesus Christ; I have seen him.” Oh, that our eyes might be opened tonight, that every sin that has obstructed the vision may be taken away tonight, and we can say, “I have seen God face to face”! “And Jacob called the name of the place Penuel.”

TOPIC: Being There SUBTOPIC: In The Battle TITLE: Service Recognized From the battlefields of the Peninsula, a little band of veterans came forth, and they received each a medal with the names of all their battles on one side, and on the other side this little sentence, “I was there.” O, when that hour shall come, may it be a glad, glad, glad thought to look back on this life we have lived, and on the toils and sacrifices of these days, and remember, “I was there; I was there, and by the help of God and the grace of Jesus, I am here.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Being What God Chose To Make Us SUBTOPIC: Most Grand And Precious TITLE: Nothing Small With God A distinguished preacher has said, “There is a definite and proper end and issue for every man’s existence, an end which to the heart of God is the good intended for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is privileged to become, called to become, ought to become; that which God will assist him to become, and which he cannot miss save by his own fault.

Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God — a divine biography marked out, which it enters into life to live.” Surely this is a great thought, and one that gives to life — to each and every life, the smallest, the obscurest — a sacred dignity and importance. Nothing can be trivial or common which the great God thinks about, plans and creates. The lowliest place in this world, to the person whom God made to occupy that place, is a position of rank and honor glorious as an angel’s seat, because it is one which God formed an immortal being in his own image and with immeasurable possibilities to fill. George MacDonald says, “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest. grandest, and most precious things in all thinking.” — Miller.

TOPIC: Bible SUBTOPIC: Distinguished TITLE: The Bible Distinguished Despite all the assaults of the destructive higher critics, the “old book stands.” Of it the British Weekly well says: “The Bible is distinguished from all books of devotion, even from books of such rare quality as the ‘Imitatatio Christi,’ by its wholesome realism and sense of the divine order of life. Not a line of it was written in a cloister or in a church — not a line of it, therefore, by a saint, in the ecclesiastical sense; not a line of it could have been. The breath of the world is in it, of the actual realities and which men live, as well as the breath of God. It never forgets that when God came to bless us in his son, he came eating and drinking, accepting the natural structure of society and all that it involved, and leaving us the unpretentious example of his holiness in a life whose outward fashion was that of all mankind.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Bible SUBTOPIC: Reading TITLE: Bible Reading Not Enough Bible reading is not enough — with the open page in your hand, my friend, you may go to hell! I noticed the other day on the roadside a signpost with on it the words, “To Edinburgh 7 miles.” For Edinburgh was I bound, and here was the welcome instruction from the dumb signboard. What would you think if I, footsore and weary, and eager to be in your bonny city, had mounted that signboard, straddled stride legs upon it, and given the “Hech me!” of contentment and resolution to stick on its top? You would come by, and salute me first, as usual, about the weather; then Scotchman-like, it would be about the whither! “Oh, I’m going to Edinburgh.” “To Edinburgh? What are you doing up there then?” “Why, can’t you read?

Read, read and see.” “To Edinburgh 7 miles.” “’Yes, isn’t it grand to be here? On this signpost that speaks this blessed speech!” Well, you begin to feel eerie-sort and slip by and you report to the policeman that there’s a queer-looking chap squatting on the roadside signpost seven miles from Edinburgh, and you’re sure he must have escaped from Morningside Asylum! Ay, you would think rightly, and do rightly in that case, but oh! dear, dear soul, examine yourself, are you in your Bible-reading and resting just as silly and insane? Are you straddled on the signpost to Calvary? Are you content with your chapter and chapter and chapter that but point you “Behold the Lamb of God”? Are you resting in your daily portion, your family-worship? Have you used this Bible just for what it was meant for — to direct you to the Christ, the A and Z of it? Have you arrived at the signaled salvation? Are you converted, born again of this water of the word, and of this spirit of the person? Are you a Christian, Christ’s one? — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Bible SUBTOPIC: Proper Emphasis TITLE: Secret of Bible Study Prof. W. G. Moorhead of Xenia Theological Seminary, told me that one day he was returning to his home from one of his journeys, and wanted to take with him some present for his children. He decided at last that the present would be a dissected map. When he gave it to his two girls he said, “Now if you can put this together you will know more of geography than if you studied a book.” They worked very patiently, but at last one of them rose to her feet, saying, “I cannot put it together,” and said the great Bible teacher, “it was an awful jumble.” They had a part of North America in South America, and other mistakes quite as serious were made.

Suddenly, however, the larger, who was still on her knees, discovered that the other side of one piece of the map was a man’s hand. Curiosity prompted her to turn over the other piece and there was a part of his face, and then her fingers working rapidly she turned over every piece of the map, and called to her sister, say! ‘’Come back, there is a man on the other si de, let us put the man together first,’’ and almost instantly, said the father, the figure of the man was completed, and when the map was turned over every river and lake, every mountain and plain, was in the proper place. And this said Dr. Moorhead, is the secret of Bible study. Put the man, Christ Jesus, together first. Jesus in Genesis is the same as Jesus in the Revelation. The fact is there is one name that binds the book together.

Learn the meaning of that name, and you have gotten hold of the power of the Bible. — I. W. C TOPIC: Bible Tearing Up SUBTOPIC: An Insane Theological Practice TITLE: Unrest — Real There was a lady who had a fortune, but alas, she had a craze, and the craze was the tearing up of silk. She could afford to indulge her fancy because she had a fortune, and it was a fine thing for a silk mercer. Nothing pleased this lady more than to take the most expensive silk that was ever spun on the looms of earth and rend it, and she spent all day in doing so.

Piles of silk were taken to her, and she tore them, until at last she tore herself into a lunatic asylum. It seems to me today there is a kind of theological unrest, a kind of insane dealing with the Word of God, just for the pleasure of tearing it. The Pentateuch, tear it up; the Book of Job, break it up. Bring it out in four colors, and such verses as “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” and other similar verses that tell of the hope of the church, put them into footnotes as being too pronounced to be true, too far advanced in New Testament conception to be honestly literal. Ah, beloved, you young man, God pity you, the day of trial is at hand, and the Word of God is being wounded in the house of its friends. Inspiration is like a tenantless house a drug, on the market. It is being flung out of the conceptions of our students of theology, at the bidding of the men who ought to know better, and they are all removing, all flitting, and the generation that is to come will only see the folly of it when it is too late. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Blind Men Headed For Hell SUBTOPIC: Turning Them Around TITLE: A Blind Man’s Mistake In the little town of L., where I was first pastor, there lived a little old blind man, who was always one of my most attentive hearers. He had a most peculiar way of going about the city and rarely if ever made a mistake. He carried a little stick in his hands, and touched the trees and fences and houses as he walked, and seemed always to know exactly where he was. But one day when I knew he should be going home, I saw him moving with great haste in exactly the opposite direction, and said to him, “Which way?” Without stopping he replied, “I am going home.” I said to him, “Your home is exactly behind you and every step you take is away from it.” It was hard to convince him, but as I had eyes and he had none, finally I persuaded him, and he said, “Then turn me about,” and I turned him squarely about and every step he took led him home. — J. W.

C.

TOPIC: Blockade Of Satan SUBTOPIC: Breaking TITLE: God For Us They told me of a case in the American Civil War when the blockade of a river had to be run. The river was all filled with planks chained together, and yet food had to be brought to a starving city; and I was told how they ran the blockade — how, in the dead of night, when the enemy was off guard, the great steamer got up steam. She rocked on the wave as they held her back, until at last they let her go, and with one mighty crash the blockade was run — she was in. So the devil has blockaded many a church built very magnificently. When the fires of Smithfield were going, when the troopers’ muskets rang on the hills of Scotland, there was, I dare say, a great deal of blockade by hell, but the voice of prayer was never held back.

There was more trade with heaven in the killing time than there is today; there were more sailing for the port of heaven in that time of storm than there is today, in this time of ease and prosperity. If God be for you, who can be against you? — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Blood SUBTOPIC: The Price Of TITLE: The Precious Blood In the heart of Africa, it is related by an Englishman, that a slave procession passed by, and the king called out a poor slave who displeased him in some little way, ordered his men to put their arrows to their bowstrings and avenge the offense with his blood. He went up to the native chief and begged for the poor slave’s life, offered him a great deal of money and costly bribes, but the chief turned to him and said: “I don’t want ivory, or slaves, or gold; I can go against yonder tribe and capture their stores and their villages; I want no favors from the white man; all I want is blood.” Then he ordered one of his men to pull his bowstring and discharge an arrow at the heart of the poor slave. The young man, with the instinct of a moment, threw himself in front and held up his arm, and the next moment the arrow was quivering in the flesh of his own arm. The black man was astonished. Then he pulled the arrow from his arm, and the blood flowed, and he said to the chief: “Here is blood; here is my blood; I give it for this poor slave, and I claim his life.” The native had never seen such a spectacle before, and he was completely overcome by it. He gave the slave to the white man. He said: “Yes, white man has bought him with his blood, and he shall be his.” In a moment the poor slave threw himself at the feet of his deliverer, tears flowing down his face, and said: “O, white man, you have bought Lebe with your blood; Lebe” (for that was his name) “shall be your slave forever and ever,” and ever after he could not make him take his liberty; wherever he went poor Lebe was beside him; no drudgery was too hard, no task too hopeless. He was bound by the mercy of his deliverer as his consecrated servant. O, friends, if a poor savage heart can thus be bound by the wound of a stranger’s arm, what should you and I say for those deeper wounds in those two living hands and feet and the heart that was opened by the spear? If we believe that we are redeemed, how can we but be consecrated to him. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Blood Of Christ SUBTOPIC: Blots Out The Record Of Sin TITLE: The Red Hand Charlotte Elizabeth, the writer, tells of a half-witted man who could hardly speak, and who lived all his life with the vision, as he said, of the Red Hand, and she puts down in a beautiful writing her interview with him.

She calls it “The Vision of the Red Hand.” The poor, nearly speechless, half-witted man, tells her that God will come at the last, and he will say, ‘’Jack,’’ and I shall get up, and shall stand before his judgment seat, and God will take the book of his remembrance, and all my sins are there, all my thoughts and acts, my whole life, my bad heart. Jack’s record is there; and God will hold the book up to the light, and something will be wrong with his eyes, for he cannot see any of Jack’s sins. Do you know why?

Because the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, will get up, and take from the mark of the wound in his hand, that which is stopping the flow of his blood; and he will say to God, “Please give me Jack’s book,” and he will turn over the leaves and, as he turns, the blood will drip; on every page the blood will go, and Jesus will pass the book to God, but God cannot see any of Jack’s sins, for the “red hand” had been over it all. I wish to spend my life with no other vision. As a poor guilty sinner, the “red hand” of the Crucified is over all my record, and the hast is gone in the meritorious atonement of the Son of God. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that is the gospel. It is all done, and do you know, faith will rise in your heart when you begin to thank him for what had happened, for the fact that Christ died. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Blood Of Christ SUBTOPIC: Why Demanded Of God TITLE: A Penalty Necessary A person once said to me: “I hate your God; your God demands blood. I don’t believe in such a God. My God is merciful to all. I do not know your God.”

If you will turn to Leviticus 17:11, you will find why God demands blood: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

Suppose there was a law that man should not steal, but no penalty was attached to stealing; some man would have my pocket-book before dinner.

If I threatened to have him arrested he would snap his fingers in my face.

He would not fear the law, if there was no penalty. It is not the law that people are afraid of; it is the penalty attached.

Do you suppose God has made a law without a penalty. What an absurd thing it would be! Now the penalty for sin is death; “the soul that sinneth it shall die.” I must die, or get somebody to die for me. If the Bible doesn’t teach that, it doesn’t teach anything. And that is where the atonement of Jesus Christ comes in. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Boarding The Ship Of Zion SUBTOPIC: While You May TITLE: Danger In Delay On board a steamer I met a fruit grower from California. We were talking together, and he said: “Did you notice that White Star liner was two minutes late in starting?”

No,” I said, “I did not notice it.” For these big steamers go away to the minute, with the precision of a railway train.

He continued: “There was a detention of two minutes.’’ “I saw excitement on the wharf,” I said, “but I did not know what it was.’’ “Well,” he said, “my friend and I raced from California to catch the steamer. We had just five hours between the advertised time of arriving in New York and the sailing of the Teutonic. For days our train ran exactly to the minute, and we reached Albany, only a few hours from New York, exactly on time — five days’ traveling to the minute; but at Albany a snow storm came on. The conductor wired the White Star Company that there were two passengers on board their train who wanted to catch the Teutonic, and would they just wait a bit? On the train raced; we came to Jersey City, and the very ferryman had been advised to wait for us. We got across the river and got a cabman, and told him to hurry, hurry — we had just about fifteen minutes, and we found as we swung into the wharf that we were half a minute behind time. There were two officers of the Teutonic, all was ready, every rope had been lifted, every gangway but one away, steam up and the Teutonic facing seaward, and the mighty racer across the deep was anxious to be off. Two minutes! There we are. I wanted to give the cabman something extra, but I could not get my hand into my pocket. They said: “Come away, come away, or you will be left behind,” and I shouted to my cabman: “I’ll see you when I come back,” and he replied: “Ay, many of them tell me that, but they never see me;” and the fruit grower said: “When I get back to New York, in 21 days, I am going to find out that poor cabman and let him know that I mean it when I say ‘I’ll see you again.’” But the point is that hardly had they got over the gangway, hardly had they got their feet on the deck, when the vessel swerved from the shore and swung out into the deep. No more to get on board, no possibility of getting on board. Do you see it? The ship of salvation is alongside the wharf, you may be saved tonight, but it is a matter of haste, for I believe that the gangway is about to be flung ashore. I believe that the passageway into grace is soon to be dropped, and the church of God, the saved in the ark of salvation, are to be taken away.

For your never-dying soul’s sake get on board, for as soon as the ark is filled it is off. And it is filling up. They are coming from China, and from India, and from Japan, and from the isles of the sea — and the ark is filling up, and soon the angel will get his instructions to put one foot on the sea and the other on the shore, and to swear that time shall be no longer. O soul, go aboard. Are you safe in the arms of Jesus? That will stand. Saved and safe. — John Robertson.

TOPIC: Booth, Catharine SUBTOPIC: Honored At Death TITLE: The Surrendered Life Over in London a noble woman died. God touched her heart and it stopped its beating; her pulses, and they were still, and they carried her into one of the greatest auditoriums in the city that people of great renown might pay her honor in her death. A representative of the Queen came to see her face. Lords and ladies walked quickly past the coffin with tear wet cheeks. Finally the poor people were given the building and they surged a great mass of people through the auditorium. At last down the aisle there came a poor woman with every mark of poverty about her dress, a little shawl pinned over her head, carrying a baby in her arms, and leading an elder child by the hand. When she reached the coffin she put the baby down, loosed the handclasp of the elder child, bent over the coffin, and as she did so the shawl fell back from her head. Stooping thus, she kept back the crowd that surged behind her, when one of the attendants quietly put her hand upon her shoulder and said, “Madam, you must move on; you are stopping the people.” She turned and faced the great crowd, pushing back of her, and lifting her hand, she said: “I will not move on; I have walked forty miles and carried my baby that I might see this woman’s face. She saved my boys from hell, and I have a right to look and to weep.”

And then she bent and covered the glass that was over the face with her kisses while all the people sobbed in sympathy with her.

The woman sleeping in the casket was Mrs. Catherine Booth, mother of the Salvation Army; great, not because her mind was superior to that of many another woman, nor because her social position was better, but because she was absolutely surrendered to God, and Christ lived in her. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Breath Of The Spirit SUBTOPIC: Ever-moving TITLE: The Breath Of The Holy Spirit Coming across in the steamer, I was talking to one of Lloyd’s men from the Bahamas, and he was telling me how he could bargain with the winds of heaven for a daily force. He said: “We could run electricity in the Bahamas cheaper than you could do anywhere else.” I did not understand it, and he explained. “In the Bahamas there are the trade winds, months of a steady rush of wind. We have the wind that never varies, the steady, blowing trade wind.” That is like the cross. There is a trade wind at the cross of Christ, the ever-moving breath of the Holy Spirit. Oh, soul, get into the trade wind. Give way, and follow up, and lie down as a poor sinner at the foot of the cross, and the Holy Spirit will regenerate you, and your heart will instinctively exercise faith, and the application of the redemption purchased by Christ will be yours. You will be saved by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Burden Bearing SUBTOPIC: Lifting Others TITLE: Bearing Others’ Burdens It is related of Leonardo da Vinci, that in his boyhood, when he saw caged birds exposed for sale on the streets of Florence, he would buy them and set them free. It was a rare trait in a boy, and spoke of a noble heart full of genuine sympathy. As we go about the streets, we find many caged birds which we may set free, imprisoned joys that we may liberate, by the power that is in us of helping others. Naturalists say that the stork, having most tenderly fed its young, will sail under them when they first attempt to fly, and, if they begin to fall, will bear them up and support them and that, when one stork is wounded by the sportsman, the able ones gather about it, put their wings under it, and try to carry it away. These instincts in the bird teach us the lesson of helpfulness. We should come up close to those who are in any way overburdened or weak or faint, and putting our own strength underneath them, help them along; and when another fellowbeing is wounded or crushed, whether by sorrow or by sin, it is our duty to gather about him, and try to lift him up, and save him. There is scarcely a limit to our possibilities of helpfulness in these ways. — Miller.

C-TOPICS TOPIC: Care Of God For Animals SUBTOPIC: Seen In A Humane Act TITLE: An Unnamed Hero “Doth God care for oxen,” and animals? The Bible says He does, and such is illustrated in the following story:

Chaplain Cassard of the Indiana recently contributed a bit of unwritten history of the naval fight off Santiago when Cervera’s fleet was smashed.

It was just after the Maria Teresa had gone ashore on the rocks. She was on fire and flames were shooting from her in every part. Dead and dying sailors were lying on her decks, the dying fearfully watching the flames and offering up prayers for salvation. Those who had escaped had made their way to shore, some panting to liberty up the mountain side; others stood awaiting capture by the American ships’ crews then coming to their succor. A boat load from the Indiana had put off and was the first to reach the shore after the Teresa had struck. Chaplain Cassard was one of the rescuing party.

The Teresa’s sailors on shore, most of them naked, others with but a thin garment, gazed in fear at the Jackies, many expecting to be killed. But they had come on an errand of mercy and soon made their mission known.

In the midst of this carnage of war the chaplain saw an American sailor put off toward the Teresa, two hundred feet distant, in a small boat. Guns were then going off on the broken ship, shells were exploding in every direction, and through the rents in the vessel’s side the dull glare of flames showed only too clearly the sailor’s peril from the explosion of the Teresa’s magazines. Yet he kept on. Up a dangling rope he went, hand over hand, and reached the deck.

Those on shore saw him pull a revolver. Presently its sharp crack was heard and the sailor, oblivious to danger, walked along shooting at regular intervals. “At the risk of his life,” Chaplain Cassard said, “This hero had gone aboard that Spanish vessel, knowing cattle were confined there with no possibility of escape. Thinking not of himself, knowing he might never come back alive, he went into that volcano of death that the poor brutes might not suffer. I saw the heads of the great oxen. They were standing with their backs to the fire quivering with fear. I saw him going from one to another, shooting all. There he staid until the last dumb brute had been killed. Then with the flames curling around him, the sides of the ship a red heat, he calmly went down the rope into his boat and came ashore, where he disappeared among the crowd of sailors. None of us ever found out this man’s name. He is an unnamed hero, and shows of what stuff the men of the American navy are composed.”

TOPIC: Character SUBTOPIC: Building Proper TITLE: The Christian Character The Christian character is simply a life in which all Christian virtues and graces have become fixed and solidified into permanence as established habits. It costs no struggle to do right, because what has been done so long, under the influence of grace in the heart, has become part of the regenerated nature. The bird sings not to be heard, but because the song is in its heart, and must be expressed. It sings just as sweetly in the depths of the wood with no ear to listen, as by the crowded thoroughfare.

Beethoven did not sing for fame, but to give utterance to the glorious music that filled its soul. The face of Moses did not shine to convince the people of his holiness, but because he had dwelt so long in the presence of God that it could not but shine. Truest, ripest Christian life flows out of a full heart — a heart so filled with Christ that it requires no effort to live well, and to scatter the sweetness of grace and love.

It must be remembered, however, that all goodness in living begins first obeying rules, in keeping commandments. Mozart and Mendelssohn began with running scales and striking chords, and with painful finger-exercises.

The noblest Christian began with the simplest obedience. The way to become skillful is to do things over and over, until we can do them perfectly, and without thought or effort. The way to become able to do great things, is to do our little things with endless repetition, and with increasing dexterity and carefulness. The way to grow into Christlikeness of character, is to watch ourselves in the minutest things of thought and word and act, until our powers are trained to go almost without watching in the lines of moral right and holy beauty. To become prayerful, we must learn to pray by the clock, at fixed times. It is fine ideal talk to say that our devotions should be like the bird’s song, warbling out anywhere and at any time with sweet unrestraint; but in plain truth, to depend upon such impulses as guides to praying, would soon lead to no praying at all. This may do for heavenly life; but we have not gotten into heaven yet, and until we do we need to pray by habit. So of all religious life. We only grow into patience by being as patient as we can, daily and hourly, and in smallest matters, ever learning to be more and more patient until we reach the highest possible culture in that line. We can only become unselfish wherever we have an opportunity, until our life grows into the permanent beauty of unselfishness. We can only grow better by striving ever to be better than we already are. and by climbing step by step toward the radiant heights of excellence. — Miller.

TOPIC: Character SUBTOPIC: Image Of TITLE: The Likeness Of Christ The old legend of St. Veronica tells us that after the crucifixion, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, had gone away from the tumult and strife of Calvary her friends gathered in a little room to give her comfort. While they were visiting together there appeared one who had followed him up the hillside to the cross, and who tradition says gave him the napkin to wipe away the blood from his face when he had fallen fainting beneath the weight of his cross. She thought that it would be a comfort to the mother of the dying one upon the cross to have anything that he had used in the time of his agony, and so the famous painting represents her as holding this napkin; when, behold, as they looked upon the piece of cloth is seen the likeness of the Saviour.

This is tradition, of course but it is an illustration of the fact that those of us whose lives may be counted by the world common and even ordinary, may have pressed upon us the likeness of Christ, and those who look upon us may take knowledge of us not only that we have been with Jesus, but may be persuaded of the fact that we have come even here and now to bear about his likeness. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Children SUBTOPIC: Keeping Their Confidence TITLE: Forgiveness Asked For An Undue Punishment I shall never forget how my little daughter did a certain thing repeatedly, and I said, “If you do that again, I shall have to punish you.” After a while one of the maids in the house told me she had done what I had told her not to do, and now I felt that I should be obliged to punish her and keep my word, or lose all influence with my child. I called her in, and she said, “I didn’t do it.” But there was the testimony of the maid, and I punished her, for I was sure that she had disobeyed me. She was a sensitive child, but she shut her lips tight together and never a tear was in her eye, and got down from my arms and went out. Before long I heard her upstairs, at her play, laughing as though she had forgotten all about it. A little later, I learned that the child was perfectly right and she hadn’t done the thing at all. A conversation something like this seemed to go on within me: “You have made a mistake with that child, and she doesn’t quite think the same of you. You had better make it right.” I said to myself, “I know the child has forgotten it; I will let it go.” The Spirit of God said, “She may not have forgotten.” I called her down to me and said, “My child, I punished you a little while ago; I have found that you did not do it. I was wrong, and I want you to forgive me.” She looked at me just a moment, and her little arms went around my neck, and she sobbed as though her little heart would break. And I want to tell you that I have not lost my influence with her from that day to this. — J. W. Chapman.

TOPIC: Choice SUBTOPIC: All Encompassing TITLE: A Cubic Choice Our choice in life must be a cubic choice. It must have three dimensions.

First, it must be very high — as high as I can reach with my life. Next, it must be very broad, covering all the powers of my life — mind, voice, hands, feet. And then it must be very long — run out seventy years, if that be the sum of my days on earth. I cannot afford to swap horses in the middle of the stream. I cannot afford to change my course at thirty or forty. We are to make the choice the highest, the broadest, and the longest. — Alexander McKenzie, D.D.

TOPIC: Choice SUBTOPIC: Business or Christian Work TITLE: How I Came To Give Up Business The way God led me out of business into Christian work was as follows:

I had never lost sight of Jesus Christ since the first night I met him in the store at Boston. But for years I was only a nominal Christian, really believing that I could not work for God. No one had ever asked me to do anything.

When I went to Chicago, I hired five pews in a church, and used to go out on the street and pick up young men and fill these pews. I never spoke to those young men about their souls; that was the work of the elders, I thought. After working for some time like that, I started a mission Sabbath school. I thought numbers were everything, and so I worked for numbers.

When the attendance ran below one thousand, it troubled me; and when it ran to twelve or fifteen hundred, I was elated. Still none were converted; there was no harvest. Then God opened my eyes.

There was a class of young ladies in the school, who were without exception the most frivolous set of girls I ever met. One Sunday the teacher was ill, and I took that class. They laughed in my face and I felt like opening the door and telling them all to get out and never come back.

That week the teacher of the class came into the store where I worked. He was pale and looked very ill. “What is the trouble?” I asked. “I have had another hemorrhage of my lungs The doctor says I cannot live on Lake Michigan, so I am going to New York state. I suppose I am going home to die.”

He seemed greatly troubled, and when I asked him the reason, he replied: “Well, I have never led any of my class to Christ. I really believe I have done the girls more harm than good.”

I had never heard anyone talk like that before, and it set me thinking. After awhile I said: “Suppose you go and tell them how you feel. I will go with you in a carriage, if you want to go.

He consented, and we started out together. It was one of the best journeys I ever had on earth. We went to the house of one of the girls, called for her, and the teacher talked to her about her soul. There was no laughing then!

Tears stood in her eyes before long. After he had explained the way of life, he suggested that we have prayer. He asked me to pray. True, I had never done such a thing in my life as to pray God to convert a young lady there and then. But we prayed, and God answered our prayer.

We went to other houses. He would go upstairs, and be all out of breath, and he would tell the girls what he had come for. It wasn’t long before they broke down and sought salvation. When his strength gave out, I took him back to his lodgings. The next day we went out again. At the end of ten days he came to the store with his face literally shining. “Mr. Moody,” he said, “the last one of my class has yielded herself to Christ.”

I tell you, we had a time of rejoicing. He had to leave the next night, so I called his class together that night for a prayer-meeting, and there God kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out. The height of my ambition had been to be a successful merchant, and if I had known that meeting was going to take that ambition out of me, I might not have gone.

But how many times I have thanked God since for that meeting!

The dying teacher sat in the midst of his class, and talked with them, and read the 14th chapter of John. We tried to sing “Blest be the tie that binds,” after which we knelt down to prayer. I was just rising from my knees, when one of the class began to pray for her dying teacher. Another prayed, and another, and before we rose the whole class had prayed. As I went out I said to myself: “Oh, God, let me die rather than lose the blessing I have received tonight!”

The next evening I went to the depot to say good-bye to that teacher. Just before the train started, one of the class came, and before long, without any prearrangement, they were all there. What a meeting that was! We tried to sing, but we broke down, The last we saw of that dying teacher, he was standing on the platform of the car, his finger pointing upward, telling that class to meet him in heaven. I didn’t know what this was going to cost me. I was disqualified for business; it had become distasteful to me. I had got a taste of another world, and cared no more for making money. For some days after, the greatest struggle of my life took place. Should I give up business and give myself to Christian work, or should I not? I have never regretted my choice. Oh, the luxury of leading some one out of the darkness of this world into the glorious light and liberty of the gospel - D.

L. Moody.

TOPIC: Christ SUBTOPIC: All Needed At Death TITLE: Christ Everything An aged minister in Edinburgh, whose name, if I were to mention it, you would all know, some time ago addressed a great gathering of young converts. In most thrilling and pathetic terms did he refer to his own long experience. “Young men,” did the old saint say, “when I came first to Christ, now long, long ago, I had an idea, unexpressed but real, that by and by I would become so inherently holy, I would not need to bemoan myself in this debasing way before the cross. I would not need to bring myself always down as a foul, polluted soul, a beggar in filthy rags before the holy God. Ah! I was proud, and so are you, dear young convert. Take care. But now I am an old man, the snows of time are on my head, more than a whole half-century has rolled by, and as I stand before you I can hear, but a few paces in front of me, the low dash-dash of the wave of eternity on the beach where I’m soon to embark for the other side. I can hear the flap of the sail as the pale boatman, Death, grates his waiting keel on yon ready strand. Ay, I’ll very soon be in eternity, and this morning what did I do? Well, after sixty years of knowing and loving my Saviour, I came to the Lord Jesus this morning, as I came at the first, as a poor, perishing, hell-deserving sinner, pleading his own precious blood, with no hope but his death, no trust nor rest in anything else. Christ was the beginning, and he will be the end.” A grand testimony this to the Lord’s degree. Yes, Christ all the way, the A and Z of the human heart, first, last, and forever. “When I draw this fleeting breath, When mine eyelids close in death, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!” — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Christ SUBTOPIC: His Image TITLE: Christ In Us “What is your minister like? Is he eloquent and intellectual?” What answer can be true of you? “Well, I cannot tell you about his sermons; I always think of Christ when I see him.” Is that true of you? Then, to you to live is Christ. In a famous Russian palace, in the salon of beauty, a certain artist was asked to paint a great number of pictures for the salon. Eight hundred and fifty of the most beautiful women were chosen as subjects.

He finished his work, and in so doing paid a marvelous tribute to the empress. In every individual picture he painted something like Catherine.

Here, Catherine’s hair; there, a dress like Catherine’s; over there, Catherine’s favorite flower. This one had Catherine’s pose; that one some feature of Catherine; some other one had Catherine’s eyes or Catherine’s hands; and so, your could go over the canvas, and, taking the different parts, you could have made a picture of Catherine.

It would be a marvelous thing if people would say to me, “Show me Christ,” and I would take them to the man who wrote “My Jesus, as thou wilt.” You know how he wrote it. He was blind, but he wrote, “My Jesus, as thou wilt.”

Campbell Morgan used this text at Winona, and he said: “Suppose I change it — for to me to live is myself. It is my sermon, my house, my family, myself.” Then, for me to die, what is that? “For to me to live is pleasure.” A Christian might say that and still be a Christian; then what is it to die? “For to me to live is sin”; then what is it to die? If there is sin in your heart and mine, whether it be great or little, it amounts to the same thing then. If to me to live is sin, what will it be to die? — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Christ SUBTOPIC: Wore Our Chains TITLE: Sacrifice Fifty years ago there was a war in India with England. On one occasion several English officers were taken prisoners; among them was one man named Baird. One of the Indian officers brought fetters to put on them all.

Baird had been sorely wounded, and was suffering from his weakness. A gray-haired officer said: “You will not put chains on that man, surely?”

The answer was: “I have just as many fetters as prisoners, and they must all be worn.” Then said the old hero: “Put two pairs on me.” Baird lived to gain his freedom; but the other man went down to his death doubly chained. But what if he had worn the fetters of all in the prison, and what if voluntarily he had left a palace to wear chains, to stiffer the stripes and endure the agony? That would be a poor illustration of all that Christ has done for you and for me.

TOPIC: Christ, The “A” And “Z” SUBTOPIC: A Three-Fold Hope TITLE: Christ, The “A” And “Z” Man’s title is, then, nothing. It means nothing. It is nothing. But is Christ’s title like man’s? Here he affixes to His name a title he has won, and right royally do stand these letters of success in the “capping” of Messianic graduation. In the calendar of grace he is inscribed, “The Lord Jesus Christ, A. Z.” “I am Alpha and Omega” to the Greek; I am A. and Z.” to you. “I am A. and Z., the beginning “and the end, the first and the last,” “the all and in all.” And this title A. Z. is full of meaning. The Lord used it himself, and he used it because it means what be says, and it says what he is. Let us look at it this evening, and may God the Spirit guide us into its “all truth.”

Three times in three different connections does the title occur, and the fact is very remarkable, for a grand and glorious truth lies in each setting. Legh Richmond, in his “Dying Cottager,” tells of his last visit to the death-bed of that young convert he had led to Jesus. He asked the girl in the valley of the shadow what was her hope for eternity. Putting her thin, wasted fingers on the Bible that lay beside her she said, “Christ here!” Then, placing her nigh transparent hand on her bosom she said, “Christ here!”

And then pointing upward, she said, “And Christ there!” Glorious hope!

Sure three-fold pledge of the safe arrival in glory of that passing soul! And, my friends, even just so, it is most striking to notice, has this Jesus himself done. Three times to express the same identical truths he has used this title: First, Revelation 1:8, “I am A. and Z.” of the written book; second, Revelation 21:6, “I am A. and Z.” of the thirsty heart; and third, Revelation 22:13, “I am A. and Z.” of the coming home. The Lord Jesus Christ, the all and in all of that Bible, this soul and you heaven! — J.

Robertson.

TOPIC: Christian Perfection SUBTOPIC: Not The End, But A Glorious Beginning TITLE: Ideal Realized Probably the most perfect piece of marble ever wrought by human hands is the statue of the Christ by Thorwaldsen. Those who have seen it in the Metropolitan Church at Copenhagen say that the whole light of the story of the gospel seems to stream down upon them from the stone as they look at it. The artist wrought a long while upon it, and with intense joy and enthusiasm but when at last the statue was completed, a deep melancholy settled over him. When asked the reason for this, he said that his genius was decaying. “Here is my statue of Christ; it is the first of my works with which I have ever felt satisfied. Till now my ideal has always been far beyond what I could execute, but it is no longer so; I shall never have a great idea again.” For Thorwaldsen, satisfaction with his work was the sure indication of the limit of achievement. He felt that he would grow no more, because there was now no longing in his soul for anything better.

TOPIC: Circle Of Relation To Christ SUBTOPIC: Must Not Be Broken TITLE: The Circle of Relation To Christ Must Not Be Broken I have seen a heavy piece of solid iron hanging on another, not welded, not linked, not glued to the spot, and yet it cleaved with such tenacity as to bear, not only its own weight, but mine too, if I chose to seize it and hang upon it. A wire charged with an electric current is in contact with its mass, and hence its adhesion. Cut that wire through, or remove it by a hair’s breadth, and the piece of iron drops dead to the ground, like any other unsupported weight. A stream of life from the Lord, in contact with a human spirit, keeps that spirit cleaving to the Lord so firmly that no power on earth or in hell can wrench the two asunder. From Christ the mysterious life-stream flows, through the being of a disciple it spreads, and to the Lord it returns again. In that circle the feeblest Christian is held safely, but if the circle be broken, the dependent spirit instantly drops off.

The electric wire is the spinal cord of civilization. Wherever now we may wander the electric wire runs by our side and murmurs the music of great joy. Familiarity is said to breed contempt, but it seems impossible to become familiar with this ethereal cord which binds together the ends of the earth, and places any one locality in immediate correspondence with all other localities and peoples. It seems a fairy thing belonging to the region of romance rather than a tangible fact of this everyday world. And yet it is very real, and, as we say, go where we will, greets our gaze, being the most suggestive thing in the landscape, whatever else the landscape may contain. Not in ponderous masses of steel, but in a delicate needle do we become conscious of the existence and set of the great magnetic currents which silently modify the world; and not in the more noisy and obstructive events and institutions of society do we become conscious of the master forces which shape the character of the nations and determine their destiny, but rather in the trembling string which runs along the hillside, spans the streets, surprises us in solitary places, and which, in fact, seems omnipresent, never being long out of our ken. Vast and delightful is the significance of the metallic film. It is the symbol of the unity of the nations. Not only do we behold it in our utmost wanderings, but we know it extends to regions we may not penetrate — mountain paths searched by the eagle’s burning eye, ocean depths unseen, unsounded, snowy wastes, desert solitudes. It girdles and intersects the whole earth. If the orator, dwelling on the community of nations, wishes to concentrate his great argument in a single image, he points to the electric wire, and the rudest audience perceives at a glance the force and grandeur of the illustration. It is, however, not only the symbol, it is also the organ of the unity of the nations. On this wire do we specially practically realize the unanimity of the various climates and nationalities. As the silver cord in our physical organization binds together hand and foot and eye, and gives the sense of unity and community amongst the many different organs and powers of the one complex system, a sense of unity which is immediately lost if that cord be seriously injured or broken, so the electric wire, pulsing with messages from a thousand different quarters, transmitting to great centers of sensation the facts, pleasing or painful, concerning the various people of the wide, wide world, ascertains graphically the unity of the race. No cord of silver, no thread of silk, no bond of gold, was ever half so significant as that common wire by the modern roadside traversed evermore by the vital spark of the universal human life. It translates sublime theory into sublime fact, and sets forth in practical form the unity of the many-tongued earth, the identity of the apparently conflicting interests of all peoples. — William Arnot.

TOPIC: Clinging To The Cross SUBTOPIC: Upward Growth From TITLE: Upward Growth From Clinging To The Cross Souls thrive that grow up clinging to the cross.

The vine which trails along the ground, and twines its tendrils round any rubbish which it may come upon, is sure to be trodden under foot. If it lift itself from the earth and fling its clasping rings round the shaft of the cross, its stem will not be bruised, and its clusters will be heavier and sweeter. The tendrils which anchor it to the rubbish-heap are the same as those which clasp it to the cross. — A. Maclaren, D.D.

TOPIC: “Come Back” SUBTOPIC: Door Of Divine Forgiveness Open TITLE: Invitation To Come Back There sat one day upon the platform of the Bethany Sunday School an Englishman who told the story of the young girl who had gone away from her home to live a life of sin. Her broken-hearted mother came to the home of the rector of this Englishman and besought him to help her find her child. He said, to her, “If you will bring me every picture you possess I will do my best.” The pictures were brought and the clergyman wrote underneath the face in red ink just two words: “Come back.” These pictures were placed in the mission stations and the haunts of vice. Weeks passed by until at last one day the young girl was passing into a place of sin when she saw this face of her mother. She paused to look, and the tears so blinded her eyes that she could not for a moment see the words. Then, brushing the tears away, she saw the invitation; turned her face toward her home on the edge of London. She reached her home in the night time, put her hand upon the latch of the door, and behold, it yielded to her touch.

She had no more than crossed the threshold when she found herself in her mother’s arms, greeted with this salutation, “My dear child, the door has never been fastened since you went away.”

And this is God’s message to his wandering children, to those who have forgotten him and yielded themselves up to the life of sin: “The door has never been shut since you turned away; return unto me, and I will have mercy upon you. Come back to me and I will abundantly pardon.” — J.W.C.

TOPIC: “Come Home” SUBTOPIC: A Forgiving Father’s Invitation TITLE: “Forgiveness” One day Mr. S. H. Hadley, the leader of the McAuley Mission, Water street, New York, was standing outside the door of the mission, when a little fellow came along and said: “Will you please give me a needle and thread and a piece of cloth?” “For what?” said Mr. Hadley. The boy replied, “To mend my trousers with;” and my friend looked at him to say, “it seems to me you have hardly trousers enough to mend.” The boy burst into a sob and started on down Water street, when the great hearted Christian worker said, “Come in the house and go upstairs and Mrs.

Hadley will be a mother to you.” After a little while he came down to the street and was passing on toward Brooklyn bridge when Mr. Hadley called him back and said, ‘What is your story?” He said, “I am a boy from Philadelphia. I have stolen money from my father and the money’s gone; I have not a friend in the world, and no place to go.” “Why,” said the man, “go back to your home and your father,” and the boy replied, “He will not receive me. “Then stay here until I send him word.” That night a letter made its way to Philadelphia and early the next morning as soon as the letter could be delivered a reply came by telegraph, “Mr. S. H. Hadley, 316 Water street, New York city. ‘Tell the dear boy he is forgiven and I want him to come home.’

And this is the message which God sends to the sorrowing, sinful world.

Tell them, “Though their sins be like crimson; I will forgive them and I want them to come home. “ — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Comforters SUBTOPIC: Need for TITLE: Comforters Hast thou been taught of God The secret he tells to his own?

The presence of God hast thou known When passing through the waters deep?

Dost thou know the consolation Flowing from Christ’s salvation?

Up from earth comes a wail, A cry of agony rising From hearts that are sorely aching; Sorrow has touched them, and left them Broken in spirit, full of woe, Christian, go comfort them, go.

Tell them there is a balm That can heal the world’s sharpest pain, Whose virtue ne’er was tried in vain; Comfort unfailing, abundant, From God in Christ ever flowing, Go, your Lord’s comfort bearing. — R. A. Shipman.

TOPIC: Compassion For The Lost SUBTOPIC: Effective In Their Salvation TITLE: Salvation Of John B. Gough 2 Kings 3:12.

John B. Gough, in Worcester, Mass., was down as low as any man could be. So low and miserable he was that there was none to look at him. He was an outcast from the respectable churches, and the raging devils of the craving for drink were in his heart and soul. He went out one day, he said, determined to do away with himself, a poor drunkard, lost to everything; and a young lad, called Joel Stratton — John B. Gough never forgot it — put his hand on the poor shoulder, and said, “John, man, I believe you’ll give up the drink yet.” John B. Gough staggered away from him; both went to their knees, and the trembling hand of John B. Gough wrote the pledge; but, better than that, he said, “Lord, save my soul;” and Joel Stratton’s hand never left the shoulder of John B. Gough in Massachusetts till John B. Gough stood erect, till, with a tongue of clarion peal, the rescued one spoke for God. When multitudes came round him in America, and in this country, amid his oratorical triumphs, John B. Gough said that he felt to his dying day the hand of Joel Stratton on his shoulder. Blessed be God, if there be one that cares for you, to direct you to God. What is the influence of your comrades today, you boy from the north, as I was?

It is good to have Christian companionship. Speak it out, Jehosaphat. You were cowardly in your testimony, but God really brought salvation from the trouble to Jehorum in your presence. — John Robertson TOPIC: Concern For Lost Souls SUBTOPIC: Should Surpass Earthly Concerns TITLE: The Indifference Of Christians I had just closed a noon-day meeting in the city of Detroit when we were startled by the cry of fire as people rushed along the streets, and one said to another, “the great Edson-Moore building is in flames.” The most of the men working in the business house had escaped, but several men were imprisoned in the upper story. The stairway was a mass of flame, and the elevator shaft full of fire so they could escape neither way. At last they came to the upper windows and looking down upon the multitude shouted for help which could not be given. For some reason the fire appliances would not work and no ladder could be raised. At last the men stood on the outside casing of the windows and shouted again, and when the flames became too hot they let themselves down and held on to the casement with their fingers. This lasted only a moment when they loosed their hand grasp, shot down through the air and struck upon the hard stone pavement. They were carried to the hospital where they died soon afterward, and that night when in the great meeting I made the announcement that in these homes there was desolation because the little children were fatherless and the women were widows, there was scarcely a dry eye in the building. We are greatly concerned when men are in physical distress, but when we realize that souls are lost, we seem positively to be indifferent. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Concern For Serious Matters SUBTOPIC: Fatally Delayed TITLE: Procrastination Archias was chief magistrate in a Grecian city of long ago, and there was a revolution plotted against him. One night in a brilliant gathering with his courtier throng, at a feast on a high day, Archias was drinking with the rest of the magnates of that Greek town, and there came from Athens a messenger all dust-bestained. He would give the message to no underling at the door, but he would press his way by his official authority, right up to the steps of the throne to the Governor, and hand the missive to the Governor himself. Archias, in his wine and merry-making, took the packet and listened to the messenger that it was urgent. The messenger said, “Examine the packet, and read the letter, for they are about — “ and he cannot say more, for they are all looking, “they are about serious matters.” “Serious matters,” said Archias, with a laugh, and they all chimed in with clinking of glasses, “serious matters tomorrow on with the feast.” That night Archias was slain with the assassin’s dagger. The packet contained an account of the plot; it brought before him all the plan. “Serious matters tomorrow,” and many a soul shoots into hell from the same procrastination. “Tomorrow, or next week, some other day.” But Sergius Paulus, glory he to God, said, “Now! Now I have seen the hand of the Lord, I have listened to the gospel, and he believed in God’s ‘Now.’” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Confession SUBTOPIC: Chain Reactions From One TITLE: Take Away The Stone I remember, in one place, right in the middle of the sermon, an aged minister, who had been for twenty-five years pastor in that place, rose up and stood by my side on the front of the platform. But he did not say anything, and I commenced again. And he said, “Wait — wait!” And then I saw that he could not command his voice. We waited, and after a few moments he said, “My dear people, when I rose up this morning I asked God to make this the best day of my life; and he is doing it. I have preached sermons enough, and I have made calls enough, but I have never known in my life what it was to have a tender heart; and I ask your forgiveness.” And a man rose up in the rear of the room and said, “I am an officer of this church, and the idea of my pastor talking like that when I am here! I have been immersed in my business, and I have not been living as I ought, and it is my fault that people are not turning to Christ. I ask my pastor’s and the people’s forgiveness,” and he sat down. And then a lady rose up and said, ‘’I am a member of this church, but no one would have thought it from the way lived. Only a little while ago I gave a ball at my mouse to introduce my two daughters to society, but I have never introduced them to Christ. Do you think there is hope for me?” Two young ladies arose and said, “We want to be Christians.” And those two young ladies were the two daughters of this lady. Just the minute she was willing to get right, her two daughters came to Christ. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Consecration SUBTOPIC: Need Of Full TITLE: The Blood Of Consecration How about the talents? Will you give them to God? The consecrating blood in the Old Testament used to fall on the up of the right car, that it might hear only what God had to say; it used to fall right on the right hand, that that hand might do only what God wanted to do; it used to fall on the great toe of the right foot, that the feet might go where God would have them go, and nowhere else. O blood of Christ, fall on ears and touch the hands and the feet of the people here this afternoon — ears to hear, hands to do, feet to gladly run, but never to run until God says “Go!” You may remember that old tale about the caliph of Bagdad, against whom a rebel had set up his banners. The caliph had surrounded this rebel chieftain in the mountain fastnesses, until it seemed as though He could not escape, and then he sent a messenger and summoned him to surrender. Before the chieftain answered he stretched out his hand and made a motion to a man, and the man cast himself over the edge of a precipice and was killed. He beckoned to another soldier, and when the soldier came he handed him a dagger and said, “Take this and plunge it into your heart”; and the soldier took the dagger and plunged it into his heart, and fell down dead. “Now,” said the chieftain, go back to the caliph and tell him what you have seen.

Tell him I have five hundred men like these, and that before tomorrow night I will have him chained among my dogs.” And He did. Oh, for the men and women like that, for the people who have no wish to live, no will to be, only to wish what God wishes, to will what God wills, and to be satisfied with Jesus! Bring out your ambitions today; bring out your pleasures; bring out your business; lay them all on God’s altar, and never take them off unless God bids you. Turn everything over. Let everything be new, nothing old. If it be an old thing, let it be newly given unto you and it will be a new thing to you. If your right hand offend your, cut it off, and cast it from you. It is profitable for you to enter m to life maimed rather than, having two hands, to sink into the fire of hell. I have heard men disputing about the effect of the death of Christ upon us. Let us say today, as Paul said, ‘’He died for all, that they who live should henceforth live not unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again.” — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Contentment SUBTOPIC: Its Unconscious Influence TITLE: Contentment It was a stifling evening. The asphalt pavement breathed out all the gathered heat and irritation of the day, and a group of eager city dwellers stood on the corner to take the car that would bear them into a better atmosphere. In they crowded till there was left only an undesirable end seat whose occupants must ride backward. A plain old man and his wife slipped into it. “This is most as good as the other seats, ain’t it?” chirped the wife after a few moments. “Better,” responded her husband promptly, “you don’t get the gnats in your eyes this way.”

On went the car with its full complement of passengers, but none of them looked so happy or so content as the couple who faced away from the gnats. They were old, their faces were worn and wrinkled, and their possessions were evidently few. After a time the car stopped and some better seats became empty. The old man and the old woman stepped into them. “Ain’t we lucky.” exclaimed the wife as they did so, and Her husband beamed assent. They had been observed, and their divine content and cheerfulness had taught its lesson. “What a beautiful world if we were all like you,” muttered a fellow-passenger as he got down. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Conversion SUBTOPIC: Of Children TITLE: Children Are Old Enough I have no sympathy with the idea that our children have to grow up before they are converted. Once I, saw a lady with three daughters at her side, and I stepped up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. “Yes, sir.”

Then I asked the oldest daughter if she was a Christian. The chin began to quiver, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said: “I wish I was.”

The mother looked very angrily at me and said, “I don’t want you to speak to my children on that subject. They don’t understand.” And in great rage she took them away from me. One daughter was fourteen years old, one twelve, and the other ten, but they were not old enough to be talked to about religion! Let them drift into the world and plunge into worldly amusements, and then see how hard it is to reach them. Many a mother is mourning today because her boy has gone beyond her reach, and will not allow her to pray with him. She may pray for him, but he will not let her pray or talk with him. In those early days when his mind was tender and young, she might have led him to Christ. Bring them in. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.

Is there a prayerless father reading this? May God let the arrow go down into your soul! Make up your mind that, God helping you, you will get the children converted. God’s order is to the father first, but if he isn’t true to his duty, then the mother should be true, and save the children from the wreck. Now is the time to do it while you have them under your roof.

Exert your parental influence over them. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Cross Of Christ SUBTOPIC: Where God’s Deepest Love Is Found TITLE: Love, Where It Is Deepest A little more than thirty miles from the coast of Japan the Pacific ocean has been found to be more than 4,643 fathoms deep. Some officers who were surveying for a telegraph-cable found their wire broke at this depth without reaching the bottom. This is said to be the deepest sounding ever made, and so deep that the two highest mountains in Japan, placed one over the other in this abyss, would leave the summit of the upper one two-thirds of a mile below the surface of the water. It is at the cross that the ocean of Christ’s love is the deepest.

TOPIC: Cry For Salvation SUBTOPIC: Heard TITLE: Calling On God Some old divine has pictured Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. A man pushed his way through the crowd, and said: “Peter, do you think there is hope for me? I am the man who made that crown of thorns and placed them upon Christ’s brow; do you think he will save me?” “Yes,” said Peter,” ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ You are a ‘whosoever’; if you call he will hear your cry. He will answer your prayer and save you.” The man might have cried then and there, and the Lord saved him.

Another man pushed his way up and said to Peter, “I’m the man who took that reed out of his hand, and drove it down upon that cruel crown of thorns, sending it into his brow: Do you think he will save me?” “Yes,” said Peter, ‘’he told us to go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and he did not mean you to be left out; salvation is for you. He did not come to condemn men; he came to get his arm under the vilest sinner and lift him up toward heaven.”

Another man, elbowing his way through the crowd, pushed up to Peter and said, “I am the Roman soldier who took the spear and drove it to his heart, when there came out blood and water; do you think there is hope for me?” “Yes,” said Peter, “there’s a nearer way of reaching his heart than that: ‘Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ “ And the Roman soldier might have cried then and there, and might have obtained forgiveness and salvation.

If the Lord heard the cry of those Jerusalem sinners whose hands were dripping with the blood of the Son of God — if he heard their cry and saved them, do you think he will hear your cry and save you? — D. L.

Moody.

D-TOPICS TOPIC: Dancing SUBTOPIC: Heathens Impression TITLE: The Heathen Idea Of The Ball Nothing is less intelligible to a high-bred mandarin than the desire of foreign females to be introduced to him. At Hong Kong, when English ladies were brought to see the ex-commissioner, when, he turned away and refused to look at them, and on their departure expressed his annoyance and disgust. He was invited at Calcutta to a ball given by the governor of Bengal. Inquiring what was meant, he was told by his Chinese secretary that a ball was a sport in which “men turned themselves round, holding the waists and turning round the wives of other men,” on which he asked whether the invitation was meant for an insult.

There was an amusing scene at Canton, when Chinese ladies were for the first time introduced to some of our British fair. The Chinese kept for some minutes tremblingly in the distance, afraid to approach, when one was heard to say to another, “They do not look so very barbarous after all,” and they moved a little forward to meet their guests; Surely they have learned how to behave themselves. Is it not wonderful?” and a third voice replied. “Yes, but you know they have been for some time in Canton!” — Cornhill.

TOPIC: Degradation SUBTOPIC: Leads To Death TITLE: Degradation The following incident, the truth of which is vouched for, is a striking illustration of the fact that the evil tendency in our nature is away from God if it be unhindered. A sadder story could hardly be written. “We ten became members of a degradation club.” “This sentence, in a written confession found since the mysterious death of Hattie Thetford in a hovel in an Ohio town, gives the only rational explanation yet received of a tragic story. A week ago Hattie Thetford, 16 years of age, pretty, refined, and showing all traces of having been well educated, died in the hovel of a laborer. After her death a paper was found in the hovel on which was written the following story, which is in her handwriting: “What more degrading and low can anyone find than this? I have been here six weeks, and it seems that I have reached the bottomless pit. I wish I could die. Life here is awful. I feel sometimes like running away and beginning life anew. But what is the use? I am lost forever, and to leave here would be to break my pledge, which was made less than a year ago.

RESOLVED TO PLUNGE INTO VICE “Oh, that awful night! It comes to me like a nightmare. Ten of us — reared in ease and luxury, schoolmates together, belonging to the same social set — in just one night dared each other to pledge themselves to do the things later to be determined. We talked about a suicide club, a single woman’s club, and finally I suggested the awful life that brings me here. What started in fun was sworn to in solemn vow. We ten became members of a ‘degradation club,’ as we chose to call it. “I suggested that we form the club, and that we cast lots to see who should be the first to carry out the pledges made. The unlucky one was to leave home, friends, everything, and become the most degraded individual possible. In fact, the deeper down into the depths we could go the better the fulfillment of the pledge. Oh, what a nightmare, as it all comes back to me. We sat about a table and dealt cards. The Queen of hearts was the fatal pasteboard; it came to me and here I am.

I left home that night, took a Lake Shore train from no matter where, came east, stopped here, found a doctor in the slums, came here with him, burned my purse, and have spoken to no one since.

Here the paper is torn and the writing cannot be made out. It already speaks of a home of luxury left behind. Continuing, it says: “God forgive me and my chums in times gone by. And my poor mother and father! God pity them! How they must have suffered and how they must have searched for me. I hope that they think I’m dead and I pray that death may come to me soon.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Denial Of Self SUBTOPIC: Christian Perspective Of TITLE: Self-Denial What is self-denial? We have used that term so much that we have blunted its meaning. What does it mean to deny a thing? It means to affirm that it is not so. A man comes to you and says, “How do you do, Mr. Jones!”

You reply, “My name is not Jones, it is Smith.” You have denied that your name is Jones and confessed that your name is Smith. The literal interpretation of the denial of self and the confession of Christ would be to say, “I am not myself, but I am Jesus Christ.” This is to come to that place where you can say, as did the great apostle of the Reformation, “Martin Luther does not live here — Jesus Christ lives here,” or until you can say, with a greater apostle than Luther, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless live; and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Augustine had lived a profligate life, but after his conversion he kept away from his former associates. One day on the street he was seen by a woman with whom he had associated in his life of sin, and as he saw her he started to run. She ran after him and cried, “Augustine, why do you run? It is I!” And Augustine said, “I run because I am not I.” Blessed be God! There may be such a transformation where a man may say, not only “I am not my own, but I am bought with a price,” but where he may say, “I am not myself, but I am Jesus Christ.” — B.

F.M.

TOPIC: Desperation SUBTOPIC: Lacking For Lost Children TITLE: Earnestness In Danger In the city of Albany a number of years ago, early in the morning, a certain family was startled by the cry of fire. They were taking their breakfast in a basement dining room, and the fire came so rapidly upon them that they were instantly driven into the street. For some reason outside the diningroom windows strong bars had been placed. Looking through these bars the father of the household noticed one piece of furniture which he desired to save, and calling to one of his boys, made his way back to the dining room. The father going along, and the son going after with the large piece of furniture, got it as far as the door where it could not be moved either one way or the other. The flames were too hot for the man to stand and he was obliged to leave his boy in the room a prisoner. Going outside and looking through the iron bars he saw that there was but a moment for action, and as if by superhuman effort he took hold of the iron bars and pulled upon them until casement, above and below, gave way, and t he boy was saved. We can understand such desperate effort in case of this danger, but when the Bible says our loved ones without Christ are lost, we cannot understand how it could be that scores of parents, whom we know, should never have spoken to their children of their danger, nor made an effort to lead them to Christ. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Devotion To The Master SUBTOPIC: Sacrificial, Unto Death TITLE: Devotion To Christ A shepherd one night when the storm was fierce, counting his sheep that had gathered into the fold, found that two were missing. Going to the kennel where his shepherd dog was lying with her young, he pointed to the wilderness which was ever growing darker, and said, “Two sheep are missing, go. She looked a moment at her little ones, then up into her master’s face, and hurried away into the night, and came back with one of the sheep that were lost. The storm had grown fiercer and the night darker, and the shepherd came again to his dog and pointing out, said once more, “One sheep is missing, go.” Looking down once more at her crying little ones and up into her master’s face with mute despair, she arose and hurried away. Hours passed by, and the shepherd heard a scratching at his hut door. Going forth he found the dog, and she had the sheep that was lost. Leaving the same at her master’s feet she staggered back to her little ones, and fell dead at the kennel door.

And when I read this story I said, oh, the shame of it; here is a dumb brute, with never a thought of God, and never a hope of heaven, obedient to her master’s command when he speaks but a word, and we have permitted our Master with nail-pierced hands, spear-thrust side, and thorn-crowned brow to plead and plead again, and we have refused to do his bidding. Let us catch one glimpse of his face anew, and go where he would send us. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Discards Rescued From The Fire SUBTOPIC: Greatly Used Of God TITLE: Unconsidered Trifles Years ago, a young fair-faced, golden-haired English girl, who had struggled through an experience of restless and unsatisfied desire, and at last had found peace through the blood of the cross, sat down and wrote some verses. She read the manuscript over, and her eyes were holden that she could not see its worth. She says: “I was so little impressed with it that I threw it on the fire, thinking it not worth preserving, but a friend sitting by rescued it just in time to save it, and after it had lain away in my friend’s portfolio for a year or two it was brought out and given to the world.”

That young girl lived on through years of useful, pleasant, happy service till she died in June, 1879, at the age of forty-two years. She sang sweet songs, she composed many poems, she wrote numerous volumes, her name is known around the world; but nothing she has ever written is so widely known or will be so long remembered as that little scrap which she valued so lightly that she committed it to the flames for the hand that snatched that paper from the fire preserved to us the hymn of Frances Ridley Havergal, beginning, “I gave my life for thee.”

So little do we know what our true work in this world is. Some deed done under the promptings of a divine impulse, though we may not recognize its importance or its value, yet has in it the breath and power of the living God.

TOPIC: Doubting Castle SUBTOPIC: God’s Way Out Of TITLE: God’s Way Out of Doubting Castle On Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day.

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech: What a fool, quoth he, am I to be in a dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, that’s good news; good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try.

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his key opened that door also. After that he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too, but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail; for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the king’s highway again, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction. — From The Pilgrim’s Progress TOPIC: Dryness SUBTOPIC: Prevented By Faith TITLE: The Rain Tree Travelers tell us about the rain tree. It grows to be about sixty feet high, with a diameter of about three feet at the root. It has a singular quality. It imbibes and condenses moisture from the atmosphere, as no other tree does, and so it is called the rain tree. Generally its bark is dripping wet, and this is not only in the damp season, but in the midst of summer, when the rivers run low and the brooks roundabout run nearly dry. Then it imbibes the moisture. This is a picture for us all. I am very sure that if we did but know the lesson of faith in God, we might live in the very midst of desolation and despair, and say with Paul: “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

TOPIC: Duty SUBTOPIC: Important First Steps TITLE: Faithful In That Which Is Least It is a Secret worth knowing and remembering that the truest, and, indeed the only possible, preparation for life’s duties or trial, is made by simple fidelity in whatever each day brings. a day squandered anywhere may prove the dropped stitch from which the whole web will begin to ravel.

One lesson neglected may prove to have contained the very knowledge for the want of which, far along in the course, the student may fail. One opportunity let slip may be the first step in a ladder heading to eminence or power, but no higher rounds of which can be gained, because the first was not taken. We never know what is important, or when we are standing at the open doors of great opportunities in life. The most insignificant duty that offers may be the first lesson in preparation for a noble mission; if we despise or neglect it, we miss the grand destiny, the gate to which was open just for that one moment. Indeed, every hour of life holds the keys of the next, and possibly of many hours more; to fail of our duty in any one of them, may be to lose the most splendid opportunity through all life to the end. — Miller.

TOPIC: Dwelling On High SUBTOPIC: Catching The Vision Of TITLE: Look And Live John McNeil tells the story of one of his friends who had raised an eagle with the chickens about the barnyard and for this reason the eagle had never used its power of flight nor had it understood its ability to soar in the heavens.

The friend made up his mind to move to another part of the country. He had sold his other possessions, but did not care to sell the eagle nor to give it away, and so he determined to teach it the art of flight. He lifted it up in his hands, held it for a moment, but the eagle fell quickly to the ground. He threw it above his head, but the fall was only the more severe, and at last in desperation he put it upon the fence and was holding it for a moment, when the eagle lifted up its head and caught one glimpse of the sun. Its eyes had ever been turned downward and it seemed to be in ignorance of the sun and the sky. Suddenly it pushed out one wing, then another, lifted its head, and with a shriek and a spring bounded away from the fence, soared higher and higher until it was lost in the very face of the sun.

Alas, many of us have gone with our eyes downward fastened upon the world. We have never really caught a glimpse of Christ in His beauty nor understood Him in his fullness. If we could but see him by faith we should soar above the things of this world and dwell in the holies, which it is our privilege to do. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Dwellings SUBTOPIC: Of God, The Sanctified TITLE: The Universe The great universe is the house of God — which he more than fills, for he made it, and the Creator must be greater than the creature — in which he walks in his majesty to and fro, and in every part of which he manifests by the works of his hands, and the evolutions of his providence, his awful presence. The earth — the church — every believer’s soul — is the house of God, in which he now reigns in grace and through grace. Heaven is the home of the sanctified, where his scattered children are all at last to meet, and in which they are to dwell together in love forever. — Heaven our Home. — Christian Scotsman.

E-TOPICS TOPIC: Elevation Spiritually SUBTOPIC: Necessary To Revelation Of Christ TITLE: Moral Elevation Moral elevation is necessary if we would behold Christ’s glory.

We can only discern the glory of Christ, so as to be kindled by it into admiration and worship, as we ourselves rise above the ordinary levels of our life. A mountain may be very magnificent, towering to a sublime height, its sides covered with rugged grandeur, and its summit crested with shinning snow, but much of its magnificence will be lost to the beholder who simply looks at it from the depth of the valley, or the level of the plain below. Mountain heights reveal their massiveness and their splendor only in the degree in which they are viewed from some proportionate elevation. We may read in the scriptures of the glory of Christ, of the wondrous majesty that belongs to his person, of the numerous and incomparable excellencies that adorn his character but our hearts will never be stirred to rapture or moved to adoration until we gaze upon ‘’the King in his beauty’’ from the lofty attitude of our own spiritual experience. It is one of the grand characteristics of the Christian life that the more we rise up towards Christ, the more we discern of him, and the more we discern of him, the more do we rise up by the law of attraction, towards him. — B.

Wilkinson, F. G. S.

TOPIC: Embracing Christ SUBTOPIC: While You May TITLE: Jesus Of Nazareth Passeth By When Governor Pollock was the Chief Executive of the State of Pennsylvania a young man high in social life killed a friend of his in the city of Philadelphia. The result of his trial was his conviction and sentence to death. Then every influence was brought to bear upon the Governor to change the sentence to life imprisonment, but without avail. At last, the mother of the boy made her way to Harrisburg to plead as only a mother could for the life of her child, and the Governor was obliged again to refuse interference. She fell in a faint upon the floor, and then the tender-hearted man of God turned to his secretary and said, “There is one thing I could do; I could go and see the boy and prepare him to die.’’ He made his way into his cell, gave him God’s promises, offered up a fervent prayer in his behalf and heard him say that He was not afraid of death, and then he left him. With his white face pressed out between the bars of his cell door he watched the retreating form of his friend, and as he still stood in the same position the warden passed by, and the condemned boy said, “Warden, who was it in my cell a moment ago,” and the warden said, “Why, that was Governor Pollock.” He threw himself back at arm’s length and then fell upon the floor crying out as he fell, “Oh, my God; the Governor in my cell and I didn’t know it.” “Oh, warden,” said he, “if you had told me that it was the Governor I would have thrown my arms about him and never let him leave the cell until he had given me my pardon.”

But one who is better than the Governor stands near to every one condemned because of his sin and offers a pardon freely. It would be an awful thing to wake up in eternity and say with bitter crying, “The Lord Jesus Christ was near me and I would not let him in.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Encouragement SUBTOPIC: Give To Others TITLE: God Will Sprinkle Sunshine If you should see a fellow-man with trouble’s flag unfurled, An’ lookin’ like he didn’t have a friend in all the world, Go up and slap him on the back, and holler “How d’you do?”

And grasp his hand so warm he’ll know he has a friend in you, Then ax him what’s a-hurtin’ him, an’ laugh his cares away, And tell him the darkest night is just before the day.

Don’t talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud, That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud.

This world at best is but a hash of pleasure and of pain; Some days are bright and sunny, and some all sloshed with rain, And that’s just how it ought to be, for when the clouds roll by We’ll know just how to ‘preciate the bright and smiling sky.

So learn to take it as it comes, and don’t sweat at the pores Because the Lord’s opinion don’t coincide with yours; But always keep rememberin’, when cares your path enshroud, That God has lots of sunshine to spill behind the cloud. — James Whitcomb Riley.

TOPIC: Eternity SUBTOPIC: Life, the Bud of TITLE: The Blossom and The Fruit This life is the bud of eternity.

You have seen the tiny blossoms of the fruit trees opening in early spring.

After basking a few days in the sun it fades and falls. A germ is left behind on the branch, but it is scarcely discernible among the leaves. It is a green speck that can hardly be felt between your fingers. If a hungry man should pluck and eat it, the morsel would not satisfy; the germ as to present use is a sapless, tasteless nothing. Grasped now as your object and end, it is the most worthless of all things, but left and cherished as the germ of fruit, it is the most precious.

This life is the bud of eternity; if plucked and used as the portion of the soul, that soul will be empty now and empty forever. But while thus abused it is worthless rightly used it is beyond all price. Here is generated, cherished, ripened, the life that will never die. — William Arnot.

TOPIC: Eternity SUBTOPIC: River Of Souls Flowing Into TITLE: The Stream Of Death It is computed that one of the human family dies every second. Thus, every tick of the clock, an immortal spirit, as if with the outspread wings of an angel, is flying over the boundary line of time, and is entering the great world of spirits on the other side. There is thus a river of living souls continuously flowing from time into eternity. In the bed of that stream we are all sooner or later to take our place, and to pass away; for “as the waters fail from the sea, as the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.’’ — Christian Scotsman.

TOPIC: Expectant Faith SUBTOPIC: Demonstrated TITLE: Faith And Prayer “O, Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee all flesh shall come.” — Psalm 65:2.

There had been a drought for weeks in America, and the farmers had arranged to gather in the little prairie church and plead for rain. Men of God they were, and the crops were languishing, so they resolved to petition the Almighty that he should send rain. The day was appointed, and the Sabbath dawned on which in their little church they would have public prayer to God for rain. The minister, a good man, was astonished, that cloudless summer morning, to see on the way to church one of the smallest of his Sabbath school scholars carrying a big family umbrella. Oh, what a size it was. The morning was hot and blistering; there was no sign of rain. Aye, but that little heart had heard the intimation given that prayer was to be made for rain, and in the simplicity of her faith she came prepared for the answer to that prayer. The minister had no umbrella; he was dressed in summer costume; and, as he patted the little girl on the head, he thought that in her childish innocence — though in reality it was her superior faith — she had made a mistake. The service proceeded, the prayer ascended. Look at those clouds as they gather and roll up on the horizon. What is the meaning of that lightning flash of the torrents of rain that are pouring down on the roof of that prairie church? The little girl has the best of it. The minister was glad to go home under the little girl’s despised umbrella; and as she sheltered the pastor in his summer costume, do you think that her faith was justified and greatly strengthened? Ah, man; many a time you have been laughed at for carrying a big umbrella in a time of drought. Pray on, though the skies be as brass. Pray on in times of trouble. “O, Thou that hearest prayer” — it is true, it is true about God; and all flesh shall come to him that heareth prayer. — Christian Scotsman.

F-TOPICS TOPIC: Faith SUBTOPIC: The Obedience Of TITLE: The Obedience Of Faith Obedience is the Only path that leads to the glory of God. Not obedience instead of faith, nor obedience to supply the shortcomings of faith, but faith’s obedience. — Anon.

TOPIC: Faith Accomplishments SUBTOPIC: Of Various Individuals TITLE: By Faith Let me begin by quoting one or two instances in which great modern preachers have used church history for interesting and effective illustrations. I select modern instances because this illustrative use of history is by no means common in the great classic preachers of past days.

I find few or no instances of it in such preachers as Barrow, South, Tillotson, or even Jeremy Taylor.

There were some most interesting and effective pages with which Archdeacon Hare ended his sermons on ‘The Victory of Faith.” After mentioning apostles and martyrs, he went on to St. Polycarp; and the Syrian hermit Telemachus, and St. Ambrose, and St. Chrysostom, and St.

Athanasius; and then continued to enforce his subject by such instances as these: “By faith Gregory, when he saw the captive Angles, exclaimed that, were it only for their beauty, they ought to be received into the brotherhood of the angels, and sent Augustine to preach the Gospel in this land. “By faith Boniface, leaving his home and refusing high ecclesiastical honors, went into the wilds of Germany to convert the heathen natives.

By faith he cut down the huge oak of Thor while the people were raging tumultuously around, expecting that the vengeance of the god would burst upon his head. By faith he baptized one hundred thousand souls … and met his martyrdom with patient joy. By faith the hermits Peter and St.

Bernard stirred up the nations of Europe to march as one man … and deliver the tomb of the Savior from the unbeliever. “By faith Bonaventura, being asked in what books he had learnt his marvelous wisdom, pointed to his crucifix. “By faith Elizabeth of Hungary, the daughter of kings, being left a widow at twenty, gave all she had to the poor, and dwelt among them as their servant. “By faith the Waldensians retired among mountain fastnesses and dwelt in the caves of the Alps that they might keep their religion in undefiled purity … “By faith Wycliff, the morning star of the Reformation, rose out of the darkness, and heralded the coming daylight. “ By faith Luther proclaimed his Theses … burnt the Pope’s Bull … went to the Diet at Worms … translated the Bible. “By faith Rogers, the protomartyr of the Reformation, when his wife and his eleven children met him on his way to the stake, and an offer of life and pardon were brought to him in their sight, walkt on with a stout heart and washt his hands in the flames … “ By faith Oberlin went forth among the Vosges … and spread the blessings of religion among the wild inhabitants. “By faith Clarkson and Wilberforce overthrew the slave trade … “By faith Simeon preacht the Word of God in this town (Cambridge) through a long life of persevering activity … “And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Ignatius, and Justin, and Cyprian, and Perpetua, and Basil, and Patrick, and Columban, and Bede, and Anselm, and Huss, and Melanchthon, and Zwingle, and Calvin, and Knox … and Penn … and Zinzendorf … and Howard, and Henry Martyn.”

I have greatly abridged a long passage, but this passage was remembered for years, and few University sermons produced greater effect than this.

TOPIC: Fellowship With The Damned SUBTOPIC: Forsaken In Fear TITLE: God’s Call One of the foremost ministers in Glasgow, in his unconverted days, was once surrounded by his “fast” set on the Rothesay pier in a Clyde Sabbath excursion. What a scene! Drink on board, and here they are swearing, fighting, tumbling, lying and spewing in all directions. Ugh! what a beastly pack! To the heart of the “chosen” youth from the prayer-surrounding home on yon Ayrshire hills, swift from the Holy Ghost like the flash of the torrid lightning, there came this thought — here’s your set for eternity!

Ah, it stunned him, felled him to the ground, and he cried from the very soul of him for mercy, mercy! There’s no Jesus here, and no Jesus forever.

Mercy he found, Jesus he found, and today in yon great city he points the masses to Zion. and he leads the way. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Fighting And Singing The Faith SUBTOPIC: Should Be United TITLE: Psalms And Fighting When Frederick the Great was leading his band against the Austrians in Teuftan, he heard the grand battle song of the Reformation rise from ten thousand throats. It was Luther’s hymn. Frederick asked, “What is that noise?” “Oh,” said one of his staff, “it is the soldiers singing Luther’s hymn.” ‘’That is all right,” was the reply, “plenty of psalm if they will only fight.” No psalm without the fighting, but plenty of psalm if we will fight. Those men who sang the psalm could fight too, and the Austrians were scattered as chaff before the wind. They were like Cromwell’s Ironsides. The men who sang the psalms could wield the sword, as did our Covenanters, who were men that made the hills echo with their psalm of trust in God, and who shed their blood on the heather sod. Do not give up your psalm, only fill it in intervals with fighting. God’s workmanship, God’s renewed soul, must bring out God’s works. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Fishers Of Men SUBTOPIC: Must Keep Self Out Of Sight TITLE: Humility Dr. Mark Guy Pearse says: “I watched an old man trout-fishing the other day, pulling them out one after another briskly. ‘You manage it cleverly, old friend,’ I said; ‘I have passed a good many below who don’t seem to be doing anything.’ The old man lifted himself up, and stuck his rod in the ground. ‘Well, you see, sir, there be three rules for trout-fishing, and it is no good trying if you don’t mind them. The first is, keep yourself out of sight; and the second is, keep yourself further out of sight; and the third is, keep yourself further out of sight still. Then you’ll do it.’ ‘Good for catching men, too,’ I thought, as I went on my way.

TOPIC: Flourishing Near Trouble SUBTOPIC: Possible TITLE: Not Borrowed Trouble I saw a delicate flower had grown up, two feet high, between the horses’ path and the wheel-track. An inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, or an inch higher; and yet it lived to flourish as much as if it had a thousand acres of untrodden space around it, and never knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow trouble, nor invite an evil fate by approaching it. — Henry D. Thoreau.

TOPIC: Foes Within SUBTOPIC: Destruction Of TITLE: Self-destruction Genesis 3.

Pierre Hurlat, one of the keenest eyed gunners in the French army, gathered together by his thriftiness to buy a little cottage at Sevres Bridge.

Beautiful to look at was the cottage, the honeysuckle climbing up the wall; and Pierre was proud of his home in which he and his wife looked forward to spending their old age. But 1870 came, and the Franco-Prussian war broke out and old Pierre, the most expert gunner in the French army, was conscripted for the war. The Germans are in possession of Sevres; and Pierre is at the back of the gun on the heights of Valena that overlook the town. General Neil rides up to the famous gunner and says, “Pierre.” He salutes the general. “Do you see that little house?” The cold sweat came over the poor, old gunner. “Do you see that little house at the end of the bridge? Well, that is a nest of Germans. I just want you to point your gun on that house, and let us see what you can do.” Pierre aimed his gun, and the old skill was in his nerve, and muscle, and eye; and through the yawning embrasure the gun is pointed at the cottage. Smoke! A roar! “Well done, Pierre! Well done! It is demolished.” The tears were stealing down Pierre’s cheeks. General Neil turned to him and said, “Pierre, what is wrong?” Ah!” he replied, “it was my own house.” Ah! point your gun at your own house; your heart is a nest of devils. If you learn that lesson, that alone is worth your gathering together this Lord’s day afternoon.

Point your gun to your own soul, for the devil is there; he has got entry to your heart, and there men feel him to be most successful. — Christian Scotsman.

TOPIC: Following Through SUBTOPIC: Sinful Habit Of Never Doing So TITLE: Power Of Habit In one of the celebrated insane asylums of an eastern city, there is today an inmate whose mania is that he cannot get ready to do anything, and his whole life is spent in fruitless efforts to promote himself for something which he imagines may give him satisfaction. As a boy in one of the best families of the city, he was absolutely without restraint. He could rise in the morning as he chose, could breakfast with the family or eat alone.

From morning to night there was no word of command spoken to him, and under the influence of such a life he became careless and indifferent, acquired the habit of listlessness, which after awhile developed into the mania of which I have spoken. His keeper told me he would plan early in the morning to visit his old home, but when the day was done he would still be in the act of preparation, and the visit could never be made. It is a sad warning, given to every one who has allowed himself to become controlled by the least habit. There is really no proper control of any life save the control of Jesus Christ. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Folly SUBTOPIC: and Philosophy TITLE: Folly and Philosophy Think, indeed, somewhat more than a little upon the words, “folly and philosophy,” and if you can see any way into a mist or a stone wall you will perceive that the same radicals are found in both. — The Doctor.

TOPIC: Forgiveness SUBTOPIC: Should Inspire Quality Service TITLE: Forgiveness One of the Queen’s soldiers had broken every law of the army and every form of punishment had been exhausted upon him. He had sinned once again and the officer in charge knew not what to do with him, and called in a brother officer and explained to him the situation, saying that he was at his wit’s end; What could he do? Said he, “I have tried everything and failed.” Then said his brother officer, “Suppose you try forgiveness,” and they called the poor trembling soldier in and asked him if he had anything to say, any excuse for his conduct; to which he replied, “Nothing, except that I am very sorry.” “Well,” said the officer of the day, “we have made up our minds to forgive you.” The offending soldier looked at him but for a moment, then burst into tears, saluted and walked out of his presence, never again to be the weak soldier of the past, but to be one of the best soldiers her majesty, the Queen, ever had.

Thus our Father meets us, and though we have sinned ten thousand times, broken his law again and again, he meets us, not with punishment, but with the pledge of forgiveness.

May his Spirit today win our hearts and bend our stubborn wills to his. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Fountain Of Life SUBTOPIC: Washes Away Worldly Defilement TITLE: Fellowship With Christ On the English seacoast there is a certain fountain which is within the tide mark. Twice each day the tide spreads over it, and the pure sweet waters are defiled and spoiled by the bitter wave. But the tide goes down and the fountain washes itself clear from the defilement. This is the emblem of a life that is in daily contact with the world and its defilement. Again and again it is touched by the evil one, but I bring you the cure today. Live close to Christ by faith, and in the midst of trials most perplexing, great peace shall fill your soul. What an influence we might have over others if we were thus taking advantage of our privileges! I think one might be a Christian, that is, just simply be saved, and not have much of a positive influence over the world about him; but it would not be possible to live in close communion with Christ without having the greatest possible power for good over all with whom he might come into contact.

TOPIC: Freedom SUBTOPIC: Through Christ TITLE: Free In Christ In Boston they were selling birds, birds that had been transported, or imported, from this country; but the canaries would not sing. I never heard a bird sing in America. The woods are dumb. There are no Dr. Norman Macleod when he was waxing enthusiastic linnets, no larks there; and as the old Scotchman said to about the forests of Canada, “Ay, but there are nae linties in the wuds.” Of the birds they were selling in Boston not one would sing; yet one was got to sing. When the buyer, who had tried in vain to coax a song from the immigrant bird, set it free, you should have heard it when it felt itself on its wings, even though it was to it a foreign air. How it sang when it felt the free air about it! So, soul, when the law is realized to be fulfilled in your substitute, when you get grace to lay hold of him as a sinner, and appropriate what the Saviour has done once for all, you rejoice in God, as living in the faith. “Free from the law, oh, happy condition!

Jesus has bled, and there is remission.” TOPIC: Freezing To Death SUBTOPIC: Deceived When TITLE: A New Heart “A new heart will I give unto you; and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of you and I will give you an heart of flesh.” — Ezekiel 36:26.

I heard the missionary to the Red Indians in our Canadian territories tell how it felt to be in the grip of the death-freeze. It was seventy degrees below zero, and as the traces of the dogs that carried the sleigh across the black wastes got broken, he jumped off to repair them. Perspiring with the exertion, he felt his garments suddenly stiffen, and a chill such as he had never before felt in his experiences in these high latitudes seemed to creep to his very bones. It was intensely cold, “and all at once,” he said, “music such as I had never before heard, seemed to descend from the skies. Oh, it was rapturous music! Can the angels, with their heavenly harps, equal what I heard? The snow began to appear as if covered with the jewels that deck the city, and the twigs of the frozen trees seemed all kinds of colors.

It was just fairy-land. A sensuous delight, a physical pleasure, began to steal over the whole body. The marks of the Indian attendants who had gone before, the tracks left by their snow, go t transformed into beautiful couches, and a voice said, “Lie down and rest, and listen to the music.” I was looking round to choose the couch upon which I should rest, when I heard a soft voice say, ‘Stop! you are freezing to death!’ I had only time to take the rope that bound my dogs to the sleigh and bind it around me, attaching myself to the sleigh, and to say in the Canadian French to the dogs, ‘March!’ They started and dragged me unconscious through the snow, battered and bruised, but safe.” Ah, man! to freeze is sometimes just delicious. The devil takes care that the cold heart should never feel cold. He tells the birds to sing, and the flowers to bloom, and the demons to transform music. There is many a soul just freezing to death and the pleasures of a sensuous religiosity that will only damn him forever. The human heart is a stone until God warms it and regenerates it. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Fresh Infillings Needed SUBTOPIC: After Every Giving Forth TITLE: In The Battle Like The Frazier Gun It is said that the Frazier gun hurls a projectile of a thousand pounds, using 500 pounds of powder at a blast, and that this projectile may be sent through armor plate 17 inches thick; that it is also possible with this same gun to throw a shell thirteen miles, and when the gun is discharged it is automatically thrown back again for reloading, and when it is thrown back it charges the air chamber, which, when the gun is loaded and again released throws it back again in position. So that the gun in use is always being fired and always being charged. This is the picture for the Christian. He is always giving forth of that which God has given him if he is really his child, but he must ever be back again at the feet of the Master receiving a fresh infilling, a new anointing, another vision of the face of the risen Christ. This is the picture of continued blessing always. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Fulness of God SUBTOPIC: Entering Into TITLE: The Fulness Of God A great many people come into this Christian life just as though they moved into a house with one room in it; and they have lived in it for years.

God’s house is a seven-roomed house. It is not only a refuge from the storm, but it is a banquet house, where his people can be fed; it is a chamber of rest, where they can repose on his bosom; it is a library where they can study and know his word and will; it is an observatory where they can look out over all the landscape. I am sorry to say that I lived a long time in the kitchen. It was a long time before I got into the chamber of peace; it was a good while before I got into the work room. I am only beginning to get into the observatory, where I can look abroad and see God’s great horizons. But this morning I put in your hand the key to every part, and on that key is written “Jesus.” You can go then just where you please. Come, dear friends, into this full salvation. — J.W.C.

TOPIC: Future Life SUBTOPIC: Hugo’s Thoughts About TITLE: Immortality I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest once cut down; the new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with reflection of unknown worlds. You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. There I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a fairy tale, and it is history. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and in verse; history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode and song — I have tried it all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say, like so many others, “I have finished my day’s work.” But I cannot say, “I have finished my life.’’ My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight; it opens with the dawn. — Victor Hugo.

G-TOPICS TOPIC: Gloomy Times SUBTOPIC: Triumph Through TITLE: Triumph Over Difficulties 1. What if the clouds are above you? Remember that ever since that day when “a cloud received him out of their sight” he has been behind every cloud. James Whitcomb Riley’s verse is full of truth — “But always keep rememberin’, when cares your path enshroud, That God has lots of sunshine to spill behind the cloud.” 2. Remember that it is a “walk through,” and your need not stop today where you halted yesterday. 3. What if you did fail? His love has not in any way wavered toward you. Those were sweet words of Browning’s:- “Have you found your life distasteful?

My life did, and does, smell sweet.

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?

Mine I saved, and hold complete. “Do your joys with age diminish?

When mine fail me, I’ll complain.

Must in death your daylight finish?

My sun sets to rise again. “I find earth not gray, but rosy; Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.

Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All’s blue.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Glorification SUBTOPIC: On Resurrection Morning TITLE: Resurrection Life Dr. Charles Hodge, writing of Laura Bridgman, the famous deaf mute, said: “I can imagine on the resurrection morning, when God will touch her eyes and say ‘Daughter, see.’ And she will open her eyes and see the face of her beloved. And he will touch her ears and say, ‘Daughter hear.’ And she will hear the voice of the angel choir, like the voice of many waters. And he will touch her lips, and she will sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, sweeter than them all.” Our future will be like that. That is what “glorified” means. Every part of our being touched with his power and filled with his fullness. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: God SUBTOPIC: Not Dead TITLE: God Is Our Rock Luther was sorely down-hearted. The battle, as he thought, was running against him; the Goliaths by the hundred, clad in ecclesiastical robes and electors’ garments, were upon him and he had lost the joy in his heart — not lost his faith, his soul was all right; but he had let slip the blessed consciousness that God lives. The Pope was alive enough, and the dukes and princes that were against the Reformation were all alive, but Luther was down, down, down. The Eliabs had depressed him. Next morning his wife appeared, clad in deep mourning. He asked, “Wife, what is this? I have not heard of anybody being dead; why have you put on the crape?

Why are you in mourning?” “Oh,” she said, “I am in mourning for God.

You have looked so sad this week, I thought God was dead.” The lesson went to his heart. He said, “Forgive me, God; forgive me, wife!” It was then that he gave forth in German that fine old hymn, “A Strong Rock is our God.” If you have got hold of the truth that God lives, you Christian worker, you can do without men. ‘’God lives,’’ was the armor that David had on. You Cannot see it. It does not glisten in the sun, but he has it; God is with him. — J. Robertson.

Wide is the sea through which I have to steer my course, and high its swelling waves; but grace is the breeze that fills the sails, my compass is faith, and my pilot Christ. — Tholuck.

TOPIC: Goodness SUBTOPIC: Should Be Toward God TITLE: Deception Many there are that are good, nay, very good towards men, who are bad, yea, very had towards God. Some there are who are very kind to the creature, yet very unkind to their creator. Many men’s goodness towards the creature is like the rising sun; but their goodness towards the Lord is like a morning cloud, or as the early dew, which is soon dried up by the sunbeams. But Abijah’s goodness was towards the Lord, his goodness faced the Lord, it looked towards the glory of God. Two things make a good Christian — good actions, and good aims; and though a good aim doth not make a bad action good, as in Uzziah; yet a bad aim makes a good action bad, as in Jehu, whose justice was approved, but his policy punished, Hosea 1:4. Doubtless Abijah’s actions were good, and his aims good; but this was indeed his glory, that his goodness was towards the Lord. — The Christian Scotsman.

TOPIC: Gospel SUBTOPIC: Built For The Proprietor TITLE: The Gospel Of God Some weeks ago there was a man who, speaking about a house, said, “It was built for the proprietor,” and he meant that as a recommendation. I asked him, “What advantage would he have?” “Well,” he replied, “you surely know that if a man put up a house for himself, he would put it up better than if he were doing it for another. In a house that was built for the proprietor I expect extra conveniences, I expect no shoddy workmanship, no jerry masonry, I expect that when the proprietor built the house for his own occupation, it was worth going in for.” I said to the man, “You reason rightly, my friend.” For the same reason I am going to stick to the gospel, that is why I am not going to flit. You may flit if you like. The Gospel of God was made and fashioned for his own occupation in the person of the Holy Ghost. I claim this, whatever your new doctrine, whatever the doctrine you are peddling in our country today may claim, the Holy Ghost will seal nothing but the Gospel of God, nothing but the atonement of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost will not inhabit your philosophy, will not dwell in your man-made theology. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Gospel SUBTOPIC: Sharing With Others Imperative TITLE: A Parting Word The late Dr. A. J. Gordon concluded his last pastoral letter to his church (Clarendon Street, Boston), with these words: “Forget not that your first and principal business as a disciple of Christ is to give the gospel to those who have it not. He who is not a missionary Christian will be a missing Christian when the great day comes. Therefore, ask yourself daily what the Lord would have you to do in connection with the work of carrying the news of salvation to the perishing millions. Search carefully whether he would have you go yourself to the heathen if you have the youth and fitness required for the work. Or, if you cannot go in person, inquire diligently what blood mortgage there is upon your property in the interests of foreign missions — how much you owe to the heathen, because of what you owe to Christ for redeeming you with his precious blood. I warn you that it will go hard with you when your Lord comes to reckon with you if he finds your wealth invested in superfluous luxuries or hoarded up in needless accumulations instead of being sacredly devoted to giving the gospel to the lost. “But remember that consecrated giving will be impossible unless there be first a consecrated giver. Therefore, I counsel you to seek the special grace and anointing of the Holy Spirit, that he may work in you that consecration of heart and life on which so much depends.”

TOPIC: Grace Of God SUBTOPIC: “IS” Sufficient TITLE: God’s Promise and Possession “My grace is sufficient for thee.” I have heard of a life in which that sentence was a great spiritual turning point. In the middle of an agonizing prayer, “Let thy grace be sufficient for me,” the eyes of the overwhelmed Christian were casually raised towards a text upon the wall where this sentence appeared. The word “is” stood out conspicuous in color, and with the sight of it came, through the spirit, the simple but divine intuition that what was unexplored was possessed already. Reader, have you that “is”? Does your experience this hour include faith that rests as well as seeks?

TOPIC: Growth SUBTOPIC: Solid Roots TITLE: Christians’ Twofold Relationship To Earth and Heaven Very beautiful and suggestive is the law by which the trees hold fast their connection with the earth while ascending towards heaven. Roots draw upwards the finest essences of the earth out of their imprisonment; while the branches with their breathing leaves draw down the virtues of the heavens. Tree-development depends on the cooperation and unity of ascending and descending currents of energy.

How could the trees produce heaven’s fruit for the use of the world if their roots quitted their hold of the earth? Very cunningly the trees breathe their escape from the soil, and at the same time, very tenaciously, very determinedly, cling to it. With the same breath they say, we will leave the earth, and yet we will not quit it. We will go in for the ascensive life; but the higher we go the more deeply will we root ourselves in the earth; and they do both. — John Pulsford.

H-TOPICS TOPIC: Hanging Onto The Ark Of Safety SUBTOPIC: No Salvation By TITLE: Power Of Morality A Failure “Henry,” asked the elder of two men, of whom the younger had been helping the other in some religious work, “do you know what became of Noah’s carpenters?” “Noah’s carpenters!” exclaimed Henry; “I didn’t know that Noah had any carpenters.” “Certainly, he must have had help in building one of the largest and bestproportioned ships ever put upon the stocks. There must have been many ship-carpenters at work for a long time to have constructed such a vessel in such an age. What became of them, think you, when all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened?” “What do you mean by such a queer question?” Henry asked. “No matter what, just now. Please answer the inquiry, and you may also tell me, if you will, what you would have done in that dreadful hour, when the storm came in its fury, and Noah’s prophecies were all fulfilled and all but the family of the preacher of righteousness were ready to be engulfed in those black waters?” “I don’t know,” said Henry, in a half-thoughtful, half-trifling manner, “perhaps I should have got on the rudder.” “This is human nature exactly, Henry. It would climb up some way rather than enter the fold by the only door. It would ‘get on the rudder,’ in its pride and short-sightedness, rather than go into the ark of safety. It would ‘save itself,’ by hanging on at the hazard of being swept away into the gulf of despair, instead of being saved by the provision of infinite love.” — R.

S. Cook.

TOPIC: Happiness SUBTOPIC: Found In The Way Of Duty TITLE: The Right Road “I have lost the road to happiness Does any one know it, pray?

I was dwelling there when the morn was fair, But somehow I wandered away. “I saw rare treasures in scenes of pleasures, And ran to pursue them, when, lo I had lost the path to happiness And knew not whither to go. “I have lost the way to happiness, Who will lead me back?”

Turn off from the highway of selfishness To the right-up duty’s track! “Keep straight along, and you can’t go wrong; For as sure as you live, I say, The fair, lost fields of happiness Can only be found that way. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

TOPIC: Heaven SUBTOPIC: Where Jesus Is TITLE: Heaven Our Home Various indeed are the ideas and conceptions of God’s people about that new home of theirs they’re to flit into at the term day of earth’s removing. “What do you think heaven is?” asked Wilberforce, the Christian statesman of Robert Hall, the Christian preacher. “Well, heaven is rest.”

Ah, Robert Hall was a great sufferer. In the ruthless grip of an internal disease, writhing hours of the acutest agony were his daily lot. Rest, rest, for that poor, wracked, pained body of his, to him was heaven. Said Wilberforce, “I think of heaven as love;” a happy home had he; a life large, generous and free from distress was his; the very image of bliss was his “ain fireside,” and as he looked around it and caught the bright reflection of that cozy dancing fire on the gladsome looks of the dear home — loves, he naturally thought, why, heaven is just “this present transplanted, purified, glorified, and made eternal; love with the loving, my home! It’s true. There are many, many facets on that gem of the universe that catch, each a different ray of the sunlight of God, and each ray is beautiful and glad and healing to our blear and reek-filled eyes. There’s the touch again of the “vanished hand,” there’s the sound again of the “voice that is still,” there’s the light-up again of the dear old faces th at faded away in the chill gloom of the grave, there’s life from the dead by yon crystal sea. Ay, but statesman and preacher alike were agreed with the Apostle on the fact that the highest, the chief, the one crowning attraction of heaven was “to be with Christ.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me.” “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.” “Oh, heaven without my Savior Would be no heaven to me; The pearly gates were darkness, And dark the crystal sea!” — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Heaven’s Shore SUBTOPIC: Praise To God For Arriving Upon TITLE: Praise To God Away near Stonehaven a Norwegian vessel was caught in the storm, and the coast guard vessel came out and they did their best, but it did not save the men, and all night they struggled in that surging ocean, clinging to the rigging, nothing but death before them. They watched the morning dawn.

How slowly the stars withdrew their shinning. How slowly the gray light crept from headland to headland. And the coast guard are out on the shore, and after some hours’ work the poor Norwegians, wet and dripping, are brought from the shroud of the vessel, and when they got ashore what do you think they did, those hardy seamen? They knelt down, every one of them, before they thanked the coast guard men, and with clasped hands and uplifted eyes they thanked God for their deliverance. I think some of us, when we are rescued by the heavenly coast guardsmen, will thank God for our deliverance. I think in the storm God sends out an advance steamer to bring us in. When we feel the pavement of heaven beneath us — solidity instead of the swelling surge of the sea — I think we will thank God. A burst of praise will go up from our hearts at the feeling of our safety — at being home at last.

TOPIC: Heirs SUBTOPIC: With Christ TITLE: Joint Heirs With Christ A dying judge, the day before his departure to be with Christ, said to his pastor, “Do you know enough about law to understand what is meant by joint-tenancy?” “No,” was the reply. “I know nothing about law, I know a little about grace, and that satisfies me.” “Well,” he said, “if you and I were joint-tenants on a farm, I could not say to you: That is your hill of corn, and this is mine; that is your stalk of wheat, and this is mine that is your blade of grass, and this is mine; but we should share and share alike in everything on the place. I have just been lying here, and thinking with unspeakable joy, that Jesus Christ has nothing apart from me, that everything he has is mine, and we will share and share alike through all eternity.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Hell SUBTOPIC: Recognizing Its Door TITLE: Deception Of Sin “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:6.

I shall never forget my first day in the city of Paris. The friend who came to meet me had been in the city for years, and knew all about it. On the Boulevard Bon Nouvelle the young Scotch boy was arrested by the sight of the most beautiful gateway that he had ever beheld. Multicolored lights were all about the entrance, and the fragrance of the spices of Arabia seemed to float in the air, and the sound of music and dancing broke upon the ear. The glitter and dazzle of fairyland was at the door; and the Scotch boy said, “What’s that?” The body of the friend to whom he spoke now moulders in the dust; the voice that answered is now singing praises to God on high; but the hand of that Scotchman came like a vice to the wrist of the lad who was with him, and the voice hardened to a tone he never forgot, as he said, “Man, that is hell!” “What?” It was a new idea to the country lad. Hell with an entrance like that — with all the colors of the rainbow; with all the flowers and beauty, and the witching scenery and attractions. I thought hell was ugly; I thought I would get the belch of sulphur at the pit’s mouth; I thought harpies on infernal wing would be hovering above the pit; but here — like this? Yes, I saw above the gate — and I knew French enough to know what it meant — “Nothing to pay.”

That was on the gate; but, though there be nothing to pay to get in, what have you to pay to get out? This is the question. Character blasted; soul lost. Mind that. Just examine your ways. Do not be taken in by the flowers and music, and the beautiful path that is at your feet this afternoon. Here is the secret of a successful life. “In all thy ways acknowledge him.” — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Helpers Of The Gospel SUBTOPIC: Who Do Not Experience And Live It TITLE: Noah’s Lost Carpenter Helpers Teachers in Bible classes and Sabbath schools who point their pupils to the Lamb of God but do not lead the way, are like guide-books that tell the road, but are not travelers on it; or like Noah’s carpenters, who build an ark, and were overwhelmed in the waters that bore it aloft in safety.

Careless parents, who instruct their children and servants as every parent should, in the great doctrines of the Gospel, and who yet fail to illustrate these doctrines in their lives, and seek not a personal interest in the blood of Christ, are like Noah’s carpenters, and must expect their doom.

Printers, sewers, folders, and binders, engaged in making Bibles and religious books; booksellers and publishers of religious newspapers, who are doing much to increase the knowledge of the Gospel, and to save sinners, but so many of whom are careless about their own salvation, will have the mortification of knowing that, while their toils have been instrumental of spiritual good to thousands, they were only like the packmules that carried a load to market without tasting it; or like Noah’s carpenters, who built a ship in which they never sailed.

Wealthy and liberal, but unconverted men, who help to build churches, and sustain the institutions of the Gospel, but who “will not come unto Christ that they may have life,” are hewing the timbers and driving the nails of the ark which they are too proud or too careless to enter. Perhaps they think they will be safe “on the rudder;” but they may find, too late, that when they would ride they must swim that when they would float they must sink, with all their good deeds, unmixed with faith, as a millstone about their necks.

Moralists who attend church and support the ministry, but who do not receive into their hearts the Gospel they thus sustain, are like Noah’s carpenters. — Rev. R. S. Cook.

TOPIC: Helpful Thoughts SUBTOPIC: On Several Subjects TITLE: Helpful Thoughts “The Christian’s life down here is a state of combat, not of rest. A call to duty, not discharge from care. Hereafter we shall enjoy such a blessed rest, as will make all our present trials and troubles appear but as momentary.”

Purifying work is painful work. The refining furnace needs a wellestablished confidence in, and love to the great Refiner. “Great characters are not made by walking on carpets.”

A true revival is a divine operation and will produce a true fruit. There will be a heavenly taste, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

To suppose that anyone will turn from the love of this world to the love of eternal things, without an operation of the Holy Ghost, is to be as bad a philosopher as a divine; for it is to expect an effect without a cause. — Christian Scotsman.

TOPIC: Heredity And Drink SUBTOPIC: Results Of A Study TITLE: Heredity And Drink Far worse than the effect of strong drink upon the man himself is its effect upon his posterity. A writer gives a striking illustration of this. He says:

A specialist in children’s diseases, who has for twelve years been carefully noticing the difference between twelve families of drinkers and twelve families of temperate ones, reports that he found the twelve drinking families produced in those years fifty-seven children and the temperates sixty-one. Of the drinkers, twenty-five children died in the first week of life, as against six on the other side. Among the children of the drinkers were five who were idiots; five, so stunted in growth as to be really dwarfs; five, when older became epileptics; one, a boy, had grave chorea, ending in idiocy; five more were diseased and deformed, and two of the epileptics became by inheritance drinkers. Ten only of the fifty-seven were normal in body and mind, On the part of the sixty-one of the temperates two only showed inherited nervous weakness, while four in later years of childhood had curable nervous diseases, and fifty were in every way sound in body and mind. There could scarcely be a more conclusive demonstration in favor of abstinence from intoxicants on the part of those who assume the responsibility of parentage.

TOPIC: Hesitation SUBTOPIC: Can Be Fatal TITLE: Too Late I have read of a captain of a ship, who, with his wife, was on a vessel, wrecked not far from shore, but too far to reach it unaided. They found footing on a ledge of rock perhaps the size of the top of a small organ; but as the tide was coming in and the storm was increasing in its fury, they almost gave up hope of rescue, when, just in the moments of their despair, they were discovered from the shore. The people upon the shore knew just what to do, and they sent out rockets into the sea with cords attached to them, until at last one of the rockets fell beyond the rock upon which this imperiled couple stood, and the line fell where the captain could reach it. He knew what to do with it. He drew upon it until he had a stouter cord, and a stouter line, until at last he had in his possession a good strong rope. He took that rope and tied it about his wife under her arms; and then he called to her above the fury of the sea and reminded her of the mighty force of the undertow; how the water comes rushing shoreward and breaks upon the coast, and then pours back again into the sea with seemingly greater force. And he told her that she must spring into the water at the time of the incoming wave, and that he would give her the signal. He waited until he saw a larger billow than the others come toward them, a great mountain of water, foaming and tossing its crest, and seemingly about to break upon them; and then, just as it was breaking, he called to her, above the fury of the sea, and said, “Now! Now!” The poor woman hesitated, she shrank back, she tried to cling to her husband, she tried to hold on to the rock; but she found that she was to be swept over, and so she let go and cast herself down into the sea, only in time to be caught by the fury of the receding wave, and the life was dashed out of her on the rock where her husband was standing. There was another rocket and another line, and the captain took this and bound it about himself. He could not tell his wife’s fate as yet. And again he cast his eyes seaward, until he saw another great towering billow, and as it came upon him he cast himself with it toward the shore, and helping hands pulled upon the rope and brought him there in safety, where he found the dead body of his poor wife, who had been just one moment too late.

And tonight the word of God, and the providence of God, and the spirit of God, and the minister of God, are all joining in saying to the men who are gathered here, “Now! Now! Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Hidden Root SUBTOPIC: Choking Off The Springs TITLE: Why The Springs Nearly Ceased Flowing One of the famous springs of Saratoga, N. Y., was seen to be failing in its supply, and at last the flow had almost entirely ceased. It was thought by those who owned the spring that its usefulness was over forever, but at last they began to dig down under the vein, and they found that the root of a tree had grown across it. As the root had grown the flow of water had been hindered, until at last it had almost entirely ceased. When the root was removed the water supply was abundant. It is a good thing for a child of God again and again to pray “Search me, O God,” and a better thing to ask God to make him clean. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Higher Level Of Spirituality SUBTOPIC: Through Filling Up TITLE: The Waves And The Wind Steady gracious influence is needed to ensure the Christ-like life.

The sea can only be kept heaped up in waves by the constant pressure of the wind. Take away the pressure and it soon flows back into its old level.

If we want, therefore, to get water to keep a higher level, we must do it by filling up underneath. Apply this to our hearts. If we want the tone of our hearts and lives to rise to a really higher level, to be more Christ-like, more peaceful, more holy, it must be done by filling up, not merely agitating the surface by excitements and emotions. We may get great waves in this way, but we shall have great hollows between them if we do, and a great commotion perhaps, but no real gain. For it is God’s grace in the heart, the gradual filling up of all our needs and deficiencies by the Holy Spirit of God, which can alone raise our hearts and lives to a higher level of purity and holiness. As we cast off bad habits, we need to be acquiring good ones in their places; as we are stirred up by sermons and services to wish to live more holy lives, we need to be acting a s well as wishing rightly if we want to get on. And this is no hopeless, heartless task, for the Lord’s promises are ever sure. — F. C. K. W.

TOPIC: Holy Spirit SUBTOPIC: Typified By Noah’s Dove TITLE: Noah’s Dove But when I say the spirit of God came at Pentecost, I do not want you to think he was not in the world before that. You have only to turn over the pages of the Old Testament to see him in his mighty power. I have a friend who says you have in the dove an emblem of the spirit, and whenever you find a dove in the Old Testament, you have some picture of the third person of the trinity. And he said, when Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out the dove, it flew out over the water, and found no restingplace, and returned again to the ark; then he let it fly again, and the little dove flies here and there and finds an olive-leaf, and comes back and rests upon the hand of Noah. (The olive in the Old Testament and in the New, is the emblem of peace.) Then the third time the dove flew forth, and came back no more forever. Just so the spirit of God came. He came to teach Moses, and Isaiah, and Abraham in the Old — Testament time. He came when Christ was crucified. — He plucked, as it were, the olive-branch of peace from the cross, and bears it back to God to say peace has been made in the death of the Son. But when Pentecost — the fullness of time — was come, he came, and he has not gone back -since that day. He is in the world today, finding his resting-place in the hearts of the believers; and so I don’t speak of him as one far away, but as one near at hand, and right here among us. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Home SUBTOPIC: Lingering Memories Of TITLE: The Home A home is the abode of love, or rather should be so the place of union, and of peace, and of holy brotherhood. In this it is the very image of heaven.

Around the very word “home” what holy and sacred associations cluster and hang what young. joyous, and refreshing thoughts; what hallowed imaginings! What soul-gladdening, cherished remembrances hover around that word! In what heart does it not awaken these emotions? Yes! it does this even in the hearts of those who have disgraced their home by their misconduct. Amid their scenes of vice and misery they have fond recollections of it, even as our first parents still had loving and holy associations hovering around Eden, after being driven out of it. — Christian Scotsman.

TOPIC: Home In Heaven SUBTOPIC: Reaching The Heavenly Shore TITLE: Reaching Home When you are crossing the ocean, homeward bound, sea-sick, forlorn, jaded and faded, you stagger up from your berth to the cabin door, and you read on the registering board there the number of miles yet to be pierced and bored by that revolving screw ere the hills of the Fatherland dot with their crimson welcome the sunrise of the landing-day. You’ve waited long, but now at last the bell rings, commotion on board, the gangway flung to the shore, and see! there’s the dear one down at the quay ready waiting for you. Home! home at last! Just so with you and me, dear believer in Jesus. But a few knots more, and the anchor is dropped in the haven of heaven. Round the last headland do we swiftly, steadily steam on this rolling vessel of life, and lo! yonder is home! and see! Who’s that on the quay, his garments glorious, his countenance shining as the sun in its welcome love and longing for our stepping ashore? Don’t you see him? “He with you chariot of gold and horses of fire? with all that caparisoned equipage of immortal glory?” Yes, he! That’s Jesus waiting for you.

That’s Jesus waiting for me. “Lift up your heads; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in” with his Son! “Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory!”

Who is this son of the King? You, dear believer in Jesus! and I! Blessed, blessed be God “I know not the song that the angels sing, I know not the sound of the harp’s glad ring, But I know there’ll be mention of Jesus my King, And that will be glory for me!

I know not the form of my mansion fair, I know not the name that I then shall bear, But I know that my Saviour will welcome me there, And that will be heaven for me!” — John Robertson TOPIC: Hopeless Sorrow SUBTOPIC: Without Christ TITLE: His Only Hope The sainted A. J. Gordon tells of a man in Boston whom he met one day, and he said to him, “I want you to go with me to the burial ground with my child.” He stepped into the carriage, and there on the front seat was the white coffin. They rode away through the city of Boston to the cemetery, but not a word was spoken. They came to the grave, and the father, after carrying the little casket to the grave, held it in his arms, and, taking the little key from his pocket, unlocked the casket and raised the lid, and fastened his eyes upon the face of his child. He said not a word, but looked long and steadily; then he closed the lid, and gave the coffin into the hands of those at the grave, turned, entered his carriage, and rode back to Boston, never speaking a word. But just as he got out of the carriage he said, with a breaking heart, “She was all I had.” “Poor man,” said Dr.

Gordon, “’he had not the hope that you and I have, and his heart was breaking because he felt the separation was for eternity.” — J. W . C.

TOPIC: Human Direction SUBTOPIC: Sincere, But Fatally Mistaken TITLE: Fatally Mistaken Human Direction I wonder if some of us realize that it is criminal ignorance to be ignorant of the Word of God. I heard a man on one of the northern railroads — I think it was the Northern Pacific — who was on a train that was making its way as best it could against the force of a blizzard. The storm was so terrible that as people looked out from the car windows they could not tell whether there was a station there or not. If you could see this man’s head today, you would see a man that seemed about seventy or eighty years old, his hair being perfectly white; but if you could look upon his body you would say that the man did not seem to be more than thirty or fortyfive years of age. Every little while the train would stop and the brakeman would call out the name of the station, and some people would get out, and then the train would go on. There was a lady with a little child who was very much concerned lest she might not leave the train at the proper place. This man noticed her anxiety and said: “You need not give yourself any concern. I know the road perfectly well. I will tell you when you come to your station.” The train stopped at the station before the one at which this woman wished to alight, and the brakeman called out the name.

They went on, and after some minutes the train stopped again, and this man leaned over and said to the woman, “Now is your time; get out quickly.” She took her child and left the car, and the train went on. In a few minutes it stopped again and then the brakeman called out the name of the station at which this woman had wished to alight. This man ran up to the brakeman and said, “Why, you have already stopped at that station.”

The brakeman said, “No, there was something the matter with the engine and we stopped for a few minutes to repair it.” He said, “I put that woman and her child off in the storm!” They went back — some of the men on the train — to try to find them, and they found the woman holding her child in her arms, and both of them were frozen to death. O friends, it is an awful thing for us to give people wrong directions concerning the truth of God. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Humanity Classified SUBTOPIC: Two Classes — Leaners or Lifters TITLE: Leaner or Lifter? Which Is Your Kind? There are two kinds of people on earth today, Just two kinds of people — no more, I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for ‘tis well understood The good are half bad, and the bad are half good. Not the rich and the poor, for, to count a man’s wealth, You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life’s little span, Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift-flying years Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.

No; the two kinds of people on earth, I mean, Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

Wherever you go, you will find the world’s masses Are always divided in just two classes.

And oddly enough, you will find, too, I ween, There is only one lifter to twenty who lean.

In which class are you? Are you easing the load Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road?

Or are you a leaner, who lets others bear Your portion of labor and worry and care? —Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

TOPIC: Humble Lives SUBTOPIC: Reflecting Christ’s Glory TITLE: Heaven I saw one evening in Glasgow what seemed to be a window set with diamonds. It was flashing from afar, It seemed to be set all round with jewels. The window blazed forth in an effulgence that made you stop on your heel. What is that magnificent window? You discover it is but an ordinary skylight of an ordinary house; the diamonds are but the sun’s rays. The glory on that window did not belong to the house, The sun had kissed the window and flung his glory all round that ordinary structure, and I have seen a life like that, an ordinary life, an ordinary man, an ordinary woman, who never got a newspaper paragraph in their life, spent and being spent for others. Unknown they lived, unknown they died, and I have seen hundreds of passersby stand before that humble life and say: “Whence came those jewels of effulgence, whence this glory of selfsacrifice, of likeness to Christ?” They came from heaven; those jewels belonged not to life. The shinning came from the other shore, and whatever the material, how ever ordinary your life may be, if you only get into the rays of the sun of glory, if you can take your humdrum duty, your monotonous daily toil, and let it bask in Christ’s face, the angels will stop on flitting wing and behold with admiration thy glory — yet not thine — Christ’s.

TOPIC: Humbling SUBTOPIC: Necessary To Useful Service TITLE: Humiliation Of The Hills If we are brought low it is only that we may render better service.

Traveling on the Continent, seeking for renewal of health and energy, I was one day taken through the narrowest pass between the hills that I have even seen. As the train moved on, it seemed as if the bare rocks were close on either side, and when I looked out of the window, I could scarcely see the tops of the hills, they seemed so far away toward the clouds. I thought of the particles of rock up there on the sunshiny summits, loosened by the frost and the thaw, driven to and fro by the free wild winds, falling ever a little lower down the hillside, caught by the rain, and carried lower still, and yet lower still; and they seemed to complain of being borne thus away from their high home in the sunshine, and from their free life on the everlasting hills. They seemed to repine at their humiliation, as they were carried into the shadows of the plain. But we passed out into the valley rich with its foliage, beautiful with its flowers and glowing with its harvests of food and fruit for man, and then I knew t hat the disintegration of the rocks above, and the humiliation of the particles of sand, only meant service instead of enjoyment. We may think ourselves happy up on the high hills of privilege and honor, but it is better, far better, for us to be brought down into the plains, if there we can serve our generation. — Bishop Vincent.

TOPIC: Humility Of Christ SUBTOPIC: The Means Of His Supreme Exaltation TITLE: Humility When our Master came into the world, how did he come? He came as the babe in the manger. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and dwelt in the obscure town of Nazareth. It would seem that because of the way he came, and the way he lived among men, it would be necessary to have many texts to prove that he was God as well as man. Did you ever get the seven steps down that he took in coming to this earth? I want to point them out. Turn to Philippians 2:6-8. I will read it for you: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” He was “equal with God,” and he began to step down, down, down, unto the lowest depths. Notice the steps:

First step , “Made himself of no reputation.”

Second step , ‘Took the form of a servant.”

Third step , “Made in the likeness of men.”

Fourth step , “Found in fashion as a man.

Fifth step , “Humbled himself.”

Sixth step , “Became obedient unto death.”

Seventh step , “Even the death of the cross.”

Now, isn’t it a marvelous thing that it is when we find him at the lowest depths — as low as he could have gone then God exalts him.

I-TOPICS TOPIC: Immensity Of God’s Mercy And Compassion SUBTOPIC: Eulogized TITLE: The Wealth And Freeness Of The Divine Pity If one had art to gather up all the golden sunlight that today falls wide over all this continent — falling through every silent hour; and all that is dispersed over the whole ocean, flashing from every wave; and all that is poured refulgent over the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole continent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia, and torrid Africa; if one could in any wise gather up this immense and incalculable outflow and treasure of sunlight that falls down through the bright hours, and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and fills all the plains and sends innumerable rays through every secret place, pouring over and filling every flower, shining down the sides of every blade of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the humblest things — on stick, and stone and pebble; on the spider’s web, the sparrow’s nest, the threshold of the young foxes’ hole, where they play and warm themselves; that rests on the prisoner’s window, that strikes radiant beams through the slave’s tear, that puts gold upon the widow’s weeds, that plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and goes on in its wild abundance up and down the earth, shining everywhere and always, since the day of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, without waste or diminution; as full, as fresh as overflowing today as if it were the very first day of its outplays one might gather up this boundless, endless, infinite treasure, to measure it, then might he tell the height and depth, and unending glory, of the pity of God! The Light and the Sun its source, are God’s own figures of the immensity and copiousness of his mercy and compassion. — ( <19A311> Psalm 103:11,12; Isaiah 55:6-13) — H. W. Beecher.

TOPIC: Impartation Of God’s Sanctifying Spirit SUBTOPIC: Creates A Clean Heart TITLE: Heart Not Regular We grieve the spirit by failing to keep our hearts clean. The late John MacNeil, of Australia, said that a new heart is not necessarily a clean heart, but many of us have been thinking that it was. David committed a great transgression, and was pardoned, and prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” John says, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

MacNeil uses the illustration of a mother who puts a clean dress on her child in the morning, and tells her to keep it unspotted all day long. When night comes, the child’s dress is so soiled that it is hard to tell whether it is white or black but the mother cleanses it. The child had the will to keep it clean, but the nature of the child made her get it soiled. The same thing takes place every day, but if that mother could only impart some of her own spirit to that child, so that the child would not only have the will but the ability to keep clean. That is exactly what God wishes to do for us and will do. This is the secret of victory over sin. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Importunate Prayer SUBTOPIC: A Monument Of TITLE: A Monument Of Importunate Prayer At the close of a meeting in a Vermont city, in which I had spoken of the power of prayer, an old deacon came forward to say that he could give me another illustration. Said he, “My son was in Albany in a medical college.

We always thought him a good boy until one day a neighbor met me on the street, and said, ‘I saw your boy in Albany yesterday intoxicated.’ I thought the news would kill me. I went home to tell his mother, and when the other children had been put in bed, we got down on our knees and began to pray. At midnight we were still in prayer, but at one o’clock my wife rose from her knees and said, ‘God is going to save him.’ The next day about noon when the first train came in from Albany my son was a passenger. He came to say that he had been living a sinful life and that all the night before he could not sleep, that at one o’clock in the morning he had risen from his bed determined to seek God and then to come to us for assistance. Instantly we were on our knees by his side and almost instantly he was converted.” Then he took me back to the church and introduced me to his son, a practicing physician, and said as he did so, “This is my boy and he is a monument of the fact that God hears and answers importunate prayer. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Impressions SUBTOPIC: Permanence Of Early TITLE: Rain Marks In Stone Slabs The permanence of early impressions.

It is the law of the human nature that, when it is beginning to grow, it shall be soft as wax to receive all kinds of impressions and then that it shall gradually stiffen, and become hard as adamant to retain them. The rock was once all fluid, and plastic, and gradually it cools down into hardness.

If a finger-dint had been put upon it in the early time it would have left a mark that all the forces of the world could not make, nor can obliterate now. In our great museums you see stone slabs with the marks of rain that fell in the distant past; and the footprint of some wild bird that passed across the beach in those old, old times. The passing shower and the light foot left their prints on the soft sediment; then ages went on, and it was hardened into stone, and there they remain. — A. Maclaren, D.D.

TOPIC: Indolence SUBTOPIC: Its Evil Effect TITLE: Peril Wrought By Stagnant Water Indolence breeds morbid conditions in every part of the soul.

The mischief of water is not that it does not run, but that, not running, it corrupts, and corrupting, breeds poisonous miasma, so that they who live in the neighborhood inhale disease at every breath. The mischief of indolence is not that it neglects the use of powers and the improvement of the opportunities of life, but that it breeds morbid conditions in every part of the soul. An indolent man is like an unoccupied dwelling. Scoundrels sometimes burrow in it. Thieves and evil characters make it their haunt; or if they do not, it is full of vermin. A house that is used does not breed moths half as fast as a house that, having the beginnings of them, stands empty. Woe be to them who take an old house and carry goods into it. A lazy man is an old house full of moths in every part. — H. W. Beecher.

TOPIC: Infidel SUBTOPIC: Death Of TITLE: A Hopeless Death The Revelation S. C. Dickey, D.D., of the Winona Assembly, going out one Saturday night to an Indiana town to preach the following Sunday, was walking along the streets from the station to the house where he was to be entertained, by the side of his host. Suddenly they came within hearing of the most awful cries, and his friend said, “Listen, the most bitter infidel in our town is dying in that house, and for all the afternoon he has been crying as you hear him now,” and over and over he heard the cry “O, Jesus, can’t you help me?” “O, Jesus, can’t you help me?” Before the morning came the cry was no more, for the man had gone into the presence of him whose mercy he had spurned, and whose love he had trampled under foot. “And their rock is not as our rock, their enemies themselves being judges.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Infidel SUBTOPIC: Death Of TITLE: The Death-Bed of Tom Paine Editor The Ram’s Horn:

I recently noticed in The Ram’s Horn, among the answers, a doubt expressed in regard to there being any proof that Tom Paine recanted on his death-bed. I have not now at hand nearly all the evidence I have had, but there lies before me a volume entitled, “The Life and Gospel Labors of Stephen Grellet, containing a reference to Paine that I wish to offer for publication in your excellent paper. Grellet was a remarkable man; a minister of the gospel among “The Friends,” who several times traveled all over Europe preaching a pure gospel to princes, kings and emperors, as well as to the common people, and finally declared the plain truth to the Pope at Rome, calling his attention to the unchristian acts committed in his name.

His saintly character forbids the thought that what he says of Paine should be anything but the simple truth. I quote from “Grellet’s Life:” “On account of his wife’s health, they had resided for some time previous to his last journey, out of the city, at the village of Greenwich. At the same place lived the notorious Thomas Paine.” ‘An authentic account of the death of such a man may have some historical value and interest, and S. G. thus notices his decease: “I may not omit recording here the death of Thomas Paine. A few days previous to my leaving home on my last religious visit, on hearing that he was ill, and in a very destitute condition, I went to see him, and found him in a wretched state; for he had been so neglected and forsaken by his pretended friends, that the common attentions to a sick man had been withheld from him. The skin of his body was in some places worn off, which greatly increased his sufferings. A nurse was provided for him , and some needful comforts were supplied. He was mostly in a state of stupor, but something that had passed between us made such an impression on him that he sent for me, and on being told that I was gone from home, he sent for another friend. This induced a valuable young friend (Mary Rascoe) who had resided in my family, frequently to go and take him some little nourishment. Once when she was there, three of his atheistical companions came to the door, and in a loud unfeeling manner, said: ‘Tom Paine, it is said you are turning Christian, but we hope you will die as you have lived,’ and then went away. On which, turning to Mary Rascoe, he said: ‘You see what miserable comforters they are.’ Once he asked her if she had ever read any of his writings. And on being told that she had read but very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding: ‘From such as you I expect a correct answer. “She told him that when very young his ‘Age of Reason” was put in her hands, but that the more she read in it, the more dark and distressed she felt, and she threw the book into the fire. ‘I wish all had done as you,’ he replied, ‘for if the devil has ever had any agency in any work, he has had it in my writing that book.’ “When going to carry him some refreshments she repeatedly heard him uttering the language, ‘Oh, Lord! Lord God! or Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me.’ “ — E. C. Cook.

TOPIC: Influence SUBTOPIC: Human TITLE: A Grandfather’s Blessing When General Grant was nigh unto death, he dictated a formal letter “To the President of the United States,” asking that his namesake and grandson, Ulysses III, be appointed to a cadetship at West Point upon application. Colossians Frederick D. Grant, the young lad’s father, recently took the priceless missive to Washington and personally delivered it to President McKinley with an endorsement from the warrior’s comrade, General Sherman. General Grant’s original letter, with General Sherman’s endorsement across the bottom of the page, furnishes a unique souvenir for the war archives at Washington, which will be treasured as a sacred memento. It goes without saying that the appointment will be made. There are multitudes of young men whose fathers and grandfathers were famous soldiers of Jesus Christ who would, if they could, direct their children and grandchildren into the same noble and joyous service. Any young man who envies this youthful scion of an honored family may well congratulate himself upon the opportunity of becoming a “good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

TOPIC: Influence SUBTOPIC: Unconscious TITLE: Faithfulness A bit of written biography fits in here. A young man, away from home, slept in the same room with another young man, a stranger. Before retiring for the night he knelt down, as was his wont, and silently prayed. His companion had long resisted the grace of God; but this noble example aroused him, and was the means of his awakening. In old age he testified, after a life of rare usefulness, “Nearly half a century has rolled away, with all its multitudinous events, since then; but that little chamber, that humble couch, that silent, praying youth, are still present to any imagination, and will never be forgotten and the splendors of heaven, and through the ages of eternity.” It was but a simple act of common faithfulness unostentatious, and without thought or purpose of doing good, save as the prayer would bless his own soul; yet there went out from it an unconscious influence, which gave to the world a ministry of rare power and value. Miller.

TOPIC: Ingredients SUBTOPIC: Lifeless Without The Spirit TITLE: The Machinery Church Two or three young men who were visiting in Washington city recently, went into the National Museum. Passing a cabinet they glanced at the label on it, on which were the words: “The body of a man weighing one hundred and fifty-four pounds.” “Where is the man?” one of the young men asked.

No one answered him. In the cabinet were arranged an odd assemblage of heterogeneous articles. Among them were two large jars of water; also jars containing different kinds of fats; other jars in which were phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, a few ounces each of sugar, potassium sodium, gelatin, and other chemicals.

Another section held a row of clear glass jars filled with gases — hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen; a square lump of coal, and more bottles separately labeled phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, potassium. In a little jar was a fraction of an ounce of iron, and near by was a lump of illsmelling brimstone.

The materials in these cabinets are given in exact proportions as combined in an ordinary man.

Thus we may have all the machinery to make up a church and have no power. Just as the materials need the touch of God, We need the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

TOPIC: Iniquity SUBTOPIC: Visited To Third And Fourth Generation TITLE: No Fifth Generation At the recent meeting of the Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Legrain, physician-in-chief of the asylum of Ville-Evrard, gave the results of his investigations, which extended over a period of years and showed how sin, like disease, is transmitted from drunken father to appetite enslaved son; how in such soil the seeds of crime and madness develop and ripen in the last generation into sterile idiocy and the extinction of the race.

FIRST GENERATION He traced the course of four generations of drinkers in 215 families. One hundred and sixty-eight families showed unmistakable symptoms of degeneracy; 63 cases of mild insanity; 88 were mentally unsound; 45 at times dangerously insane; many of the children were weaklings and died at an early age, 6 out of 8 in one case, 10 out of 16 in another. These 6 latter who remained, were all feeble-minded and had epileptic fits and a prey to evil instincts. Thirty-nine families found convulsions; epilepsy in 52; hysteria in 16; meningitis in 5; 108 families out of the 215 counted one out of every two individuals victims of periodical alcoholic delirium; families of the 215, insanity had developed.

SECOND GENERATION Ninety-eight observations gave the following: 54 families had one or more members who were imbeciles or idiots 23 families there were those who were morally irresponsible, untimely births, extraordinary mortality and hereditary diseases caused the children to die in appalling numbers. At this stage fathers and mothers had become common drunkards with but eight exceptions. In 42 families he found chronic cases of convulsions, and epilepsy in 40. In 23 families insanity exists.

THIRD GENERATION Seven observations, or families, gave him a total of 17 children; all were mentally unsound and physically stunted; 2 were insane, 4 subject to convulsions, 2 epilepsy, 2 hysteria, 1 meningitis, 3 scrofula.

Summing up the 814 cases found in the 215 families, he found 42.2 percent. were alcoholics, 60.9 percent are degenerates, 13.9 percent morally irresponsible, 22.7 percent have convulsions, 19 percent are incurably insane; 174 disappeared from this world before or almost before having drawn their first breath; 93 cases of tuberculosis, which bring the total of those who died from hereditary alcoholism up to one-third.

There is no fifth generation, for the last line is a microcephalous idiot.

Thus Moses was right, as proven by science, when he said, “God visits the iniquities of the parents unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him.” There is no fifth.

TOPIC: Intercession SUBTOPIC: For The Condemned TITLE: Intercession In 1517 there was a great riot in London, in which houses were sacked and a general insurrection reigned; guns in the tower were thundering against the insurgents, and armed bands were assailing them on every side. Three hundred were arrested, tried and hanged; five hundred were cast into prison, and were to be tried before the king, Henry VIII. As he sat in state on the throne, the door opened, and in they came, every man with a rope about his neck. Before sentence could be passed on them, three queens entered, Catharine of Aragon, wife of the king; Margaret of Scotland, sister of the king, and Mary of France. They approached the throne, knelt at the feet of his majesty and there remained pleading until the king forgave the five hundred trembling men.

But there is a better intercession than that going on for you and for me at this moment.

TOPIC: Invention of SUBTOPIC: To Speed Mail Delivery TITLE: Through A Pneumatic Tube In the presence of one hundred distinguished persons the first official trial of the pneumatic tube for mail transit in America was successfully given in the Philadelphia post office in 1893.

The Postmaster-General, after declaring that the system meant rapid communication between cities all Over the world, himself sent through a Bible wrapped in an American flag, and a message which he composed, as the initial package. The message read: “The first use of the first pneumatic postal tube in the United States is to send through it a copy of the holy scriptures, the greatest message ever given to the world. “Covering the Bible is the American flag, the emblem of freedom of sixty-five millions of happy people.” — J. W. C.

J-TOPICS TOPIC: Jabbok, Where Jacob Wrestled SUBTOPIC: Fled From TITLE: They Fled From Jabbok “And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him.” Genesis 32:24.

Two gentlemen determined some time ago to spend the night at Jabbok’s ford that they might enter more fully into the experience of Jacob, and they waited until the midnight hour and then fled. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Judged By The Savior SUBTOPIC: Must Be TITLE: A Saviour And A Judge Some years ago a man driving down the streets of one of the great cities lost control of his horses and was in danger of being dashed to death.

Suddenly, there sprang out into the streets a man who, seizing the horses by the bit, stopped them in their mad career and saved the driver’s life.

By a singular coincidence, years afterwards the man whose life was saved was on trial before the one who had stopped the horses, who sat in the judge’s chair. The trial was ended; the lawyers had made the plea and the jury had returned with its verdict, when the judge said, “Have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon you?”

Then, rising, trembling with great emotion, he said: “Judge, don’t you remember me?” And the judge said once again, “Have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced?” And then he said, “Why, Judge, I am the man you saved; have mercy, have mercy. And with a look full of pity, his honor replied, “I do remember you and I am very sorry for you, but then I was your saviour, and today I am your judge;” and the sentence of death was passed.

Today our Saviour stands waiting to be merciful. With tears in his eyes he stands knocking again and again at the door of our hearts. But one day the picture will change, and he will be our judge to say, “Depart, for I never knew you.” God save us from that day. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Judgment SUBTOPIC: From A Guilty Conscience TITLE: The Conscience And Future Judgment I sat alone with my conscience In a place where time had ceased, And we talked of my former living In the land where the years increased.

And I felt I should have to answer The question put to me, And face the answer and question Throughout an eternity.

The ghosts of forgotten actions Came bating before my sight, And things that I thought were dead things Were alive with a terrible might.

And the vision of my past life Was an awful thing to face — Alone with my conscience sitting In that solemnly silent place.

And I thought of a far-away warning, Of a sorrow that was to be mine, In a land that then was the future, But now is the present time.

And I thought of my former thinking Of a judgment-day to be.

But sitting alone with my conscience, Seemed judgment enough for me, And I wondered if there were a future To this land beyond the grave; But no one gave me answer And no one came to save.

Then I felt the future was present, And the present would never go by, For it was but the thought of my past life Grown into eternity. Then I woke from my timely dream, And the vision passed away, And I knew the far-away warning Was a warning of yesterday, And I pray that I may not forget it In this land before the grave, That I may not cry in the future, And no one come to save.

And so I have learned a lesson.

Which I ought to have known before, And which, though learned it dreaming, I hope to forget no more.

So I sit alone with my conscience In the place where the years increase, And I try to remember the future, In the land where time will cease.

And I know of the future judgment, How dreadful so’er it be, That to sit alone with my conscience Will be judgment enough for me. — Anonymous.

TOPIC: Judgment SUBTOPIC: Sifting At, Unerring TITLE: God’s Certain Estimate “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

There is a machine in the Bank of England that in a very wonderful way sifts the sovereigns. You could hardly believe it. There is a whole case of sovereigns there by the man, who, like an ordinary miller at an ordinary mill, takes his scoop and shovels up these sovereigns that men have tumbled the one over the other to get hold of, and he puts them in his machine. He feeds his mill the same way as the old farmer feeds his threshing machine, and it takes hold of the coins and tests them. It weighs and poises each, throwing the light ones to one side, and allowing those that are good and solid and up to the mark to flow into another receptacle.

It is a marvelous bit of human ingenuity, but its testing qualities are nothing beside the bar of the judgment of God; nothing to the final assize, when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God. You had better put it right. The Spirit says you are a happy man if you realize your shortcoming in time and get it covered. — J. Robertson.

TOPIC: Judgments Poured Out SUBTOPIC: On An Anti-Christian Community TITLE: Can You Send Us A Minister Of Jesus Christ?

Who would want to live in any city if you took the Christians out of it?

Some infidels founded a town in Minnesota a few years ago, in order to have a town in which the name of God or Christ should never be mentioned except in terms of profanity and vulgarity. They hung Jesus Christ in the streets in effigy, and the place was full of blasphemy. I had to stay there all night some years ago in passing through that region, and I trembled for my life while I stayed in the best hotel in the place. The town was destroyed by fire, and they tried to build it up again. Then came an Indian massacre, with an awful retribution of bloodshed, and they tried to build it up again. It was again partially destroyed by fire; and at last, after there had been a lot and bloodshed and anything but purity and peace for years, the citizens of that town sent to the American Home Missionary Society and said, “Can you send us a minister of Jesus Christ?” And if you were to go there today you would not know that community with its church spires pointing heavenward, and its children going to Sundayschool and learning about Christ. It is almost as orderly there today as in any town in the land, because of the influence of the church. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Justification SUBTOPIC: Not By Human Worthiness TITLE: Jesus Paid It All Two young girls came to my office the other day and asked me if I would pray for them. I said: “Why cannot you ask for yourselves?” and they said: “Why, we are not worthy to ask for ourselves;” and then they told me about a dear friend and a cousin of theirs, and one of them said: “The Major could ask things from God, because he is good, but I could not ask so much.” I said: “God would not give Major anything because he is so good. If he gives him anything, it is because he has put to his credit his own righteousness. If he should ask for anything according to his own merits he would be cast out, a poor, undeserving sinner, and so would I.”

Then I said: “Suppose you had a kind friend visiting you in New York, who was pretty well off, and after she was here two or three weeks she should say ‘I am going to leave two hundred dollars with Mr. Macy for you to purchase goods, and I want you to get whatever you wish;’ I said:

Suppose you should go down there, you would not say ‘I should not dare to buy a hundred dollars’ worth here; I will buy four or five dollars’ worth.’ Who would get the benefit of that except Mr. Macy? Why, he would say to you ‘This money is paid, the same as if you had paid it; it is to your credit, and you are very foolish if you don’t get the benefit of it.’

Now you are entitled to two hundred dollars’ worth, and I will venture to say that you would not let any of that money be lost, but it would all be claimed to the last cent, and you would feel that you were entitled to it, although you hadn’t paid a penny yourself. That is the way we go to God.

We have nothing to present to him as a claim, but on the books of God to our credit the infinite righteousness of Christ has been deposited, and God comes and says: ‘In his name, ask my help as far as that credit will go.

You have not any right, but he has a right, and he gives it to you.’ ‘Oh!’ she says’ ‘I see it. Why, I think I could ask anything of God now.’ “ This incident illustrates the meaning of justification; it is not that you are pardoned and slipped through on sufferance. That is not very creditable; but you are lifted right up into the peace of Jesus himself, and you stand where he stands. The very moment after you have come to him he puts you in his place and represents you to the Father. Now that is justification. We are made righteous through the righteousness of Christ.

There is no difference between Major and his little cousin; no difference between George Muller and you poor sinners. Both are perfectly justified as much as Christ is, the moment you accept Jesus as your righteousness.

K-TOPICS TOPIC: Key To Opening God’s Supply SUBTOPIC: A Specific Promise TITLE: God’s Name The Right Key You have lost the key of a chest, and after trying all the keys you possess you are obliged to send out for a smith. The tradesman comes with a huge bunch of keys of all sorts and sizes. To you they appear to be a singular collection of rusty instruments. He looks at the lock, and then he tries first one key and then another. He has not touched it yet; and your treasures are still out of your reach. Look, he has found the likely key. It almost touches the bolt, but not quite. He is evidently on the right track now. At last the chest is opened, for the right key has been found.

This is a correct representation of many a perplexity. You cannot get at the difficulty so as to deal with it aright, and find your way to a happy result. You pray, but have not the liberty in prayer which you desire. A definite promise is what you want. You try one and another of the inspired words, but they do not fit. You try again, and in due season a promise presents itself which seems to have been made for the occasion; it fits as exactly as a well-made key fits the wards of the lock for which it was originally prepared. Having found the identical word of the living God, you hasten to plead it at the throne of grace, saying “O my Lord, thou hast promised this good thing unto thy servant; be pleased to grant it!” The matter is ended; sorrow is turned to joy; prayer is heard. — C. H.

Spurgeon.

TOPIC: Kindnesses SUBTOPIC: Little, Can Minister Great Help TITLE: Little Kindnesses If you were toiling up a weary hill, Bearing a load beyond your strength to bear, Straining each nerve untiringly, and still Stumbling and losing foothold here and there, And each one passing by would do so much As give one upward lift and go his way, Would not the slight reiterated touch Of help and kindness lighten all the day?

There is so little, and there is so much, We weigh and measure and define in vain.

A look, a word, a light, responsive touch Can be the ministers of joy to pain.

A man can die of hunger walled in gold, A crumb may quicken hope to stronger breath, And every day we give or we withhold Some little thing that tells for life or death. — Susan Coolidge.

TOPIC: Kneeling And Looking Up SUBTOPIC: A Means Of Deliverance TITLE: Kneel, And Look Up, For Deliverance At Hussea, the state of Antioquia, is separated from the State of Ciendenamarco, by the Hussea river. The river is about sixty feet wide and the supposition is, or rather tradition has it, that the Indians many years ago fastened twine to their arrows, and then with their bows shot the string across the stream from mountain to mountain, and making them fast, planted and trained vines which have grown and formed cables from six to ten inches thick, and knitted together that it forms a perfect bridge, and it is the only means of crossing the stream. As I have said the bridge is about sixty feet long and about eighty feet above the level of the stream. The first time that I crossed over on it, when I reached about the center, it began to sag and swing and to sway from side to side, so much so that lost my head and became so dizzy I felt that I must fall off the sides into the water below. My guide, seeing me, and knowing how I felt, called to me to get on to my knees and look up. And almost instantly I regained my selfcontrol and crossed the bridge. This was a live bridge or bridge of living vines. And when crossing the bridge of life and we feel that we must fall, and we become dizzy with temptation, get down on your knees and look up, and we will be all right, we can cross the bridge with safety. — J. W.

C.

TOPIC: Knowing Not What To Ask SUBTOPIC: In Prayer TITLE: I Know Not What To Ask For I knew not what to ask for, For the spirit voice seemed dumb.

As I bowed in prayer and lingered there, For the wish I prayed might come.

I knew not what to ask for, For my heart was sorely pressed; ‘Mid the fluttering wings of a thousand things.

I knew not which was best.

I hardly liked to ask him, For I hardly seemed to know; In the winding ways of a tangled maze I wandered to and fro.

What would’st thou have me do, Lord?

Was all that my heart could say; But the what or where, or the here or there, Was more than I dared to pray.

What would’st thou have me be, Lord?

Joyous, or sad at heart?

Silent and still, at thy holy will, Or anxious to do my part?

What would’st thou have me say, Lord?

A “Yes,” or a final, “No”?

I am waiting near, that my heart may hear Thy whispering soft and low.

I know not what to ask for, For the spirit voice seems dumb; And I cannot plead in my unknown need, O Master, in mercy come!

He knoweth what I should ask for, As I stand at the open gate; For the lips I close, he fully knows; So in silence I rest and wait. — William Luff.

TOPIC: Knowledge Of Self SUBTOPIC: Value Of TITLE: Self-examination People are generally too forward in examining others, and are so taken up with impertinence and things that do not concern them, that they have no time to be acquainted with themselves, like idle travelers that can tell you a world of stories concerning foreign countries and are very strangers at home. Study of ourselves is the most useful knowledge, as that without which we can know neither God nor anything else aught; as we should know them. Rev. Adam Littleton.

TOPIC: Knowledge Revealed SUBTOPIC: Through Faithfulness To Duty TITLE: Duty First, Then Revelations When the young astronomer Horrocks had made all his arrangements for observing the transit of Venus, and anxiously awaited the critical moment, the church bell summoned him to worship. What was to be done? If he responded to the bell, the transit might occur in his absence, and thus the grand spectacle would be missed, the great secret lost! After one moment’s hesitancy the sense of duty prevailed; the service was celebrated; and, returning to his room, the devout astronomer beheld on the screen the coveted sign of the star. Thus it is with other secrets of the heavens; they are made known to us not when we forsake practical duty for abstract intellectualism, much less when we forsake goodness for libertinism; but when we persist in walking in the path of conscience and duty and worship. Curbing our pride, chastening our impatience, denying our passions, and waiting on God, we shall see light in God’s light. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and He will show them his covenant.’ — W. L. W Atkinson.

L-TOPICS TOPIC: Lack Of Spiritual Power SUBTOPIC: The Christian’s Fault TITLE: Power Power accompanies salvation. If anyone is a child of God and shorn of power it is entirely the fault of himself, and never of God. Christ is the power of God, and if we have him in his fulness it is as natural for us to have power in the estimation of God as it is to breathe. Settle, then, first of all, the question as to whether he is yours. If so you have the accompaniment of power. Second, you shall receive power, the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and, since it can be proven that the Holy Ghost is in the world to make Christ real to every believer, it naturally follows that we may receive him and be filled with all the fulness of God. If, therefore, he has come, and we are still powerless, the fault is entirely our own.

A young engineer was asked in examination the following question: “Suppose you had a steam pump constructed for a ship with everything in perfect order, and you should throw out the hose and no water would be drawn, what would you think might be the difficulty?” “I would think,” said the student, “that there must be some defect in the pump.” But,” said the professor, “that is not admissible, for the supposition is that it is perfect.” “Then, sir,” said the student, “I should look over to see if the river had run dry.”

This is the position for us today. We have the promise of power, we have Christ, the Holy Ghost has come, the reservoir is filled to overflowing. If we are without power it is because we have not appropriated what is our birthright privilege in Christ.

TOPIC: Light From The Sun Of Righteousness SUBTOPIC: Being Receptive To TITLE: Light Through Church Windows Effects of light depend on receptiveness to light.

You have seen one of the windows of a great church perfectly filled and saturated with sunshine. It might have seemed to an uninstructed eye, to have the glory in itself. But what really caused the beautiful dazzling brilliance was the combination of two things — the direct incidence of the sun’s rays, and the perfect transparency of the window’s glass. The window “shone” because the sun was opposite, and because the window was so made as to be receptive of light. Receive God’s light. Drink in at every pore the rays of the sun of righteousness. — C. J. Vaughan, D.D.

TOPIC: Lighting Up One’s Life SUBTOPIC: Through Following Christ TITLE: Christ Our Light I read the other day that the chief kind of goods that the slaves in America ordered, when they had liberty to order anything for themselves, were looking glasses and candles. When I saw a colored gentleman on the other side in love with his dusky self, I could understand about the lookingglass, but what about the candle, why was it bought? I will tell you. In the days of slavery no slave could have a light, no candle could burn in a slave’s hut — it was the privilege of the freedman. Oh the poor weary hearts, when Lincoln’s proclamation reached them, they would have the looking-glass, and a grin from ear to ear and a flash of white teeth in it, but, oh light up the huts on the Ohio and the Tennessee, light them up, for we are free!

That is what we do when Christ comes to us, we light up before heaven, we rescue our lives from waste and failure, but the Christless life is always dark, never lit up. He that followeth Christ shall not walk in darkness; and if you follow Christ, and have the light of life, you are safe, safe from all the hell bats that are in the darkness!

You notice how our jewelers’ shops in Glasgow, and London, and New York, do not guard their great treasures with iron bars and steel shutters.

They do not, because there are jemmes and burglars’ tools that can make a way through steel and iron; but I notice that the plate-glass of these jewelry stores is from roof to street, and inside they are all alight. There is safety because you cannot go into that store without being seen. That is the best safety, that is what Christ does with a soul. He does not send merely angels to guard me, he gives, as his safety, the lighting up of the soul; and the devil cannot get into your heart without being seen by God.

Praise his name! “He that followeth the Lord shall not walk in darkness.”

Light up in the light of life, and one day you will be lost in his light, which is love. The Lord help you. Oh souls, you will live for ever in darkness, or for ever in light, which shall it be? Eternal darkness, or everlasting light!

Choose Christ. Let your heart speak, and say, “Lord, I accept thee.” Just say it. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. He that cometh unto me shall never, no never, see death.” Oh poor heart, accept him. — Amen. — J.

Robertson.

TOPIC: Lincoln, Abraham SUBTOPIC: Influenced By A Faithful Christian TITLE: Consistent Living Mrs. Pomroy was counted a member of President Lincoln’s household.

One day when he had grown weary with the affairs of state he suggested to her that she should occupy with him that night the President’s box at Ford’s theater. She courteously declined. He gave her a subsequent invitation which was again not accepted, and finally, with some degree of irritation, he said to her, “Mrs. Pomroy, it is counted an honor to sit in the President’s box; I should like to ask you why you have refused.”

Hesitating a moment as if she were afraid that she might hurt the feelings of the President, she said: “Mr. President, I am a Christian, and when I became such I promised my Lord that I would go no place where I could not take him with me or ask his blessing. I could hardly do this at the theater, and for that reason I do not go.” It is said that Abraham Lincoln never again asked her to accompany him to such a place, but it is known that again and again when they were driving together on some mission of mercy in the various hospitals, me would say to his coachman, “Drive a little slower,” and then say to Mrs. Pomroy, “Tell me more of this Christ whom you serve.”

Such a life always has power, and this is simply being consistent, not in any sense fanatical. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Little Things SUBTOPIC: Hindering God’s Movings TITLE: A Little Thing Not In Place In the year 1876, when the great Corliss engine was to be tested at the Philadelphia Exposition, and they gave the signal to the engineer to start, the engine would not move. They looked her over; they could see nothing wrong, but she would not move. They sent for the maker. He came and made an examination, and said everything was in place and in good condition, but when they tried again, the engine could not be started.

Finally, as he was walking across the engine-room he heard the clinking sound of a little piece of steel, and, stooping down, picked it up, walked quickly across the room and slipped it in place, then he gave the signal, and the great engine seemed to be a thing of life, and every wheel in the Exposition Building felt its power. I take it for granted that the most of us are Christians, but it is well that each one of us should see if there is any small thing wrong in our life, for if so, we are going contrary to the will of God. We are hindering the work of God in us, and through us. - - J. W. C.

TOPIC: Local Church Growth SUBTOPIC: Advice About TITLE: The Living Church If you would have your church be much, make much of it. Talk it up. Live and give for it. Be short-sighted as to its weaknesses and far-sighted as to its possibilities.

When church operation means cooperation, with singleness of heart and aim, look out for results.

Our churches are full of latent forces. These forces latent must be made forces potent if the kingdom is to come.

To draw people to church you must lead the way. The only way to get is to go. To get outsiders in, the insiders must go out; but they must go out after others, and come back. If the insiders stay out, they will never get the outsiders to come in.

Much depends upon how the people back up the pastor. When he invites people to come, he must know what they are coming to. To come to a warm Christian welcome will mean to come again, and probably to remain. — Watchman.

TOPIC: Longings SUBTOPIC: Fulfillment Demands Following TITLE: Following After Longings When Raphael was asked how he painted such wonderful pictures, he said, “I dream dreams, and see visions; and then I paint my dreams and my visions.” With marvelous skill his hand wrought into forms of radiant beauty the lovely creations of his mind; otherwise they would never have brightened the world with their wondrous splendors. Longing not only sees the heavenly visions, but is obedient to them, and strives to realize them. It struggles up toward the excellence that shines before it; it seeks to attain the fine qualities which it admires. It is not satisfied with good resolves, but sets forward to make them come true. When Joan of Are was asked what virtue she supposed dwelt in her white standard that made it so victorious, she replied. “I said to it, ‘Go boldly among the English,’ and then I followed it myself.” The white banner without “the lily-white maid” herself would have won no victories. So, when we send out the white banners of pure and noble longings, we must be sure to follow them ourselves, if we would win the blessings which our hearts crave. — Miller.

TOPIC: Looking Up Spiritually SUBTOPIC: During Trials TITLE: Look Up The way to get ready for trial is to look up. A sea captain once sent his boy into the rigging of the ship, and as he began to look down into the dizzy depth below him and tremble, the father shouted to him: “Look up.”

The child obeyed him and went on in safety. So Peter says to you, “Beloved, look up; yonder is the prize.” The trials here are not worth looking at. There is the incorruptible inheritance. Keep your heart fixed on things above. That is the way to overcome trouble. Jesus himself would have succumbed if he had looked down. I have sometimes wondered if that is the reason why, just before the cross, he said not a word about his trial.

He told his disciples: “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” but he said not a word about his own terrible trial that was so near. “He endured the cross, despising the shame.” He looked through it and saw the glory of the throne beyond, and the rest and joy laid up there for him and for us. You must keep your eye upon the heavenlies. Think of the mansions yonder.

The disciples were able to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing there was something infinitely better awaiting them. What if you lost fifteen thousand dollars last week, you have not lost that inheritance.

What if you should lose twenty thousand next week; you are richer then than Jesus was. You talked about trials here; there it will be, “I will confess your name before my Father.” You think people do not understand you here; there “the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” for he hath promised to bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday. What though you have been full of pains and aches here, the body won’t know what pain means there; it will forget how it feels to be sick. What, though scalding tears have flowed down your face here, his own hand shall wipe them away, forevermore, and every tear shall become a jewel in your crown if they were shed for Jesus. Look up! Look up! — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Losing One’s Self SUBTOPIC: Through Union With Christ TITLE: Christ Liveth In Me Dr. Gordon used to tell a little circumstance which came beneath his eyes in New England, which presents to us a picture of this truth. Two little saplings grew side by side. Through the action of the wind they tossed each other. By and by the bark of each became wounded and the sap began to mingle, until in some still day they became united to each other. This process went on more and more until they were firmly compacted. Then the stronger began to absorb the life from the weaker; it grew stronger while the other grew weaker and weaker, until finally it dropped away and then disappeared. And now there are two trunks at the bottom and only one at the top. Death has taken away the one, life has triumphed in the other.

There was a time when you and Jesus Christ met. The wounds of your penitent heart began to knit up, with the wounds of his broken heart, and you were thus closely bound to him. How is it now? Has the old life been growing less and less? Has he been increasing and you decreasing? If so then you have learned Paul’s lesson when he said: ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

TOPIC: Love, Not Logic SUBTOPIC: Overcomes Unbelief TITLE: In Moral Work It is more hopeful to melt than to break. You may hammer ice on an anvil, or bray it in a mortar. What then? It is pounded ice still, except for the little portion melted by heat of percussion, and it will soon all congeal again. Melt it in the sun. and it flows down in sweet water, which mirrors that light which loosened its bonds of cold. So hammer away at unbelief with your logical sledge-hammers, and you will damage its shape, perhaps, but it is none the less unbelief because you have ground it to powder. It is a mightier agent that must melt it — the fire of God’s love, brought close by a will itself ablaze with the sacred flow. — A. Maclaren, D.D.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Always Facing Its Sunshine TITLE: God’s Love What infinite love? The purest, sweetest, tenderest thing known on earth is the over-hanging heart of a mother over the cradle that contains her babe that can give nothing back receiving everything and returning nothing — yet the love of the mother is but a drop in the ocean when compared with the love of God. It is infinite, infinite! There’s a wideness in God’s mercy Like the wideness of the sea; There’s a kindness in his justice, Which is more than liberty.

For the love of God is broader, Than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind.

Over in England an archdeacon, having reached almost the end of his life, had his home so constructed that he could spend his closing days in sunshine. In the morning they placed his chair so that he could turn his face toward the east and see the rising sun; at noontime they wheeled his chair into the south window, where he could behold the sun in his meridian; but in the evening hours they would place him in the west window, where he could behold the king of day sinking behind the distant hills. So let me ask you in the morning of your life to keep your faces toward the east window, and at noontide live in the south window, but when evening comes, turn your face toward the west window, so that all your journey through you may live in the sunshine, and thus keep yourselves in the love of God.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Drawn Toward The Weak TITLE: God Loves Us In Spite Of Weakness When I first began to preach, I shall never forget one of the first sermons I preached. A woman walked down the aisle with a child most miserably deformed. Not very long after I was called upon to go to her home, for a little child was dead. As I walked along the road wondering what to say, I thought it was, of course, this deformed child, and I wondered what I could say to comfort the mother, for I had had very little comforting to do up to that time; but when I entered the little house, poor as poverty could make it, there in the middle of the room was the little deformed child, and there in the casket was the face of one of the most beautiful children I had ever seen. I said to the mother, “Would it not have been a good thing if God had taken this child and spared the one in the coffin?” And then she sprang to the center of the room and caught the little one in her arms and said: “I know you mean it well, but if God had taken her it would have killed me. Why, there is not a day since she was born th at she has not been in my arms, and not a night that she isn’t on my heart. I sometimes think her very weakness draws her to me.” — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Murder Prevented By TITLE: A Father’s Love I read the other day of a father whose wayward son had treated him with a vileness almost surpassing belief, and seemed to be filled with insatiable malice toward his loving parent. The father in some way heard that the son was planning to take his life in order that he might inherit his fortune, and, going to him, he asked him to grant him one request, and to come with him in the night-time into a forest. He led him into the depths of the wood, and then he told him what he had heard, and that he loved him so much that if he must kill him he would allow him to do it in such a way that he might not be forced to suffer the penalty of the law for the crime. And, then, taking out a keen knife, he handed it to his son and told him that he was ready to die by his hand. This act upon the father’s part so smote the son with deep contrition that he fell sobbing upon his face and became reconciled not only to his father, but was led by that father’s hand to commit himself to the service of Jesus Christ and to become a faithful witness for the love of God that had been so manifested to him by his father’s act. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Omnipotent TITLE: Summer Heat Man vainly attempts to resist the working of the Divine love.

You may shut up your house and exclude the light; but, in spite of you, summer heat will permeate the roof and the walls and get inside. So may men shut up their souls against the light of Truth; but to make themselves proof against Love is more than they can do. Love is the sole omnipotence. The spirit-ocean of God’s love, without let or hindrance, flows into and through the angelic heavens, and is thence propelled down into the souls and bosoms of men. In due time a perfect balance between heavenly and earthly conditions will be the result of this ceaseless endeavor. All commotions, whether of elements, nations, or churches, should be ascribed to this secret pressure of heaven on the hearts and minds of men, and thence on the corrupt atmospheres of the earth. — Dr.

John Pulsford.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Taking Advantage Of TITLE: Sinning Against God I have heard of a hunter who carried with him a deer-charm — a whistle which imitated the voice of the fawn — and one day when he blew upon it there came a beautiful doe and put her head out from the thicket and looked this way and that, wondering where the child was that was calling for its mother. She saw the hunter standing there and knew that he was her mortal enemy, seeking her life and although she trembled with fear she did not stir. And when the hunter saw that great exhibition of mother-love he could not bear to take advantage of it. So he put down his rifle, and lifting up his hand frightened the doe back into the thicket. But, O friends, what shall be said of the man who because he thinks God is so compassionate and longsuffering, and has borne with him so long that he will bear with him still, will selfishly try to keep the control of his own life through his days upon earth, and then cast the dregs of his wasted life into the face of God with a pitiful cry of mercy, and thus endeavor to get into a place of peace after death? Does that meet your idea of manliness? My brother, never cherish a thought like that and lay any claim to being a man. — B. F.

M.

TOPIC: Love Of God SUBTOPIC: Transforms When Demonstrated TITLE: Christian Love An old woman living in one of the Ohio towns had broken almost every law of her State, and at last being guilty of murder, was sent to the penitentiary. In the days of my childhood when the nurse would frighten the children the story of this old woman’s misdeeds was repeated. While imprisoned she had broken every law of the institution, and they had exhausted every form of punishment upon her. One day there went up from the town near my old home an old Quaker lady, who asked permission to see her suffering sister. She was brought in, the perfect picture of despair, with chains upon hands and feet. The old Quaker walked towards her and called her my sister, but she said with an oath, “I am not your sister.” She said, “I love you,” and the response with a greater oath, “No one loves me.” Then the old saint bent over and kissed her, and she said, “God loves you.” Instantly the downcast eyes were raised, tears rolled down the cheeks of the woman, who was a sinner. She rose to her feet, and vowed that if God loved her she would serve him, and they took off her chains, never to put them on again, and until the day of her death she went up and down the corridors of the prison, herself an angel of mercy. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Love Of Christ SUBTOPIC: For The Unlovely TITLE: Devotion To Christ I have heard of a story of a visitor who was supposed to be a resident of heaven, who spent some time with a family on earth. The people of this family noticed that whenever this heavenly visitor went abroad he seemed to find even in the lowliest and most repulsive men and women something that was exceedingly attractive and toward which his heart went out.

Upon asking him what it was that caused him to love these seemingly unlovely persons, he answered, “I have spent all of my time with Jesus, and love him with all my heart and soul. I have been with him so much that I have come to know the demeanor of his form and the look of his eye and almost every one of his gestures; and as I looked at these people that seemed to you so repulsive I could detect in every one of them some gesture or some expression of the face or voice that reminded me of Jesus, and I could not help loving them.”

Let us ask God to teach us this secret of the eternal love, that we may be able to do the work of Christ in the manner of Christ. And how shall we receive this love? By receiving God. “God is love.” Love is not only a part of God, or God only a part of love, but all there is of love is God, and all of God is love, and “every one that loveth is born of God.” Let us realize that it is as we receive God that we may receive that spirit of love which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,” and which never fails. And let us remember that we may receive God just so far as we are willing to lose ourselves that if we die unto self we may live unto God; and let us this night give ourselves away in a new and completer surrender unto his blessed will, that he may baptize us with love and send us forth to share with him the sufferings of love, and to join in the final and certain triumph of the sacrifice of Christ. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Love For Christ SUBTOPIC: Its Power To Stir Others TITLE: The Spirit Of Revival Some years ago a pastor said to me that there had been a revival in his church. I said, “How did it come about?” He said, “I sent for neighboring ministers and laymen to help me in a series of meetings.” I asked him who helped him the most, and he said, “It was Deacon N_____.” I said, “What could he do? I have heard him, speak about the love of Christ and his interest in lost men, and he never seems to he able to do it without breaking down and crying.” “That was just it,” replied the pastor. “The ministers had good sermons prepared, which they delivered well, but they did not seem to move the people very much; and some of the laymen made excellent speeches, but they did not seem to stir the people deeply. But when Brother N_____ would stand up and begin to talk about Christ’s love and of the opportunity of men, it would seem as though he could not control himself in his deep interest, and the tears would begin to come, and then the sobs, and then the people would be weeping with him and numbers would express their desire to find Christ.” — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Love Of Christ SUBTOPIC: Outshines The Sun TITLE: The Source Of The Sun’s Heat The all-sufficiency of the love of Christ.

They tell us that the sun is fed by impact of objects from without, and that the day will come when its furnace flames shall be quenched into gray ashes. But Christ’s love is fed by no contributions from without, and will outlast the burnt-out sun and gladden the ages of ages forever. — A.

Maclaren, D.D.

TOPIC: Love Of Christ SUBTOPIC: Victorious And Eternal TITLE: Love Victorious When Christ came with his heart of love, there was a grim chuckle in hell. “We have seen love in the human heart before,” and the grim angel of death fluttered his black wings and said, “I’ll settle it. Has the strange mysterious man brought only love with him? I have annihilated love a million times, and I will do it for him also.” And the men surrounded him, and the traitor’s kiss was planted on his cheek, and the priests got hold of him, and the soldiers took him away, to death, and his pale lips say, “It is finished.” And, true, they did bring him from the cross a limp, lifeless body. The arms hung by the side, and the head fell on the breast of the bearer. They put him into a grave and rolled a great stone there, and they went about saying, “He is dead dead!” O love in the Saviour’s heart, thou art blotted out after all! Death has interfered with love. And on the way to Emmaus there are two disciples. They are very downhearted this morning.

They are saying one to the other, “What an awful thing! W e trusted it had been he who should have redeemed Israel, and today is the third day, and he is in the grave.” Was he dead? The Divine sleeper stirs in his sleep. A tremor of returning life runs through his frame. He rises and calmly puts aside the cerements of the grave, and on the Sabbath morning he is risen.

Death has lost its power, and with the love in Christ’s heart death has been defeated. “O, death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory?” Where is it? Christ hath brought life and immortality to light!

And it is that love that you and I need this morning, the love that death hath no power over, a deathless love, a love that is to exist and be strong when yonder sun flickers out into eternal midnight. It is that love that my longing soul craves for, and it is that love that is in Christ’s heart. It is a deathless love; it is a love that you can allow yourselves to sail in. Human love! — why, we dare only creep from headland to headland; we cannot launch out into the deep, for death is nigh. How many go forth in the morning and never come back at night! But in Christ’s love you can let your soul go. You can sail into the mighty ocean assured that there is no limit, that there is no further shore to it, that there are no shoals to tear the ribs of the vessel of your heart asunder. The deathless love of Christ, can you sing it? “Unto him that loved us” with a deathless love. — J.

Robertson M-TOPICS TOPIC: Management Of Earthly Affairs SUBTOPIC: Through Divine Guidance TITLE: The Influence Of A Consistent Life I have read a very touching incident concerning Madame Guyon, who lived at a very dark time in the world’s history, and yet was one of those few saints that never bowed the knee to Baal. She touches today the springs of holy living, after the lapse of more than a century, in thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives. She had a husband who was a very prominent man; and on one occasion twenty-two claimants for an estate brought to him their intricate case and said they would agree to abide by his judgment. They did not dare to take it into court, it was so complicated. He took the papers under advisement, and while he was considering the case he died. They then brought the papers to his widow, and said to Madame Guyon that if she would undertake to settle that estate they would all abide by her decision. She was not a business woman; she had always said she did not have a head for business; she could not transact anything in the line of business affairs. But the thought came to her that this would give her an opportunity to be a worker with God, if she could prevent quarreling and disturbance and dissension. So she said that if they would agree formally to accept her decision she would settle the case. They did so, and she shut herself up with God for thirty days. She did not go out of her room except to go to her meals or to the house of God. After the thirty days she brought down an outline of what seemed to her just. She had solved every problem, she had made every complicated point clear, as no godless lawyer on earth could have done; and when she presented her decision to these claimants they not only each of them accepted her decision and said that it was perfectly just, but the entire twenty-two united in saying that they were perfectly satisfied with what she decided. I do not believe that God would give such a faculty to you unless he put you in just that place; but when everything is given into the hands of God he will manage the business, and God’s business always succeeds. That household always runs smoothly which God is managing. — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Matthew 18:20 SUBTOPIC: Analysis Of TITLE: Analysis Of Matthew 18:20 An excellent analysis of the familiar text, Matthew 18:20, has recently come to my notice. Perhaps this text is the most oft quoted reference ever given in the average prayer meeting, but few of us have ever realized all that this analysis enfolds as being necessary to the best meeting. “ Where — In the Divine Place.

Two or three — In Divine Testimony.

Are gathered — In Divine Separation.

Together — In Divine Fellowship.

In My Name — In Divine Authority.

There am I — In Divine Presence.

The midst of them — The Divine Center.

TOPIC: Message Of Pardon SUBTOPIC: The Sin Of Withholding It TITLE: A Reprieve Held Back Till After The Execution In the stirring story of the Scotch Covenanters a thrilling incident is told of Captain John Paton. After being apprehended he was led to Edinburgh for trial and execution; and on the way he met an old comrade in arms who had fought with him under Gustavus Adolphus. His comrade was surprised and grieved to see him bound. “I will write to the king and get a pardon for you,” said he. Paton replied, “Ah, you won’t get one for me, I’m afraid.” “Well,” answered his friend, “if I do not, I will never draw sword for his majesty again.” So he made intercession for the Covenanter captain, and the pardon he asked for was granted. It arrived at Edinburgh. But it was held back by the lords of the congregation, and Paton went to the scaffold.

Now, you brand that as a most heinous crime, and you do well. But what better is the man or woman who receives the Divine message of peace and mercy and refuses to pass it on to those who may be delivered thereby from the bondage and death of sin?

TOPIC: Messianic Joy SUBTOPIC: When Jesus Comes To Reign TITLE: When Christ Comes To Reign I wonder if the trees are glad When spring-time comes again, And winter’s chill yields to the thrill Of life in every vein — When the leaves unfold their dainty robes, Till twig and branch are clad, And flowers look up from dark brown beds, And over the fields soft greenness spreads? — I think they must be glad.

I’m sure the birds are very glad When winter melts away; They carol so — songs soft and low, Songs sweet and loud and gay.

And swallows come from their other home, And build their nests anew While down from gable and tree-top floats The happy murmur of soft love-notes In music the whole day through.

Will not the earth be very glad When Jesus comes to reign?

And the thorns he bare, man’s curse to share, Shall be turned to flowers again.

Oh! the earth will sing, from her bonds set free, And the floods their voices raise; Instead of the thorn shall the fir-tree be, Instead of the brier the myrtle-tree, For an everlasting praise.

I know the angels will be glad When Jesus comes to reign:

They sang that morn, when earth was born, And aye, they sang again When in the city Bethlehem, “To us a child was given.”

How they will sing and the chorus ring When the Lord comes back to be crowned as King On earth as he is in heaven! — The Morning Star.

TOPIC: Milton SUBTOPIC: Last Poem Of TITLE: Victory In The Last Days I am old and blind; Men point at me as smitten with God’s frown, Afflicted and deserted by my kind:

Yet I am not cast down.

I am weak; yet, dying, I murmur not that I no longer see Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, Father supreme, to thee.

O merciful one!

When men are farthest, then thou art most near; When men pass coldly by, my weakness shun, Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face Is leaning toward me, and its holy light Shines upon my lowly dwelling-place, And there is no more night.

On bended knee I recognize thy purpose, clearly shown, My vision thou hast dimmed that I might see Thyself — thyself alone.

I have naught to fear; This darkness is the shadow of thy wing:

Beneath it I am almost sacred, here Can come no evil thing. — Milton’s Last Poem TOPIC: Missionaries SUBTOPIC: Esteemed Lightly, Highly TITLE: Value Of Missionaries Outside her porthole on a North German Lloyd steamer from Shanghai to Southampton, the editor one day last day overheard this conversation:

Who is that man standing aft and leaning against the ship-rail?” “Oh, he’s a missionary, I suppose — looks about insignificant enough to be one.” “Yes, they don’t amount to much.”

But this is what Minister Conger in a letter to the American missionaries who shared with him the terrible life of the siege of Pekin, says: “I beg in this hour of deliverance to express, what I know to be the universal sentiment of our Diplomatic Corps, the sincere appreciation of and profound gratitude for the inestimable help which you and the native Christians under you have rendered toward our preservation. Without your intelligent and successful planning and the uncomplaining execution of the Chinese, I believe our salvation would have been impossible.” — Woman’s Missionary Friend.

TOPIC: Missionary Passion SUBTOPIC: Huff, The Scottish Missionary To India TITLE: Missionary Spirit When Mr. Huff, the great Scotch missionary, came home after his life work in India, a crowded meeting was held in Edinburgh to hear him on the claims of India upon the Christian church. For two hours and a half the old man went on, holding the audience by his eloquence. Then he fainted, and was carried out of the hall. Presently he came to, and asked: “Where was I? What was I doing?” In a moment memory returned, and he said, “Take me back; I must finish my speech.” “You will kill yourself if you do,” said his friends. “I shall die if I don’t,” exclaimed the old man. They took him back. The whole meeting rose, many in tears. His strength failed and he could not rise, but gathering himself up for one final effort, he said, “Fathers of Scotland, have you any more sons for India? I have spent my life there, and my life is gone; but if there are no more young men to go, I will go back myself, and lay my bones there, that the people may know there is one man in Christian Britain ready to die for India’s deliverance.

TOPIC: Missionary Zeal SUBTOPIC: Of Von Welz TITLE: A Title or Christ?

Baron Von Welz was so mastered by the missionary idea that, after pleading pathetically, but in vain, with the state church to give the gospel to the heathen, he renounced his title and his estates, and gave himself, going at his own charges to Dutch Guinea, where he soon filled a lonely missionary grave. He vindicates his renunciation of his title thus: “What to me is the title ‘well-born,’ when I am born again in Christ? What to me is the title ‘lord,’ when I desire to be a servant of Christ? What to me to be called ‘your grace,’ when I have need of God’s grace, help and succor? All these vanities I will away with, and everything besides I will lay at the feet of Jesus, my dearest Lord, that I may have no hindrance in serving him aright.”

TOPIC: Mother’s Love SUBTOPIC: Selfishly, Tragically, Disappointed TITLE: A Mother’s Love I remember seeing a mother once weeping over the dead body of her boy; and, as I stood there in dumb silence and heard her tell how she loved him, had borne him, sacrificed for him, served him; how she had given for him all the joy of her life, how she had trusted in him to be the stay of her closing years, and how only yesterday, after a life of sin, he had broken her heart by taking his own life, after refusing for months even to speak one word to her; and, as she wrung her hands and told me how he had disappointed her heart and blighted her past, I thought I had never seen such heart-breaking grief.

O, beloved, how must God feel about us after he has given his heart’s blood, put so many advantages in our way, expended upon us so much grace and care, if we should disappoint him. It makes my spirit cry: “Who is sufficient for these things.” The Lord help us to be faithful; help us never to put him to shame, but at last be able to say: “Blessed Lord, I have finished the work thou didst give me to do.” Evermore I see before me the time when you and I shall stand on yonder shore and look back upon the years that have been, these few short years of time. O, may we cast ourselves at Jesus’ feet and say: “Many a time have we faltered, many a hard fight has come, but thou hast kept me and held me. Thanks be unto God who hath given me the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.”

TOPIC: Mountains Of Difficulty SUBTOPIC: Threshed TITLE: Fear Not “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, thou shalt thresh the mountains.” — Isaiah 12:14-15.

In the west of America, at the foot of the Rockies, on the Pacific coast, there are very strange and very interesting gullies. Geologists go from all parts of the world to see them. You can sail for miles inland in narrow, canal-like creeks, great fissures in the Rockies into which waves of the Pacific wind for miles, right into the heart of the country. As the steamer goes into the narrow creek, behold, there seems right before you a precipice of beetling rock. Yet full speed is registered. There is no reversing of the engines; you seem as if steered to go to pieces on that frowning rocky crag. The captain is on the bridge, unconcerned; and the screws are churning the water beneath the vessel and “straight ahead” you are going, when, lo, just as the prow seems to touch the rock, and you wonder that they are not reversing the engines, the crag splits, and you see right at its base a waterway that would almost float the navies of the world, nestling in the heart of the mountain. You never saw it till you went straight up. A timorous man would have turned, would have signaled with the bell to reverse the engines, to go full speed astern. It was faith, the faith of knowledge, the faith of having been there before, that made the steamer go right ahead, into the cleft where it could go sailing through. Go straight on; God will provide for the difficulty. Oh, I can say this Sabbath morning from my heart: “Go straight on; never slacken speed. Go right ahead.” Never the brain of a Christian was scattered on a rock that he went straight ahead against. Never; God will rather whirl the earth from his path than have you come to harm. Go right ahead, thou worm Jacob; thou shalt thresh the mountain. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Mueller’s Funeral SUBTOPIC: Address At TITLE: A Very, Very, Very Happy Man Yet he had trials, both many and heavy; but if I were asked, “When have you seen him most triumphant and joyous in his trust in God?” I should reply, “When, with a beaming face, he has expressed his unbound confidence in God that the trial must be one of the ‘all things’ that ‘work together for good.’ “ Every weakness or trial, being cast upon God, became to him a source of strength. In response to that infinite love which called him from a life of sin as a young man, he loved him, everybody and everything; so that the highest pleasure was found in seeking to please him whom he esteemed it his highest privilege to serve.

Again, the Bible was no mere text-book to him, but the medium of constant communication between him and his heavenly Father. Nor was the expression, “Praying always,” a mere figure of speech; but his daily practice.

Another special characteristic was his great humility; always was nothing — Christ everything. Not long ago a friend said to him, “When God calls you home, Mr. Mueller, it will be like a ship going into harbor in full sail.” “Oh, no, he said, “it is poor George Mueller, who needs daily to pray, ‘Uphold my goings … that my footsteps slip not.’ “ Some may be ready to say, “A spiritual giant has fallen.”

He has not fallen; he has been raised to his reward.

Wednesday was the first time he allowed that he was weak or weary, and that same night a heavenly escort was sent to take him in triumph up, up into the presence of the Lord, who would not let him labor with any sense of weariness after seventy and more years of such faithful service. The precious casket that had held his spirit so long fell back to our loving care, and we reverently place it to rest until the resurrection morn — Address at Funeral of George Mueller.

N-TOPICS TOPIC: Needs Of The Soul SUBTOPIC: Awakened To TITLE: The Need Of Christ It is said that Ole Bull and John Erricson met for the first time in the city of New York, and the great musician said to his new found friend, “Come around and hear me play tonight.” The invitation was not accepted. It was given the second time and again was not accepted. The third time Ole Bull said if you do not come and hear me play I will come and play for you, and John Erricson said, “Do not bring your violin into my shop for I do not care for music.” But the next day Ole Bull was there and he said, “There is something the matter with my violin,” and they talked about tones and semi-tones and fibres of wood, and then he said, I will show how it is.” He strung up the instrument, drew the bow across the strings and began to play. In a little while the building was filled with waves of harmony. The men left their work and gathered about the great musician.

John Erricson rose from his desk, stood for a moment in the outer circle, then came close to Ole Bull and listened to every note that came from th e violin. At last the player drew his bow across the strings for the last time and stopped, the men turned back again to their work; not so John Erricson. With tears streaming down his cheeks he said, “Play on, play on, I never knew what was lacking in my life before.” Thus it is with many a man who thought he knew the needs of his soul, and sought to be satisfied with honor, and wealth, and power, but only Christ can satisfy, and until we learn this and claim him, we shall be devoid of peace. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: New Converts SUBTOPIC: Training TITLE: The Training Of New Converts There is no more important work committed to the church than the proper care and nurture of those who have recently accepted Christ. Because of neglect just here, many have drifted away from the house of God, and, instead of being useful members of the church, are almost a hindrance to her progress.

If this service be rightly performed, it will not matter what the age of the convert may be, nor what his past record in sin, he may easily be held and trained for a life of blessing. We frequently hear church members say, concerning recent converts, “We will see how they hold out,” and if they stand well, they say nothing, while if they should fall by the wayside they may be heard to say, “It is just as I expected.” This is an unchristian speech, and shows anything but the spirit of Christ, who said, “Feed my lambs.”

It is every Christian’s duty to help “hold out” faithful to the end those who are but babes in Christ. Certain principles, however, ought to be borne in mind in the work of training: 1. The new members of the church will naturally absorb the spirit of the old members. If the church is worldly, they will become worldly, while if it is spiritual, they will naturally partake of the same character.

The young convert longs for the sympathy and help the older Christian may give him. There is no time in all the experience of the child of God when he will more gladly receive instruction than when he has taken his first step in the light. The following suggestions may be made, among scores of others, as to his training: (1) Create in his mind a desire to know God’s word. Some simple suggestions may be made as to Bible study, such as (a) Study one new verse of scripture daily. (b) Commit to memory a whole book, like Ephesians or Hebrews. (c) Put into practice the promises of the Bible. (d) Live by the day, its principles and teachings. (2) Make him understand his responsibility to the church. (a) Its services, to attend them. (b) Its prayer-meetings, never to be absent without an excuse which could be given to Christ. (c) Its support. No Christian really grows until he knows the grace of giving. (d) The peculiar doctrines of the church should be taught him. He ought to know why he is a member of this particular church. (e) Stir his soul with a desire to help others. This stimulates his own growth. (3) Teach him at once that he may be filled with the Holy Ghost. (a) This is his birthright in Christ. (b) This is the secret of victory over self and sin. (c) This is the secret of Bible study. (d) This is the real inspiration to service. (e) This is the joy of service. — J. Wilbur Chapman.

TOPIC: New Preacher SUBTOPIC: Desired Attributes Of TITLE: The Preacher: Where Is He? Wanted — A preacher with most handsome face, And beaming eyes, and earnest look; His every gesture full of grace — Perfection he, without a crook.

His voice must be of sweetest sound, And not too soft, nor yet too loud; The pulpit desk he must not pound — Be not too meek, nor yet too proud.

A young man with an old man’s head, And free of sickness and of pain; A man of whom it can be said — “How learned he is, how deep, yet plain!” Two sermons every Sabbath-day This man of ours must always preach; For he must work and earn his pay, And in the Sunday school must teach.

Then he must visit all around, And call upon the sick and well; Yet at his home be always found To hear the news we have to tell.

He must not wear a tall silk hat, Nor sport a cane, nor wear a ring; His body neither lean nor fat — Too loud and strong he must not sing.

His people he will never scold, Nor talk too much of sin and hell; And never, never be so bold As of their weaknesses to tell.

But all the promises, like flowers Done up in bouquets fresh and sweet; With pleasant words in fragrant showers, He’ll cast them at his people’s feet.

Where this man is we do not know, But we must search and look around; And if he’s on the earth below, Perhaps we’ll call him when he’s found. — Lynn Regis.

O-TOPICS TOPIC: One Moment At A Time SUBTOPIC: In Serving Christ TITLE: A Step At A Time If you were in Mr. Moody’s home, and asked him about a certain clock on his mantel in the sitting-room, he would probably tell you a story. This clock was given him by a lady in London, who came to one of Mr.

Moody’s meetings and was very angry at some things he said. She came back the next night, however, and was angrier still; she came back the next night, and her anger began to vanish. The night after she was also there and became deeply convicted of sin. The next night she was in the inquiry meeting, and she came night after night, until one night she said to Mr.

Moody, “I realize that I am a sinner; I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; but I believe that I cannot be a Christian. Whether it is my sin, or what it is, I do not know. But I do not believe that if I commenced to be a Christian I could ever hold out.”

Mr. Moody tried every way he could to get her to decide to try. But he failed, until he thought of that old story about the pendulum. On the first day of January the pendulum began to count up what it had to do. It had to tick so many ticks in a minute, and there were so many minutes in an hour, and so many hours in a day, and so many days in a year, and it would likely have to keep on ticking for so many years. When it found out the millions of times it would have to tick it said, “It’s of no use; I will stop right now.” Then this thought occurred to the pendulum: “It is only one tick at a time.” So it began to tick, and it ticked the next tick, and the next, and the next, and it is ticking yet.

This lady said to Mr. Moody, “I will tick the first tick now,” and she is ticking yet. She gave that clock to Mr. Moody — she is now one of the most earnest Christians in the city of London — and asked him if anybody should refer to it, to tell them the story, that it is only a tick at a time. Blessed be God, it is as simple as that! “As the ten lepers went, they were cleansed.” — B. F. M.

TOPIC: Oneness With Christ SUBTOPIC: The Bliss Of TITLE: One With Christ “Crucified together, quickened together, raised together, seated together, heirs together, suffering together, and glorified together with Christ,” Galatians 2:20; Colossians 2:13; Ephesians 2:6; Romans 8:17. Wonderful! glorious! past comprehension!

I, so unworthy, once ruined and lost, Am now one with Christ, through his grace and his mercy, Purchased by blood, at an infinite cost.

In the beloved accepted, forgiven, God, looking at me, sees only his Son; That blessed one, who, for me, has been smitten, And not what I, a poor sinner, have done.

I have been crucified with my redeemer, So I am dead to the law and to sin; We have been quickened together, forever, So I am bearing the new life within:

Risen with Christ, yea, and sitting together, With my beloved in places above; So doth the father behold me forever- Oh! how amazing, what wonderful love!

Suffering together in fellowship holy, Sharing his sorrows, his treatment, his shame; Though man despise me because I am lowly, Mine is an honor which no one can name.

I am an heir to all treasures immortal, Heir to the Father, joint heir with the Son; And just beyond, where I stand on the portal, I shall reign with him, because we are one.

Glorified with him, forever and ever, Oh, what a future in store through his grace!

Naught from his love can my soul ever sever I shall be like him when I see his face. Lord, grant that now I may faithfully serve thee, Since I am one with thee, help me, I pray; That by my life, and my words, I may praise thee, And may exalt thee, dear Saviour, each day. — A. E. R.

TOPIC: One Sin SUBTOPIC: Ruinous Power Of TITLE: There Is Ruinous Power In A Single Sin ( Ecclesiastes 9 18.)

During the summer of 1853 (writes a gentleman) I was an invalid, and was induced, on recommendation of my physician, to go to the hydropathic establishment at Sudbrook Park, near Richmond, in Surrey. During my sojourn there, I was one day walking through the romantic grounds and park with some friends and the proprietor, Dr. Ellis, when the doctor drew our attention to a large sycamore tree, decayed to the core. “That fine tree,” said he, “was killed by a single worm.”

In answer to our inquiries, we found that about two years previously the tree was as healthy as any in the park, when a wood-worm, about three inches long, was observed to be forcing its way under the bark of the trunk. It caught the eye of a naturalist who was staying at the establishment, and he remarked, “Let that worm alone, doctor, and it will kill the tree.” This seemed improbable, but it was agreed that the blackheaded worm should not be disturbed.

After a time it was found that the worm had tunneled its way a considerable distance under the bark. The next summer the leaves of the tree dropped off very early, and in the succeeding year it was a dead, rotten thing, and the hole made by the worm might be seen in the very heart of the once noble trunk.

TOPIC: Opiate Of Sin SUBTOPIC: Deceitful, Fatal TITLE: An Illustration Of The Deceitfulness Of Sin In this tree the blossoms appear before the leaves, and they are of brilliant crimson. The flaming beauty of the flowers attracts innumerable insects, and the wandering bee is drawn to it to gather honey. But every bee that alights upon the blossoms imbibes a fatal opiate, and drops dead from among the crimson flowers to the earth. Beneath this enticing tree the earth is strewed with the victims of its fatal fascinations. That fatal plant that attracts only to destroy is a vivid emblem of the deceitfulness and deadliness of sin. For the poison of sin’s bewitching flowers there is but one remedy. It is found in the “leaves of the tree of life” that groweth on Mount Calvary. — Theodore L. Cuyler.

TOPIC: Origin Of Good Sermons SUBTOPIC: From The Soul TITLE: Good Sermons Good sermons are born, not made. Thought which takes hold of men’s souls comes from men’s souls. One whose mind is on others to lift them spiritually must spend great resources of vital energy. “I perceived that power hath gone forth from me,” Jesus said, when one had been healed simply by contact with him. So does every minister true to his calling perceive that his own life is drawn on to give to his people. Revelation John Watson (Ian Maclaren), after he had decided not to leave his people in Liverpool to accept a call to London, told them of the temptation he had felt to make a change after seventeen years’ continuous ministry to that church. He said: “No one who is not a preacher can ever imagine the agony of production. To preach to the same people three times a week, and to depend upon so fickle, and, in my case, so slow an instrument as the brain — how can one continue without losing power and becoming stale and unprofitable?” Such a minister cannot preach at his best unless power proceeds from his people to him as well as from him to them. Paul wrote often, “Brethren, pray for us.” He meant just what a pastor means today when his heart yearns for the sympathy and support of all those who have covenanted with God together with him to give to the community the spiritual life which they seek to replenish from God under the leadership of Christ’s minister, whom they have chosen to be their pastor. — The Congregationalist.

P-TOPICS TOPIC: Parental Influence SUBTOPIC: Wicked TITLE: That Was The Beginning, This Is The End Mrs. B. is one of the most cultured women in the New England States. She has devoted her life for many years to the outcast and the down-trodden.

Many of her days she gives to those who are in prison. And one day, making her way to a New England prison, she was met by the warden, who said, “We have a little boy who is in the hospital dying. We have sent for his mother; there has been an accident on the Old Colony Road, and she cannot reach him before his death. I should like to ask you to be a mother to him.” She made her way up the iron stairway until she sat by the cot of the boy. She told him the Story of Christ; bowed with him in prayer, and heard him say that his faith was in Jesus as a Saviour. And then he said, “The warden tells me that my mother cannot reach me before my death; there is only one request I want to make of you, and you ask my mother when she comes to bend over and kiss me and say that she forgives me for all my sin.”

The little fellow died. The Old Colony train came in, and Mrs. B. met the mother at the station. She told of the boy’s last request, and almost carried the mother up the steps to his room. She stooped down, took the covering from his face, and said as she kissed him, not once, but many times: “Joe, your mother has come and she forgives you,” and then lifting her eyes toward heaven, she said, “But, oh God, his father;” and then she told the story that when the child was nine years of age she had found him one day intoxicated, and as she held him in her arms until the stupor was gone he had said that the one who gave him the drink was his father. She said, “That was the beginning, this is the end;” and bending down she said once more, “Your mother has come and she forgives you; but, oh my God, the father.”

God keep every man with a boy from saying or doing a thing that might lead that boy to take one step astray which might lead him into perdition. — J. W. C.

TOPIC: Past Experiences SUBTOPIC: Clinging To TITLE: Satisfied With Past Experiences So many Christians are like the old oak tree that said in the fall of the year, “I am perfectly satisfied with my this year’s leaves, therefore I will not allow them to fall to the earth; I will hold on to them.” As a result the north wind blew and the leaves faded, but the old oak clung to its last summer’s leaves. In that unsightly condition it passed the whole winter through, the wind rustling through its dry dead leaves.

Thus it is with a great many Christians, instead of allowing their past experiences to fall, they cling to them and do not prepare for a new and better experience as it may come daily. It is only by the tree shedding its leaves that it can hope to put on the beautiful foliage in the springtime. — W. R. F.

TOPIC: Past Mistakes And Follies SUBTOPIC: Profiting From TITLE: Strength Out Of Weakness An old man sat thinking, one day, about his past, recounting to himself his mistakes and follies, and regretting them, wishing he had never committed them, and that there was some way of undoing them. He took his pen, and on a sheet of paper made a list of twenty things in his life of which he was ashamed, and was about to seize an imaginary sponge and rub them all out of his biography. He was thinking how much more beautiful his character would have been at the close of his years if these wrong things had never been committed. But to his amazement, as he thought of wiping out these evil things, he found, that, if there were any golden threads of beauty running through his life, they had been woven into the web by the regrets he had felt over his wrong-doings; and that, if he should wipe out these wrong acts he would at the same time destroy the fairest lines of nobleness and worth in his present character. He learned in his meditation that he had gotten all his best things out of his errors, with the painful regrets, the wise lessons, the true repentings, and the new life, which followed. — Miller.

TOPIC: Paying Honest Debts SUBTOPIC: Essential TITLE: Character is Capital I hope to see the day when you may sell the last thing a man has who can but won’t pay his honest debts. How can you keep the things that the people ought to have? If all our church members would pay their debts the world would have more confidence in the church and Christianity.

As a mere matter of selfishness “honesty is the best policy.”’ But he who is honest for policy’s sake is already a moral bankrupt. Men of policy are conscientiously (?) honest when they think honesty will apply better, but when policy will pay better they give honesty the slip. Honesty and policy have nothing in common. When policy is in, honesty is out. It is more honorable for some men to fail than for others to succeed. Rather be like Longfellow’s honest blacksmith, who “looked the whole world in the face and feared not any man,” than enrich yourself at the sacrifice of conscience and the blessing of heaven! Part with anything rather than your integrity and conscious rectitude. Capital is not what a man has, but what he is. Character is capital.

TOPIC: Peacemakers SUBTOPIC: The True Friends Of Disputants TITLE: Man’s Influence That was a most striking incident which occurred not long ago, when the miners of Colorado had left their work, and in great anger at what they thought was the oppression of their employers, had gathered themselves together to resist by violence all attempts to force them into submission. It was when it seemed as though a terrible conflict was certain that President Slocum, of Colorado College, one Sunday morning went into the mining district, and passed the sentries who were posted along the cailon, and gained access to the leaders of the armed bands of miners, who were awaiting attack. Dr. Slocum said that he was received very kindly by the leaders, and that after he had told them that he came upon a mission of peace, they granted him permission to speak to the men; and several hundred men were gathered before him, with angry looks, evidently seeking an opportunity to vent their rage upon the first person who should try to thwart their will. Rifles and revolvers were pointed at the speaker as he commenced to say in the gentlest possible manner that he had come there on an errand of peace, as their friend and because he loved them when one of the leaders cried out, “Boys, this man is our friend.”

And almost instantly the guns dropped, and the ears of the men were opened to listen to his plea. And not only that, but they gladly responded to his proposition that the questions that were disturbing them should be submitted to arbitration. And then, having gained a similar concession from the owners of the mine, it was permitted to this follower of Christ to see a peaceful issue of the seemingly irreconcilable contention.

TOPIC: Peril To The Soul SUBTOPIC: Greatest In Prosperity TITLE: The Time Of Prosperity Is The Time Of Moral Peril The moon is never eclipsed but when it is at the full. Certainly God’s people are then in most danger. — (Manton.) When all goes well with them in house and field, in basket and in store, then should they look, lest they be full and forget the Lord, and so become eclipsed. For the world to come between us and our Lord is very easy, but very terrible. When all is apparently prosperous as to soul matters, and neither doubt nor fear nor temptation comes in, then also should the heart look well to its bearings, lest at this very moment some evil should interpose between God and the soul, and darkness should be the fearful result. — C. H. Spurgeon.

TOPIC: Perseverance SUBTOPIC: Through Initial Failure TITLE: The Discipline Of Failure Bunyan’s conception that the way to the celestial city lay through the slough of despond, over the hill of difficulty, and beyond the valley of the